Dear WMF Board members, The Ombuds Commission acts on your behalf as part of the movements governance processes and it is, therefore, the WMF board that authorizes Ombuds policies. The Wikimedia project systems and policies for the commission were established many years ago with rare amendments since, and are not harmonized on the use of the word "ombuds". For example, though the email contact group uses "ombuds", the detailed policy page on Meta uses "ombudsman" and refers to members of the group as "ombudsmen". As a gender-neutral form is in common International English and American English usage and is already used in some places and not others, can the WMF board agree that the gender-neutral term is desirable in line with the goals of the Wikimedia Foundation strategy and should be applied systematically?
With your agreement, this would then harmonize in the names of email groups, the group name configured into the system on Meta and the wording of policies, and help avoid an accidental bias towards identifying ombuds members as men. As this is a question of harmonization, rather than a change in process, policy or scope, this is a style issue rather than a change that required a resolution or a community RfC. For those unaware, the Ombuds Commission "investigates complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic personal data policy, the CheckUser policy and the oversight policy on any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees. They also investigate for the Board the compliance of local CheckUser or Oversight policies or guidelines with the global CheckUser and Oversight policies."[1] Links: 1. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_commission 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:GlobalUsers/ombudsman Thanks, Fae -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
