[Foundation-l] Ombudsman commission

[Philippe Beaudette]

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 at wikimedia.org