Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system

[Pete Forsyth]

I believe there's an important point about OTRS to discuss, but the present
framing -- rooted in a challenging examination of the issue's history -- is
making it difficult to get at.

OTRS agents, both individually and as part of a collective, have a
tremendous influence over the perception of Wikipedia and Wikimedia by
those with whom they interact. They interact not only with a large *number* of
individuals, but also with some highly *influential* individuals (i.e.,
people deemed notable enough to be covered in our projects, or to serve as
official photographers of those individuals, etc.)

WIth great power comes great responsibility. So as I see it, this is a
situation in which clearly articulated policies, accompanied by clear
processes to permit influence of those policies, and commentary on the
implementation of those policies, would be ideal. We would be better off if
there were clearly articulated, published policies for OTRS, and if OTRS
were more accessible for comment by individual Wikimedians, and had good
internal processes for handling those comments.

On that much, I think Andy would agree with me; but beyond that point, I
think we diverge. I think Andy wants to hold somebody responsible for the
absence of those things, and given the history of OTRS, as described by
others in this thread, I'm not sure that's a reasonable objective.

But I would very much support an effort to draft, review, and publish
policies and procedures going forward.

For what it's worth, I was an OTRS agent for several years; but, precisely
because of the absence of policies, I reduced my activity to essentially
nothing, and I was eventually dropped from the team. (As a paid Wikipedia
trainer/consultant, I had opportunities to offer professional services to
those seeking OTRS assistance. This is not something I ever did, but I felt
that even the perception that I might be doing so would have been harmful
to Wikimedia and to OTRS. Since there were no ethical policies offering
guidance for somebody like me, the safest course of action was to pull
away.)

-Pete
--
User:Peteforsyth


On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 3:36 AM Andy Mabbett 
wrote:

> On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 at 00:09, effe iets anders 
> wrote:
> >
> > Jonatan: Implying that there's more secrecy than necessary, is unhelpful.
>
> Do you mean to suggest that the current level of secrecy is necessary?
>
> > I
> > would dare say that if the policies that Andy is looking for exist (given
> > his inquiry he's looking for a specific set), they should and would be
> > available on meta.
>
> Apparently they are not, they are on a closed wiki; and so secret.
>
> > If that is not the case, that is more likely due to
> > laziness and/or lack of time than by design
>
> I have been asking for them since February.
>
> > so if you know of policies
> > where that is not the case, please bring it up internally, ask for
> > objections to publish it, and lets rectify.
>
> We were told the matter had been raised on the private OTRS mailing
> list, in February, and that "several of us [on the mailing list] want
> to be involved in any follow up". Nonetheless, no response from that
> discussion has been forthcoming, and neither the editor who said they
> had raised it in the mailing list, nor the one who I quote here, has
> responded to requests for updates.
>
> > It seems that you're particularly concerned about the Commons/Permissions
> > queues.
>
> No; although this originally came to light due to a misapplication of
> the policy in relation to Commons, the questions apply to OTRS across
> the movement
>
> > I'm not exactly clear on what policies you're looking for
>
> All of them. Every single word of OTRS policy, guideline and
> boilerplate, that is not of necessity confidential due to containing
> personal information.
>
> > is a bit of a mess - much of OTRS has grown organically. I doubt you
> > expected much different.
>
> I expected transparency of the standard common throughout the rest of
> our movement.
>
> > the questions are too broadly formulated for a diffuse system like this.
>
> I very strongly disagree. But if we /cannot/ give any answer to
> questions like "what are OTRS' rules and policies?" or "how is OTRS
> overseen, and who by?", then that would highlight even more serious
> issues.
>
>
> More generally, I note that the discussion on Commons continues:
>
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Redux%2C_June_2020
>
> albeit with more heat that light, and that accusations about my
> motives are now being flung about. Still the questions have not been
> answered. Although we have been told, in the last hour or so "we do
> not have a process where we monitor what other OTRS volunteers does
> [sic]".
>
> --
> Andy Mabbett
> @pigsonthewing
> http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Introducing Diff – a blog by and for the Wikimedia volunteer community

[Quim Gil]

Hi,

Thanks Lodewijk, you covered the main points.

When we announced Next steps for Wikimedia Space [1] we said that the Space
blog would continue in a new home, and this is exactly what we have done.
Last year the Space blog received community submissions regularly, and the
Comms team always receives requests for publication of community news. We
launched Diff yesterday, and today we have already a couple of
ongoing drafts being written by volunteers who came by their own foot.
There is a clear need for a community news channel in our movement and we
are trying to address this need.

Does the Diff editorial team miss volunteers today? Absolutely! Do you need
to convince anyone about the need to fill that team with volunteers, or
even about them taking over? Absolutely not. Instead, you can help
convincing volunteers to get involved. Or you can get involved yourselves.
We also welcome proposals to connect existing community publications with
Diff, another way to participate.

I hope someone will appreciate the fact that we have launched Diff
including three separate archives of community news, now in one place. That
is 3,235 posts, importing and merging the archives wasn't simple, and yes
there are still some bugs. In order to identify the posts coming from the
Wikimedia Blog, the Wikimedia Foundation site or Space, we have attached a
string of text. Andy, this is why your now imported blog post from 2017 has
that extra text. Such text can be easily changed in all archived posts if
we agree on a better text. Let's discuss such details on the project Talk
page. [2]

Andy, thank you for your detailed feedback as a blog post author. Thank you
for reporting some bugs that we will (hopefully) fix, and thank you for
identifying some problems that annoy you as an author. We want happy
authors, not annoyed authors, and we can work with them to resolve any
problems about their published posts and about their upcoming ones too. You
can share the details on the project talk page, you can file bugs in
Phabricator [3] or you can send us an email to d...@wikimedia.org. The same
channels can be used to propose improvements in categories, the privacy
policy or anything else.

[1] https://discuss-space.wmflabs.org/t/next-steps-on-wikimedia-space/3184
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Diff_(blog)
[3] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/diff-blog/

On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 7:23 AM effe iets anders 
wrote:

> The editorial team has been the status quo for years. I'd like to see it
> expanded over time with volunteers, but at this point it would be unfair to
> look down at this development for that reason.
>
> To keep things constructive here: are there specific guidelines or
> procedures that you would like to see changed? What is the kind of
> volunteer/non-WMF person that you would like to see added to the team? (not
> expecting you to call names, but you may be able to come up with broad
> categories)
>
> If you have such big problems with the privacy policy, could you create a
> separate thread about that and be specific about what exactly you find
> concerning, and why? I don't think an announcement thread is the best place
> to discuss those concerns - if these are really significant problems, it
> warrants a separate thread.
>
> Best,
> Lodewijk
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2020 at 3:27 PM Yair Rand  wrote:
>
> > I am concerned.
> >
> > Although it is purported to be "by and for the Wikimedia volunteer
> > community", the blog is clearly run by the WMF, the editorial team is
> made
> > up of WMF staff, the WMF handles moderating, the guidelines were written
> by
> > the WMF, the blog was created by the WMF without community consultation
> or
> > input, and the structure and category system are clearly WMF-oriented.
> > Also, it's based on WordPress, yet again, and with a very
> > problematic privacy policy which probably won't be acceptable to many in
> > the community.
> >
> > This is not a positive development, in my opinion.
> >
> > -- Yair Rand
> >
> > ‫בתאריך יום ד׳, 15 ביולי 2020 ב-15:31 מאת ‪Andy Mabbett‬‏ <‪
> > a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk‬‏>:‬
> >
> > > On Wed, 15 Jul 2020 at 18:50, Chris Koerner 
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Diff builds on lessons and  experiences from  the
> > > > Wikimedia Blog, the Wikimedia Foundation News, and Wikimedia Space;
> > > > previous posts from these channels are archived on Diff.
> > >
> > > Based on my involvement with the Blog, I've identified some issues...
> > >
> > > At the request of the WMF, in 2017 I wrote a blog post, which was
> > > published - after WMF's editorial approval - at:
> > >
> > >https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/29/astronaut-spoken-voice/
> > >
> > > an independently-archived copy may be found at:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/11/29/astronaut-spoken-voice/
> > >
> > > This has now been republished at:
> > >
> > >https://diff.wikimedia.org/2017/11/29/astronaut-spoken-voice/
> > >
> > > to which 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wiki Loves the Olympics 2020

[Camelia Boban]

Thank you, Santiago, great. We will participate.
WMES's event fits perfectly and seems to be a prelude to WikiDonne's Wiki
Loves Sport campaign ,
this year to it's the second edition.
So, after participating in Wikimedia Espana's Wiki Loves Olympics, we
invite you all to continue writing about sport on Wiki Loves Sport, from
July 24th to September 6th (the period planned for the Olympics and
Paralympics Games and postponed to 2021).

See you there,
Camelia


--
*Camelia Boban*

*| Java EE Developer |*

*Affiliations Committee - **Wikimedia Foundation*
Diversity WG for Wikimedia Strategy 2030
*Interwiki Women
 | **Wiki
Loves Sport  | Wiki Loves
Fashion *
WMIT  - WMSE
 - WMAR
 - WMCH
 - WMNY
 - WMDC
 - WMBE
 Member

M. +39 3383385545
camelia.bo...@gmail.com
*Aissa Technologies* * | *Twitter
 *|* *LinkedIn
*
*Wikipedia  **| **WikiDonne
UG * | *WikiDonne Project
 *











Il giorno gio 16 lug 2020 alle ore 13:08 Santiago Navarro <
santiagonava...@wikimedia.es> ha scritto:

> Hello, although finally 2020 is not an Olympic year, you can replace
> some of that nostalgia by editing about the Olympic and Paralympic Games
> (in any language) between 15 July and 15 August. There are many articles
> to create and improve.
>
> You can find more information on Meta page:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_the_Olympics_2020.
>
> Greetings
>
> --
> Santiago Navarro Sanz
> Presidente
> Wikimedia España
> www.wikimedia.es
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Wiki Loves the Olympics 2020

[Santiago Navarro]

Hello, although finally 2020 is not an Olympic year, you can replace 
some of that nostalgia by editing about the Olympic and Paralympic Games 
(in any language) between 15 July and 15 August. There are many articles 
to create and improve.


You can find more information on Meta page: 
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_the_Olympics_2020.


Greetings

--
Santiago Navarro Sanz
Presidente
Wikimedia España
www.wikimedia.es

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Operation and oversight of OTRS system

[Andy Mabbett]

On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 at 00:09, effe iets anders  wrote:
>
> Jonatan: Implying that there's more secrecy than necessary, is unhelpful.

Do you mean to suggest that the current level of secrecy is necessary?

> I
> would dare say that if the policies that Andy is looking for exist (given
> his inquiry he's looking for a specific set), they should and would be
> available on meta.

Apparently they are not, they are on a closed wiki; and so secret.

> If that is not the case, that is more likely due to
> laziness and/or lack of time than by design

I have been asking for them since February.

> so if you know of policies
> where that is not the case, please bring it up internally, ask for
> objections to publish it, and lets rectify.

We were told the matter had been raised on the private OTRS mailing
list, in February, and that "several of us [on the mailing list] want
to be involved in any follow up". Nonetheless, no response from that
discussion has been forthcoming, and neither the editor who said they
had raised it in the mailing list, nor the one who I quote here, has
responded to requests for updates.

> It seems that you're particularly concerned about the Commons/Permissions
> queues.

No; although this originally came to light due to a misapplication of
the policy in relation to Commons, the questions apply to OTRS across
the movement

> I'm not exactly clear on what policies you're looking for

All of them. Every single word of OTRS policy, guideline and
boilerplate, that is not of necessity confidential due to containing
personal information.

> is a bit of a mess - much of OTRS has grown organically. I doubt you
> expected much different.

I expected transparency of the standard common throughout the rest of
our movement.

> the questions are too broadly formulated for a diffuse system like this.

I very strongly disagree. But if we /cannot/ give any answer to
questions like "what are OTRS' rules and policies?" or "how is OTRS
overseen, and who by?", then that would highlight even more serious
issues.


More generally, I note that the discussion on Commons continues:

   
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Redux%2C_June_2020

albeit with more heat that light, and that accusations about my
motives are now being flung about. Still the questions have not been
answered. Although we have been told, in the last hour or so "we do
not have a process where we monitor what other OTRS volunteers does
[sic]".

-- 
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Invitation for Education Office hours, July 2020

[Sailesh Patnaik]

Hi everyone,

Sending this as a reminder email, join us today at 12:00 UTC (in 3 hours!)
for today's education office hours. Looking forward to talking to you all
soon.

Join the call via this link: https://meet.google.com/oyg-douk-bpm

Best!
Sailesh

On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 7:41 PM Sailesh Patnaik 
wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> Join us for the July education office hours on 16th July 2020 at 12:00 PM
> UTC! The office hours are a dedicated time and an online space to have
> conversations and discussions related to Wikimedia and education
> activities, listen and learn from each other's projects and experiences.
>
> We will be having discussion around Community communications
> collaborators, get more information here: https://w.wiki/WKR  and also
> how to use Wikidata in education. If you are interested, join us! You can
> find more details to join the meeting here:
> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Hours/July_16_2020
>
> Looking forward to seeing you all then, Please let me know if you have any
> questions.
>
> Do you want to reach out to the education team for a 1:1 consultation?
> Request for a slot for consultation for your education work ( 
> ttps://outreach.wikimedia.
> org/wiki/Education/About/Office_Space
>  ) by
> filling this google form ( http://bit.ly/EduOfficeSpace )
>
> Dhanyabaad!
> --
> *Sailesh Patnaik*
> Program Coordinator, Education
>


-- 
*Sailesh Patnaik*
Program Coordinator, Education
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[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Clinic digest #005; call in Spanish today

[Asaf Bartov]

Dear Wikimedians,

The digest from Wikimedia Clinic[0] #005 has been published[1].  For your
convenience, here is a list of the topics discussed:

* Generating tables on Wikipedia from Wikidata
* Are you active in affiliates? Why or why not?
* How to connect with local Wikimedians?
* Datasets relating to Wikimedia activities by country?
* ReplyTool

If any of this interests you, I encourage you to read the digest[1].

And here's a reminder that you are invited to attend Wikimedia Clinic #006
*in Spanish*, about to take place today at 18:00 UTC, at the Google Meet
link below[2].  While the call will be in Spanish without translation into
English, the *digest* of this call will be offered in both languages.

Cheers,

   A.

[0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Clinics/005
[2] https://meet.google.com/mjv-dxvk-jjb

Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)

Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities

Wikimedia Foundation 

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
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