I believe there's an important point about OTRS to discuss, but the present
framing -- rooted in a challenging examination of the issue's history -- is
making it difficult to get at.
OTRS agents, both individually and as part of a collective, have a
tremendous influence over the perception of Wikipedia and Wikimedia by
those with whom they interact. They interact not only with a large *number* of
individuals, but also with some highly *influential* individuals (i.e.,
people deemed notable enough to be covered in our projects, or to serve as
official photographers of those individuals, etc.)
WIth great power comes great responsibility. So as I see it, this is a
situation in which clearly articulated policies, accompanied by clear
processes to permit influence of those policies, and commentary on the
implementation of those policies, would be ideal. We would be better off if
there were clearly articulated, published policies for OTRS, and if OTRS
were more accessible for comment by individual Wikimedians, and had good
internal processes for handling those comments.
On that much, I think Andy would agree with me; but beyond that point, I
think we diverge. I think Andy wants to hold somebody responsible for the
absence of those things, and given the history of OTRS, as described by
others in this thread, I'm not sure that's a reasonable objective.
But I would very much support an effort to draft, review, and publish
policies and procedures going forward.
For what it's worth, I was an OTRS agent for several years; but, precisely
because of the absence of policies, I reduced my activity to essentially
nothing, and I was eventually dropped from the team. (As a paid Wikipedia
trainer/consultant, I had opportunities to offer professional services to
those seeking OTRS assistance. This is not something I ever did, but I felt
that even the perception that I might be doing so would have been harmful
to Wikimedia and to OTRS. Since there were no ethical policies offering
guidance for somebody like me, the safest course of action was to pull
away.)
-Pete
--
User:Peteforsyth
On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 3:36 AM Andy Mabbett <andy(a)pigsonthewing.org.uk>
wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jul 2020 at 00:09, effe iets anders
<effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Jonatan: Implying that there's more secrecy than necessary, is unhelpful.
Do you mean to suggest that the current level of secrecy is necessary?
I
would dare say that if the policies that Andy is looking for exist (given
his inquiry he's looking for a specific set), they should and would be
available on meta.
Apparently they are not, they are on a closed wiki; and so secret.
If that is not the case, that is more likely due
to
laziness and/or lack of time than by design
I have been asking for them since February.
so if you know of policies
where that is not the case, please bring it up internally, ask for
objections to publish it, and lets rectify.
We were told the matter had been raised on the private OTRS mailing
list, in February, and that "several of us [on the mailing list] want
to be involved in any follow up". Nonetheless, no response from that
discussion has been forthcoming, and neither the editor who said they
had raised it in the mailing list, nor the one who I quote here, has
responded to requests for updates.
It seems that you're particularly concerned
about the Commons/Permissions
queues.
No; although this originally came to light due to a misapplication of
the policy in relation to Commons, the questions apply to OTRS across
the movement
I'm not exactly clear on what policies
you're looking for
All of them. Every single word of OTRS policy, guideline and
boilerplate, that is not of necessity confidential due to containing
personal information.
is a bit of a mess - much of OTRS has grown
organically. I doubt you
expected much different.
I expected transparency of the standard common throughout the rest of
our movement.
the questions are too broadly formulated for a
diffuse system like this.
I very strongly disagree. But if we /cannot/ give any answer to
questions like "what are OTRS' rules and policies?" or "how is OTRS
overseen, and who by?", then that would highlight even more serious
issues.
More generally, I note that the discussion on Commons continues:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Redux%2C_June_2…
albeit with more heat that light, and that accusations about my
motives are now being flung about. Still the questions have not been
answered. Although we have been told, in the last hour or so "we do
not have a process where we monitor what other OTRS volunteers does
[sic]".
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
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