User:Ocaasi/Jackson

Some sad news
User:Jackson Peebles was a Western Michigan University Honors student studying behavioral science and biology. He worked as an ice hockey referreee and volunteered with the Red Cross. His Wikipedia efforts focused on counter-vandalism and adoption, "greeting new users, encouraging civility, and [obsessively] reviewing recent changes".

Jackson was a Teahouse host, an instructor in the Education Program, and the lead on a Video Tutorials Project through the WMF. User:Go Phightins! originaly adopted Jackson but he went on to run his own adoption school and facilitated a Western Michigan University course himself. Among his userboxes he said, "This user is not a Wikipedia administrator but would like to be one someday."

Jackson was born in 1992 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He graduated Mattawan High School and was Senior Class President there. At Western Michigan University, he was a 2011 Medallion Scholar. He worked at the Waldo Library at the reference desk and volunteered for the National Alliance for Mental Illness. He was one of three students in the nation invited to represent the US at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent’s Global Youth Conference in Vienna in 2012.

Jackson had recently proposed a WMF Individual Engagment Grant called Reimagining Wikipedia Mentorship. "I think this project is incredibly important and should be pursued," User:EpochFail wrote in an endorsement. The grant scored highly, solid 4 out of 5 and looked likely to be funded. "A very interesting concept...may become a 'keystone piece' in the new editor onboarding process." wrote one IEG committee member. Another wrote, "Taking a 'Teahouse approach' in building sustained motivation and preventing editor dropouts is a wonderful opportunity to develop a true mentor-mentee support system that would increase the activity of new contributors." Finally, "Proposers are highly qualified and driven mentors with a useful background in teaching new editors and understanding the learning process."

On Wikipedia, Jackson earned barnstars in Mentorship, Random Acts of Kindness and Resilience. Friends and teachers glowingly recalled his sense of humor and his hard work ethic.

His last edit to our site was on October 21 2013, the day he died. Jackson welcomed an i.p. editor to Wikipedia: "Thank you for your contributions, such as the one you made to Nikah mut‘ah. I hope you like the place and decide to stay."


 * Please leave remembrances and condolences on Jackson's talk page. We'll try and contact the family and share your thoughts with them.  Donations to the Kalamazoo NAMI chapter would have made Jackson very happy and are the family's wish. Ocaasit &#124; c 14:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)