I am sorry for breaking threading; my "undigestify" plugin is giving me
an error.
I'm looking at <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622> -- "Upgrade
Wikimedia OTRS installation from 2.4.x CVS to the latest version
(3.2.1)" -- and I see that Wikimedia Foundation's Rob Halsell has been
trying to get in touch with Martin Edenhofer, the OTRS inventor, to get
him onto the next step of helping out. If anyone knows Edenhofer and
can ask him to reply, that would be great, even if it's just to say
"sorry but this isn't something I can take on". Resolving that will
reduce the "cookie-licking"
<http://communitymgt.wikia.com/wiki/Cookie_Licking> and make it easier
for others to coordinate.
I believe one thing that's needed is a clear commitment or confirmation
from the Foundation -- do we plan to upgrade or replace OTRS, or not?
If so, what is our timeframe? I've asked CT Woo, head of WMF Operations,
to please comment on the bug or on the list. Since there are security
implications, I've also notified our Security Engineer, Chris Steipp, to
remind him of the current situation.
And another thing that's needed is clarity from WMF Legal on whether it
would be okay for a chapter or other affiliated group to work on
upgrading/moving/hosting/switching from OTRS, and whether there are EU
data privacy restrictions. So I've asked Legal for comment. Once we
understand that better, I can help Peter Gervai and Madman get going,
whether to help with an in-place upgrade, a move, or something else;
thank you so much for your offer!
Rjd0060, thanks for the link to open bugs in WMF's Bugzilla about OTRS
problems
<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGN…>.
I've asked our Bug Wrangler, Andre Klapper, and our bug wrangling
intern Valerie Juarez, to take a look at those tickets just to
double-check their priority so it's clear what problems the out-of-date
OTRS system is causing.
I've also emailed labs-l to follow up on Madman's question regarding the
status of <https://labsconsole.wikimedia.org/wiki/Nova_Resource:Otrs>
(the OTRS Labs project).
Thomas Morton, if you can forward me the note where the WMF promised an
update to OTRS early this year, that would be great to help me chase
this down. :-)
I am glad that people have been bringing this up and pushing for a
better toolset and experience for our volunteers. Hope I can help.
--
Sumana Harihareswara
Engineering Community Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> OTRS (<https://ticket.wikimedia.org/>) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's
> infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries
> directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this
> e-mail.
>
> Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
> released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update
> Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
> <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622>. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to
> donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors,
> this has become an untenable solution.
>
> Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of
> running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being
> overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and
> mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
> where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a
> hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
> infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
> issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
> this software any longer.
>
> Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
> wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
> player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by
> hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
> response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
>
>
I've been working on OTRS since 2008 and have been an OTRS administrator
for much of that time. As somebody who devotes a lot of his time to
OTRS-related work, I'm extremely disappointed in the lack of support the
OTRS team has been dealing with. As MZMcBride points out, there are a
number of reasons why the software needs to be updated.
Last year, we handled roughly 40,000 general inquiries in over 35
languages.[1] This alone should be a convincing reason as to why we should
have at least somewhat up-to-date software, clean of security issues and
other problems.[2]
While I realize that there have been other priorities, I would have thought
that with 3 years of waiting, eventually OTRS would be important enough for
somebody to give some much needed attention to.
[1] -
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/01/24/the-incredible-work-of-the-wikimedia-…
[2] -
https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGN…
--
Ryan
User:Rjd0060
Firstly I'm deliberately starting a new thread, rather than creating
another fork from the 'Looking back at the London Conference' thread, which
has already gone off on multiple tangents. Secondly, I'm posting purely as
a list subscriber.
I'm glad that the some of the Chapters association members are keen on open
and transparent communication on Meta, and on public lists. I also agree
that some information may concern or interest a large number of the
Wikimedia-l and/or Wikimedia-announcements-l lists. That said, I would
favour a creation of a separate mailing list for the routine communication
of the Chapters association.
For those who cry that there are already too many lists, I would counter
that Wikimedia-l is already a high volume list, and that I personally would
prefer to opt-in to Chapters association communication, rather than have it
by default sent to everyone.
Alex
Dear Council Members and everyone interested in the WCA,
On 16/17th February 2013 a number of Council Members visited the
London Conference I had proposed in mid January to talk about the way
of the WCA and to prepare the Wikimedia Conference in Milan. We are
happy that the London Conference did happen, and, in spite of the
debatable WMF board statement of 5th February, that two WMF board
members still agreed to join us.
Because in 2012/2013 the signals from the WMF were not very consistent
I tried to receive more clarity about the relationship between
Foundation and Association. This was only partially successful, but I
understand that the two present WMF board members were as open as it
was possible within the constraints of the WMF board unity. We very
much appreciated the commitment of Alice and Jan-Bart and were happy
not to hear certain allegations from the board statement again.
The London Conference discussed many WCA subjects collected during the
last months. One of them was communication, and I am content that I
could convince the participants of a major change. For someone who is
interested in the WCA it has been very difficult to follow the
proceedings, plans and results. When e.g. a Council Member wanted to
talk to others or discuss something, he or she used one of the several
mailing lists the movement has, or Meta Wiki, or private email
addresses. I believe that this has been a fundamental problem with the
regard to the perception of the WCA, and that the participation even
from Council Members suffered also because of this kind of
communication.
After the election of a new Chair, the Chair of the WCA Council will
issue a Bulletin, a kind of short report, with a summary of what
happened recently and what are the plans for the near future. This
will be put on Meta Wiki, and, naturally, discussions will centre
around those Bulletins. For those who are interested it will be much
easier to follow and to participate. If someone wants to support the
WCA via translations, he or she can translate those Bulletins instead
of a lot of messages.
There will be a special list 'WCA-announcements". If you want to be
informed about Bulletins and discussions, join the list and you will
get links to Meta Wiki. It's a one-way-list, because the discussions
are supposed to be on Meta Wiki. This is a WCA service for Council
Members and non Council Members alike. In this way, nobody is obliged
to be on a heavy traffic list such as Wikimedia-l.
When we talked about the future and a possible new election of the
Chair I also asked about my position. If for any reason someone
believed that there should be a new election of the Deputy Chair, I
wanted to hear. The participants said that that is no issue and that
it is good to have continuity. The role of the Deputy Chair is to be
there for the case that at some moment there is no Chair, and then the
Deputy has to arrange the election.
The WCA continues to exist and will make some rearrangements - it's
exiting to follow the evolution.
Kind regards
Ziko van Dijk
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland
dr. Ziko van Dijk, voorzitter
http://wmnederland.nl/
Wikimedia Nederland
Postbus 167
3500 AD Utrecht
-----------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 5:25 AM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
> released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update
> Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
Yes. May have been me, or at least I hope I joined the chorus. ;)
> mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
> where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a
> hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
> infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
> issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
> this software any longer.
I have been administering a few medium sized installation of OTRS for
quite a long time, and happened to contribute to the code as well.
Several times I had the urge to offer a hand to upgrade it, and if
people are in need I do it now: I am willing to upgrade it since the
current version is horribly old, and the upgrade process has proven to
work in the past for me between large version jumps as well.
(The required amount of project time is based on guesswork but if the
size permits it's even possible to create a new installation with a
copy of the old db and switch over, which is the safest way.)
My guess is that it's possible that the system needs serious review of
configuration since there has been plenty of big changes (speedups) in
the last years. It's doable.
However if anyone want to throw the work on me I most probably going
to look for at least few people to watch over my typos. It can be
done alone, no problem, but safer if there's someone else's watching.
:-)
(For tech and administrative details feel free to contact me. I'm
userid 1 on huwp, and my identity is recorded plenty of times already,
as well as being an otrs member.)
> Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
> wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
> player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by
> hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
> response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
I can help supporting OTRS, and Wikimedia Hungary can officially
support it as well. I do not intend to look for alternatives, partly
because I'm quite happy with OTRS, partly because I haven't met
anything better suiting this kind of job and partly because I'm not
interested suporting something I do not know.
(Judging by http://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/OTRS there's plenty of
possible improvement here, especially on the spamfiltering part...)
cya,
Peter
([[user:grin]] / [[:hu:user:grin]] / Peter Gervai)
This could be a good project for one of the developing MediaWiki Groups.
MediaWiki Group San Francisco is already approved by AffCom and eligible for grants.
-greg aka varnent
On 20 Feb, 2013, at 11:25 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Hi.
>
> OTRS (<https://ticket.wikimedia.org/>) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's
> infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries
> directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this
> e-mail.
>
> Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
> released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update
> Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
> <https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622>. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to
> donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors,
> this has become an untenable solution.
>
> Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of
> running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being
> overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and
> mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
> where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a
> hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
> infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
> issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
> this software any longer.
>
> Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
> wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
> player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by
> hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
> response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Hi.
OTRS (<https://ticket.wikimedia.org/>) is a critical piece of Wikimedia's
infrastructure. It currently handles nearly all customer service inquiries
directed at Wikimedia. Trusted volunteers triage and respond to this
e-mail.
Wikimedia is currently running OTRS version 2.4. The most recently
released OTRS version is 3.2. There's been an outstanding request to update
Wikimedia's OTRS installation for just shy of three years now:
<https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/22622>. OTRS' inventor kindly offered to
donate his time to help with an upgrade, but due to a number of factors,
this has become an untenable solution.
Given the bug's fast-approaching birthday, the security concerns of
running outdated software, the Wikimedia Foundation apparently being
overburdened and uninterested in maintaining this piece of software, and
mounting volunteer frustration, I'm wondering whether this is an area
where the Wikimedia chapters or some other group might be able to lend a
hand in supporting the maintenance of this piece of important
infrastructure. Broadly, the Wikimedia Foundation isn't acting on this
issue and it seems to have little interest in maintaining or supporting
this software any longer.
Given recent discussion about various Wikimedia movement roles, I'm
wondering whether a Wikimedia chapter or a grant or some other movement
player could either take on supporting the existing OTRS installation (by
hiring a contractor), evaluating and implementing better/different
response software, and/or moving the response system elsewhere.
MZMcBride
*Dear Wikimedia Community,
As you know, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) [1] makes
recommendations to the WMF Board of Trustees on how to allocate movement
funds to best meet Wikimedia goals and strategic priorities. More on the
processes and structure of the FDC are in the framework. [2] We are now
entering the second round of funding.
I am pleased to share that the Foundation has announced the list of
entities that are eligible to apply for FDC funding for annual plans.
[3] These
entities are: Wikimedia Australia, **Wikimedia * Česká republika, *Wikimedia
France, **Wikimedia Hong Kong, **Wikimedia Indonesia*, **Wikimedia**Italia,
**Wikimedia Norge, and **Wikimedia Philippines*. *
*
*
*Based on the established eligibility criteria** [4]** outlined in the
framework, eligible entities were notified about their eligibility status
and of the need to close any gaps by February 15. Entities did not close
those gaps are still able to apply for funding from the Wikimedia Grants
program. [5]*
*
Applications from Round 2 eligible entities are due March 1, 2013, end of
day UTC. The FDC proposal creation tool has been posted on the FDC portal
on Meta and is ready for use. We strongly encourage eligible entities to
begin filling out the proposals to the FDC well in advance of the March 1
deadline, particularly to support time for translation, if necessary, and
to answer any questions or clarifications. The FDC staff is ready and able
to help as needed. Please contact the FDC staff at FDCsupport(a)wikimedia.org
We look forward to reviewing the Round 2 proposals. We invite all members
of the community to participate in the community review of proposals, which
will take place from March 1-31. [6]
All the best,*
*
Garfield Byrd, WMF Chief of Finance and Administration*
*
*
** Final eligibility pending acceptance of grant report **
*
* *
*[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal*
*[2]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Funds_Dissemination_Committee/Framework_for_…
[3]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_status/2012-2013_roun…
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Eligibility_criteria
[5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index
*
[6] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/FDC_portal/Proposal_process
--
Garfield Byrd
Chief of Finance and Administration
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext 6787
415.882.0495 (fax)
www.wikimediafoundation.org
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
*https://donate.wikimedia.org*
Wikipedia and Wikimedia are a movement, a movement of open/free information and we should have spokespeople who can explain why open/free information is our desire and the desire of many people in the world. We as Wikimedia can't exist without open/free information and we should and must explain that to politicians and other organizations. Our goals are limited by the legal bounders, and as Wikimedia is an important movement in our society we should make our voice been heard to make us able to reach our goals in a larger way.
This is something that should be done by the European chapters and other European Wikimedians. This is of European importance and can't be done only by Belgians, and that wouldn't be appropriate. (As one of the people working on founding Wikimedia Belgium I can say everyone is welcome, but certainly we can't do this alone.) Wikimedia stands for collaboration, that is what we need here, and it is good to see this is recognized by several chapters and Wikimedians.
Be welcome!
Romaine