OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
Depending on where the content is coming from uploading the images to Flickr and then importing them may be an option. When I worked for the Science Museum we simply changed the licence of some of the images on their Flickr account and I used Flickr2Commons to import them, it also records the attribution and which CC licence the images used. I'm currently working with UNESCO to release some of their archive and will most probably suggest this route which as a bonus creates a second large audience for the content on Flickr.
Hope this is helpful
John On 2 Feb 2015 22:52, "James Heilman" jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
We have a 57 days backlog now ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog) and we are processing first-come, first-served. In case of emergencies, please make a note at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard or on my talk page.
Regards, Jee
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 10:57 AM, John Cummings < John.Cummings@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Depending on where the content is coming from uploading the images to Flickr and then importing them may be an option. When I worked for the Science Museum we simply changed the licence of some of the images on their Flickr account and I used Flickr2Commons to import them, it also records the attribution and which CC licence the images used. I'm currently working with UNESCO to release some of their archive and will most probably suggest this route which as a bonus creates a second large audience for the content on Flickr.
Hope this is helpful
John On 2 Feb 2015 22:52, "James Heilman" jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On 3 February 2015 at 06:56, Jeevan Jose jkadavoor@gmail.com wrote:
We have a 57 days backlog now ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog) and we are processing first-come, first-served
Perhaps if OTRS volunteers weren't treated so badly *by OTRS admins*, you'd have more people to help out?
While this may be a different OTRS queue, people have told me in the past that OTRS can take weeks to reply, even in the case of acute BLP problems such as the one described in this BBC Newsnight interview (time code 2:54):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg9O-e5KGdQ#t=174
I've heard this both from an affected BLP subject and from people with OTRS access. Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/CO...
I've seen this happen on OTRS time and time again: real tickets about unbalanced articles do go unanswered for weeks. [...] [[User:Jclemens|Jclemens]] ([[User talk:Jclemens|talk]]) 02:50, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Are such long waits still common?
Andreas
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 6:56 AM, Jeevan Jose jkadavoor@gmail.com wrote:
We have a 57 days backlog now ( https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog) and we are processing first-come, first-served. In case of emergencies, please make a note at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard or on my talk page.
Regards, Jee
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 10:57 AM, John Cummings < John.Cummings@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Depending on where the content is coming from uploading the images to Flickr and then importing them may be an option. When I worked for the Science Museum we simply changed the licence of some of the images on
their
Flickr account and I used Flickr2Commons to import them, it also records the attribution and which CC licence the images used. I'm currently
working
with UNESCO to release some of their archive and will most probably
suggest
this route which as a bonus creates a second large audience for the
content
on Flickr.
Hope this is helpful
John On 2 Feb 2015 22:52, "James Heilman" jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus
the
images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Someone has thankfully read this issue and has agreed to deal with it. Many thanks to the person involved :-) It is a huge amount of work to get release for a single medical image. If commons admins wish the details they can email me.
James
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 9:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com
James Heilman, 03/02/2015 05:52:
not sure what the solution is.
Usually, following the docs: «use {{subst:OP}} to tell others that it's in progress» https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS#Templates_to_use_on_image_pa...
Nemo
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous work of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical issues to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things that the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do so in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle these public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers tends to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately, backlogs can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end of the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of thing you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians adding content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free time, and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable, especially in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014 we added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information and permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions and/or photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer these tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
Aubrey
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous work of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical issues to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things that the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do so in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle these public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers tends to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately, backlogs can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end of the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of thing you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians adding content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free time, and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable, especially in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014 we added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information and permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions and/or photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer these tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
2015-02-04 11:46 GMT+01:00 Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com:
Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
I would say:
- Organize recruitements of new Agents (it can ben done by the community) - Organize training sessions (it can be done by the community and supported by WMF or Chapters) - Get a weekly summary of your OTRS queues in your inbox - Better software (I would put it last in priorities has it is a complex migration)
Sincerely, Pierre-Selim
Aubrey
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous
work
of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical
issues
to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things
that
the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do
so
in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle
these
public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers
tends
to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately,
backlogs
can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially
in
the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some
backlogs
never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of
us
can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end
of
the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of
thing
you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians
adding
content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free
time,
and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable,
especially
in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014
we
added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information
and
permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions
and/or
photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer
these
tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus
the
images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool, but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.
This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small programming and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file. So OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures - are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail but also 100 boring edits...
I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are avoiding answering them.
2015-02-04 11:46 GMT+01:00 Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com:
Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
Aubrey
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous
work
of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical
issues
to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things
that
the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do
so
in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle
these
public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers
tends
to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately,
backlogs
can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially
in
the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some
backlogs
never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of
us
can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end
of
the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of
thing
you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians
adding
content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free
time,
and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable,
especially
in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014
we
added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information
and
permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions
and/or
photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer
these
tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus
the
images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:33 PM, Tomasz Ganicz polimerek@gmail.com wrote:
Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool, but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.
This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small programming and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file. So OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures - are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail but also 100 boring edits...
I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are avoiding answering them.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:VisualFileChange.js can be used for mass edits.
Jee
Or AWB, though neither option provides the sort of efficiency that is needed tio deal easily with the sort of issues that Tomasz mentions.
Michael
Jeevan Jose mailto:jkadavoor@gmail.com 4 February 2015 12:01
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:VisualFileChange.js can be used for mass edits.
Jee _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe Tomasz Ganicz mailto:polimerek@gmail.com 4 February 2015 11:03 Well - regarding permission-commons ques the current problem with mass upload agreements is Common's regulation that ticket-templates has to be added by OTRS volunteers themselves, except, when you are using GLAM tool, but GLAM tool is tailored for really huge mass uploads as it requires lot of preliminary preparations. So, there is no good path for mid-size mass uploads - say from 10 till 100-500 files.
This is incredibly boring job to add 100 templates to 100 files. There are some semiautomatic tools for this - but it still requires small programming and/or direct personal assistance - with at least 2 clicks per file. So OTRS volunteers - when they see agreements for for example100 pictures - are avoiding this, becasue handing this means not only aswering for E-mail but also 100 boring edits...
I was addressing the issue on OTRS e-mail list, around a year ago, but the answer was, that this is not the problem. But in fact - whenever there is such semi-mass-upload agreement - you can observe that OTRS volunteers are avoiding answering them.
James Heilman mailto:jmh649@gmail.com 3 February 2015 04:52 OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
Aubrey -
It's not a tools problem, it's a time and number of people problem.
It necessarily draws upon the smaller pool of more stable, mature responsible levelheaded good judgement Wikipedians, who are in short supply on-Wiki now much less available for lots of extra off-Wiki, poorly understood or (community) acknowledged work.
Speaking of which, tomorrow I'm going to reapply to reactivate my OTRS, as there's a need and I have bandwidth again...
George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 4, 2015, at 2:46 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
Aubrey
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous work of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical issues to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things that the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do so in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle these public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers tends to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately, backlogs can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end of the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of thing you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians adding content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free time, and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable, especially in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014 we added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information and permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions and/or photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer these tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of statistics on the various OTRS queues in near-real time. At present there is no automated way to see on Commons or any of the Wikipedias that backlogs even exist, let alone see how they vary with time, what the average time to first response is, time to resolve/close etc.
It would be great if we had a template I could add to a Commons page so I could see this information every time I login.
Michael
Michael Michael
On 4 Feb 2015, at 10:46, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Ryan for the clarification. My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
Aubrey
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 11:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
James,
I realize your tickets were already resolved but I thought I'd take a moment to clarify the issues that cause the delays in response.
The Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team ("OTRS") relies on the generous work of hundreds of volunteers from all over the world to handle hundreds of thousands of e-mails each year.
The scope of these tickets range from vandalism reports or technical issues to problems with biographies of living people and other generic edit requests, and dozens of other categories. A large percentage of the overall tickets received are "permissions" tickets -- e-mails used to verify the release of content on Wikimedia sites, typically from third parties.
Like every project that Wikimedians work on, there are various things that the volunteers are tasked to handle. The agents who take on this role do so in addition to their existing editing activities, often at the cost of their own free time. Due to the trust and patience required to handle these public-facing aspects of Wikimedia, the pool of available volunteers tends to be smaller than in other areas of the projects. Unfortunately, backlogs can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process. It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us can relate to in one way or another.
We had very good queue levels for much of 2014, but began noticing an increase in permissions and general information tickets (specifically in the English language) around the end of the year. Unfortunately, the end of the year typically shows higher than usual response times, likely because of volunteer free time. While OTRS agents are very dedicated, answering tickets can be stressful at times, so it’s not typically the type of thing you’ll want to during holiday vacations. Pair those longer response times with an increase in tickets because of our hard-working Wikimedians adding content and submitting more permissions tickets in their holiday free time, and it creates a bit of a backlog. :-)
Just as in other areas of our projects, backlogs are inevitable, especially in the more mundane and tougher areas. However, our dedicated pool of volunteers works diligently to clear these backlogs when they come up. While, again, it’s a tough job that’s not for everyone, we always welcome new applicants. Actually, we're continuously adding new agents. In 2014 we added 62 new community queue accounts[2] to handle general information and permissions inquiries. Additionally, our agent retention is better - we lost about half as many agents in 2014 as we did in 2013. But finally, if you really want to help with the backlogs, we’re always looking for great new team members. Feel free to throw up an application on [[m:OTRS/Volunteering]] if you think you’d make a good agent and we’ll be happy to review it.
Basically, OTRS is tough job that runs into backlogs just like any other part of Wikimedia. However, we’re continuously working to add more agents and clear those backlogs as soon as they start.
I hope this helps clarify the current issues.
Ryan // User:Rjd0060
(OTRS admin)
[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statement...
[2] Community queue accounts are OTRS accounts with access to queues that answer general information inquiries about our projects, permissions and/or photosubmissions tickets. Other types of accounts do not have answer these tickets, but instead have access to a smaller subset of queues, such as those related to the Foundation (e.g., donations), chapters, or advanced rights on the projects (e.g., oversight, stewards). See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/OTRS/Access_policy#Community_queues for more information.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 11:52 PM, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am
simply
uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
The Wikipedia Open Textbook of Medicine www.opentextbookofmedicine.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hello.
Am 02/04/15 um 12:11 schrieb Michael Maggs:
I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of statistics on the various OTRS queues in near-real time.
You know https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog ?
Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the information that should I think be available.
Michael
Krd mailto:krd@wikipedia.de 4 February 2015 11:55 Hello.
You know https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/backlog ?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe Michael Maggs mailto:michael@maggs.name 4 February 2015 11:11 I would like to see a bot or tool that could provide visibility of statistics on the various OTRS queues in near-real time. At present there is no automated way to see on Commons or any of the Wikipedias that backlogs even exist, let alone see how they vary with time, what the average time to first response is, time to resolve/close etc.
It would be great if we had a template I could add to a Commons page so I could see this information every time I login.
Michael
Michael Michael
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe James Heilman mailto:jmh649@gmail.com 3 February 2015 04:52 OTRS does not even bother replying to the consents I send them. Thus the images I have received releases for get deleted. Going forwards I am simply uploading to En Wikipedia. Not ideal but not sure what the solution is.
If either a public API were implemented, or a mirror of the (non-confidential parts at least) database were available on WMFlabs, then volunteers could happily generate all sorts of reports and tools, which would probably be far more effective than expecting WMF development to create new reporting pages that are publicly visible (noting that some non-public reports are available to those chosen for OTRS access). This has all been raised before, so anyone with a technical interest would do well to contribute to https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/wikimedia-otrs/ so that these proposals can be prioritized.
As I'm one of the keen ex-volunteers bounced out of the system a few months ago without any sensible explanation, it comes as no surprise that there is a shortage of appropriately experienced volunteers that can help with Commons image donations.
Fae
On 4 February 2015 at 12:19, Krd krd@wikipedia.de wrote:
...which is in detail?
I mentioned a few basic things in my previous email. There's probably little point in my writing a comprehensive wish list unless you or some other volunteer can agree to work on providing an API against which a tool could be written.
Michael
Michael
On 4 Feb 2015, at 12:19, Krd krd@wikipedia.de wrote:
Am 02/04/15 um 13:14 schrieb Michael Maggs: Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the information that should I think be available.
...which is in detail?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
An there is much stress for our volunteer (unpaid) job too. I definitely need to slow down:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:OTRS/Noticeboard#Request_to_confi...
Regards, Jee
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 9:04 PM, Michael Maggs michael@maggs.name wrote:
I mentioned a few basic things in my previous email. There's probably little point in my writing a comprehensive wish list unless you or some other volunteer can agree to work on providing an API against which a tool could be written.
Michael
Michael
On 4 Feb 2015, at 12:19, Krd krd@wikipedia.de wrote:
Am 02/04/15 um 13:14 schrieb Michael Maggs: Yes, I do. That is updated manually, at irregular intervals, applies only to one Commons list, and doesn't provide anything like the information that should I think be available.
...which is in detail?
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 2:46 AM, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
My question is: what could we ask, as a community, to the WMF, o to chapters? Is there some tool/task/workflow that could receive help from Wikimedia? Maybe a new software, or some trusted agents in key position, or something else. What could speed up the volunteers work?
I put some ideas about such a tool at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T88620 Feedback would be appreciated.
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Rjd0060 rjd0060.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Unfortunately, backlogs can occasionally crop up and take a bit of time to deal with, especially in the more complicated e-mails (like BLPs), that can take up to an hour to process.
Just for the avoidance of doubt – when you say these e-mails "can take up to an hour to process", I presume you mean that it takes one hour just to read them and understand the complaint. Am I understanding you correctly?
Given the nature of the beast, I am sure you must sometimes be getting lengthy (or repetitive) complaints of unclear merit that require significant on-wiki and off-wiki investigation just to understand whether the complaint is justified or not. And I imagine that coming up with an appropriate response and identifying a suitable course of action is another task altogether.
Bearing in mind that all of this is volunteer work, I'd assume that the more difficult cases sometimes languish for want of an intrepid volunteer happy to take them on.
In your experience, what is the median time between receipt of a BLP-related e-mail complaint and a response being sent out, and what is the maximum time it can take?
It happens on every large Wikimedia project -- where some backlogs never get cleared (just look at the English Wikipedia’s articles with unsourced statements! [1])-- so it is something I believe almost all of us can relate to in one way or another.
I'd like to second Michael Maggs' suggestion – having real-time statistics on OTRS queues available online would aid visibility and transparency (assuming such data aren't publicly available already some place I am unaware of). It might also help recruitment, and bring in volunteers to help with backlogs and bottlenecks.
Andreas
Hi Andreas and others,
On 4 February 2015 at 12:31, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Just for the avoidance of doubt – when you say these e-mails "can take up to an hour to process", I presume you mean that it takes one hour just to read them and understand the complaint. Am I understanding you correctly?
I'm pretty sure that's what he meant, yeah.
I'd like to second Michael Maggs' suggestion – having real-time statistics
on OTRS queues available online would aid visibility and transparency (assuming such data aren't publicly available already some place I am unaware of). It might also help recruitment, and bring in volunteers to help with backlogs and bottlenecks.
Yes, I agree with that. Incidentally, Krd just made an attempt at implementing something like that (i.e. "live"-reporting the queue size) a few days (weeks?) ago, and I've suggested we post this to Commons directly rather than OTRS Wiki. It's pretty much experimental at the moment, and I think needs some tweaks first (Krd can tell you more), but I imagine this to be a file on Commons updated automatically on a daily basis, which can then be transcluded from some maintenance page. That way, Commons volunteers will get an idea of how permissions is doing at the moment. Here's an example with up-to-date values: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g78un01dx3krxdm/State_of_the_permissions-commons_q... -- I think that's pretty cool (the graph, that is, not the backlog ...).
Now, as far as other metrics are concerned, it's something that we (as OTRS admins) are working on, but also something that is not too easy given OTRS' built-in reporting functionalities are so rudimentary, they can hardly be used to produce anything meaningful. Starting this month, however, we'll post monthly reports (rather than just an annual report), featuring first response times, workload distributions and ticket load. These will be posted with a bit of a delay (to be able to report the response time), i.e. the January report is due at the beginning of March. Our annual report for 2014 -- which will be signicantly expanded vis-à-vis the 2013 doc -- will be posted sometime during the next two weeks (an announcement will also be sent to this list).
It's likely that there is quite some bid-ask spread when it comes to getting good stats, but I very much welcome your suggestions.
Cheers, Patrik
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org