Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Keegan Peterzell wrote: This conversation should shift to meta sooner rather than later. I'm not on my PC, but perhaps /Talk:OTRS/Software? I'm not sure moving to Meta-Wiki is a good idea. OTRS is the current software. It's unclear what a Software talk subpage would be used for. I'm inclined to say that whoever steps up and makes a commitment to support a ticket response system can pick whether to stick with OTRS or move to a different system, as long as it's comparable to (or better than) OTRS. James' post offered a lot of insight into why this has been so slow-moving. (Thank you, James!) But at this point it seems fairly clear that someone needs to become responsible for the technical support of OTRS or its successor. I'm not sure Meta-Wiki can help with that. It seems more like an organization issue. James Alexander wrote: Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. I would think the Wikimedia Foundation would want to remain pretty distant from unfiltered volunteer replies to e-mails, from a legal standpoint, but maybe someone from the Wikimedia Foundation legal team can chime in on this point. Thanks again for your post. Some of the background info in particular was enlightening. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On 21 February 2013 19:02, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I'm not sure moving to Meta-Wiki is a good idea. OTRS is the current software. It's unclear what a Software talk subpage would be used for. I understood him to mean that we should move the *discussion* to meta - not the handling of the emails themselves. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 2:12 AM, Liam Wyatt liamwy...@gmail.com wrote: On 21 February 2013 19:02, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: I'm not sure moving to Meta-Wiki is a good idea. OTRS is the current software. It's unclear what a Software talk subpage would be used for. I understood him to mean that we should move the *discussion* to meta - not the handling of the emails themselves. That. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 6:02 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: James Alexander wrote: Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. I would think the Wikimedia Foundation would want to remain pretty distant from unfiltered volunteer replies to e-mails, from a legal standpoint, but maybe someone from the Wikimedia Foundation legal team can chime in on this point. Thanks again for your post. Some of the background info in particular was enlightening. As long as there is a NDA (or such) in place, It would be fine, No different than having one of the OTRS devs work on it (see the bz report about updates). ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 5:25 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: Yes. May have been me, or at least I hope I joined the chorus. ;) mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. I have been administering a few medium sized installation of OTRS for quite a long time, and happened to contribute to the code as well. Several times I had the urge to offer a hand to upgrade it, and if people are in need I do it now: I am willing to upgrade it since the current version is horribly old, and the upgrade process has proven to work in the past for me between large version jumps as well. (The required amount of project time is based on guesswork but if the size permits it's even possible to create a new installation with a copy of the old db and switch over, which is the safest way.) My guess is that it's possible that the system needs serious review of configuration since there has been plenty of big changes (speedups) in the last years. It's doable. However if anyone want to throw the work on me I most probably going to look for at least few people to watch over my typos. It can be done alone, no problem, but safer if there's someone else's watching. :-) (For tech and administrative details feel free to contact me. I'm userid 1 on huwp, and my identity is recorded plenty of times already, as well as being an otrs member.) Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. I can help supporting OTRS, and Wikimedia Hungary can officially support it as well. I do not intend to look for alternatives, partly because I'm quite happy with OTRS, partly because I haven't met anything better suiting this kind of job and partly because I'm not interested suporting something I do not know. (Judging by http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/OTRS there's plenty of possible improvement here, especially on the spamfiltering part...) cya, Peter ([[user:grin]] / [[:hu:user:grin]] / Peter Gervai) ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
I offered to look into this some time last year, and apply for a grant to write an up to date piece of software. However it didn't get a good response, with the foundation promising an OTRS update early this year... apparent progress was made at that point, but it petered out very quickly. Tom On 21 February 2013 05:18, DeltaQuad Wikipedia deltaquadw...@gmail.comwrote: +1, the interface still confuses me at somepoints today. But I have to ask, are we getting everything we need with an OTRS update to the new version, or are we settling for a medioker (excuse my spelling, it is late). Is it a better idea to have wikimedians (maybe through grants, idk) build something open source and cc-whatever? That way fixes can be made and we can get many devs (broad sense of the term) fixing bugs of a new system. DeltaQuad - Mobile phone English Wikipedia Administrator and Checkuser On Feb 20, 2013 11:35 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator for much of that time. As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the OTRS team has been dealing with. As MZMcBride points out, there are a number of reasons why the software needs to be updated. Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35 languages.[1] This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we should have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and other problems.[2] While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have thought that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough for somebody to give some much needed attention to. [1] - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-volunteer-response-team/ [2] - https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Peter Gervai, 21/02/2013 11:04: I can help supporting OTRS, and Wikimedia Hungary can officially support it as well. I do not intend to look for alternatives, partly because I'm quite happy with OTRS, partly because I haven't met anything better suiting this kind of job and partly because I'm not interested suporting something I do not know. Interesting. Has hu.wiki ever considered to use a WM-HU hosted instance of OTRS instead of the WMF one? Given that this was among the suggested solutions here, it would be useful to know about previous discussions on the matter. (The only thing I know is that WMIT considers WMF's OTRS so crappy that even our own – rather bad – instance is preferred to using theirs.) Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: Peter Gervai, 21/02/2013 11:04: I can help supporting OTRS, and Wikimedia Hungary can officially support it as well. I do not intend to look for alternatives, partly because I'm quite happy with OTRS, partly because I haven't met anything better suiting this kind of job and partly because I'm not interested suporting something I do not know. Interesting. Has hu.wiki ever considered to use a WM-HU hosted instance of OTRS instead of the WMF one? Yes. It wasn't done because more often than not we got negative feedback from the foundation when we wanted to host some of our own services. Actually setting up a new one is quite simple, almost I'd say a matter of minutes, plus maybe a few hours with all the customisation (and thise we _severely_ miss by using the central administered one). Given that this was among the suggested solutions here, it would be useful to know about previous discussions on the matter. Indeed. I wasn't following the discussion since I supposed it's been handled. (The only thing I know is that WMIT considers WMF's OTRS so crappy that even our own – rather bad – instance is preferred to using theirs.) It is not really maintained on the sysadmin level, to put it mildly. I'm willing to change that if there's interest. But your question may induce me to install one with the wikimedia config just to see how it works with the new one. :-) -- byte-byte, grin ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Peter Gervai, 21/02/2013 11:25: On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote: Peter Gervai, 21/02/2013 11:04: I can help supporting OTRS, and Wikimedia Hungary can officially support it as well. I do not intend to look for alternatives, partly because I'm quite happy with OTRS, partly because I haven't met anything better suiting this kind of job and partly because I'm not interested suporting something I do not know. Interesting. Has hu.wiki ever considered to use a WM-HU hosted instance of OTRS instead of the WMF one? Yes. It wasn't done because more often than not we got negative feedback from the foundation when we wanted to host some of our own services. Actually setting up a new one is quite simple, almost I'd say a matter of minutes, plus maybe a few hours with all the customisation (and thise we _severely_ miss by using the central administered one). It's not surprising that you had negative feedback from the WMF, but it would be interesting to know if and why the hu.wiki community and the chapter discussed it and thought it was a good idea and under which conditions. The technical part is rather easy, but the organisation of a migration is not. I'm sure that the WMIT board would never agree to host an OTRS service for it.wiki even if the community begged it (which is highly unlikely to happen anyway ;) ): it would like begging people to sue us for a few more 20 M€ requests. Nemo ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
2013/2/21 Peter Gervai grin...@gmail.com: On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Tomasz Ganicz polime...@gmail.com wrote: I personally feel more comfortable if the OTRS system is maintained by WMF and not by any small (or even larger) Wikimedia chapter - even my We were talking about local versions. Global OTRS _will_not_ be operated by wmhu (we neither want nor offer it); the question was who can support the administration of the _WMF_ OTRS. WMF can use south-sudanese contractors to run it if it pleases, or a chapter, or whoever, it's the same: all the responsibilities stay at WMF. Yes.. sure organizing local OTRS system is up to the local chapters, but bear in mind we are talking about official E-mail addresses of relevant Wikimedia projects. The personal data included in these E-mails is subject of WMF privacy policy: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_data_policy E-mails sent to OTRS contain quite often very fragile personal data - such as real names of editors, home addresses, phone numbers etc. And I guess WMF will never let to operate it or store by any third party including chapters. -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.cbmm.lodz.pl/work.php?id=29title=tomasz-ganicz ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
I am sorry for breaking threading; my undigestify plugin is giving me an error. I'm looking at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622 -- Upgrade Wikimedia OTRS installation from 2.4.x CVS to the latest version (3.2.1) -- and I see that Wikimedia Foundation's Rob Halsell has been trying to get in touch with Martin Edenhofer, the OTRS inventor, to get him onto the next step of helping out. If anyone knows Edenhofer and can ask him to reply, that would be great, even if it's just to say sorry but this isn't something I can take on. Resolving that will reduce the cookie-licking http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Licking and make it easier for others to coordinate. I believe one thing that's needed is a clear commitment or confirmation from the Foundation -- do we plan to upgrade or replace OTRS, or not? If so, what is our timeframe? I've asked CT Woo, head of WMF Operations, to please comment on the bug or on the list. Since there are security implications, I've also notified our Security Engineer, Chris Steipp, to remind him of the current situation. And another thing that's needed is clarity from WMF Legal on whether it would be okay for a chapter or other affiliated group to work on upgrading/moving/hosting/switching from OTRS, and whether there are EU data privacy restrictions. So I've asked Legal for comment. Once we understand that better, I can help Peter Gervai and Madman get going, whether to help with an in-place upgrade, a move, or something else; thank you so much for your offer! Rjd0060, thanks for the link to open bugs in WMF's Bugzilla about OTRS problems https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia. I've asked our Bug Wrangler, Andre Klapper, and our bug wrangling intern Valerie Juarez, to take a look at those tickets just to double-check their priority so it's clear what problems the out-of-date OTRS system is causing. I've also emailed labs-l to follow up on Madman's question regarding the status of https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Otrs (the OTRS Labs project). Thomas Morton, if you can forward me the note where the WMF promised an update to OTRS early this year, that would be great to help me chase this down. :-) I am glad that people have been bringing this up and pushing for a better toolset and experience for our volunteers. Hope I can help. -- Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Just a quick reply: We have been in touch with Martin Edenhofer a few months ago and I will try to reach out to him today. Best, Nicole On 21 February 2013 13:07, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: I am sorry for breaking threading; my undigestify plugin is giving me an error. I'm looking at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622 -- Upgrade Wikimedia OTRS installation from 2.4.x CVS to the latest version (3.2.1) -- and I see that Wikimedia Foundation's Rob Halsell has been trying to get in touch with Martin Edenhofer, the OTRS inventor, to get him onto the next step of helping out. If anyone knows Edenhofer and can ask him to reply, that would be great, even if it's just to say sorry but this isn't something I can take on. Resolving that will reduce the cookie-licking http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Licking and make it easier for others to coordinate. I believe one thing that's needed is a clear commitment or confirmation from the Foundation -- do we plan to upgrade or replace OTRS, or not? If so, what is our timeframe? I've asked CT Woo, head of WMF Operations, to please comment on the bug or on the list. Since there are security implications, I've also notified our Security Engineer, Chris Steipp, to remind him of the current situation. And another thing that's needed is clarity from WMF Legal on whether it would be okay for a chapter or other affiliated group to work on upgrading/moving/hosting/switching from OTRS, and whether there are EU data privacy restrictions. So I've asked Legal for comment. Once we understand that better, I can help Peter Gervai and Madman get going, whether to help with an in-place upgrade, a move, or something else; thank you so much for your offer! Rjd0060, thanks for the link to open bugs in WMF's Bugzilla about OTRS problems https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia. I've asked our Bug Wrangler, Andre Klapper, and our bug wrangling intern Valerie Juarez, to take a look at those tickets just to double-check their priority so it's clear what problems the out-of-date OTRS system is causing. I've also emailed labs-l to follow up on Madman's question regarding the status of https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Otrs (the OTRS Labs project). Thomas Morton, if you can forward me the note where the WMF promised an update to OTRS early this year, that would be great to help me chase this down. :-) I am glad that people have been bringing this up and pushing for a better toolset and experience for our volunteers. Hope I can help. -- Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Nicole Ebber International Affairs Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49 30 219158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On 21 February 2013 12:07, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: [Sumana does ALL THE THINGS] This is a wonderful response. Thank you! - d. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Thanks Sumana, For legal reason , WMCH, as fundraising processor, had to get its own OTRS system and queues, if it's a Movement request supported by the Foundation , we will be more than happy to participate and support the development of an alternative host by a chapter or the chapter association or whatever… Sincerely Charles ___ I use this email for mailing list only. Charles ANDRES, Chairman Wikimedia CH – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch Le 21 févr. 2013 à 13:07, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org a écrit : I am sorry for breaking threading; my undigestify plugin is giving me an error. I'm looking at https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622 -- Upgrade Wikimedia OTRS installation from 2.4.x CVS to the latest version (3.2.1) -- and I see that Wikimedia Foundation's Rob Halsell has been trying to get in touch with Martin Edenhofer, the OTRS inventor, to get him onto the next step of helping out. If anyone knows Edenhofer and can ask him to reply, that would be great, even if it's just to say sorry but this isn't something I can take on. Resolving that will reduce the cookie-licking http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Licking and make it easier for others to coordinate. I believe one thing that's needed is a clear commitment or confirmation from the Foundation -- do we plan to upgrade or replace OTRS, or not? If so, what is our timeframe? I've asked CT Woo, head of WMF Operations, to please comment on the bug or on the list. Since there are security implications, I've also notified our Security Engineer, Chris Steipp, to remind him of the current situation. And another thing that's needed is clarity from WMF Legal on whether it would be okay for a chapter or other affiliated group to work on upgrading/moving/hosting/switching from OTRS, and whether there are EU data privacy restrictions. So I've asked Legal for comment. Once we understand that better, I can help Peter Gervai and Madman get going, whether to help with an in-place upgrade, a move, or something else; thank you so much for your offer! Rjd0060, thanks for the link to open bugs in WMF's Bugzilla about OTRS problems https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia. I've asked our Bug Wrangler, Andre Klapper, and our bug wrangling intern Valerie Juarez, to take a look at those tickets just to double-check their priority so it's clear what problems the out-of-date OTRS system is causing. I've also emailed labs-l to follow up on Madman's question regarding the status of https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Otrs (the OTRS Labs project). Thomas Morton, if you can forward me the note where the WMF promised an update to OTRS early this year, that would be great to help me chase this down. :-) I am glad that people have been bringing this up and pushing for a better toolset and experience for our volunteers. Hope I can help. -- Sumana Harihareswara Engineering Community Manager Wikimedia Foundation ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
David Gerard wrote: On 21 February 2013 12:07, Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org wrote: [Sumana does ALL THE THINGS] This is a wonderful response. Thank you! Completely agreed. Thank you, Sumana! It seems like we're headed in a good direction. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 11:54 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: [Sumana does ALL THE THINGS] This is a wonderful response. Thank you! Completely agreed. Thank you, Sumana! It seems like we're headed in a good direction. Yes, Sumana. I look forward to seeing what information your work can bring us. Whether the software is upgraded, changed or clean-installed...it really doesn't matter on our end of things. Any of these options would likely improve things on both the part of the volunteers using the system, and the ops team maintaining it. -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
I get very exasperated when the WMF says it does not have the money for something . Since it is spends only 1/2 of its annual receipts, it has the money; The actual meaning of the statement is that the WMF does not think the project of high enough priority to do, and would prefer to add the money to its reserves rather than spend it. (I agree that the Foundation ought to build up a reserve, but devoting so much of its financial resources to the purpose is not a reasonable decision). That it does not have the human resources is another matter, and a real concern. It is of course related: unless it uses its money to hire technically qualified people who understand the needs of WP, it never wiil have suitable staff for the requirements of the project. But even with this limitation, projects for work that is not intrinsically unique to Wikipedia can be outsourced. That individual people and chapters are not only willing but eager to fill its deficiencies is what keeps the overall project going. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- David Goodman DGG at the enWP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
In fairness to the WMF tech team, and without totally absolving them of delays, it looks like a lot of the delay has been related to problems contacting and exchanging information with the OTRS inventor. Not that the WMF couldn't have put more energy into staying in touch with him, but it's worth noting they have made periodic efforts to work with him on an upgrade. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On 21/02/13 07:19, [[w:en:User:Madman]] wrote: Does anyone know what the status is of the OTRS project on Labs? Given a contact, I'd be happy to do what I can to help; I have some limited experience configuring/deploying OTRS (up until the end of the 3.0 branch last year, nothing with 3.1 or 3.2 unfortunately). I think opportunities for *volunteer* help have to consciously be maximized, especially for volunteers who are or are willing to be agents and/or identified to the Foundation. It's not going to get done otherwise. -Madman/ea I don't see much future in that, sadly. Yes, a puppetization from a volunteer could help the WMF, however they won't give you access to the current setup that you would be replicating. And that's a point that has been barring any volunteer help for years on this topic. Only ops can work on it, but nobody is assigned to otrs, and they have other tasks. There's a mixture of technical needs, legal issues and too-risky-to-touch it. Then Martin Edenhofer appeared offering to help with it, but there was delay after dealy: a NDA is needed, then separate machines, later he needs to provide the ssh key... And no work is done. On 21/02/13 07:32, James Alexander wrote: Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. OTRS is the public face of not only the projects but the foundation in general and answers an absolutely insane amount of email every year and that has been the case for a while. When I first started applying to work at the foundation my big interview ended up being about 8 hours (with a liquor break in the middle) explaining to Philippe how I thought OTRS needed to be replaced. I thought, and continue to think, that the system underserves the job and we would be better served with something else that could take much better advantage of modern advancements and clarity in purpose. Sadly at the time they didn't have the money for me to work on OTRS (and so I came to do the fundraiser) and since then I have heard rumors of it's upgrade or replacement every single year (multiple times) only to be told later that the resources aren't available. I've seen us look at the upgrade multiple times, I've heard it be called both new ceiling wax and cake frosting but not necessarily called a good option. It may be, I don't know and we (as usual with outside products) overwork it beyond measure. Even the professional OTRS folks when we were talking to them about helping upgrade basically said errr, you have HOW much in the database? and told us to just abandon it and start fresh with their new version. That said even their internal OTRS version wasn't upgraded yet last year We need to do something though, it is disappointing to me that it hasn't been a bigger priority because I think it should have been and I think it should be now. I'm not sure if an OTRS upgrade is the best option... but it is probably better then what we have. For a long while I thought we should wait and not upgrade so that we can just replace it... but clearly it's been too long for that now. James Thanks for your insight, James. It's very interesting. As you have dealt with it, can you clarify why is the upgrade such a big problem? Yes, we have tons of emails. So what? Does the upgrade use O(2^N) operations?? Even if not-too-efficient, I would expect the upgrade to have finished in three years :) I don't even know about a test upgrade being performed ever. I agree that OTRS is kind-of inefficient. We could easily build a replacement in 1-2 months *keeping the old data*. If OTRS works quite well on a single server, just imagine what we could do in a multiple server setup. I find hard that such version would perform worse. Not to mention the “handy” improvements we could add based on our usage. But just a newer OTRS version would be an improvement. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Martin has answered my email and just left a comment on https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=22622. I'll get him in touch with Sumana via E-Mail. Hope this helps, best regards, Nicole On 21 February 2013 21:37, Platonides platoni...@gmail.com wrote: On 21/02/13 07:19, [[w:en:User:Madman]] wrote: Does anyone know what the status is of the OTRS project on Labs? Given a contact, I'd be happy to do what I can to help; I have some limited experience configuring/deploying OTRS (up until the end of the 3.0 branch last year, nothing with 3.1 or 3.2 unfortunately). I think opportunities for *volunteer* help have to consciously be maximized, especially for volunteers who are or are willing to be agents and/or identified to the Foundation. It's not going to get done otherwise. -Madman/ea I don't see much future in that, sadly. Yes, a puppetization from a volunteer could help the WMF, however they won't give you access to the current setup that you would be replicating. And that's a point that has been barring any volunteer help for years on this topic. Only ops can work on it, but nobody is assigned to otrs, and they have other tasks. There's a mixture of technical needs, legal issues and too-risky-to-touch it. Then Martin Edenhofer appeared offering to help with it, but there was delay after dealy: a NDA is needed, then separate machines, later he needs to provide the ssh key... And no work is done. On 21/02/13 07:32, James Alexander wrote: Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. OTRS is the public face of not only the projects but the foundation in general and answers an absolutely insane amount of email every year and that has been the case for a while. When I first started applying to work at the foundation my big interview ended up being about 8 hours (with a liquor break in the middle) explaining to Philippe how I thought OTRS needed to be replaced. I thought, and continue to think, that the system underserves the job and we would be better served with something else that could take much better advantage of modern advancements and clarity in purpose. Sadly at the time they didn't have the money for me to work on OTRS (and so I came to do the fundraiser) and since then I have heard rumors of it's upgrade or replacement every single year (multiple times) only to be told later that the resources aren't available. I've seen us look at the upgrade multiple times, I've heard it be called both new ceiling wax and cake frosting but not necessarily called a good option. It may be, I don't know and we (as usual with outside products) overwork it beyond measure. Even the professional OTRS folks when we were talking to them about helping upgrade basically said errr, you have HOW much in the database? and told us to just abandon it and start fresh with their new version. That said even their internal OTRS version wasn't upgraded yet last year We need to do something though, it is disappointing to me that it hasn't been a bigger priority because I think it should have been and I think it should be now. I'm not sure if an OTRS upgrade is the best option... but it is probably better then what we have. For a long while I thought we should wait and not upgrade so that we can just replace it... but clearly it's been too long for that now. James Thanks for your insight, James. It's very interesting. As you have dealt with it, can you clarify why is the upgrade such a big problem? Yes, we have tons of emails. So what? Does the upgrade use O(2^N) operations?? Even if not-too-efficient, I would expect the upgrade to have finished in three years :) I don't even know about a test upgrade being performed ever. I agree that OTRS is kind-of inefficient. We could easily build a replacement in 1-2 months *keeping the old data*. If OTRS works quite well on a single server, just imagine what we could do in a multiple server setup. I find hard that such version would perform worse. Not to mention the “handy” improvements we could add based on our usage. But just a newer OTRS version would be an improvement. ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l -- Nicole Ebber International Affairs Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 72 | 10963 Berlin Tel. +49 30 219158 26-0 http://wikimedia.de Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer
[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
This could be a good project for one of the developing MediaWiki Groups. MediaWiki Group San Francisco is already approved by AffCom and eligible for grants. -greg aka varnent On 20 Feb, 2013, at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator for much of that time. As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the OTRS team has been dealing with. As MZMcBride points out, there are a number of reasons why the software needs to be updated. Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35 languages.[1] This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we should have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and other problems.[2] While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have thought that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough for somebody to give some much needed attention to. [1] - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-volunteer-response-team/ [2] - https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
+1, the interface still confuses me at somepoints today. But I have to ask, are we getting everything we need with an OTRS update to the new version, or are we settling for a medioker (excuse my spelling, it is late). Is it a better idea to have wikimedians (maybe through grants, idk) build something open source and cc-whatever? That way fixes can be made and we can get many devs (broad sense of the term) fixing bugs of a new system. DeltaQuad - Mobile phone English Wikipedia Administrator and Checkuser On Feb 20, 2013 11:35 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator for much of that time. As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the OTRS team has been dealing with. As MZMcBride points out, there are a number of reasons why the software needs to be updated. Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35 languages.[1] This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we should have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and other problems.[2] While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have thought that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough for somebody to give some much needed attention to. [1] - https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-volunteer-response-team/ [2] - https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEWbug_status=ASSIGNEDbug_status=REOPENEDcomponent=OTRSproduct=Wikimedia -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:34 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.w...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: Hi. OTRS (https://ticket.wikimedia.org/) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this e-mail. Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors, this has become an untenable solution. Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting this software any longer. Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere. MZMcBride I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator for much of that time. As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the OTRS team has been dealing with. As MZMcBride points out, there are a number of reasons why the software needs to be updated. To clarify, the Foundation support that would be appreciated here is from the tech/ops group. We've had good response from other staff on related issues, and that is much appreciated. -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.w...@gmail.com wrote: To clarify, the Foundation support that would be appreciated here is from the tech/ops group. We've had good response from other staff on related issues, and that is much appreciated. -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 To clarify even further, from my perspective: I've been an Volunteer Response Team agent since 2009, and a leader (OTRS admin) since 2010. In that time the control of OTRS moved from a function that had a designated staff role of control to one of community management. In the past two and a half years Philippe has been our contact for support from the Wikimedia Foundation, and he has done a fantastic job supporting myself and the time with advice and Foundation resources as they have been gathered. Over the past year, Maggie Dennis has transitioned into this role as the Foundation rep for OTRS. She has done an equally wonderful job in being proactive and helping us with our thoughts and needs. I would in no way construe the support we've gotten from LCA than anything less than they have to give as far as they have been able to get us. Yes, that is a very long sentence. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 12:18 AM, DeltaQuad Wikipedia deltaquadw...@gmail.com wrote: Is it a better idea to have wikimedians (maybe through grants, idk) build something open source and cc-whatever? That way fixes can be made and we can get many devs (broad sense of the term) fixing bugs of a new system. OTRS is open source. The letters OTRS themselves stand for Open-source ticket request system. -- Casey Brown (Cbrown1023) caseybrown.org ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
Keegan Peterzell wrote: I've been an Volunteer Response Team agent since 2009, and a leader (OTRS admin) since 2010. In that time the control of OTRS moved from a function that had a designated staff role of control to one of community management. In the past two and a half years Philippe has been our contact for support from the Wikimedia Foundation, and he has done a fantastic job supporting myself and the time with advice and Foundation resources as they have been gathered. Over the past year, Maggie Dennis has transitioned into this role as the Foundation rep for OTRS. She has done an equally wonderful job in being proactive and helping us with our thoughts and needs. I don't have much interaction with either on a daily basis, but I can certainly say that it seems to be purely in terms of technical (software) support where we're seeing an issue right now. The non-technical support has been great, particularly since Maggie joined, from what I'm told. But OTRS is ultimately a big piece of software. Maybe the Wikimedia Foundation can buy a support contract for it if nobody is willing/able to support/maintain it internally? Or maybe that's something a chapter or grant could do? Dunno. I think any option is on the table right now. This also isn't a criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering folks. They've got plenty on their plate as well, of course. But _somebody_ has to be supporting the technical portion of OTRS. If the Wikimedia Foundation can't/won't, someone else has to step in. That's where I thought the chapters or another movement player might be an option. Gregory Varnum wrote: This could be a good project for one of the developing MediaWiki Groups. MediaWiki Group San Francisco is already approved by AffCom and eligible for grants. If they're willing to make a commitment to support it for at least a few years (you don't really want to be moving infrastructure around all the time, I don't think), I think this is workable. It's just a matter of pointing where the e-mail is sent, as I understand it. And then maintaining whatever solution you pick/build that manages the e-mail. MZMcBride ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 12:02 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: But OTRS is ultimately a big piece of software. Maybe the Wikimedia Foundation can buy a support contract for it if nobody is willing/able to support/maintain it internally? Or maybe that's something a chapter or grant could do? Dunno. I think any option is on the table right now. This also isn't a criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering folks. They've got plenty on their plate as well, of course. But _somebody_ has to be supporting the technical portion of OTRS. If the Wikimedia Foundation can't/won't, someone else has to step in. That's where I thought the chapters or another movement player might be an option. Absolutely agree with the sentiment. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 1:02 AM, MZMcBride z...@mzmcbride.com wrote: This also isn't a criticism of the Wikimedia Foundation engineering folks. They've got plenty on their plate as well, of course. But _somebody_ has to be supporting the technical portion of OTRS. If the Wikimedia Foundation can't/won't, someone else has to step in. That's where I thought the chapters or another movement player might be an option. Does anyone know what the status is of the OTRS project on Labs? Given a contact, I'd be happy to do what I can to help; I have some limited experience configuring/deploying OTRS (up until the end of the 3.0 branch last year, nothing with 3.1 or 3.2 unfortunately). I think opportunities for *volunteer* help have to consciously be maximized, especially for volunteers who are or are willing to be agents and/or identified to the Foundation. It's not going to get done otherwise. -Madman/ea ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 9:47 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.w...@gmail.comwrote: On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:36 PM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.w...@gmail.com wrote: To clarify, the Foundation support that would be appreciated here is from the tech/ops group. We've had good response from other staff on related issues, and that is much appreciated. -- Ryan User:Rjd0060 To clarify even further, from my perspective: I've been an Volunteer Response Team agent since 2009, and a leader (OTRS admin) since 2010. In that time the control of OTRS moved from a function that had a designated staff role of control to one of community management. In the past two and a half years Philippe has been our contact for support from the Wikimedia Foundation, and he has done a fantastic job supporting myself and the time with advice and Foundation resources as they have been gathered. Over the past year, Maggie Dennis has transitioned into this role as the Foundation rep for OTRS. She has done an equally wonderful job in being proactive and helping us with our thoughts and needs. I would in no way construe the support we've gotten from LCA than anything less than they have to give as far as they have been able to get us. Yes, that is a very long sentence. -- ~Keegan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Yeah, I have to agree sadly that we need more tech support and this has been a thing that has been ongoing for a while. I personally think it should remain in the foundation for many reasons (the least of which is relatively large legal reasons) but we REALLY need to focus on it, or a replacement, more. OTRS is the public face of not only the projects but the foundation in general and answers an absolutely insane amount of email every year and that has been the case for a while. When I first started applying to work at the foundation my big interview ended up being about 8 hours (with a liquor break in the middle) explaining to Philippe how I thought OTRS needed to be replaced. I thought, and continue to think, that the system underserves the job and we would be better served with something else that could take much better advantage of modern advancements and clarity in purpose. Sadly at the time they didn't have the money for me to work on OTRS (and so I came to do the fundraiser) and since then I have heard rumors of it's upgrade or replacement every single year (multiple times) only to be told later that the resources aren't available. I've seen us look at the upgrade multiple times, I've heard it be called both new ceiling wax and cake frosting but not necessarily called a good option. It may be, I don't know and we (as usual with outside products) overwork it beyond measure. Even the professional OTRS folks when we were talking to them about helping upgrade basically said errr, you have HOW much in the database? and told us to just abandon it and start fresh with their new version. That said even their internal OTRS version wasn't upgraded yet last year We need to do something though, it is disappointing to me that it hasn't been a bigger priority because I think it should have been and I think it should be now. I'm not sure if an OTRS upgrade is the best option... but it is probably better then what we have. For a long while I thought we should wait and not upgrade so that we can just replace it... but clearly it's been too long for that now. James ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Re: [Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation's support of OTRS
This conversation should shift to meta sooner rather than later. I'm not on my PC, but perhaps /Talk:OTRS/Software? ~ Keegan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan ___ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
