Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
Aubrey On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 <[email protected]> wrote: > James, > > > I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a > moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response. > > > The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous work > of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of > thousands of e-mails each year. > > The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical issues > to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit > requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the > overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to > verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third > parties. > > Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things that > the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do so > in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of > their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle these > public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers tends > to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately, backlogs > can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in > the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to > process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs > never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with > unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us > can relate to in one way or another. > > We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an > increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in > the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end of > the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because > of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering > tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of thing > you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times > with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians adding > content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free time, > and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-) > > Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable, especially > in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of > volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. > While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome > new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014 we > added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information and > permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we > lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if > you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great > new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on > [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be > happy to review it. > > Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other > part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents > and clear those backlogs as soon as they start. > > I hope this helps clarify the current issues. > > Ryan // User:Rjd0060 > > (OTRS admin) > > [1] > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statements > > [2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that > answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions and/or > photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer these > tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as > those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced > rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for > more information. > > On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the > > images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am > simply > > uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is. > > > > -- > > James Heilman > > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian > > > > The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine > > www.opentextbookofmedicine.com > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
