Wikipedia check book balanced by convicted felon
Register, UK -19 minutes ago
By Cade Metz in San Francisco → More by this author Exclusive For more than six months, beginning in January of this year, Wikipedia's million-dollar check ...


View the article

More unfavorable reporting by Cade Metz. They prolly hate this guy bigtime by now.

Woops

Wow. I think that might to go down as an audit exception under "verification and financial controls." Godwin's response is shoving his index fingers in his ear and yelling "lah, lah, lah...I can't hear you." Unless Metz has made a serious factual error, which does not seem like his style, Godwin's response is only going to indicate a lack of due diligence and make him a target for the larger press.

This has got to be a nightmare for Godwin, defending Wikimedia after spending all those years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

It would be like leaving the American Civil Liberties Union to take a job at the CIA.

5$ says someone will be suing that temp agency for them sending Carolyn to WMF in the first place...

we know pass the buck is par for the course.

DUI x4
Check Fraud
Petty Larceny x2
Assault with a deadly weapon
Manslaughter
Probation violations including leaving the country

but seriously... she was in THE WASHINGTON POST for shooting her boyfriend...
she wont even pass a google test, let alone a background check...
so its clear one was never performed.

hell i'm no angel (i've got a felony conviction)...

but i'm also not handling the books for around $400,000 for my profession...

this wont be blowing over anytime soon.


PS digg this up: http://digg.com/world_news/Wikipedia_COO_was_convicted_felon

Banned users may not edit. Their only alternative is to use OTRS. They should first forward a fifth of expensive bourbon to the Office, along with $100 cash for cab fares home, or their request will not be considered. In fact, it most likely won't be considered even after they do this.

San Francisco is going to be fun...

I found both of these by searching for "carolyn bothwell" in Google. If you knew her age and that she lived in Virginia at the time, it would have been a no-brainer to discover this through due diligence. There are only 21 hits total in Google if the name is inside quotation marks.

http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opncavtx/0864964.txt


http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-1111959.html

The question is, "Why does The Register have to do this, and will it now be considered a BADSITE by Wikipedia?"

Is it "wikistalking" or is it "due diligence"? Only your unfriendly cabalist knows for sure, and he won't tell you.

Note that in this note from Flo-Flo (who is living in my house, recall), it's obvious she knew what was going on. And, in the final paragraph, she segues into a discussion of replacing the Treasurer, Michael E. Davis.

I will be releasing a blog post soon, with a detailed analysis of his own history in court (including a contempt of court charge). The facts do not portray Davis in a good light. It won't stack up to this new Register piece, but it will be another nail in the coffin of Wikimedia Foundation leadership.

Greg

Well, I hope Ms. Doran can get her life together.

Has Jimbo Wales ever done anything to suggest that he might be a good judge of character? Ever?

It seems likely from the wikien-l post that Flo knew. So the question is: Did they not tell Godwin or did he lie to Metz? Either way it is interesting and implication laden.

Wait a minute. Read this.

Am I correctly reading that Carolyn Bothwell shot her boyfriend in the chest in 1990, then in 1999 her husband drowned in the Cayman Islands while on their honeymoon?

Not trying to play forensic psychologist here -- I'm just confirming that these two points are facts?

Greg

I'm guessing it was just an oversight.

Jonny

Yes, it looks like the same Carolyn. The Washington Times snippet right below that one in your Google search says, "Doran is predeceased by his father, William T. Doran. He is survived by his wife, Carolyn, and a stepson, Philip Bothwell, both of Potomac Falls; ... " The Post piece linked in the Register article says, "She said she did not want to risk losing custody of her 3-year-old son." So if the Carolyn we're talking about has a son named Philip Bothwell, now about 21 years old, then it must be the same one. Potomac Falls MD is only about 15 miles from Herndon VA, and the time difference is nine years.

Oops, sorry, I'm wikistalking again... I'm a BADBOY.

Frankly, I doubt the Wikimedia Foundation would have cared if they had known that Doran was a convicted felon who had been involved in a shooting incident.

It just stands to reason that if you open up a website, along with the structures built to support it, to the entire world with no background checks, no verifiable identities, and no accountability, you're going to get some people with criminal records - along with a wide variety of other people with, shall we say, interesting stories.

And while I know full well that fetishism is no crime (in most states), let's not forget that the WMF's current spokesman, Cary "Bastique" Bass, is a former (or who knows, maybe current?) treasurer of the Southeast Conference of Clubs - or more specifically, Leather Clubs. Don't bother clicking on the link unless you're over 18!

Someone email Durova. Sounds like we have a complex investigation on our hands.

Maybe this, as opposed to Essjay, was the reason Danny Wool and Brad Patrick left in such a hurry in March.

Caption Contest — We Have A Wiener !!!


Warning — The Attorney General has determined that AGF can be dangerous to your wealth.

Jonny

I wonder what she brought to the table when she was interviewing?

[imgx]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Cd2.jpg[/imgx]

(Should this be merged with the JustTitsGuy list thread?)

(It would have been funnier had the image come up correctly. Try this link and imagine the timing and setup flowed better.)

(Fixed by Uncle Somey)

Maybe. She sounds pretty badassed. Maybe she scared them. So do you think they told Godwin and Gardner?

Maybe the person who hired her, or one or two others after she was innocently hired, knew more than others did in the office. They could have leveraged this into extra-fat expense-account reimbursements. I'd say Godwin should either insist on an internal review of this situation, or resign to protect his good name.

Or maybe this one —

Wikipedia embarrasses you in front of your cellmates.

Jonny

Contest: Who can come up with the most absurd and/or funniest apologetic one-liner from a cabalista over this scandal? The winner gets an expense-paid trip to San Francisco to work as a temp in the new office. My entry is a quote from Ray Saintonge:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ber/087334.html

It's unlikely they ever ran a background on Cary, either.
While looking through FeloniousMonk's edits, I ran across his warning of Deodar for filing a checkuser request against SlimVirgin. Deodar was concerned no one person could edit for 27 hours straight.

Cary posits an alternate explanation, prior to TM's warning-


The RFCU was subsequently deleted by JzG because it was "vexatious".

And here I was guessing a .357 Magnum …

Jonny

Here's mine Daniel
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ber/087345.html

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ber/087328.html
Hey, there are worse things than "implosion." Let me tell you about that time I went to Ryan's Steakhouse for the all-you-can-eat buffet...

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ember/date.html
Unless they're Wikipedia Review members, or tech-sector journalists...

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ber/087332.html
People on Wikipedia, maybe...

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikie...ber/087345.html
Such as...? And...proof? But wait! This is Wikipedia, where proof is irrelevant!

Extended quote by saintonge at telus.net (the one Mr. Brandt linked above):



Yeah hiring convicted felons into senior positions isn't a problem whatsoever. This kind of stuff happens everyday after all.

You can all quit playing. I have the winner. That putz George Herbert takes it hands down: (This message brought to you by the National Redundancy Association of Redundancy)

Yes, George "Android Dungeon" Herbert is a real prince. I've emailed twice asking him to back up a public claim that I've not told the truth on AntiSocialMedia.net but have been twice ignored. It's nice to have tidbits like this one to put the rest of his blah blah in context.

EDIT: Garbage! Castle Rock beat me with the same reference by four minutes. Well I'm willing to job-share with you CR, if our entry ends up winning.

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/shdoran.htm

her deceased husband was Air Force.

"He had served in the Air Force for 18 years, working in the field of weapons development and evaluation. In addition to stations in Florida, he served with the U.S. On-Site Inspection Team in Russia in support of the SALT agreements. He had served in the Washington area for the past five years and transferred to MIMA last year after being with the Central Intelligence Agency."

so his drowning death got her survivor's benefits for an 18-year veteran....

jumping to conclusions is ok in my book... theres certainly enough fishy shit going on.

the more scrutiny I put on wikipedia... the more the CIA appears tangentially... creepy.


PS: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Chief_Operatin...convicted_felon

There was once a Wikipedia Bio on GWH, who is notable for his Wiki-Platitudes, but it got deleted, 'cause you know what a status symbol it is these days to have a Deleted Wikipedia Bio, but I think we have an old copy of it in the Articles forum.

Yup, here it is —

George William Herbert

Jonny

word, they'd rather call you a liar and give you *crickets*, 'cuz the wikikids believe everything the respected admins tell them, and pretend that the wikikiddies aren't going to ASM and checking it all out for themselves...then shutting up so they don't lose their accounts.

DB's crazy, WB's odious, Byrne's whacky, Gary's a critic, Slimmy's a victim, Durova they're not so sure anymore, Jayjg's a ...wait, who? we don't know nobody here by that name..., etc

So now this Carolyn scandal can't be referenced in WP anywhere. Cuz The Register UK is a bad BADSITE. Although lil 'GW and his stuntcat Sami had no problem with El Reg when they could use it to diss Grandmaster Byrne.

Byrne owned Wales on his own talk page. Owned. LOL.

She was the organization's COO during a period of time it lacked an Executive Director. Which would make it seem like she was in charge of day to day operations. Not exactly a receptionist.

Maybe all of those fancy corporate acronyms (ED, COO, GC, GK) are just, you know, pseudonyms to stop harassment from, you know, stalkers and abusers, like those in the law enforcement communities of Maryland, Texas and Virgina. After all this was the point of Essjays phony PhDs. Just to throw them off the trail.

It might be time to entertain A Wacky Conspiracy Theory.

Factoid 1: At least two key people were hired in the Office who had, shall we say, résumés that meant they were not in a position to play whistleblower. I'm referring to Carolyn Doran and Cary Bass.

Factoid 2: There were massive amounts of travelling to silly meetings where they had nothing to discuss, with expenses paid. The reason they don't have anything to discuss is because they've been trying very hard to pretend that they aren't responsible for the content on Wikipedia.

Factoid 3: Brad and Danny resigned abruptly around nine months ago.

Factoid 4: I have heard stories, supposedly originating from one of the two above who resigned (I better not say which one), that there was funny business going on with the budget and expense accounts.

Factoid 5: Michael Davis is also not in a position to play whistleblower convincingly because of his own history of legal problems. These derived from alleged financial improprieties during his Chicago options-trading days.

Factoid 6: Tim Shell (CEO of Bomis) resigned from the Board one year ago.

Factoid 7: Davis and Shell are Jimbo cronies from the old days. Jimbo loves going around shmoozing with The Beautiful People, and doesn't have sufficient moral fiber to blow the whistle on anything — as long as he's having a good time.

Add all this up and what do you get? I dunno, but you'd be smarter to send your tax-deductible donation to help a kid in Latin America, rather than sending it to the Wikimedia Foundation. Maybe the kid will grow up without a Wikipedia-preinstalled laptop and become a responsible, productive citizen.

I think I have a winner, this pretty much blows all of the others away.

Some people just don't get it.

There's the endorsement Jimbo needs to adopt a Wikipedia ex-con work program!
Oh and nice one Jimbo:

So they're either incompetent or corrupt...or both...that should help the fund raiser.

Dammit, Alkivar, I really didn't want to bring this up because it's too late and too spooky. But you've forced my hand. I sincerely hope there's nothing to it. The first post I cited in this thread refers to an "Investigator Robinette" and I cannot find a first name for Robinette on that page. I understand that Glenn Robinette became a private investigator in that neck of the woods. He's also a CIA veteran. NameBase played a key role in exposing him to the media back in 1986, during the Iran/contra mess.

Is the "Investigator Robinette" one and the same as Glenn Robinette — another CIA veteran?

Of course, those nitwits in the cabal will claim that the CIA doesn't use people with "checkered" histories. They haven't studied the CIA for 40 years like I have.

derktar, WMF apparently as a "Don't ask, Don't Felony" hiring policy. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

If WMF was a publicly traded stock, Jimbo's old chums at the Chicago Exchange would have enabled some hedge funds to short more shares than available through options market maker exemptions, journalists who have previous business relationships and common CV intersections with those fund managers would be writing negative articles on it fortnightly. Some of them would even be spreading the bad cheers on the nets and the wikis.

Perhaps WMF shouldn't bang the gavel on a NY Stock Exchange debut any time soon.

One of the great things about another of the Wikimedia Foundation's famous projects, Wikinews, is that news can be reported, literally at the same time it is breaking. In other words, through the miracle of social collaboration, news travels fast.

Greg

Mike Godwin is in Cover Your Ass mode.

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/found...ber/036007.html
Yeah, find the person who gave the message to the messenger, and kill him! That'll work!

This just in: Jimmy Wales appoints Carolyn Doran to ArbCom! I'm kidding

For posterity's sake, I have made a couple of WebSite preservations of Carolyn's WMF user page and history page. I have a feeling that Jimbo & Co. will be taking them down in the next 12 hours.

Carolyn Doran User page:
http://www.webcitation.org/5U4cD8PrK

Note the highly ironic statement she made on her User page:
I strongly urge all Wikipedians to support us by donating throughout the year.

I guess it depends on what's meant by the word "us".

Carolyn Doran User page history:
http://www.webcitation.org/5U4cov7hK

Note the prophetic edit comment from User:EVula --
Protected User:Carolyn-WMF: I've got a *really* bad feeling about this page...

There. Now we have a snapshot of how these pages looked on the night it was exposed. I wonder if they'll disappear, and how soon?

Greg

you see, the adults at WP don't think that their "kids", aka Wikpedians, know how to use Google.

on this Assume No Googling, they're able to pull off pretty much any WP Justice they want. BADSITES was a Google Search short-circuit, as WP'ians do know how to click on links on talk pages and articles, so it was a necessary addendum to "thou shalt not Google, or let anyone know what you find if you do".

Perhaps Metz did something that WMF didn't bother to do: Google the people they are about to hire.

Yup, and Nathan Awrich's wiki career is about to come to a quick end.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/13/wi...onvicted_felon/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Doran

Wow.

And deleted. Good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...e=Carolyn+Doran

wow this woman is a fucking black widow... check this "coincidence"

--------------

She was also the roommate of a woman who poisoned a man in 1994 to get his life insurance money, and the jury heard testimony that she was an indirect accomplice to it. The free version is here, but does not mention her name. By request, I can e-mail anyone who wants the full copy (which does mention her name). Also, if anyone has LexisNexis, they can easily get the copy themselves. TheCustomOfLife 05:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I've excerpted the part that has to do with Carolyn.

A former roommate of Betancourt's, Sterling resident Carolyn Bothwell, testified yesterday that Betancourt told her in July 1994 that Montague "won't be around in September to worry about."

Betancourt's attorney, Gregory Harris, suggested that his client meant that she would be breaking off her relationship with Montague, not that "Cassie was going to do him in."

The tapes were recorded at the home of Bothwell, who is a neighbor of Montague's daughter, Janet Hall. Betancourt lived with Bothwell for three months in the spring of 1994.

Bothwell testified that she bought a recording device and put it on her telephone to capture threatening phone calls from her former common-law husband. She said Betancourt was with her when she bought the device. Bothwell said she gave the tapes to investigators after she found out about Montague's death.

Harris suggested that Bothwell, who has a pending credit card forgery case in Loudoun, was trying to curry favor with prosecutors with her testimony. Bothwell denied that. "I had enough to lose coming up here," she said. "I had nothing to gain." TheCustomOfLife 05:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

--------------

so shoots guy in 1990...
is roomates with someone who poisoned a man for life insurance money in 1994...
then has a husband drown in suspicious circumstances in 1999...

yeah the "accidental drowning" is looking less and less accidental to me

Godwin tends to choose his words very carefully.

Assuming that someone in the office (besides Doran herself) knew of her record, one has to consider the possibility that any such documentation in the files was surreptitiously removed to keep Godwin and others in the dark. If so, Godwin's sound bite makes it clear that he found no such records in the files when he arrived at WMF last July, even though he appears to leave open the possibility that he'd heard the scuttlebut.

Given the amount of redaction and oversighting that goes on routinely on Wikipedia, it's not a leap to imagine the practice extended to the files in the office, too.

Since nobody's brought this up, did anyone else find this part of Floflo's little foundation-L response that Greg's posted a bit...telling??:



So, cause and effect? Did Michael know something that he didn't want to be part of? There is no "treasurer" listed in the current WMF board of Trustees and Michael Davis' term expires this month....

What did the office staff know, and when did they know it?

Here's her User talkpage where she was threatened with blocking....In this interesting edit, she removes her name and job title "bookkeeper" from the list of WMF employees...although she didn't leave until July? She made a very small number of edits, but she seemed to have an "OFFICE" chip on her shoulder given this:



Here is an edit made to her talk page by an IP address yesterday....

I wonder if this is her son. The age is about right.

http://www.runwashington.com/news/feb04trackmeet.html

Philip Bothwell, age 17 (as of early 2004), Sterling, Virginia