Update, and a request:
The discussion thread John started has been very active, with I think about 30 posts from a wide variety of customer service (OTRS) volunteers.
Summary:
* Many people agree that there is an important concern about readers who find personal/traumatic content about themselves, and have reservations about contacting an unknown email support team.
* Philosophical questions have been raised about addressing this with a "women-only" support team
* There are also practical concerns about how that could be implemented
So, in consultation with several of the people on this list, I've made an alternative proposal, which would not shake the foundations of the OTRS team. Basically, that we should improve our public descriptions of Wikimedia customer service, and encourage people to *ask* for what they want -- whether it's a woman to work with them privately, or any other kind of special request. Along with a brief observation that such a request might delay action a bit due to limited volunteer resources.
Please take a look at what I've written up here, and share your thoughts:
-Pete
On Mon, Sep 12, 2011 at 2:45 PM, John Vandenberg
<jayvdb@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Pete Forsyth <
peteforsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems like we have strong consensus that a separate "customer support queue", run by and for women, would be a good idea. I certainly think so!
>
> Who here is active on OTRS? I'm on it, and on the email list, but I'm not active there. It might be best for somebody float the idea over there, see how it's received, and if there's agreement, figure out the steps to get it up and running. (I'm sure that having a small corps of female volunteers willing to staff it will be an essential element!)
I've initiated a discussion thread on the private otrs wiki, copying
your email text and linking to this thread.
http://otrs-wiki.wikimedia.org/wiki/Café#queue_for_verified_females