Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2024

2024

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Anthony Bradbury (Anthony Bradbury)

Anthony Bradbury joined Wikipedia in April 2006. He liked to be called Tony.

Offline, he was born in 1943 and worked as a general practitioner for many years; he lived in Newhaven, England, and was twice mayor of the town. He was also a governor of a number of local schools.

Online, after a few years editing a large number of articles, particularly on naval history, he became an administrator on the English Wikipedia and served in that role for over sixteen years. Tony's areas of interest were naval and military history, Imperial and contemporary Rome, Ancient Egypt, pre‑Dreadnought battleships, Dreadnought battleships, battlecruisers, military aircraft, Nazi Germany, and medical science and practice. Wikipedia brought him a great deal of pleasure, particularly after his retirement. He passed away on January 1, 2024.

Corran Daemon Plain (Vami_IV)

Vami_IV joined Wikipedia in November 2014 and soon became a prolific editor across a wide variety of topics, including buildings, wildfires, video games, and the history of Europe, Texas, and Latin America. In total, he brought ten articles to featured status, including two worthy of the Four Award, and had nominated two more at WP:FAC at the time of his passing; he also brought numerous articles to A or GA-class, including a year-long project on Simón Bolívar. Vami often collaborated in these efforts with other editors; he was active at both WikiProject Military history, at which he was a coordinator between 2021 and 2023, and WikiProject Women in Red, for which he created 167 articles on primarily Latin American women. He also contributed extensively to WP:CCI and was active at the Wikimedia Discord, where he was unfailingly witty and generous with his time, especially with newer editors.

Vami died by suicide on February 13, 2024, at the age of 24. He will be remembered for his editing talents, his personality, and his dedication to the project, exemplified by his philosophy of Completionism:

"As a Wikipedia editor, I understand that my goal is the destruction of my purpose."

If you are struggling with harmful or suicidal thoughts, the Wikimedia Foundation maintains a list of mental health resources you can contact.

Hanif Al Husaini (Hanif Al Husaini)

Hanif Al Husaini joined Wikipedia in January 2014, making his first edits in June 2015. He made over 15,000 edits over the years he was part of the community, to a variety of subjects.

Hanif Al Husaini was a frequent contributor to ITN and the Vital Articles project. He was awarded the Precious award in February 2021 and the Editor of the Week award in January 2023. He passed away on May 27, 2024.

Muhammadali Ikramov (Salazarov)

Muhammadali Ikramov joined Wikipedia in May 2022. After a year of editing a large number of articles, particularly on Uzbekistan, he became an administrator on the Uzbek Wikipedia and served in that role for less than a year. In total, he made over 25,000 contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation's projects over the course of two years.

Ikramov tragically drowned on June 19, 2024. Wikimedians of the Uzbek Language User Group released a statement celebrating his life and contributions. National news outlets, including Kun, Ogoh, and Platina ran stories about his life and contributions to WMF projects.

Nurlan Pirjanov (PirjanovNurlan)

Nurlan Pirjanov joined Wikipedia in August 2022, contributing extensively to reviving the Karakalpak Wikipedia, which until then had remained in the old spelling. He worked mainly on localization of the project (turning the entries on the site pages into the Karakalpak language) and soon became an administrator on the Karakalpak Wikipedia for a year.

He was active at translatewiki.net, at which he contributed to the interface of the the Karakalpak Wikipedia with more than 1700 translations, and that was also Nurlan, who sent a request for the opening of the full version of Karakalpak Wiktionary, which was officially launched in May 2024, to the language committee of the Wikimedia Foundation. He taught how to edit articles as well as creating new ones on the Karakalpak Wikipedia to the students of the Faculty of Journalism at Karakalpak State University, where he was very kind with newer editors.

Pirjanov passed away on June 26, 2024, at the age of 27.

JamesR

JamesR, from Brisbane, joined Wikipedia in October 2006 as Extranet. Under the name Extranet, he wrote six articles for the Signpost, covering features and admins for a little over a month in 2007 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). In mid-2007, he changed his username to E, and was known as a "nice, friendly IRC guy". His most active years were from 2007 to 2010, but for a long time after he remained an administrator and member of the bot approvals group, and operated two bots — AdminStatsBot (for generating admin stats) and HBC AIV helperbot5 (for clerking on the administrator intervention against vandalism (AIV) page) — which ran from 2008 until his passing in July 2024.

Ümüt Çınar (Kmoksy)

Ümüt Çınar was a Turkish linguist who specialized in plant and animal names (archived homepage). He also investigated connections between Turkic and Eskimo-Aluet languages (see "The Turkic Tracks in an Eskimo Language 2010"). He contributed to the Turkish Wikipedia, English Wikipedia, and several Wikipedia projects. He created over 2,000 articles in Turkish Wikipedia. He died after a brief illness on July 16, 2024. He was 59 years old.

Vinícius Medina Kern (Vmkern)

Vinícius Medina Kern was a professor in the Department of Information Science at the Federal University of Santa Catarina. He made significant scholarly contributions to the fields of Wikimedia and education, including his article "A Wikipédia como fonte de informação de referência: avaliação e perspectivas", which examines the quality and relevance of scientific contributions to Wikimedia projects. He was also an active participant in the Brazilian network focused on Wikipedia and education, having presented on this engagement during a workshop for wiki educators in 2021. Vinícius Medina Kern passed away on August 6, 2024.[1]

Ward Christensen (WardXmodem)

Ward Christensen, with co-creator Randy Suess, created the first bulletin board system (BBS), in 1978. They wrote the first BBS software, called CBBS, and brought the first BBS system online, also called CBBS. An online culture coalesced around the new technology that came of age in the 1980s and reached a peak during the 1990s, and for many people it became their first introduction to wide area networking, before the Internet was commonly available. Anyone could set up a BBS in their home for the cost of a phone line and dedicated PC, and share email, files, and message boards with the wider world. He also invented the XMODEM protocol, to transfer files between computers over a modem; it influenced other protocols such as ZMODEM that were at the core of the BBS world. Ward first edited Wikipedia in 2006, and made contributions until 2020. [2]

Andrei Filotti (Afil)

Andrei Filotti (b. 1930, Bucharest, Romania – d. 2024, Arlington, Virginia, USA) was a hydroelectrical engineer, son of the diplomat Eugen Filotti. He made major contributions in water management in Romania, but also in other countries under the auspices of the United Nations Organization. He made over 52,000 edits on the English Wikipedia from 2006 to 2024, many of which were about rivers in Romania. On the Romanian Wikipedia he was an administrator and a stalwart of the community; see his article and obituary there.