Hello all,
It is time to announce the new and returning members of the 2017 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_O…
I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)
The application period for new commissioners for 2017 recently closed. The
Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and
insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.
As it has for the past few years, this year’s OC will consist of seven
members, with a two-member advisory team who will guide the new commission.
I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2017 OC. First, the new
members are:
Vogone
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.
Lankiveil
Lankiveil is a long-term user, admin, and oversighter on the English
Wikipedia, having made his first edits in 2004. He serves as a clerk to
the English Wikipedia Arbcom and as an OTRS volunteer. He also sometimes
edits at Irish Wikipedia and Commons. He is a native speaker of Australian
English and is a member of Wikimedia Australia.
Góngora
Góngora, J. Gustavo Góngora Goloubintseff, who 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 since 2009, where he is also a
CheckUser. He was a member of the Spanish ArbCom in 2008, before it was
dismantled. He was a board member of Wikimedia España in 2011. He is
currently a member of Wikimedia Norge.
Richwales
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.
Krd
User:Krd, who is primarily active on German Wikipedia and Wikimedia
Commons, and also serves at the Volunteer response team as agent and OTRS
admin, and was a prior member of German Wikipedia Arbcom for more than
three years.
In addition, the following experienced OC members will be returning as members
of the Ombuds Commission:
Pajz
User:Pajz is a Wikipedia editor. He was a Wikipedia administrator between
2007 to 2016 and is a member of the Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS team").
He served as one of the OTRS administrators from 2013 to 2015, before being
first appointed to the Ombudsman Commission in 2016.
Alan
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.
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):
Rubin16
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.
Polimerek
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.
And finally, please join me in thanking the following *outgoing volunteers*,
who have given substantially of their time to serve the commission:
NahidSultan
User:NahidSultan has been volunteering on Wikimedia projects since 2012. He
is mostly active on Bengali Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Meta, where he
holds administrator rights. Besides these roles, he has also been part of
OTRS, a small wiki monitoring team member and a global administrator. Other
than his online contributions to the movement, he has also been active
doing Wikimedia work offline, working actively for the Wikimedia Bangladesh
chapter. NahidSultan joined the OC in 2016.
Taketa
User:Taketa has been a Wikimedian since 2008. They mostly work on the Dutch
Wikipedia, writing content and organising projects. They were a member of
the Dutch Wikipedia Arbitration Committee in 2009/10 and 2012/13. They have
served as a Wikimedia steward, nlwiki bureaucrat, listadmin for the nlwiki
admins and bureaucrats, OTRS volunteer and Wikidata admin. Taketa joined
the OC in 2016.
Gnom
User:Gnom primarily edits German Wikipedia. Gnom, a licensed attorney, has
previously served Wikimedia as a legal intern for the Wikimedia Foundation.
In 2014, he was elected to the Board of Wikimedia Deutschland. Gnom joined
the OC in 2014.
Huji
User:Huji primarily edits Farsi Wikipedia, where he is an administrator,
bureaucrat and Checkuser. He has also contributed substantially to Simple
Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Meta and is a Wikimedia developer
contributing to MediaWiki and WMF Labs projects. Huji joined the OC in 2013.
Barras
Note: Barras resigned from the OC in good standing in November 2016
User:Barras, who is primarily active on the Simple English Wikipedia and
Meta. He’s a steward, an Oversighter on Simple English and Meta, and also a
Checkuser on Simple and Meta. Barras joined the OC in 2015.
---
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, and while this mix of users may best serve the need for this
year, I hope that those who applied will consider applying again in future
years.
Yours,
Karen Brown
--
Karen Brown
Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation
kbrown(a)wikimedia.org
Hello All,
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is pleased to announce updates to our Donor
Privacy Policy <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donor_policy/en>. We
have also published a blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/01/donor-privacy-policy-update/> with a
brief overview of the policy.
This does not represent a dramatic change in our practices, but gives
donors more information about how we handle the data we collect from them
when they make a donation or otherwise interact with Wikimedia donation- or
fundraising-related sites, banners, and emails.
The policy had not been updated since 2011, so some of our processes have
changed as relevant technologies evolved and the new policy reflects these
changes. But the main difference from the old policy is that the new
version is simply more detailed to give more information to donors. It
lists the types of information we collect, both personal and non-personal,
and reiterates our commitment to keep it confidential except under certain
limited circumstances, which it also describes (for example, we can share
information with payment processors). It explains the specific ways in
which we may use donor data, including maintaining our internal records and
complying with applicable U.S. law. The policy also informs donors about
our use of cookies, and recommends ways they can disable cookies if they
wish to do so.
The Executive Director has approved the updated Donor Policy under the
terms of a Board resolution delegating policy-making authority to her, with
a process for Board review
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Delegation_of_policy-making…>.
The Board was fully briefed on the updates to the policy at its November
2016 meeting. The updated policy goes into effect today, February 1, 2017.
For more details about this update, we invite you to read the blog post
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/01/donor-privacy-policy-update/> and
the full policy itself
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donor_policy/en>. If you have
questions about the policy, please email us at privacy(a)wikimedia.org. Thank
you.
Best,
Aeryn Palmer
--
Aeryn Palmer
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
apalmer(a)wikimedia.org
415.839.6885 <(415)%20839-6885> (Office)
415.882.0495 <(415)%20882-0495> (Fax)
*California Registered In-House Counsel*
*NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation and for legal/ethical
reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
Hello, all. :)
As you know, we are launching a movement strategy process and want people
from the community integrally involved at every stage. We are accordingly
seeking active Wikimedians interested in applying for a number of Community
Strategy Coordinator positions. The people hired for these positions will
be part-time, remote contractors of up to 20 hours a week with a contract
of 3 months. Start date should be in early March.
You can see the job descriptions and apply for the positions at <
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us>, but here’s a quick
summary of who we’re looking for and what they’ll be doing:
*Language Specialist Strategy Coordinators*
These will be bilingual speakers of a specific list of non-English
languages[1] and English who are experienced in their language project
community or communities. They will be expected to be able to both conduct
deep outreach to these non-English communities and to liaise between these
communities and others, in order to maximize the ability of their
communities to participate in the movement strategy process. They will also
need to be capable of monitoring and summarizing discussions about strategy
topics and will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their
contract.
*Metawiki Strategy Coordinators*
These facilitators need not be multilingual (although it is a plus), but
must be fluent in English and must be experienced contributors to one or
more Wikimedia communities. They will be working alongside the language
specialist coordinators, the global community, the Wikimedia Foundation and
the strategy team to facilitate the most inclusive strategy process
possible. This will include outreach to global communities, offering their
own community experience and advice to those involved in the process, and
leading, monitoring, and summarizing strategy-related discussions. They
will be expected to produce a summary report at the end of their contract.
If you think either of these sounds like you or another community member
you know, I encourage you to visit the job application page and review the
job descriptions for more details (again, that's at <
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Work_with_us#Wikimedia_Careers>).
Please tell us about your experiences as a Wikimedian and why you think you
would be a good fit for this role. Our goal is to run the most inclusive
strategy process we can, and that means we need experienced community
members like you to help!
Best,
Maggie
[1]
- Arabic
- Bengali
- Chinese
- Dutch
- French
- German
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Italian
- Japanese
- Malayam
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Vietnamese
--
Maggie Dennis
Interim Chief of Community Engagement
Director, Support, Safety and Programs
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
Why are proposals to abandon the US being given more consideration than
those to address the underlying issues?
And from those who have been so concerned about the frequency of discussion
on this topic (amongst dozens of redundant crongradulatory messages which
have never in a dozen years resulted in any such concerns), is it fair to
ask how frequent they consider appropriate discussion should be; in
particular given the perspective here?
https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/trial-balloon-for-a-coup-e024990891d5