More OTRS agents would certainly help (any experienced Wikpedians, please do go
to meta:OTRS/volunteering if you can help). But lack of agents isn't the only
problem with OTRS. We're inundated (and that's not an exaggeration) with emails
we can't do anything about.
Many people email us with issues that can easily be resolved on-wiki or don't
realise that OTRS agents don't have superpowers and can't intervene in
disputes. We get rants, chain letters, and plain old spam (because the email
addresses are plastered all over the Internet). We get emails that we *can*
help with but end up taking up a lot of our time (I have a ticket that's been
open for over a year and I still get regular emails from the client). We get
all sorts of general enquires, feedback, and other things that probably should
go elsehwhere. It adds up to thousands of tickets a week. Try finding the
urgent BLP complaints amongst that lot, bearing in mind that OTRS agents are
volunteers and that we have other commitments on Wikipedia, not to mention in
real life.
I don't have a proposed solution, I'm just trying to let people knowwhat we're
up against.
So Andreas' suggestion of directing people to COIN makes a lot of sense
Harry Mitchell
http://enwp.org/User:HJ
Phone: 024 7698 0977
Skype: harry_j_mitchell
________________________________
From: Richard Symonds <[email protected]>
To: Thehelpfulone <[email protected]>
Cc: Wikimedia UK mailing list <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2012, 15:48
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] PR industry blames 'cumbersome' Wikipedia (Andreas
Kolbe)
Oh, that's much better - but the process still needs an overhaul :-(
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales,
Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th
Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United
Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The
Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia,
amongst other projects).
Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over
Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
On 14 November 2012 15:25, Thehelpfulone <[email protected]> wrote:
Richard: a slight correction, the processes for obtaining OTRS access have
changed - I think in 2009/2010.
>
>
>Instead of the full 'identification' to the WMF (where you send in a copy of
>your ID to prove you're >18), OTRS access only requires you to send an email
>with your full real name and age (OTRS access can be given to people >16) to
>the OTRS admins.
>
>
>If people aren't required to send their full identification documents perhaps
>that could reduce that stumbling block slightly?
>
>
>Thehelpfulone
>https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
>
>On 14 Nov 2012, at 14:36, Richard Symonds <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>
>For what it's worth, my opinion (as some who has had access to a fair few OTRS
>queues for a fair number of years) is that we need more OTRS volunteers. Lots
>more. At the moment, Wikimedia UK has about a dozen semi-active volunteers for
>its queue, and we have reasonable response times (48 hours ish). I'm not sure
>how many the WMF has for the global queues, but to answer every email within,
>say, 48 hours, would require (in my opinion) at least several hundred
>volunteers, with several dozen being active daily.
>>
>>
>>Wikimedia UK did run an OTRS workshop, which was useful, but it turned into
>>more of an OTRS planning weekend, with only a few new people trained to use
>>OTRS. It's a very slow way of training people - it's not just the OTRS
>>software, but customer service skills which are needed. Most Wikipedians
>>can't reliably answer emails from OTRS because they don't have the needed
>>levels of WIkipedia experience, OTRS system experience, and customer service
>>experience. There's the added (necessary) stumbling block of identifying to
>>the WMF.
>>
>>
>><radicalthinking>
>>Perhaps OTRS access to the English Wikipedia courtesy queue could be given to
>>English Wikipedia admins who are willing to identify to the WMF? That would
>>free up the experienced OTRS agents to handle the more important 'quality'
>>queue. </radicalthinking>
>>
>>Richard Symonds
>>Wikimedia UK
>>0207 065 0992
>>Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
>>Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
>>Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
>>United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
>>movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
>>operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>>Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over
>>Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
>>
>>
>>
>>On 14 November 2012 12:53, Charles Matthews <[email protected]>
>>wrote:
>>
>>On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews
>>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> > And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge
>>>>> > difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three
>>>>> > invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the
>>>>> > OTRS
>>>>> > e-mail address.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be
>>>>> > responded to
>>>>> > the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on
>>>>> > how
>>>>> > quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not,
>>>>> > there is
>>>>> > another potential area for improvement.
>>>>>
>>>>> What WSQ said.
>>>>>
>>>>> Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more
>>>>> people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the
>>>>> second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some
>>>>> of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
>>>>>
>>>>> Charles
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty
>>>> much
>>>> everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things
>>>> right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing system
>>>> we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
>>>
>>>The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a
>>>familiar argument that you are putting.
>>>
>>>The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean
>>>growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have
>>>put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many
>>>hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful
>>>work.
>>>
>>>Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these
>>>matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case
>>>studies" is not the best way, IMX.
>>>
>>>
>>>Charles
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>>[email protected]
>>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>>WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>
>_______________________________________________
>>Wikimedia UK mailing list
>>[email protected]
>>http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
>>WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
>>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
[email protected]
http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia UK mailing list
[email protected]
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WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
