[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Ombudsman

[MZMcBride]

Hi.

The mailing list archives still aren't really searchable, but I have a
question about whether the topic of having a Wikimedia Foundation Ombudsman
has been discussed previously.

To be clear, I'm not talking about a CheckUser/Privacy policy Ombudsman.[1]
I'm talking about someone who would work within the Wikimedia Foundation for
a fixed period of time to ensure that the Wikimedia Foundation is following
its own guidelines and procedures and sticking to its principles.

National Public Radio has an Ombudsman (as do other news agencies and
organizations). The NPR Ombudsman works within the organization and blogs
about any actions that the organization takes that she feels need to be
discussed on her blog.[2]

In theory, the Board of Trustees is responsible for ensuring the Wikimedia
Foundation staff act in the best interests of the community, however the
Board (as I understand it) (a) does not meet very often; and (b) obviously
is not located in San Francisco and cannot be a part of daily operations.

Has the idea of having a Wikimedia Foundation Ombudsman been discussed
previously? If so, can someone shoot me some links to the past discussion
(on the mailing list or perhaps on Meta-Wiki)? If not, is there any virtue
to this idea?

If there is virtue to this idea, it seems like it might be reasonable to
investigate whether a "Wikimedia fellow" could hold this position.[3]

MZMcBride

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission
[2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/
[3] http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/?p=2398