Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Gergo Tisza]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 2:46 AM, Andrea Zanni 
wrote:

> 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?
>

I put some ideas about such a tool at
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T88620
Feedback would be appreciated.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Quarterly reviews of high priority WMF initiatives

[Tilman Bayer]

Minutes and slides from last week's quarterly review of the
Foundation's Editing (formerly VisualEditor) team await perusal at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/Editing/January_2015
.

On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 6:49 PM, Erik Moeller  wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> to increase accountability and create more opportunities for course
> corrections and resourcing adjustments as necessary, Sue's asked me
> and Howie Fung to set up a quarterly project evaluation process,
> starting with our highest priority initiatives. These are, according
> to Sue's narrowing focus recommendations which were approved by the
> Board [1]:
>
> - Visual Editor
> - Mobile (mobile contributions + Wikipedia Zero)
> - Editor Engagement (also known as the E2 and E3 teams)
> - Funds Dissemination Committe and expanded grant-making capacity
>
> I'm proposing the following initial schedule:
>
> January:
> - Editor Engagement Experiments
>
> February:
> - Visual Editor
> - Mobile (Contribs + Zero)
>
> March:
> - Editor Engagement Features (Echo, Flow projects)
> - Funds Dissemination Committee
>
> We’ll try doing this on the same day or adjacent to the monthly
> metrics meetings [2], since the team(s) will give a presentation on
> their recent progress, which will help set some context that would
> otherwise need to be covered in the quarterly review itself. This will
> also create open opportunities for feedback and questions.
>
> My goal is to do this in a manner where even though the quarterly
> review meetings themselves are internal, the outcomes are captured as
> meeting minutes and shared publicly, which is why I'm starting this
> discussion on a public list as well. I've created a wiki page here
> which we can use to discuss the concept further:
>
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews
>
> The internal review will, at minimum, include:
>
> Sue Gardner
> myself
> Howie Fung
> Team members and relevant director(s)
> Designated minute-taker
>
> So for example, for Visual Editor, the review team would be the Visual
> Editor / Parsoid teams, Sue, me, Howie, Terry, and a minute-taker.
>
> I imagine the structure of the review roughly as follows, with a
> duration of about 2 1/2 hours divided into 25-30 minute blocks:
>
> - Brief team intro and recap of team's activities through the quarter,
> compared with goals
> - Drill into goals and targets: Did we achieve what we said we would?
> - Review of challenges, blockers and successes
> - Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other
> action items
> - Buffer time, debriefing
>
> Once again, the primary purpose of these reviews is to create improved
> structures for internal accountability, escalation points in cases
> where serious changes are necessary, and transparency to the world.
>
> In addition to these priority initiatives, my recommendation would be
> to conduct quarterly reviews for any activity that requires more than
> a set amount of resources (people/dollars). These additional reviews
> may however be conducted in a more lightweight manner and internally
> to the departments. We’re slowly getting into that habit in
> engineering.
>
> As we pilot this process, the format of the high priority reviews can
> help inform and support reviews across the organization.
>
> Feedback and questions are appreciated.
>
> All best,
> Erik
>
> [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus
> [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
> --
> Erik Möller
> VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>
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-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Education Extension

[Pine W]

Hi Anna,

In the long run I think it would be beneficial to move at least some of the
content of Outreach into LPL where it would be easier to search.

Perhaps you can enlighten me about the purpose of keeping Outreach separate
from Meta. I think the idea is that Outreach is easier to navigate for
outsiders than Meta is. However we could redirect outreach.wikimedia.org to
a namespace on Meta that is similar to the Grants namespace with a
restricted search option. Particularly after the recent LPL upgrades, I
think it would be good to consider fully merging Outreach into Meta. What
do you think?

Pine
On Feb 4, 2015 6:35 AM, "Anna Koval"  wrote:

> Dear Nemo,
>
> There is, of course, other documentation on mediawiki already.
>
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Education_Program
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program
>
> However, having additional how-to type pages in the help namespace is a
> great idea. I didn't realize that there were not already any help pages on
> mediawiki about the education program extension. Thank you for pointing
> that out. We can plan to add some.
>
> It is my understanding that Meta and Outreach wikis actually are
> appropriate places to share information about the this extension in these
> contexts.
>
> On Meta wiki, that page is part of the Learning Pattern Library, and as
> such, it explains a "problem" that the extension "solves".
>
> On Outreach wiki, that page provides information for education program
> volunteers who might be wish to more learn about it in order to work with
> their communities to enable it on their projects.
>
> It is true that much of the information, on Outreach, in particular, is
> somewhat technical in nature, and somewhat duplicative of information that
> is available on mediawiki.org, but that is that something I am working on
> updating and improving. I welcome your input on that process; we could
> discuss it on the talk page.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Anna
>
> --
>
> Anna Koval, M.Ed.
> Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
> Wikimedia Foundation
> +1.415.839.6885 x6729
> ako...@wikimedia.org
> education.wikimedia.org
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 11:12 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
> wrote:
>
> > Samir Elsharbaty, 04/02/2015 03:08:
> >
> >> It seems that the
> >> extension already covers most of what was suggested here:
> >>
> >>  - A teacher or wiki-mentor could make a shared watchlist of their
> >>>   student's draft pages.
> >>> - An editathon organiser could create a shared watchlist of all the
> >>>   articles within the scope of the event.
> >>> - A wikiproject could create several shared watchlists to group related
> >>>   articles for members to more easily monitor.
> >>> - probably many other use-cases that might emerge...
> >>>
> >>
> > Ah, does it. My understanding is that this has been considered feature
> > bloat, to be removed in a rewrite of the extension.
> > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_campaigns
> >
> > If it works for you, however, it can hopefully scale. I suggest that you
> > comment on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Gather to suggest they
> > split the shared watchlist feature out of the Education extension
> >
> >
> >> If this is the case why shall we have a new extension with the same
> >> features?
> >>
> >> Please have a look at this page which covers the features and use of the
> >> Ed
> >> extension:
> >> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Extension
> >>
> >> Also this learning pattern would help understanding how it works:
> >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/
> >> Using_the_education_extension
> >>
> >
> > These are not appropriate places for documentation of a MediaWiki
> > extension. Please move to the Help namespace of mediawiki.org.
> >
> > Nemo
> >
> >
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] statistics of usage of wikimedia project per language used in the interface

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

charles andrès (WMCH), 04/02/2015 14:25:

Is there a way to know how many people use Wikipedia per interface language?


No.


Said in other words, I want to know how many people display the Wikimedia 
project interface in the different version of German and Alemannisch.


Until https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T58464 is fixed (hopefully in 
this decade), the requests with non-default language are negligible.* 
What makes you think that you need such a level of precision and 
https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyCombined.htm is not 
enough?


Once the use case for such precise numbers is clarified, probably we can 
extract exact data with a method similar to 
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T65416 after it's fixed (hopefully 
this year; the bug has made localisation and new subdomain requests 
practically impossible or unfeasible in dozens languages, for many 
months now).


Nemo

(*) Even considering the sum of requests with uselang parameter** and of 
registered users with a non-default language choice in preferences.
(**) Even in Commons, despite all the uselang-specific incoming links 
and the language selection gadget.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Jeevan Jose]

An there is much stress for our volunteer (unpaid) job too. I definitely
need to slow down:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Request_to_confirm_release_from_the_artist.2C_rather_than_the_gallery_-_Joep_van_Liefland

Regards,
Jee

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Michael Maggs  wrote:

> I mentioned a few basic things in my previous email. There's probably
> little point in my writing a comprehensive wish list unless you or some
> other volunteer can agree to work on providing an API against which a tool
> could be written.
>
> Michael
>
> Michael
> >> On 4 Feb 2015, at 12:19, Krd  wrote:
> >>
> >> Am 02/04/15 um 13:14 schrieb Michael Maggs:
> >> Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies
> >> only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the
> >> information that should I think be available.
> >
> > ...which is in detail?
> >
> >
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[Wikimedia-l] [Wikimediach-l] Announcement: Micro-Grants of Wikimedia CH

[Muriel Staub]

Hi everyone,

FYI:
Wikimedia CH launches its micro-grants program for 2015. 
Please find below the message that we were sending out today to announce this 
to our communities. 

What might be a matter of particular interest to you: 
In order to be eligible for a WMCH micro-grant (1- 500CHF ≈ 1 - 540USD ), 
people must 
* be active in a Wikimedia project in one of the Swiss languages (German, 
French, Italian or Romansh) 
* AND coming from Switzerland
** OR coming from a country with no Wikimedia chapter
** OR a country with a Wikimedia chapter not receiving FDC funding (e.g. no 
unrestricted grant)

Best wishes and in case you have any questions, please get back to us.
Muriel for Wikimedia CH

Anfang der weitergeleiteten Nachricht:

> Von: Muriel Staub 
> Betreff: [Wikimediach-l] Announcement: Micro-Grants
> Datum: 4. Februar 2015 13:25:46 MEZ
> An: Wikimedians in Switzerland 
> Antwort an: Wikimedians in Switzerland 
> 
> Liebe Wikimedianer/innen in der Schweiz,
> 
> wir freuen uns, hiermit das Micro-Grants Programm von Wikimedia CH für das 
> Jahr 2015 zu lancieren. 
> Falls du in einem Wikimedia Projekt aktiv bist und ein kleines Budget 
> brauchst, um eine bestimmte Aktivität oder ein Projekt umzusetzen, kannst du 
> mit Hilfe des folgenden Links einen Antrag dafür einreichen: 
> 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH/Micro-Grant/de
> 
> Auf dieser Seite auf Meta findest du auch alle weiteren Informationen, die 
> dir in Bezug auf einen erfolgreichen Antrag für ein Mikro-Budget 
> weiterhelfen, und zwar in deutscher, französischer, italienischer und 
> englischer Sprache. 
> 
> Falls du Fragen hast oder deine Idee besprechen möchtest, wende dich gerne an 
> die Community Liaisons von Wikimedia CH. 
> 
> Dein Wikimedia CH Team
> 
> ——
> Chers Wikimédiens de Suisse,
> 
> Nous sommes heureux de vous annoncer le lancement du programme des 
> Micro-grants de Wikimédia CH pour l'année 2015.
> Si vous êtes un Wikimédien actif et que vous avez besoin d'un micro-budget 
> pour mettre en place une activité qui impactera un projet Wikimédia, vous 
> pouvez soumettre votre requête sur Meta via le lien suivant:
> 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH/Micro-Grant/fr
> 
> De plus, vous y trouverez des informations supplémentaires pour soumettre 
> votre demande en allemand, en français, en italien ainsi qu'en anglais.
> 
> En dernier lieu, sachez que les coordinateurs régionaux de Wikimédia CH se 
> tiennent à votre disposition pour échanger sur vos idées et répondre à vos 
> questions.
> 
> Cordialement,
> Wikimédia CH
> 
> ——
> Cari Wikimediani della Svizzera
> 
> Vi informiamo stiamo lanciando il nostro programma di Micro-grants per 2015.
> Se sei un Wikimediano attivo ed hai bisogno di un micro-budget per realizzare 
> le attività che abbiano un impatto sui progetti Wikimedia, basta inviare la 
> richiesta su Meta:
> 
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH/Micro-Grant/it
> 
> Su Meta si possono trovare ulteriori informazioni in italiano, francese, 
> tedesco, e inglese.
> 
> Infine i Community Managers di Wikimedia CH sono a vostra disposizione per 
> domande e per discutere le vostre idee. 
> 
> I nostri migliori saluti,
> Wikimedia CH
> 
> ——
> Dear Wikimedians in Switzerland
> 
> We’re glad to inform you that we launch the Micro-grants Program of Wikimedia 
> CH for 2015. 
> If you’re an active Wikimedian and you need a micro-budget to realize an 
> activity or a project with an impact on a Wikimedia Project, submit your 
> request on Meta with the help of the following link:
> 
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH/Micro-Grant
> 
> On Meta you’ll also find all further information that you need to 
> successfully apply in german, french, italian and english language.
> 
> Last but not least, the Community Liaisons of Wikimedia CH are glad to answer 
> your questions or to discuss your idea beforehand. 
> 
> Our very best wishes,
> Wikimedia CH
> 
> ___
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> Wikimediach-l mailing list
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediach-l







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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Michael Maggs]

I mentioned a few basic things in my previous email. There's probably little 
point in my writing a comprehensive wish list unless you or some other 
volunteer can agree to work on providing an API against which a tool could be 
written. 

Michael 

Michael 
>> On 4 Feb 2015, at 12:19, Krd  wrote:
>> 
>> Am 02/04/15 um 13:14 schrieb Michael Maggs:
>> Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies
>> only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the
>> information that should I think be available.
> 
> ...which is in detail?
> 
> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Education Extension

[Anna Koval]

Dear Nemo,

There is, of course, other documentation on mediawiki already.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Education_Program
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program

However, having additional how-to type pages in the help namespace is a
great idea. I didn't realize that there were not already any help pages on
mediawiki about the education program extension. Thank you for pointing
that out. We can plan to add some.

It is my understanding that Meta and Outreach wikis actually are
appropriate places to share information about the this extension in these
contexts.

On Meta wiki, that page is part of the Learning Pattern Library, and as
such, it explains a "problem" that the extension "solves".

On Outreach wiki, that page provides information for education program
volunteers who might be wish to more learn about it in order to work with
their communities to enable it on their projects.

It is true that much of the information, on Outreach, in particular, is
somewhat technical in nature, and somewhat duplicative of information that
is available on mediawiki.org, but that is that something I am working on
updating and improving. I welcome your input on that process; we could
discuss it on the talk page.

Kind regards,

Anna

--

Anna Koval, M.Ed.
Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 x6729
ako...@wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 11:12 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) 
wrote:

> Samir Elsharbaty, 04/02/2015 03:08:
>
>> It seems that the
>> extension already covers most of what was suggested here:
>>
>>  - A teacher or wiki-mentor could make a shared watchlist of their
>>>   student's draft pages.
>>> - An editathon organiser could create a shared watchlist of all the
>>>   articles within the scope of the event.
>>> - A wikiproject could create several shared watchlists to group related
>>>   articles for members to more easily monitor.
>>> - probably many other use-cases that might emerge...
>>>
>>
> Ah, does it. My understanding is that this has been considered feature
> bloat, to be removed in a rewrite of the extension.
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Editor_campaigns
>
> If it works for you, however, it can hopefully scale. I suggest that you
> comment on https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Gather to suggest they
> split the shared watchlist feature out of the Education extension
>
>
>> If this is the case why shall we have a new extension with the same
>> features?
>>
>> Please have a look at this page which covers the features and use of the
>> Ed
>> extension:
>> https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Extension
>>
>> Also this learning pattern would help understanding how it works:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/
>> Using_the_education_extension
>>
>
> These are not appropriate places for documentation of a MediaWiki
> extension. Please move to the Help namespace of mediawiki.org.
>
> Nemo
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[James Heilman]

I applied for OTRS a while back and was turned down. Not sure why. I have
arranged the release of 10s of thousands of medical images and uploaded
nearly a thousand myself. Am involved in dozens of collaborations with like
minded organizations and I have a good grasp of copyright. Anyway I now
have someone to ping when I need a faster response.

-- 
James Heilman
MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian

The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine
www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[pajz]

Hi Andreas and others,

On 4 February 2015 at 12:31, Andreas Kolbe  wrote:

> Just for the avoidance of doubt – when you say these e-mails "can take up
> to an hour to process", I presume you mean that it takes one hour just to
> read them and understand the complaint. Am I understanding you correctly?


I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, yeah.

I'd like to second Michael Maggs' suggestion – having real-time statistics
> on OTRS queues available online would aid visibility and transparency
> (assuming such data aren't publicly available already some place I am
> unaware of). It might also help recruitment, and bring in volunteers to
> help with backlogs and bottlenecks.


Yes, I agree with that. Incidentally, Krd just made an attempt at
implementing something like that (i.e. "live"-reporting the queue size) a
few days (weeks?) ago, and I've suggested we post this to Commons directly
rather than OTRS Wiki. It's pretty much experimental at the moment, and I
think needs some tweaks first (Krd can tell you more), but I imagine this
to be a file on Commons updated automatically on a daily basis, which can
then be transcluded from some maintenance page. That way, Commons
volunteers will get an idea of how permissions is doing at the moment.
Here's an example with up-to-date values:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g78un01dx3krxdm/State_of_the_permissions-commons_queues_in_the_last_4_weeks.png?dl=0
-- I think that's pretty cool (the graph, that is, not the backlog ...).

Now, as far as other metrics are concerned, it's something that we (as OTRS
admins) are working on, but also something that is not too easy given OTRS'
built-in reporting functionalities are so rudimentary, they can hardly be
used to produce anything meaningful. Starting this month, however, we'll
post monthly reports (rather than just an annual report), featuring first
response times, workload distributions and ticket load. These will be
posted with a bit of a delay (to be able to report the response time), i.e.
the January report is due at the beginning of March. Our annual report for
2014 -- which will be signicantly expanded vis-à-vis the 2013 doc -- will
be posted sometime during the next two weeks (an announcement will also be
sent to this list).

It's likely that there is quite some bid-ask spread when it comes to
getting good stats, but I very much welcome your suggestions.

Cheers,
Patrik
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[Wikimedia-l] statistics of usage of wikimedia project per language used in the interface

[WMCH]

Dear all, 
Is there a way to know how many people use Wikipedia per interface language? 
Said in other words, I want to know how many people display the Wikimedia 
project interface in the different version of German and Alemannisch.

Thanks for your help

Charles




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Charles ANDRES, Chief Science Officer
"Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
www.wikimedia.ch 
Skype: charles.andres.wmch
IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch 

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] New software; Gendergap; FOSDEM; Government collaboration

[Andreas Kolbe]

Thanks, Romaine. Your thoughts on the gender gap echo some of my own, as
expressed here:

http://wikipediocracy.com/2014/08/26/why-women-have-no-time-for-wikipedia/

I've taken the liberty of crossposting the relevant parts of your post to
the Gendergap list:

https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2015-February/005468.html

Best,
Andreas

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 3:38 AM, Romaine Wiki  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The past weekend was great! Wikimedia was at FOSDEM, the Free and Open
> Source Software Developers' European Meeting, organised as the university
> ULB in Brussels, Belgium! We had there a stand with flyers about Wikipedia,
> Wikimedia, Wikimedia Belgium, and a lot of goodies.
>
> In the Wikimedia movement we often discuss the Gendergap, as one of the
> gaps we have. Wikipedia/Wikimedia looks very much likes FOSDEM, but there
> the Gendergap is even larger. Wikipedia/Wikimedia needs a more social
> development, we need software which enables users to form groups in an easy
> way. The female contributors to Wikipedia do like two things: having in
> person meetings to socialize with other editors, and second they need more
> social software. The education extension is a primitive form of what is
> needed. We need an extension where users easily can form groups (namespace
> Groups: or something, used by an extension), where they easily can see the
> recent changes of edits of group members only, to be able to actively
> interact with other group members and having a long term participation in
> Wikipedia. Having software where users, interest groups or a group of
> editors from an external organisation can work together.
>
> To translate it for the tech community: Wikipedia needs a kind of
> *phabricator* with groups, tasks, assignments, and so on, but then for on
> Wikipedia itself.
>
> Yes, Wikipedia is not a social network, but we need to create an
> environment in what we enable people to have a collaboration on a more
> visible way (if people want to).
>
> That is my clear conclusion after this conference where I spoke with a lot
> of women about editing on Wikipedia, but also based on many project of the
> past years we organised.
>
>
> At FOSDEM I also spoke with someone from the Dutch government who is
> working on creating an open source free licensed dictionary for words that
> are used in specific parts of the government and they like to do a project
> with Wikimedia!
> They also like to re-use the data from Wiktionary, but they experienced
> that that was a bit difficult. So a large donation of words for Wiktionary
> is on its way!
>
>
> If anyone is interested to go to next years FOSDEM and want to help at the
> stand, where we also like to include more information about MediaWiki, let
> us know!
>
> Romaine
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Fæ]

If either a public API were implemented, or a mirror of the
(non-confidential parts at least) database were available on WMFlabs,
then volunteers could happily generate all sorts of reports and tools,
which would probably be far more effective than expecting WMF
development to create new reporting pages that are publicly visible
(noting that some non-public reports are available to those chosen for
OTRS access). This has all been raised before, so anyone with a
technical interest would do well to contribute to
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/wikimedia-otrs/ so that these
proposals can be prioritized.

As I'm one of the keen ex-volunteers bounced out of the system a few
months ago without any sensible explanation, it comes as no surprise
that there is a shortage of appropriately experienced volunteers that
can help with Commons image donations.

Fae

On 4 February 2015 at 12:19, Krd  wrote:
> ...which is in detail?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Krd]

Am 02/04/15 um 13:14 schrieb Michael Maggs:

Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies
only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the
information that should I think be available.


...which is in detail?


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Michael Maggs]

Or AWB, though neither option provides the sort of efficiency that is 
needed tio deal easily with the sort of issues that Tomasz mentions.


Michael


Jeevan Jose 
4 February 2015 12:01


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:VisualFileChange.js can be 
used for

mass edits.

Jee
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Tomasz Ganicz 
4 February 2015 11:03
Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass
upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be
added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool,
but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot
of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass
uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.

This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are
some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small 
programming

and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file. So
OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures -
are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail
but also 100 boring edits...

I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the
answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is
such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are
avoiding answering them.






James Heilman 
3 February 2015 04:52
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.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Michael Maggs]

Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies 
only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the 
information that should I think be available.


Michael


Krd 
4 February 2015 11:55
Hello.



You know https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog ?

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Michael Maggs 
4 February 2015 11:11
I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of 
statistics on the various OTRS queues in near-real time. At present 
there is no automated way to see on Commons or any of the Wikipedias 
that backlogs even exist, let alone see how they vary with time, what 
the average time to first response is, time to resolve/close etc.


It would be great if we had a template I could add to a Commons page 
so I could see this information every time I login.


Michael

Michael
Michael

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James Heilman 
3 February 2015 04:52
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.


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Jeevan Jose]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:33 PM, Tomasz Ganicz  wrote:

> Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass
> upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be
> added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool,
> but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot
> of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass
> uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.
>
> This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are
> some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small programming
> and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file.  So
> OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures -
> are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail
> but also 100 boring edits...
>
> I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the
> answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is
> such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are
> avoiding answering them.


https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:VisualFileChange.js can be used for
mass edits.

Jee
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Krd]

Hello.

Am 02/04/15 um 12:11 schrieb Michael Maggs:

I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of statistics 
on the various OTRS queues in near-real time.


You know https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog ?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Rjd0060  wrote:


> 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.



Just for the avoidance of doubt – when you say these e-mails "can take up
to an hour to process", I presume you mean that it takes one hour just to
read them and understand the complaint. Am I understanding you correctly?

Given the nature of the beast, I am sure you must sometimes be getting
lengthy (or repetitive) complaints of unclear merit that require
significant on-wiki and off-wiki investigation just to understand whether
the complaint is justified or not. And I imagine that coming up with an
appropriate response and identifying a suitable course of action is another
task altogether.

Bearing in mind that all of this is volunteer work, I'd assume that the
more difficult cases sometimes languish for want of an intrepid volunteer
happy to take them on.

In your experience, what is the median time between receipt of a
BLP-related e-mail complaint and a response being sent out, and what is the
maximum time it can take?



> 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.
>


I'd like to second Michael Maggs' suggestion – having real-time statistics
on OTRS queues available online would aid visibility and transparency
(assuming such data aren't publicly available already some place I am
unaware of). It might also help recruitment, and bring in volunteers to
help with backlogs and bottlenecks.

Andreas
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Michael Maggs]

I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of statistics 
on the various OTRS queues in near-real time. At present there is no automated 
way to see on Commons or any of the Wikipedias that backlogs even exist, let 
alone see how they vary with time, what the average time to first response is, 
time to resolve/close etc. 

It would be great if we had a template I could add to a Commons page so I could 
see this information every time I login. 

Michael 

Michael 
Michael 
> On 4 Feb 2015, at 10:46, Andrea Zanni  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  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., 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[George Herbert]

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  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  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 project

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Tomasz Ganicz]

Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass
upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be
added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool,
but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot
of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass
uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.

This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are
some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small programming
and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file.  So
OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures -
are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail
but also 100 boring edits...

I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the
answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is
such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are
avoiding answering them.



2015-02-04 11:46 GMT+01:00 Andrea Zanni :

> 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  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 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Pierre-Selim]

2015-02-04 11:46 GMT+01:00 Andrea Zanni :

> 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?
>
>
I would say:

   - Organize recruitements of new Agents (it can ben done by the community)
   - Organize training sessions (it can be done by the community and
   supported by WMF or Chapters)
   - Get a weekly summary of your OTRS queues in your inbox
   - Better software (I would put it last in priorities has it is a complex
   migration)

Sincerely,
Pierre-Selim


Aubrey
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060  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

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Andrea Zanni]

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  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  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://me

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Commons / OTRS is broken

[Rjd0060]

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  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
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
___
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
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