Dawkins sues Josh Timonen

[Svartalf]

I disbelieve everything CES says, simply out of principle.

sound practice my lad, you'll go far this way.

[Coito ergo sum]

...

Question: why would Dawkins need Timonen to run "The Store" under the name of UBP, a company owned by Timonen? Why wouldn't Dawkins just have a new corporation called "The Dawk-Store, Inc." formed? It makes no real sense to just have Timonen put everything in his company's name.

...

My theory: Doing it this way would have freed RD from much of the tiresome detail and need for constant intervention. That suits his style, but it does not seem to have been a very good decision ...

Certainly. Certainly. However, hiring someone to free you from tiresome detail and constant intervention is generally done for money. Here, Dawkins is claiming that Timonen just agreed to do it for free, since Dawkins was already paying him generously for other work.

Important question - would a reasonable person in Timonen's position agree to take on the entire responsibility of the Store, including compliance, bookkeeping, tax, inventory, sales, business permiting, accounting, shipping, receiving, phones/customer service, internet, etc. etc. etc. - for no additional salary over and above his salary for his two other responsibilities - for Dawkins himself and directly for RDF. The thing that troubles me is that the Store itself would seem to be a full time job in and of itself, and even if it was, say, 1/2 time job of 20 hours a week, wouldn't that still be unreasonable to take for no additional money over and above his other jobs for RDF and Dawk?

[klr]

...

Question: why would Dawkins need Timonen to run "The Store" under the name of UBP, a company owned by Timonen? Why wouldn't Dawkins just have a new corporation called "The Dawk-Store, Inc." formed? It makes no real sense to just have Timonen put everything in his company's name.

...

My theory: Doing it this way would have freed RD from much of the tiresome detail and need for constant intervention. That suits his style, but it does not seem to have been a very good decision ...

Certainly. Certainly. However, hiring someone to free you from tiresome detail and constant intervention is generally done for money. Here, Dawkins is claiming that Timonen just agreed to do it for free, since Dawkins was already paying him generously for other work.

Important question - would a reasonable person in Timonen's position agree to take on the entire responsibility of the Store, including compliance, bookkeeping, tax, inventory, sales, business permiting, accounting, shipping, receiving, phones/customer service, internet, etc. etc. etc. - for no additional salary over and above his salary for his two other responsibilities - for Dawkins himself and directly for RDF. The thing that troubles me is that the Store itself would seem to be a full time job in and of itself, and even if it was, say, 1/2 time job of 20 hours a week, wouldn't that still be unreasonable to take for no additional money over and above his other jobs for RDF and Dawk?

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

[Coito ergo sum]

If Richard has nothing in writing, verbal agreement is gonna be hard to convince. It'll be I said/he said and who knows what either of them actually said. What's curious to me is why didn't the foundation look into having everything that's part of the foundation activity, legally covered? a foundation must have someone overlooking the funds, don't they?

As CES points out, the store was being operated by Josh's business. He wouldn't be required to produce the books unless it was agreed upon in advance as part of a contract.

That's part of what I need clarified factually. If there had been an agreement for UBP to be operated "for the benefit of" RDF, then RDF would, it stands to reason, have an expectation of seeing the numbers. Otherwise, how would RDF know that they were not being deprived of an expected benefit. It seems to me to indicate that RDF had no such expectation, since they never acted in any way as if they did have that expectation until May, 2010.

Clearly both the foundation was sloppy taking RD's word for everything, and RD was sloppy taking JT's word for everything. If the foundation had been doing their job properly, they would have asked for accounting of the store long before, or at least some contract requiring Josh to produce the books. But apparently the donations were coming in fast and plentiful, so they didn't pay much attention to the store.

Considering that charitable donations have gone down considerably in the past couple of years, it makes sense that they started paying more attention to the store lately.

And, things aren't automatically "works for hire" where the intellectual property rights automatically transfer. I think Dawkins simply assumed that anything related to RDF would be owned by him or RDF. He was wrong about that.

[kiki5711]

Important question - would a reasonable person in Timonen's position agree to take on the entire responsibility of the Store, including compliance, bookkeeping, tax, inventory, sales, business permiting, accounting, shipping, receiving, phones/customer service, internet, etc. etc. etc. - for no additional salary over and above his salary for his two other responsibilities - for Dawkins himself and directly for RDF. The thing that troubles me is that the Store itself would seem to be a full time job in and of itself, and even if it was, say, 1/2 time job of 20 hours a week, wouldn't that still be unreasonable to take for no additional money over and above his other jobs for RDF and Dawk?

Maybe that's why Timmy-boy got fed up with running the forum in addition with all the other stuff he was doing, so he recommended to Richard to close it down, but explaining to Richard all the wrong reasons taking himself out of the equation.

[maiforpeace]

I disbelieve everything CES says, simply out of principle.

Since you've already agreed with me on a couple of things, by default you have believed some things CES already said in this thread.

You are slacking Meeky.

[Meekychuppet]

I disbelieve everything CES says, simply out of principle.

Since you've already agreed with me on a couple of things, by default you have believed some things CES already said in this thread.

You are slacking Meeky.

I agreed with you independently.

[Don't Panic]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

[klr]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

Free. Gratis. Not a sausage. Not a red cent. For the love of the cause.

There were a few DVDs thrown our way at some point, but we didn't request those.

[leo-rcc]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

I only get a small block of cheese.

[M]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

Free. Gratis. Not a sausage. Not a red cent. For the love of the cause.

There were a few DVDs thrown our way at some point, but we didn't request those.

And they were of Pensioner's 120th birthday kissogram.

[Bella Fortuna]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

I only get a small block of cheese.

Yes, but what kind?

[klr]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

I only get a small block of cheese.

Edam, presumably.

...

There were a few DVDs thrown our way at some point, but we didn't request those.

And they were of Pensioner's 120th birthday kissogram.

[Don't Panic]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

I only get a small block of cheese.

Yes, but what kind?

Kraft Cheese substitute. We value the mods that much.

[Bella Fortuna]

Hell, all of us forum staff were expected to work for free.

I just don't know if RD appreciated the amount of work that might be involved in what you've described. Again: Not his style to be well-versed in the nuts and bolts of running a small enterprise.

Free??

Pappa pays all of us using the money donated to the site. The admins clear about €25 a year.

I only get a small block of cheese.

Yes, but what kind?

Kraft Cheese substitute. We value the mods that much.

Class with a capital K.