Mailing List Archive

On 21/07/06, Sydney aka FloNight <poore5@adelphia.net> wrote:
> I see a Foundation appointed person doing something similar. Looking at individual serious problems that exist because of fixable flaws in the system. This should keep these same type of problems from reoccuring.

A Foundation appointed person is not preferable to a community
selected person. The Foundation was not selected by the community
(although the majority of positions on the Foundation should be
community-selected) so should not keep watch over the community. The
community will only be answerable to the Foundation when the
Foundation changes.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill@gmail.com)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Sydney aka FloNight wrote:
> The name ombudsmen is used in the news industy. There is an organization of News Ombudsmen.
>
> Link below gives a complete description from the organizations web site.
> http://www.newsombudsmen.org/what.htm
>
> This is the short version.
>
> *What is a news ombudsman?
>
> A news ombudsman receives and investigates complaints from newspaper readers or listeners
or viewers of radio and television stations about accuracy, fairness,
balance and good taste
in news coverage. He or she recommends appropriate remedies or responses
to correct or clarify
news reports.*
>
> I see a Foundation appointed person doing something similar.
Looking at individual serious problems that exist because of fixable
flaws in the system.
This should keep these same type of problems from reoccuring.
>
> Regards,
> Sydney


Uh ?

Wait a moment. The description you give above is the description of ...
all Wikipedia editors ! We collectively receive the complains and
investigates the complaints of reader, for accuracy, fairness, balance,
good taste etc... We receive them in articles themselves, in talk page,
on mailing lists, on irc, on otrs queue, and as far as I am concerned,
even by phone. We all do this, so we all are ombuds-wo-man in that sense.

There is no way the Foundation will go into that. This is NOT the
Foundation business Sydney.

Let me paste here the description I wrote in the resolution. You will
immediately understand (hopefully :-().

--------

Whereas the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation regularly receives
some complaints related to abuse of its privacy policy, associated to
checkuser activity or not.

It is hereby resolved that:

The board creates an "ombudsman commission".

The ombudsman commission will offer a sympathetic ear to those reporting
an abuse of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy on any of Wikimedia
project.

The ombudsman will take charge of investigating cases of privacy policy
breach or checkuser abuse for the board in an official manner. He will
mediate between the complainant and the respondant (checkuser, arbcom
member, bureaucrat or sysop). When legally necessary, the ombudsman will
assist the legal commmittee or the legal officer or the executive
director to handle the case.

When the case is litigious, the ombudsman will be in charge to educate
checkusers or others about the Foundation privacy policy.
When the privacy policy has been breached, the commission should report
to the Executive Director and recommand a course of action (such as
removal of checkuser status).

Additionnaly, the commission might have a sort of "overview" over the
way the checkuser system works and should offer suggestions of suitable
modifications of policies or recommandations of software changes.
An Ombudsman's Investigation shall be conducted in a manner determined
by the Ombudsman and which will be fair and impartial .

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 21/07/06, Anthere <Anthere9@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Whereas the board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation regularly receives
> some complaints related to abuse of its privacy policy, associated to
> checkuser activity or not.
>
> It is hereby resolved that:
>
> The board creates an "ombudsman commission".
>
> The ombudsman commission will offer a sympathetic ear to those reporting
> an abuse of the Wikimedia Foundation privacy policy on any of Wikimedia
> project.
>
> The ombudsman will take charge of investigating cases of privacy policy
> breach or checkuser abuse for the board in an official manner. He will
> mediate between the complainant and the respondant (checkuser, arbcom
> member, bureaucrat or sysop). When legally necessary, the ombudsman will
> assist the legal commmittee or the legal officer or the executive
> director to handle the case.
>
> When the case is litigious, the ombudsman will be in charge to educate
> checkusers or others about the Foundation privacy policy.
> When the privacy policy has been breached, the commission should report
> to the Executive Director and recommand a course of action (such as
> removal of checkuser status).
>
> Additionnaly, the commission might have a sort of "overview" over the
> way the checkuser system works and should offer suggestions of suitable
> modifications of policies or recommandations of software changes.
> An Ombudsman's Investigation shall be conducted in a manner determined
> by the Ombudsman and which will be fair and impartial .

Having read this description of the role, I would say the name
"Ombudsman" is wildly inaccurate. How about something approximating
"User Advocate"?

--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill@gmail.com)
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On 7/21/06, Oldak Quill <oldakquill@gmail.com> wrote:
> Having read this description of the role, I would say the name
> "Ombudsman" is wildly inaccurate. How about something approximating
> "User Advocate"?

No, it is not a "user advocate" though. It is an independent
investigator (or group of investigators), assigned to check into cases
of reported abuse. It is my understanding that these reports can come
from anyone, user or not. And in fact, the ombudsman committee may be
more important to the WMF when the report of abuse _does_ come from
outside the Wikimedia projects. Anthere, is this close? --LV
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l