Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2016

Mark Wilson ()
Mark died unexpectedly in January 2016. Although he was less active in 2015, he first edited from his Dreadstar account in December 2005 and since February 2006 was doing so regularly, having made over 54,000 edits to the project. An American, he also served as an administrator for eight years.

Joe Filceolaire ()
Joe Filceolaire died on 29 January 2016. An engineer based in London, he was active both on the English Wikipedia and on Wikidata. He had also written a user-page diary about his Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Ed Dravecky III ()
Edward S. Dravecky III died unexpectedly on April 23, 2016, while attending WhoFest in Dallas, Texas. He was 47.

Ed was a native of Huntsville, Alabama, where he served as junior class president at Virgil I. Grissom High School for the 1984-85 school year. He was an Eagle Scout and one of the first graduates of United States Space Camp after its creation. Although a Georgia Tech alumnus, his heart belonged to the University of Alabama's football team. He was active in the radio station, history (particularly of Texas and Huntsville, Alabama), and DYK areas of Wikipedia, among others, and also served as an administrator.

He was a big fan of all things related to fantasy and science fiction, attending numerous conventions each year. He was the co-founder of FenCon.



Kevin Gorman was an American graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked as a Wikipedian in Residence for their American Cultures Program. He also volunteered as an Ambassador for Wikipedia's US Education Program. His first edit to the English Wikipedia was on February 1 2011.

Kevin wrote an essay, encouraging more socialisation between Wikipedians. His plans included a WikiProject to improve the coverage of women in philosophy. The 'Women in Philosophy Drive' has been created in his memory.

He suffered complications from a number of rare genetic disorders. His family reported that he passed peacefully and painlessly in his sleep. He was 26. See Signpost Obituary.

Colin James Givnan ()
Colin James Givnan died on July 6, 2016, at age 43. He often assisted with translation of material from Japanese to English. He contributed over 7,000 edits to the encyclopedia and was a frequent contributor to the Language Reference Desk.

Ray Saintonge ()
Ray, who lived in Richmond, BC, Canada, was a long-standing Wikipedian, making his first edit in February 2002, and familiar face at Wikimania, attending the first ten. As well as contributing to Wikipedia, he was Wiktionary's first bureaucrat and a contributor to Wikisource. He also ran Wikilivres, hosting material that is free of copyright under Canadian law, but not under US law, on Wikisource. He died as a result of cancer.

See also: wikimedia-l condolences

Gwillim Law ()
Gwillim, from North Carolina, contributed to Wikipedia on a variety of subjects starting in February 2005 and continued to do so until prevented by declining health. Diagnosed with a brain tumour in April 2015 he died on 31 August 2016. His statoids.com website is widely cited in Wikipedia and condolences may be made there.

John Cameron Deas ()
JohnCD started editing seriously in late 2007, in what he described as "mostly in a Wikisloth-like manner, doing New Page Patrol and all the other things that arise out of that". He remarked that if he had a favorite activity, he most enjoyed doing the research work to get hoax articles taken down, each of which he believed seriously damaged Wikipedia. He worked to get over 150 hoax articles deleted, rescuing and rehabilitating 19 hoaxes from CAT:HOAX as well. He was an administrator for more than seven years, and by the time of his death he had contributed more than 130,000 edits.

William Allen Peckham ()
Allen3, a software engineer from Plano, Texas, was born in Tucson and died on December 30, 2016, at the age of 52. He started editing in February 2005, making his first 5000 edits by May. He became an administrator in July 2005 and served for many years. His specialty was authenticating Arizona history articles and, on September 12, 2012, he was the recipient of WikiProject Quality Article Improvement/Precious prize. His final edit was on December 27, 2016, three days before his death.

See also: family tribute and Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Archive 142.