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'm not very active, .. :/
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
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