Aubrey - It's not a tools problem, it's a time and number of people problem.
It necessarily draws upon the smaller pool of more stable, mature responsible levelheaded good judgement Wikipedians, who are in short supply on-Wiki now much less available for lots of extra off-Wiki, poorly understood or (community) acknowledged work. Speaking of which, tomorrow I'm going to reapply to reactivate my OTRS, as there's a need and I have bandwidth again... George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 4, 2015, at 2:46 AM, Andrea Zanni <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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> _______________________________________________ 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>
