Thanks Asaf.
On Mon, Dec 18, 2017 at 11:17 AM, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
Please will someone write something suitable at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deceased_Wikipedians
I would be glad to work on this over the next few days, with others who knew and worked with him. ---
Thank you Asaf for sending this.
Austin was a very dear friend of mine. We met in 2005 at the first Wikimania in Frankfurt, along with many (now) old-timers. Austin was quiet, kind, good at programming, and a Wikipedian through and through as Lodewijk wrote elsewhere -- fond of politics and facts. We ended up working together on Wikimania 2006 and then for several conference editions after that. I remember late nights printing badges in Cambridge, Taiwan, Poland...
He also served on the chapters committee and then Affcom (2006-2012) and was chair of that committee. He was administrator of this mailing list for a very long time (and believe me, had seen every argument under the sun). Before that, he was an IRC administrator. He worked on various versions of meta strategy projects, and there are doubtless many other things I'm forgetting.
His family lives in Texas; his friends are everywhere. He will be missed a great deal.
We'll be collecting photos and memories for his family. If you have stories or anecdotes to share, please add them to the meta page, and if you have photos there's a commons category here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Austin_Hair
Hugs to all, Phoebe