New subject: Announcing the 2018 Ombuds Commission members

31 Jan 2018


      Apologies for the broken formatting in my original message! I forgot how
Mailman handles HTML in messages. Please see below for (hopefully) a more
legible version of the announcement:
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Hello all,
I am happy to announce the new and returning members of the 2018 Ombudsman
Commission (OC), the small group of volunteers who investigate complaints
about violations of the privacy policy, and in particular concerning the
use of CheckUser and Oversight[1] tools, on any Wikimedia project for the
Board of Trustees.
[1]
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Amending_the_Scope_of_the_Om...
I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)
The application period for new commissioners for 2018 recently closed. The
Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and
insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work. This year we
received applications representing the widest variety of languages,
projects, and regions I’ve seen since I started working with the committee
three years ago.
Given the increasing caseload OC has been handing year over year, we have
decided to take advantage of the opportunity the diverse candidate pool
afforded us and expand the committee by one seat; this year’s OC will
consist of eight, rather than seven, members, with a two-member advisory
team who will guide the new commission.
I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2018 OC. First, the *new
members* are:
*Billinghurst*
Billinghurst (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Billinghurst) is a
long-term Metapedian/Wikimedian who served as a steward from 2012 to 2016
and still serves as a global sysop. He considers his home wiki to be the
English Wikisource where he's performed over 260,000 edits and focuses on
transcribing biographical reference data from the 19th and early 20thC. In
addition, however, to serving as a local administrator on Wikisource he
also holds the sysop hat on Commons, Meta and the English Wikipedia racking
up almost 700,000 edits across the projects with almost a million edits
when you count his bot. He claims to still have a bit of wisdom and
knowledge to give.
*Jamie Tubers*
Sam, who edits as Jamie Tubers (<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jamie_Tubers%3E), joined the English
language Wikipedia community in 2011 and has over the years expanded his
activities into a wide range of movement activities including co-founding
the Wikimedia user group Nigeria and helping to organize events like Wiki
Loves Africa and Wiki Loves Women. He is dedicated to correcting our
content gaps and biases related to Africa and raising awareness of the
projects on the continent.
*Dyolf77*
Habib (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dyolf77) started editing in
2010 and has been heavily engaged in community affairs, both onwiki and as
part of user groups, for years. A native of Tunisia, he has been a
free-culture advocate on a wide range of issues in and beyond the movement.
Onwiki, you can mainly find him helping out on Commons, where he is a
sysop, as well as the Arabic and French language editions of Wikipedia.
*Saileshpat*
Saileshpat (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saileshpat) started
editing Wikipedia in 2012 and soon became deeply involved in the Odia
community. He has helped organize outreach events and worked to spread
awareness in his region. In addition he was one of the co-organizers of
WikiConference India 2016. Saileshpat has helped in a content relicensing
process, where the Government of Odisha decided to release content under
Creative Commons licenses. Online he is mainly active on the Odia Wikipedia
and Commons.
*Elmacenderesi*
Elmacenderesi (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elmacenderesi) has
been working on Wikimedia projects since 2007, primarily on the Turkish
Wikipedia. There, he has been a CheckUser and a Bureaucrat since 2008 and
an Oversighter since 2011. He is also a member of Wikimedia OTRS and serves
as a global outreach coordinator, working with academic institutions and
GLAMs, for The Wikipedia Library.
*Teles*
Lucas (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Teles) became a Wikipedian in
2007 and started to engage with CheckUser rights in 2009, when he became a
local CU on the Portuguese Wikipedia. He held both Oversight and Checkuser
rights on Ptwiki between 2015 and 2017, when his term with the rights
expired. He is currently an administrator on Commons. His traditional main
focus has been on anti-vandalism work. In 2012, the global community
elected him as a steward, a position he has held since.
In addition, experienced OC members Lankiveil and Góngora will be *returning
as members of the Ombuds Commission*:
*Lankiveil*
Lankiveil (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lankiveil) is a long-term
user, admin, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, having made his
first edits in 2004. He served on the Ombuds Commission in 2017, and is
also an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes edits at Irish Wikipedia, and
Wikidata. He is a native speaker of Australian English and is a member of
Wikimedia Australia.
*Góngora*
Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora-Goloubintseff, (<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:G%C3%B3ngora%3E) primarily edits Spanish
Wikipedia, Catalan Wikipedia and Norwegian bokmål Wikipedia. He has been an
administrator and bureaucrat on the Spanish Wikipedia since 2007, and an
administrator on the Catalan Wikipedia from 2010 until 2017, where he is
also a CheckUser. He was a member of the Spanish Arbitration Committee in
2008, before it was dismantled. He was a board member of Wikimedia España
in 2011. He is currently a member of both Wikimedia España and Wikimedia
Norge.
And the following experienced OC members will be returning as *advisors to
the commission* (this advisory role provides expertise when needed, but
does not participate in all discussions):
*Pajz*
Pajz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pajz) has edited the Wikimedia
projects since 2005. He was a Wikipedia administrator between 2007 to 2016
and is a member of the Volunteer Response Team. He served as one of the
OTRS administrators from 2013 to 2015, before being first appointed to the
Ombudsman Commission in 2016.
*Krd*
Krd (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Krd), who is primarily active
on German Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, and also serves at the Volunteer
Response Team as an agent and OTRS admin, and was a prior member of German
Wikipedia Arbitration Committee for more than three years. He joined the OC
in 2017.
And finally, please join me in *thanking the following outgoing volunteers*,
who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission:
*Vogone*
Vogone (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Vogone) has contributed to
Wikimedia projects since early 2012. While they began their involvement on
the German Wikipedia, they quickly branched out to Wikibooks, Wikisource,
Wikivoyage, and Wikiversity. They were the first bureaucrat on the Wikidata
project. Vogone has worked heavily assisting our smaller projects as a
global rollbacker, global sysop, and member of the Small Wiki Monitoring
Team. They have experience in translation administration, both on Meta and
translatewiki.net. Vogone has shown a keen interest in the technical side
of user privacy, including contributing to MediaWiki software around edit
suppression. Vogone joined OC in 2017.
*Richwales*
Richwales (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Richwales) has been an
active Wikimedian since 2005. He is an administrator, oversighter, and
sockpuppet investigation clerk on the English Wikipedia. Richwales also
served on the now-defunct Audit subcommittee, which served a similar role
to the Ombudsman Commission. Rich joined the OC in 2017.
*Alan*
Alan (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alan) has been a registered
Wikimedian for more than three years, but an anonymous editor since 2006,
working primarily across Spanish language projects. He is a global sysop
and global rollbacker, an administrator on Commons, as well as having been
an OTRS volunteer for ~4 years. In the past he has served as an
administrator and bureaucrat on Spanish Wikivoyage. He joined the OC in
2016.
*Rubin16*
Rubin16 (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rubin16) primarily edits
the Russian Wikipedia, where he is a bureaucrat and administrator. He is
formerly a member of their Arbitration Committee. He is an administrator on
Wikimedia Commons and is a Central Notice and translation admin on Meta.
(He is also a translation admin on Commons.) He is a member of Wikimedia
Russia. He joined the OC in 2015.
*Polimerek*
Polimerek (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek) primarily
edits Polish Wikipedia (where he is an admin and former arbitrator), Polish
Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons. He also serves the Wikimedia movement as
the president of Wikimedia Poland and on the Grant Advisory Committee. He
is a former CheckUser. Polimerek joined the OC in 2014.
---
I'd also like to offer a huge “thank you” to those returning and those
coming aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. The
applications we received this year showed us an extremely able group of
volunteers across a diverse array of languages and projects, and while this
appointed mix of users may best serve the need for this year, I hope that
those who applied and were not appointed will consider applying again in
future years.
Yours,
Karen Brown
On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 6:29 PM, Karen Brown kbrown@wikimedia.org wrote:
...
*Hello all,*
[...]

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcing the 2018 Ombuds Commission members

legible version of the announcement: