Hi everyone,

As you may be aware, we accepted with regret the resignation of one of the members of the ombudsman commission. Herbythyme will be missed. However, given the need to fill the seat, I asked for volunteers and received several very promising candidates, so this seemed a very good time to introduce a modification to the process.

Instead of nominating one person for the commission, I'm nominating two: one to serve the unexpired term, and one alternate, who will serve as a non-voting advisor to the commission this year, and then remain on for another full term. This provides us with knowledge transfer from one commission to another, and also allows us to get the maximum number of highly qualified candidates the experience of serving on the commission.

The user that I am nominating to fill the unexpired term is [[User:Pundit]], of the Polish Wikipedia. He serves as an administrator, a mediator, and a bureaucrat there. He also is a contributor to the English Wikipedia and to Wikimedia Commons. Pundit does not currently hold checkuser permissions anywhere, so he will not be required to lay them down.

The user filling the role of alternate, and continuing to a second term on the commission is [[User:Dweller]]. Dweller is a bureaucrat, administrator, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia. He is also a prolific content creator. Dweller also does not currently hold checkuser permissions, and so will not be required to lay them down. It is envisioned that the alternate will not be required to surrender their checkuser tool (if they have it) until they are placed on the commission as a full, voting member. It seems unfair to deprive the wikis of their service for two years. However, the alternate is pledged to recuse from matters on which he has a personal conflict of interest.

Please join me in thanking them for their service. We will be requesting rights changes shortly. These two join the other members of the commission, [[User:Sir48]], [[User:FloNight]], [[User:Mwpnl]], and [[User:Thogo]].

Thank you to everyone who generously volunteered for this position.

pb ___________________ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

415-839-6885, x 2106 (reader relations)

philippe@wikimedia.org