Hello all,

I'm writing with information about the Ombuds 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 tools, on any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees.

I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)

The application period for new commissioners for 2019 recently closed. The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.

As with last year, this year’s OC will consist of eight members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission and also, if necessary, fill in in the event that a Commission member is unable to act due to incapacity or recusal.

I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2019 OC: DeltaQuad https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DeltaQuad

Amanda has been editing Wikipedia since 2009, when she made her first edits to English Wikipedia. Since then, she has served as an administrator, checkuser, oversighter, member of the Arbitration Committee, and Arbitration Committee clerk. She also helps to develop the Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS) and Account Creation Tool (ACC) used by English Wikipedia. -------- Dyolf77 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dyolf77

Habib 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. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018. --------- EVinente https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:EVinente

Edilson has been contributing to Wikimedia projects since 2013. He is primarily active on the Portuguese Wikipedia, where he is a checkuser, oversighter, and administrator. --------- Elmacenderesi https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Elmacenderesi

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. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018. --------- Galahad https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Galahad

Carlos, currently editing as user:Galahad, has been contributing to Wikimedia Projects since 2009. He is a member of Wikimedia Venezuela and Wikimedistas de Perú User Group. He primarily contributes to Spanish-language projects including Spanish Wikipedia and Spanish Wikivoyage. He has been an administrator and bureaucrat of Spanish Wikivoyage since 2013. --------- Jamie Tubers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jamie_Tubers

Sam, who edits as Jamie Tubers, 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. He also just kickstarted a project called "The AfroCine Project" which is a wikiproject dedicated to encouraging the contribution of content that relates to the cinema, theatre, and arts sectors of several African countries, the Caribbean and the diaspora to Wikimedia projects.[1][2] He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2018.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_AfroCine_Project [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_AfroCine

--------- Emufarmers https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Emufarmers

Emufarmers has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2005. He is a Metapedian who primarily edits the English Wikipedia; he is also a bureaucrat and sysop on MediaWiki.org, and has provided software support to many third-party, non-Wikimedia wikis over the years. He has served as an OTRS administrator since 2015. --------- Wikilover90 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Wikilover90

Rupika has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2015. She is the co-founder of Punjabi Wikipedians. A free knowledge advocate, she edits primarily on Punjabi Wikipedia and Meta and organizes events such as Wiki Loves Love https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Love_2019 . ---------

The 2019 OC’s advisors are: Krd https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Krd

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 is a member of the German Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since 2017. --------- Teles https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Teles

Lucas 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 and Ptwiki. 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. He served on the Ombuds Commission for 2018.

Their willingness to remain, to bring their familiarity with processes and their experience to the new arrivals, is greatly appreciated!

Please join me in thanking the following outgoing volunteers, who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission: --------- Billinghurst https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Billinghurst Billinghurst is a long-term global, 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. He joined the OC in 2018. --------- Saileshpat https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Saileshpat

Saileshpat started editing Wikipedia in 2012 and soon became deeply involved in the Odia community. He has helped organize outreach events and done a lot 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. Sailesh joined the OC in 2018. --------- Pajz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pajz

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. --------- Góngora https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:G%C3%B3ngora

Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora-Goloubintseff, 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. He joined the OC in 2017.

---------

And finally, a posthumous thank-you to user:Lankiveil:

Lankiveil https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lankiveil

Lankiveil was a long-term user, admin, and oversighter on the English Wikipedia, having made his first edits in 2004. He served as a clerk to the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee and as an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes edited at Irish Wikipedia and Commons. He was a native speaker of Australian English and was a member of Wikimedia Australia. Lankiveil died in April 2018, while a member of the Ombuds Commission.

I'd also like to say a big thank you to those returning and those coming aboard for the first time, as well as to all those applied. Again, it was an extremely able group of volunteers, and while this mix of users may best serve the need for this year, I hope that those who applied will consider applying again for future commissions.

Regards,

Karen