Funny stuff.

My question is... do they think they're fooling the authorities, or is this actually sufficient to "explain" that the hire of Jay Walsh from Canada was a job placement that no qualified American could possibly want?

I've seen this before. A multinational company needs key people to switch locations and places an ad with the specifics. They know there isn't anyone with those exact qualifications, but they place the add anyway. A typical example is a design/manufacturing company, where the teams at different locations have to work closely. Exchanging personnel on occasion helps things work much more smoothly. Another reason might be to allow the company's best people into executive positions at the headquarters, even if they are located abroad.

But that's not the case here, and I'm at a loss to understand why this particular person is needed. Is he an old buddy of Sue's? If the foundation wanted to hire a multinationals I'd think they try to represent the project, or to fix under-representation of say the far east or Africa. But Canada? that like the fifty-first state.

Interesting that Mike Godwin posts that they have no intention of employing anyone based on the ad, and that its "just being done to meet requirements of US employment law".

Ahh, no, Mike, US employment law requires that you make a genuine and good faith effort to seek someone out with the requisite qualifications.

It also posits that advertising for positions that you have no intention of filling with a candidate is deception.

We looked at this issue previously when Erick came on as Deputy Director. Basically WMF could then slide because of their small size. A couple of things might have changed since then. Does WMF currently have more than 25 employees? Does WMF have more than 7 H1B (foreign work visa) employees?



Even more so now that Godwin has as much as come out and publicly said they are making no real effort.

That's a misquote - the "just" significantly changes the meaning of what he said.

Reading a couple of times, he has been fairly careful to word his response so that he says that they intend to comply with the rules, and that running an ad is part of that process. Note that he says that they "expect and hope" he will be staying. I read that as Mike trying on the one hand to tell Wikipedians not to worry, they are doing what they want, but on the other hand not wanting to state that they are ignoring employment law.

I think it is potentially another example that Wikipedia is so wrapped up in the importance of its own cyber-world, it more and more loses track of the need for compliance in the real world. Talk pages and AN/I discussions seem to soften the brain. We'll see how the discussion goes.