I'm breaking this specific idea out of the main thread, in order to focus on it.
There seems to be considerable support for adding some kind of "Report a problem" link to pages, (probably not necessarily) to the sidebar. I'd like to give a little more thought to this idea, i.e. where we want a link to go, and what we want it to do. Personally I think if such a link simply mails OTRS, that would be suboptimal. It would risk creating a lot of email volume for relatively minor problems, and make it harder to differentiate important issues from minor ones. By preference, I'd like to see a link that goes to a simple page for requesting help with options such as, "post a public message on the talk page", "email a volunteer for help", etc. In principle, such a page, could even have a single text box for composing a message, a set of instructions, and a dropdown list of actions to take ranging from a talk page post to an OTRS email, etc. Reports of vandalism and other simple problems might also be channeled automatically to one of the existing onwiki noticeboards if the reporter is not asking for privacy. Clicking on the "report a problem" link should automatically fill in what page one came from. Even more ideally, the report a problem link might be modified based on indicators in the page, such as "Category:Living people", in order to better prioritise and direct correspondence. If the person reporting the problem does choose to post publicly, the post could be flagged with something like "Category:Unresolved problem reports", which might then be replaced with "Category:Resolved problem reports" after it has been looked at and handled. Ideally, I think problem reports should include the option of being completely anonymous (though presumably with a CAPTCHA or other device to limit spam posts). -Robert Rohde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
