No subject

e
equivalent of "Help") in the sidebar, then "Help:Contact met Wikipedia" a=
t
the bottom of the page, then "contactformulier" near the middle of the
page.  The form is very simple - subject, name, reply address, and messag=
e
body - but it now generates a significant portion of the traffic in the
info-nl queue.

As it's written now, the contact form probably wouldn't work for enwiki:
it would condense most English-language traffic to a single address.  In
the past, a single incoming address has caused us to lose urgent BLP-ish
messages in the larger flood of vandalism reports and reference-desk
questions; this is precisely why we have several contact addresses for
English-language issues.  If we could have distinct forms for different
types of issue, though, or if we could have the end user select the
relevant queue from a list, then that form might be an option for enwiki.

I agree that the current enwiki contact page is definitely less than
optimal.  During an odd lull a while back, I started a rewrite at
[[w:en:Contact us/temp]]; the main ideas were to defer to the FAQs and
remind people that most problems can be solved on-wiki.  (I had to set th=
e
rewrite aside when OTRS traffic picked up again.)  The temp page is
currently open for editing if anybody would like to contribute.

Finally: even with a huge backlog, I would never *think* of putting a
rookie OTRS volunteer on the Quality queue (which handles BLPs and simila=
r
complaints from businesses).  That would be exceptionally cruel, like
throwing a non-swimmer in the deep end of the pool.  IMHO, it's far bette=
r
to have newbies start off in the easier queues, like Vandalism, and move
on to Quality as they develop a feel for the work.

--
Jim Redmond
[[User:Jredmond]]