Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement of the 2020 Ombuds Commission

[Pine W]

Hello Aron,

First, a few disclaimers. I don't speak for Karen or the Ombuds, but
I've briefly looked at your case. I don't have access to the
information that ENWP Arbcom has, and I generally assume that ENWP
Arbcom is competent and acts in good faith.

In general, there is a problem with backlogs. The community does not
have sufficient human resources to keep up with needs and wants for
numerous services. Also, volunteers can come and go as we wish,
although many of us try to be somewhat reliable. There have also been
backlogs at WMF, such as for requests in the Rapid Grants program and
requests for fixes to technical issues.

My impression from the public reports is that the Ombuds Commission
often moves slowly. I understand why you raise the issue here, and I
think some additional transparency from the Ombuds Commission
regarding the status of cases would be good when updates can be
provided in a way that preserves confidentiality of nonpublic
information. Two things that the Ombuds Commission could do are
publish monthly status updates that give a high level overview of its
activities, and provide individual monthly status updates in private
to everyone who has referred a case to them.

If the Ombuds Commission eventually decides in your favor, there may
need to be some other issues resolved before your ENWP block would be
lifted.

I encourage you to focus your time elsewhere while your case slowly
moves along. If you have a track record of constructive editing on
non-ENWP wikis, I think that this would be beneficial to your case if
ENWP Arbcom or other people on ENWP decide to reconsider the block
there. Also, you might find that focusing elsewhere decreases your
stress level.

I hope that this information is helpful.

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Announcement of the 2020 Ombuds Commission

[Aron Manning]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2020 at 23:10, Karen Brown  wrote:

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

Thank you for the update, Karen!

I hope the new commission will be able to more promptly respond to reports.
Our community processes failing to address issues is a topic discussed to
no end in the community consultations. Could you please reflect on what can
be the problem causing that only half of the requests are answered and
those take over 90 days to resolve
?
Are there any plans to shorten the response time? This seems to be a very
long time. How long did those cases over 90 days take?

I hope nobody else has to wait as long my case takes. My editing experience
was very negatively affected by a simple mistake for 7 months now, despite
that the case is well-documented
 and clear
that a single good-faith edit

properly
signing the main account's comment was mistaken as abuse.

In the last 7 months, I've been trying every existing process to address
this issue and still, the resulting badge of shame
 on my user page causes
everyday stress as the basic assumption that I regularly experience and
have to disprove is that I'm a bad faith editor, causing damage, although
I'm the victim of the actual damage.

I believe this was not the purpose here, but all my attempts to communicate
about this were rejected on-wiki and through the functionaries list, where
such concerns are to be directed
 (but
my email address was blocked) and were unanswered (not acknowledged
)
by the Arbitration Committee.

I've waited for a resolution (or just an update) from the OC in the last 7
months. I hope that this dire situation is resolved in the near future by
ombuds who aren't involved with enwiki or my recent rejected rename request

.

Until then could you please elaborate on the factors that caused such a
delay and on how I could help that process move forward?


With appreciation,
Aron Manning
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[Wikimedia-l] Announcement of the 2020 Ombuds Commission

[Karen Brown]

Hello, everyone.

I'm writing with information about the 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 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 2020 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 the OC is unable to act due to
incapacity or recusal.

I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2020 OC:
Ajraddatz 

Ajraddatz has been an active user on Wikimedia since 2010, and has served
in various roles of community trust in that time, including as a Wikidata
Oversighter since 2013, a steward since 2014, and a Meta CheckUser since
2015.

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. He has served on the Ombuds Commission since
2019.

DeltaQuad 

Amanda has been editing Wikipedia since 2009, when she made her first edits
to English Wikipedia. She has served many roles in the past including being
a sysop, holding advanced permissions and serving on an Arbitration
Committee for 4 years. Her work now focuses on the Ombudsmen Commission and
the re-development of a Global Unblock Ticket Request System (UTRS).

Kelapstick 

Kelapstick has been a Wikimedian since 2006. He is primarily active on
English Wikipedia, where he is an Admin and former Oversighter and was an
Arbitrator between 2016 and 2018.

Taketa 

Taketa has been a Wikimedian since 2008 and has held a number of positions
in his time here, including Administrator and Bureaucrat on the Dutch
Wikipedia, Arbitrator on Dutch Wikipedia, Administrator on Wikidata,
Steward, and member of the Ombuds Commission. He has created about 7000 new
articles in several language Wikipedias. He currently serves on the board
of Wikimedia Belgium.

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 since 2018.

Uzoma Ozurumba 

Uzoma Ozurumba has been editing Wikimedia projects since 2017. She
contributes primarily to Meta, Commons, and the Igbo Wiktionary, of which
she is a founder. She is a co-founder of the Igbo Wikimedians User Group
and serves as a Strategy Liaison for that group.

Wikilover90 Rupika has
been editing Wikimedia projects since 2014. A free knowledge advocate, she
edits primarily on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and is administrator on
Punjabi Wikisource. She organizes events such as Wiki Loves Folklore
 and Wiki
Loves Women
. She has
been supporting in activating the Open Movement in North India via various
Open GLAM initiatives such as Heritage GLAM
. She has served on the
Ombuds Commission since 2019.  ---

The 2020 OC’s advisors are:
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 

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