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This is a memorial listing of Wikipedians who have died.

People in this list are remembered as part of the Wikipedia community: they have made at least several hundred edits or are otherwise known for substantial contributions to Wikipedia.

Please do not add people unless you can supply verifiable information that they have died.

2005 deaths

Norbert Bernard (Treanna)

Norbert Bernard (Treanna)

Norbert Bernard, also known by his username Treanna, died on September 18, 2005. With over 30,000 edits, of which about 25,000 were in article space in just two years, Treanna was the most active contributor of the French Wikipedia. Aged 31, he had just started to contribute again after a coronary incident which had landed him in the hospital in July. The French-speaking community was informed of his condition thanks to one of his sisters, Anne, by email and on this page, throughout the summer. Treanna will be remembered as a great contributor in all domains, but especially in the domains of history, archeology, genealogy, palaeography and related topics. The French Wikipedia community has decided to honour him in working together on a WikiReader about the Middle Ages, a part of Wikipédia to which he has greatly contributed. According to Myriam, his youngest sister, the WikiReader could "help us, his family, to better realise the extent of what he knew and loved to share... the knowledge he did not have time to teach us". Many contributors expressed their condolences to the family here.

Hume Smith (Kwantus)

Hume Smith (Kwantus)

Hume Cottnam Llewellyn Smith (username Kwantus) died suddenly on July 21, 2005, at age 38 in the New Halifax Infirmary, QEII, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Born December 18, 1966 in Lunenburg, he attended Chester Elementary schools and was a graduate of Parkview Education Centre, Bridgewater. Hume held an honours degree in science and was the recipient of the Gold Medal for the highest academic standing in sciences and the Silver Medal for the second highest academic standing in his graduating class at Acadia University, Wolfville. He was a computer programmer and a member and assistant organist at Chester United Baptist Church and died of a massive heart attack within hours of completing a restoration project on his church's chime, which he had worked on for over a decade. He had over 2,000 edits to the English Wikipedia and created such articles as Conway chained arrow and Single bullet theory. Hume is survived by his mother, Gail Ida Hume Smith, and maternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Hume, Chester. He is buried in Pinehill Cemetery, Chester, Nova Scotia.

2006 deaths

Gérald Anfossi (Nataraja)

Gérald Anfossi (Nataraja)

Gérald Anfossi, username Nataraja, died of cancer on March 17, 2006. Gérald was an administrator and one of the most active editors on the French Wikipedia, where he contributed to numerous articles on South Asia. He also contributed many of his personal images to commons (such as Image:Sanchi2.jpg, which is featured on the History of India page, among others) and coordinated interwiki work between the English and French Wikipedias. He made 31,781 contributions to 11 projects, the vast majority to French Wikipedia. His funeral was in his beloved adopted land of India.

Xavier Bonnafous (Xulin)

Xavier Bonnafous (Xulin)

Xavier Bonnafous, a Wikipedian who primarily edited in the French Wikipedia under the username Xulin, died on May 7, 2006, during a hang gliding accident, according to online reports. Xavier also edited the English Wikipedia using Xulin, although this account was mainly used for interwiki work. On his French user page, Xavier said he was interested in free software and ecology issues. A memorial for Xavier has been established on the French Wikipedia. He made 866 contributions to three projects, the vast majority to French Wikipedia.

Neil Morris (Neilm)

Neil Morris lived in Southsea, England, where he worked as a Chartered Engineer and for a computer company. Neil was also an inventor, holding a patent to a drop detection device. Among the articles edited by Neil were Parallel SCSI, SCSI Enclosure Services, and Enclosure Services Interface. He died on September 17, 2006, according to a notice left on his user page. Further information on his life would be appreciated.

Caroline Thompson (Caroline Thompson)

Caroline Thompson

Caroline Thompson, a Wikipedian who primarily edited articles relating to quantum mechanics, died on February 8, 2006, according to her family. The cause of death was cancer. Thompson, who had written papers on the subject of quantum mechanics while a student at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, had edited sporadically in the months leading up to her death, last editing on January 10, 2006. She also maintained a website on her theories regarding physics.

2007 deaths

Robert Braunwart (Rbraunwa)

Robert Braunwart (Rbraunwa)

Robert Braunwart (Rbraunwa) was born in Richland Washington in 1948 and grew up in Moses Lake. He lived for many years in Oaxaca, México and Los Angeles, California. He attended Reed College as a National Merit Scholar before transferring to the University of Washington. During his life, Robert worked as an administrative assistant, editor, small business owner, and online math tutor, but his major interests and activities centered on political activities and a variety of personal projects, ranging from co-founding the Professional Football Researchers Association to contributing 11,910 edits and hundreds of articles to English Wikipedia, primarily on the viceroys of New Spain and 1,128 edits to ten other Wikimedia projects. Of these new articles, at least 15 were honored as Did you know selections. Robert died on October 14, 2007, from melanoma.

Uladzimir Katkouski (Rydel)

Uladzimir Katkouski, a well-known and award-winning Belarusian blogger, editor of several Belarusian websites and activist for the usage of the Belarusian language on the Internet. He made 1343 contributions to the English Wikipedia and 1286 contributions to nine other Wikimedia projects. Katkouski mostly edited articles about his country and his language. He was hit by a fire truck in 2006 and, after being in a coma for about a year, he died on May 25, 2007.

Scott Laws (Dalf)

Scott Laws (Dalf)

Scott Laws, username Dalf, died of colon cancer on September 14, 2007. He had been a long-term Wikipedian, making 3,332 contributions to English Wikipedia since April 8, 2005, and 23 contributions to five other Wikimedia projects. Among the articles he edited were Imperial Japanese Navy, Horcrux, and Nuclear power. Laws was an alumnus of Hickman High School and the University of Missouri and worked for Microsoft's Hotmail in Silicon Valley until he was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. He was 30 years old.

Báder Imre (Bader; Baderimre)

Dr. Báder Imre died in November 2007. He was a retired associate professor of the University of Miskolc where he worked for nearly 40 years. He registered on Wikipedia on his 62nd birthday, March 1, 2007, and contributed several articles and images on physics and chemistry, including a featured article about surface tension. He was buried in the St. Anna cemetery in Miskolc on December 3, 2007. The community was informed of his death by his colleague Szalax. Several Wikipedians expressed their condolences here.

Maciej Ostrowski (MOstrows)

Maciej Ostrowski died on September 24, 2007. Since January 23, 2006, he was an active contributor to the Polish Wikipedia. Due to his interests in theoretical organic chemistry, he wrote a few articles related to this subject. According to his own userpage, he was interested in tumours, and enjoyed travelling – especially by train. He used to translate articles from the English Wikipedia and liked the Czech language as well.

Although he was very sick and weakened for a few years before his death, he described his illness on his blog (Polish).

Tron Øgrim (Tronogrim)

Tron Øgrim (Tronogrim)

Jimmy Wales and Tron Øgrim. Bergen, Norway, May 2006

Tron Øgrim, a Norwegian Wikimedian, journalist, and author, died on May 23, 2007. He was 59 years old. Tron was one of the most influential people in Norway's Marxist-Leninist movement in the sixties and seventies. He was one of the founders of the Workers' Communist Party, a party which strongly advocated the Chinese branch of communism. Tron was also central in the founding of the newspaper Klassekampen and the publishing house Oktober. Tron became a journalist after leaving politics in the eighties, having a technology column in the Norwegian edition of PC World. Tron became a Wikipedian in December 2005, when libelous statements about a colleague appeared in a Norwegian (bokmål) Wikipedia article. Tron continued as a Wikipedia editor after the issue was resolved, writing about constructed languages through most of 2006. In the fall of 2006, his focus changed to Nepal generally and the history of communism in Nepal specifically (see Nepals kommunistiske parti (maoistisk) for an example of one of his articles.) Tron was known in the Norwegian wikicommunity for writing very long articles about somewhat obscure topics. Tron also cared much about smaller wikis and their progress. He was routinely posting messages about milestones at the Norwegian Village Pump, as well as participating on the Wikimedia News announcements page. Tron was extremely important for the Norwegian wiki movement, and he was often interviewed by the press about Wikipedia. He gave a lecture about Wikipedia when Wikipedia's founder Jimbo Wales visited Norway in May 2006. More info on him is available at Tron Øgrim and Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-05-28/Wikipedian_death.

David Shear (David Shear)

David Shear (David Shear) received a B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1959 with majors in math and biology and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Brandeis University in 1966. He worked in the biochemistry department at the University of Missouri, and at the Institute for Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin (where his son and wife are also faculty members.) In 1972 he published a science fiction novel, Cloning. He joined Wikipedia in September 2005 and focused on articles related to mathematics and thermodynamics. David died on April 21, 2007.

Carli Ann Ward (CanadaGirl)

Carli Ann Ward, born 18 March 1982 in Saint John, New Brunswick, began editing in July 2005, starting with wikignome work and moving into vandal fighting. In November 2006, she noted "I was diagnosed with cervical cancer in August of 2006. It is expected to be terminal, and the doctors have told me I probably won't live past the summer of 2007," and noting that she would continue to update her website. She died on 15 December 2007 from clear cell adenocarcinoma. A tribute website has been created detailing her life.

Emil Petkov (Espetkov)

Emil Petkov was a Bulgarian editor who died on 27 May 2007. For more info see his BG Profile.

2008 deaths

Patrick Devlin (Padraig)

Patrick Devlin (Padraig) was a well-known and popular editor of Irish articles on Wikipedia. A 48 year old father of three with three grandchildren originally from Strabane, Northern Ireland, he died on May 17, 2008, in a hospice in Hackney, London after a six-year battle with cancer. "Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis."

Pete Fenelon (Pete Fenelon)

Pete Fenelon (username Pete Fenelon) made his first edit on December 21, 2005, and contributed more than 1,500 edits to the English Wikipedia over the next three years. He mostly edited on the subject of auto racing, local geography and science fiction. A postgraduate of the University of York in Computer Science, his humorous writings on the nature of programming languages remain, particularly "PPL", the "Paranoid Programming Language", in which nothing is as it should appear to be. According to a message left on the AtlasF1 Bulletin Board, he died in October 2008 at the age of forty. A website and memorial fund have been set up in his memory.

Clayton Olney (Cumulus Clouds)

Clayton Olney, username Cumulus Clouds, died on December 22, 2008. Clayton was an enthusiast and an active editor on the English Wikipedia, where he contributed to numerous articles on American politics, sociology, boats, and high schools. He also submitted many of his personal images to Commons, including pictures of his high school, Eastlake High School. Clayton was an avid counter-vandal, and had amassed several thousand edits on the English Wikipedia and Commons.

Bill O'Ryan (Oryanw)

Bill O'Ryan (Oryanw) in 1988

William "Bill" O'Ryan died on February 12, 2008, of complications from rheumatoid arthritis, which had afflicted him for several years. He was born in New York on March 16, 1944, and spent his childhood in the United States, Turkey, and the Netherlands. This multilingual environment led him to proficiency in several languages, including Dutch and Turkish; the US Army trained him in Russian before sending him to Ethiopia, where he taught himself Tigrinya and Ge'ez. As well, while in Ethiopia he met and married his first wife Askalu. Later in life, he and his second wife Fereshteh Taremi taught Esperanto for the Esperanto Society at Arizona State University. An active participant in the Esperanto Wikipedia, Bill amassed over 4,000 edits, spending many hours translating articles into Esperanto and serving as an administrator. He is survived by his siblings Rick and Josephine, his sons Micky, Patrik and Denny, his daughters Zowdi and Jemila, and his grandchildren Joshua, JJ, Izzy, Claudia, Leo, Emmanuel, and Rafael.

Oded Schramm (OdedSchramm)

Oded Schramm

Oded Schramm, a notable professional mathematician who also contributed to mathematical articles on Wikipedia as OdedSchramm, died of a fall while climbing Guye Peak on September 1, 2008, aged 46. Schramm was born in Jerusalem, Israel, in December 1961, educated at Princeton University, and worked at the University of California, San Diego and the Weizmann Institute before moving to Microsoft Research in Seattle in 1999. He was well known in mathematics circles and won numerous international prizes for his work in conformal geometry and probability, and particularly for the stochastic Loewner evolution. On Wikipedia, he made major contributions to articles including coupling from the past, quasiconformal mapping, and Dilworth's theorem. He is survived by his wife Avivit and two children Tslil and Pele.

Stéphane Tendon (Stéphane Tendon)

Stéphane Tendon

Stéphane Tendon, a historian from Gland in Switzerland who edited on the French Wikipedia from January 2006, died on March 25, 2008. Born in 1970 in Geneva, he received his BA in History from the University of Geneva in October 1996, and completed his doctorate at the University of Basel. He contributed to a number of articles related to history, political theory and Swiss geography, and ran the website helvete.ch, an open wiki concerning Swiss national identity.

Jeff Woloson (Jeffpw)

Jeffpw (left) with his husband, Isaac

Jeff Woloson was a nurse by profession (specializing in home health care and hospice care) and a dual citizen of the United States and the Netherlands. He lived in Amsterdam but traveled extensively. He was a highly active member of the LGBT Wikiproject and a primary contributor to the articles on James Robert Baker (a featured article) and Gay icon. He died on August 6, 2008, just 6 weeks after the death of his husband, Isaac, whom he loved dearly.

2009 deaths

Glen Dillon (Glen Dillon)

Glen Dillon began editing Wikipedia in August 2008. He contributed mostly to subjects concerning Australia and his home state, Western Australia, and wrote on his userpage that he "builds and refines content related to Australian (esp. West Australian) topics". Glen made 751 edits to the English Wikipedia and his most significant contribution was the creation of the Petroleum industry in Western Australia article. He also contributed to a variety of articles, including the 2008 Western Australian gas crisis, ANA Skymaster Amana crash, Tasman Bridge disaster, Gorgon gas project, Ayatollah Khomeini and Arnhem Land, and created and uploaded images, graphs and maps to Commons for use in articles. Glen, 45, died with his two children in a car crash near Jarrahdale, south of Perth, on Sunday 30 August 2009.

Dick Golembiewski (Nitelinger)

Dick Golembiewski died of a heart attack on 29 March 2009 while shoveling snow. He edited under the alias "Nitelinger", which he also used as his radio name. A Milwaukee, Wisconsin resident and an engineer by profession, Nitelinger was involved with the Society of Automotive Engineers, and had a radio program for many years on the freeform Milwaukee radio station WMSE. He was also an avid historian of Milwaukee television history, mainly that of local horror movie programming of the past, publishing an award-winning book released only months before his death about the subject, Milwaukee Television History: The Analog Years (ISBN-13: 978-0-87462-055-9), and had two websites ([1], [2]) on the subjects which were an invaluable resource to the community. Although his editing career was not a long one (around 250 edits from October 2006 to March 2009), he mainly contributed to articles on Milwaukee television and radio stations.

Frank Gualtieri, Jr. (Fg2)

This photograph of a lotus bud by Fg2 was the Commons Picture of the Day on April 14, 2006.

Frank J. Gualtieri, Jr. died on 23 August 2009 in his beloved country of Japan. He was a native of Canton, Massachusetts who traveled to Japan extensively and worked as an educator and translator. He shared his love with the world by contributing heavily to Japan-related topics in Wikipedia. He amassed nearly 25,000 edits on the English Wikipedia, hundreds more as 二八 on the Japanese Wikipedia, and nearly 2,000 image uploads with his account on Wikimedia Commons, including these examples. He also created the English Wikipedia's Japan Portal. In memoriam, three of Fg2's photographs were nominated to be Featured pictures on the English Wikipedia; Hall of Dreams and Morning Glory ultimately were promoted. As a further memorial, a group of editors chose Mount Fuji, one of his favorite articles, to improve collaboratively.

2010 deaths

Ricardo Arturo Lafaurie, Jr. (JuJube)

Ricardo Arturo Lafaurie, Jr. succumbed to his longstanding health problems on January 2, 2010. Rick had been very sick his entire life; his family had been warned that he would not see his 16th birthday. Rick managed to fight until his 31st year, when circumstances conspired to keep him away from an emergency room when his lungs failed – he was taken off ventilation several days later. Going by the username JuJube on Wikipedia, as well as Danny Lilithborne on other online collaborative websites, JuJube was most well known online as a prolific poster on the Shoryuken.com forums as the regular Dasrik, as well as the well received digital author Blankpage. Rick had a very diverse and fulfilling online life to contrast with the offline life his body would not allow him to have.

John Patrick Bedell (JPatrickBedell)

John Patrick Bedell instigated the 2010 Pentagon shooting whereupon he was immediately shot by two police officers acting in self-defense. He died a few hours later. A prolific originator of ideas and proposals (many of which were posted to his userpage), Bedell had bipolar disorder which he attempted to self-medicate with marijuana. Bedell had contributed a few hundred edits to Wikipedia, with a particular focus on conspiracy-related topics, as well as to Wikiversity and Meta Wiki. His editing activity spanned from late 2006 to mid 2007, with the exception of several minor edits in 2009. The notoriety of his death led to debate about the transparency of some aspects of Wikipedia policy inasmuch as his userpage was promptly expunged after his death via suppression; this action was later reversed and the page was instead subjected to revision deletion.

Marcin Alfutowski (Joymaster)

Marcin Alfutowski (Joymaster)

Marcin Alfutowski died tragically in a car accident on November 4, 2010, at the age of 32. As he wrote about himself: "I became a Wikipedian in August 2004 by accident: I was looking for some information. I got fascinated with the idea of this encyclopaedia and registered and started contributing on March 13, 2005." Marcin contributed to Wikipedia under the nickname of "Joymaster"; he was an administrator of Polish Wikipedia from December 14, 2006, up to his resignation in March 2007 and of Wikimedia Commons from February 11, 2006, to November 10, 2007. He was a professional soldier and the military was his main interest on Wikipedia; he had played a vital role in Wikiproject:Military. At the time of his death he was the 68th most contributing user of Polish Wikipedia with over 38,000 edits.

K. B. Thompson (Kbthompson)

K. B. Thompson was born in London, England, in 1955 and died on December 10, 2010, in London, after a brave struggle with cancer. He is survived by his wife. He was a computer professional and an art, architecture and theatre lover, with interests in psychology, education and citizens' rights. Thompson contributed over 40,000 edits to Wikipedia, particularly on topics relating to London and theatre, and he served as an administrator on the English Wikipedia for about three years. He wrote, "I was born in the East End to a long line of ne'er-do-wells, at last count stretching back to 1585. A friend once said his 'family came to Bow to sell horses, they're still there because the public transport is so shit'. My family's experience must have been much the same." Of his WP interests, he wrote: "General interest in Hackney & The East End. Producer of tortured and lengthy, uncited prose - so, all collaborating editors welcome! Some knowledge of local history - moderate ability to research the rest. Also, interested in listed buildings and music halls. Will add a 'fact' anywhere, if it helps illuminate the world." He also wrote: "I have lived in Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, the City of London, Leeds, Luxembourg, France and New York." He was a generous collaborator, a patient and helpful administrator and a nice man.

David Ostfeld (Davost)

Until his passing on December 28, 2010, Dr. David Ostfeld served as Admissions Chair of Bergen County Academies, a magnet public high school located in Hackensack, New Jersey. He was one of the founders of AAST, the first Academy at the school. Ostfeld attended a performance of the Nutcracker with members of his family on December 26. The morning after, he suffered a sudden heart attack. As well as serving as admissions chair, he taught AP chemistry. He was a beloved member of the community, a humble and generous man. "Words cannot express the impact that Dave has had on the Academy community since its inception and I am certain that the news of his death will be difficult for our entire staff as well as current and former students."—Russell Davis, current principal of the Bergen County Academies. Ostfeld was a leading contributor to articles related to the Bergen County Technical Schools, as well as articles corresponding to other school systems in the neighborhood.

2011 deaths

Philippe Remacle (Remacle)

Philippe Remacle was one of the pillars of the French Wikisource. He started to contribute on September, 2006 making more than 19,000 contributions. According to his family he passed away on March 11, 2011. He specialized in Greek and Latin text and their translation into French, and imported numerous texts to Wikisource: here is a translation of Homer for instance, here's Plautus' entire theater, and here's an illustration for Le Vicaire de Wakefield; his help was invaluable in these matters and he was always ready to give it to anyone who asked for it.

Robert Ullmann (Robert Ullmann)

Robert Laurence Ullmann passed away on March 19, 2011 in Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston at the age of 50 after a lingering illness. Ullmann was a computer programmer. He said of himself: "I am best known on the net as the author of a number of Internet RFCs". Originally from Acton, he had been living the last five years in Nairobi, Kenya. He started contributing in 2006 and had more than 25,000 edits on the English Wiktionary where he was a sysop. He was also a sysop on the Swahili and the Kinyarwanda Wiktionary. He is survived by his parents and three sisters.

Mark D. Fisher (Vaoverland)

Mark D. Fisher (Vaoverland) in 2008

Mark D. Fisher passed away on 30 April 2011 in Williamsburg, Virginia, at the age of 59. Starting in 2002, Fisher was a prolific contributor of content to Wikipedia, particularly in the areas of Virginia history and transportation. His credits include five featured articles, twelve good articles and an amazing eighty-eight "Did you know" articles. Fisher became an administrator in 2005, but he rarely used the administrative tools. His adminstrative philosophy was to focus on content, collaboration and building the community. Accordingly, he was unfailingly kind to new editors and veterans alike. His Wikipedia username was a reference to Virginia Overland Transportation (VOTC), a company he founded with his parents, where he served as president for many years. Fisher retired from VOTC in 2005 so that he could be his mother's full-time caregiver.

Codf1977 (talk · contribs)

Codf1977 passed away on 31 August 2011 after a battle with illness. Codf1977 was an active and valued editor between August 2009 and his retirement in May 2011, making over 11,000 contributions to Wikipedia. He edited numerous pages on universities and other tertiary education institutions and applied his expertise to important and often difficult maintenance tasks such as deletions, sockpuppet investigations and the protection of biographies of living persons.

Robert P Lemiszki Jr. (bahamut0013)

• Note: Condolences can be left at Robert's guestbook. An obituary can be viewed here.

Robert P Lemiszki Jr. passed away on September 16, 2011 at the age of 26. Robert gave up ambitions of becoming a teacher and joined the U.S. Marine Corps after high school; he served two deployments in Iraq, as well as one in Japan. Robert received several medals and other decorations during his military career, and attained the rank of Sergeant. During his four years at Wikipedia, he was active with the Military history Project and Operation Majestic Titan as well as the Marine Corps and battleship portals. He became an administrator in April 2011, shortly before becoming inactive the following month. According to his userpage, he struggled with posttraumatic stress disorder.

As recognition for his contributions, bahamut0013 received two prestigious barnstars on the behalf of the Military history project coordinators and Majestic Titan participants: the WikiChevrons with Oak Leaves and the Silver Titan's Cross.

Keith C Bradbury (Manstaruk)

Keith C Bradbury passed away on September 19, 2011 at the age of 56. Born in Manchester in 1955, he was a great supporter of the Welsh Highland Railway and the Ffestiniog Railway, both on-wiki and off. He was survived by his wife, Hazel.

References