WP:OMBCOM

This is a failed proposal.

Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use the talk page or initiate a thread at the village pump.

IRC: #wikipedia-en-ombcom on the Freenode network

An Ombudsman Committee is important to any sort of academic or government project which reaches a certain size. When the administrative bureaucracy reaches a certain size there comes a point where individual citizens (or in this case, editors) need to have an official forum where their individual voices are coalesced into an official opinion. This holds more weight than individual editors/citizens who can simply be passed off by the bureaucracy as whining, annoying, etc. Thus, an official, internal, introspective, consultative, half admin/half non-admin body with parity to ArbCom would be in parallel to those already in existence at all the large academic and government bodies around the world.

Why and What?

ArbCom and administrators are human. They make mistakes. Additionally, there can be a culture of no wrongdoing and common handwashing. Wikipedia is not immune and makes the role of ombudsmen important.

Thus, there exists the need for a committee to investigate and issue official findings of fact.

Universities and governments have ombudsmen which are internal and conduct investigations in response to public concern and request. This committee would be similar to those.

Role and scope

Not designed to have any actual administrative abilities or the ability to assign punishment, the role of ombudsmen is respected and official. Upon request and acceptance (similar to ArbCom) the Ombudsmen Committee investigates situations and issues official opinions which are often separate and disparate from official organizational opinion. The findings of the Ombudsman Committee may be opposite to that ArbCom and administrators, but the opinion is formal and official. However, since the Ombudsman Committee has no muscle to flex it cannot issue judgments, but rather opinions on fact.

Selection

Members of the Ombudsmen Committee are selected by a nomination and popular vote process. OmbCom consists of 5 members, two administrators and two non-administrators, with the last member being elected from a mixed group. The term lasts for a period of two years. In the event of an Ombudsman/woman being unable to serve out the full term, the next runner up in the most recent election will be offered the position. If an non-admin member of OmbCom is promoted to administrator then that members will continue to serve in their OmbCom position the next election cycle.

Mechanisms

OmbCom consists of and is selected by:

OmbCom is to consist of 5 members, divided as 2 administrators and 2 non-administrators and one elected from a mixed group. They must be at least 18 years of age at the date of election and must comply with privacy policy identification at the m:Identification noticeboard. Individuals who become administrators during their term of service may continue to serve out their term, but must run under the administrator classification for re-election; if, upon petition, the Foundation approved under age 18 OmbCom members then they too shall be eligible for election
OmbCom members serve a 2 year term.
Membership in OmbCom is excluded to current members of the Arbitration Committee and Mediation Committee. Also excluded are former and emeritus members of the Arbitration Committee and Mediation Committee who continue to have access to the private mailing lists and/or private wikis.
Membership in the OmbCom is by a popular vote.
Voting in OmbCom elections is limited to auto-confirmed members with a minimum of 250 edits and at least 3 months editing.

OmbCom's charter includes:

Upon request and acceptance, reviewing cases which have been decided upon by the Arbitration Committee, which includes
Reviewing cases where the judgments are considered to be incorrect or process irregular
Investigation and issuing findings of fact pertaining to those cases, and
Issuing opinions
Requests related to Oversight and Checkuser
Requests may only be made by an aggrieved party. Proxy requests and amicus curiae requests will not be heard. A banned/blocked user can post a request for OmbCom's involvement in their userspace, which will be copied here.
Requests may only involve final decisions of the Arbitration Committee. Cases currently open or under consideration may not be reviewed.

OmbCom's charter does not include:

Being able to overrule the Arbitration Committees or administrators;
Sanction users or apply sanctions to articles;
Require editors to perform certain tasks;
The ability to disclose non-public information;
Immunity from any policies or community procedures, as
OmbCom is solely to be the conscience of the community but not be able to overrule

Requesting an OmbCom Case

Purge the server cache

Wikipedia:Ombudsmen Committee/OmbComOpenTasks