Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-11-26/News and notes

New ombudsman commission chosen
A new ombudsman commission was chosen by Wikimedia Foundation officials this week. Mackensen, Rebecca, and Hei ber will serve a term of approximately a year. They replace Nathan Carter, Steve Dunlop, and Anders Wegge Jakobson, who served from July 2006 through November 2007. Foundation Chair Florence Devouard quoted from Ombudsman commission about their duties:

"The ombudsman commission is tasked with processing complaints about violations of the privacy policy on any Wikimedia project, in particular concerning the use of CheckUser tools. The ombudsman is tasked with investigating cases of such policy breach or CheckUser abuse for the board in an official manner. They will mediate between the complainant and the respondent (usually a CheckUser, bureaucrat, administrator, or arbitration committee member). When legally necessary, the ombudsman will assist the general counsel, the executive director or the board in handling the case."

Fundraiser continues
The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first four weeks of the fundraiser, about 29,600 people had donated at least US$1, and the Foundation had raised about $903,000.

The addition of a link to the new fundraising blog, updated a few times a week with reasons why visitors should donate, may have played a part in a large increase in donations. From Thursday to Friday, contributions exhibited not only a 59.6% increase in donors, but also a 17.7% increase in average donation. Part of this increase may have been related to the celebration of Thanksgiving in the United States on the Thursday; Thursday's donations were the lowest of the fundraiser.

In large donations, an anonymous donor contributed $2,500 on Monday.

New job openings
This week, new job openings at the Wikimedia Foundation were added this week. The deadlines of Head of Partnerships, Head of Development, and Chief Financial and Operating Officer were extended to December 15. The position of Treasurer of the Board of Trustees is still open until December 1. Positions of software developer and public outreach are set to open soon.

Discussion to change move permissions on all wikis
A discussion is currently underway to change the default move permissions on all wikis to "autoconfirmed", requiring an account to be at least four days old before it can move pages. This setting is already enabled on many large wikis, including the English and German Wikipedias, but is not set on many smaller wikis, which are often the target of vandalism that is not quickly reverted. Most users support this move, but a few have opposed it, arguing that such a decision should be made at the project level.

Briefly

 * The Bikol Wikipedia, Breton Wikiquote, Armenian Wikisource, Limburgish Wikiquote and Finnish Wikinews have been created.
 * Steward elections have begun. New stewards are up for election, and current stewards are up for re-confirmation.  Summaries of current voting tallies can be found here.
 * The Lombard Wikipedia has reached 100,000 articles.
 * The Asturian Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
 * After dropping below the 100-article mark, the Burmese Wikipedia gains its hundredth article.