Thomas Dalton wrote:
I've just looked at a BLP and nowhere can I see an guidance on how to complain. I suggest a "Report a problem with this article" link to added to the sidebar of all articles as a mailto link to the appropriate OTRS address.
I agree with this - I think "report a problem" would be a very helpful starting point.
I've started work on an extension to provide such a link. Hopefully I'll have something to show in a few days.
The Dutch Wikipedia uses an extension to contact "Wikipedia" anonymously directly from the browser. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15624 and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ContactPage.
IRC tells me that the response group is happy with the message flow so far, and people using the form seem happy to use it as well, even though it's also three clicks away from any article.
--Para
2009/3/2 Para wikipara@gmail.com:
The Dutch Wikipedia uses an extension to contact "Wikipedia" anonymously directly from the browser. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15624 and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ContactPage. IRC tells me that the response group is happy with the message flow so far, and people using the form seem happy to use it as well, even though it's also three clicks away from any article.
Sounds good. The current "Contact Wikipedia" page on en:wp is a sort of webpage "wizard" interface that steers you from page to page. I suspect this is less than optimal.
I expect with a general "Report a problem with this article" page, we'll get lots of editorial issues - "there's a spelling error" "you deleted my band you suck" "your article shows your liberal bias" etc. What's the proportion like? How do you deal with these?
- d.
2009/3/2 Para wikipara@gmail.com:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I've just looked at a BLP and nowhere can I see an guidance on how to complain. I suggest a "Report a problem with this article" link to added to the sidebar of all articles as a mailto link to the appropriate OTRS address.
I agree with this - I think "report a problem" would be a very helpful starting point.
I've started work on an extension to provide such a link. Hopefully I'll have something to show in a few days.
The Dutch Wikipedia uses an extension to contact "Wikipedia" anonymously directly from the browser. See https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15624 and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ContactPage.
IRC tells me that the response group is happy with the message flow so far, and people using the form seem happy to use it as well, even though it's also three clicks away from any article.
Fantastic! That saves me getting email set up on my development copy of mediawiki! I looked through the extensions list for anything with "email" in the name or description, I didn't think to search for "contact"...
I may be missing it due to not speaking Dutch, but it doesn't seem to be linked to from anywhere... Does it include the details of the article and revision in the default text? That's a key feature for what I'm suggesting.
2009/3/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I may be missing it due to not speaking Dutch, but it doesn't seem to be linked to from anywhere... Does it include the details of the article and revision in the default text? That's a key feature for what I'm suggesting.
The code:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ContactPage/Speci...
Doesn't appear to:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciaal:Contactpagina
Note that getting to that page from any other page is three clicks.
I'm not sure how you'd add it. One to ask on wikitech-l or mediawiki-l. Duesentrieb wrote and maintains it.
- d.
2009/3/2 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2009/3/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
I may be missing it due to not speaking Dutch, but it doesn't seem to be linked to from anywhere... Does it include the details of the article and revision in the default text? That's a key feature for what I'm suggesting.
The code:
http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/trunk/extensions/ContactPage/Speci...
Doesn't appear to:
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciaal:Contactpagina
Note that getting to that page from any other page is three clicks.
I'm not sure how you'd add it. One to ask on wikitech-l or mediawiki-l. Duesentrieb wrote and maintains it.
I can make the necessary changes to add it to the toolbox and include the default text. I'll contact Duesentrieb first, though.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I may be missing it due to not speaking Dutch, but it doesn't seem to be linked to from anywhere... Does it include the details of the article and revision in the default text? That's a key feature for what I'm suggesting.
From any nlwiki page, click "Hulp en contact" (or the language-appropriate
equivalent of "Help") in the sidebar, then "Help:Contact met Wikipedia" at the bottom of the page, then "contactformulier" near the middle of the page. The form is very simple - subject, name, reply address, and message body - but it now generates a significant portion of the traffic in the info-nl queue.
As it's written now, the contact form probably wouldn't work for enwiki: it would condense most English-language traffic to a single address. In the past, a single incoming address has caused us to lose urgent BLP-ish messages in the larger flood of vandalism reports and reference-desk questions; this is precisely why we have several contact addresses for English-language issues. If we could have distinct forms for different types of issue, though, or if we could have the end user select the relevant queue from a list, then that form might be an option for enwiki.
I agree that the current enwiki contact page is definitely less than optimal. During an odd lull a while back, I started a rewrite at [[w:en:Contact us/temp]]; the main ideas were to defer to the FAQs and remind people that most problems can be solved on-wiki. (I had to set the rewrite aside when OTRS traffic picked up again.) The temp page is currently open for editing if anybody would like to contribute.
Finally: even with a huge backlog, I would never *think* of putting a rookie OTRS volunteer on the Quality queue (which handles BLPs and similar complaints from businesses). That would be exceptionally cruel, like throwing a non-swimmer in the deep end of the pool. IMHO, it's far better to have newbies start off in the easier queues, like Vandalism, and move on to Quality as they develop a feel for the work.
-- Jim Redmond [[User:Jredmond]]
2009/3/2 jim@scrubnugget.com:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I may be missing it due to not speaking Dutch, but it doesn't seem to be linked to from anywhere... Does it include the details of the article and revision in the default text? That's a key feature for what I'm suggesting.
From any nlwiki page, click "Hulp en contact" (or the language-appropriate equivalent of "Help") in the sidebar, then "Help:Contact met Wikipedia" at the bottom of the page, then "contactformulier" near the middle of the page. The form is very simple - subject, name, reply address, and message body - but it now generates a significant portion of the traffic in the info-nl queue.
As it's written now, the contact form probably wouldn't work for enwiki: it would condense most English-language traffic to a single address. In the past, a single incoming address has caused us to lose urgent BLP-ish messages in the larger flood of vandalism reports and reference-desk questions; this is precisely why we have several contact addresses for English-language issues. If we could have distinct forms for different types of issue, though, or if we could have the end user select the relevant queue from a list, then that form might be an option for enwiki.
A drop down list of queues would be easy enough to implement, I can do that. (I may need to abuse the interface system, a la Mediawiki:Sidebar, though...)
2009/3/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
A drop down list of queues would be easy enough to implement, I can do that. (I may need to abuse the interface system, a la Mediawiki:Sidebar, though...)
Shirley that's incredibly easy to add to the extension itself?
- d.
2009/3/2 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2009/3/2 Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com:
A drop down list of queues would be easy enough to implement, I can do that. (I may need to abuse the interface system, a la Mediawiki:Sidebar, though...)
Shirley that's incredibly easy to add to the extension itself?
Yes, that's what I mean. I can modify the extension to have a drop down.
2009/3/2 jim@scrubnugget.com:
As it's written now, the contact form probably wouldn't work for enwiki: it would condense most English-language traffic to a single address. In the past, a single incoming address has caused us to lose urgent BLP-ish messages in the larger flood of vandalism reports and reference-desk questions; this is precisely why we have several contact addresses for English-language issues. If we could have distinct forms for different types of issue, though, or if we could have the end user select the relevant queue from a list, then that form might be an option for enwiki.
That could be a simple drop-down in the form for type of query. (If queues don't map well to common query types, that's another problem.)
I agree that the current enwiki contact page is definitely less than optimal. During an odd lull a while back, I started a rewrite at [[w:en:Contact us/temp]]; the main ideas were to defer to the FAQs and remind people that most problems can be solved on-wiki. (I had to set the rewrite aside when OTRS traffic picked up again.) The temp page is currently open for editing if anybody would like to contribute.
I just went to get some actual data. Here's the stats.grok.se hit count for [[:en:Wikipedia:Contact us]] and its subpages:
232227 Wikipedia:Contact us - ranked #366 page on Wikipedia for Feb 2009 2230 Wikipedia:Contact us/account questions 7773 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem 2016 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Copyright 472 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Delete or undelete 1793 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error 620 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from enterprise) 1196 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject) 474 Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Google_Earth 428 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/No article 711 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Poorly written 1967 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Vandalism 2021 Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked 2718 Wikipedia:Contact us/Contact a user 2160 Wikipedia:Contact us/Links 1893 Wikipedia:Contact us/login problems 3106 Wikipedia:Contact us/other 6704 Wikipedia:Contact us/Photo submission 3570 Wikipedia:Contact us/Top questions 2228 Wikipedia:Contact us/Warning messages
I'd say from the number of hits and the ranking that the "Contact Wikipedia" link is reasonably useful and discoverable.
Note that "Factual error (from subject)" - the page with what to do about a bad article about oneself - is buried about four pages down. Would it be a good idea to link it more prominently directly from "Contact us"?
We could make a "Report a problem with this article" link in the sidebar that goes straight to [[Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem]] and see how that goes. (Four pages of links is plenty for people to get lost in.) Do you think this would flood OTRS with rubbish, though?
- d.
2009/3/2 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
I just went to get some actual data. Here's the stats.grok.se hit count for [[:en:Wikipedia:Contact us]] and its subpages: 232227 Wikipedia:Contact us - ranked #366 page on Wikipedia for Feb 2009 2230 Wikipedia:Contact us/account questions 7773 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem 2016 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Copyright 472 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Delete or undelete 1793 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error 620 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from enterprise) 1196 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Factual error (from subject) 474 Wikipedia:Contact_us/Article_problem/Google_Earth 428 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/No article 711 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Poorly written 1967 Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem/Vandalism 2021 Wikipedia:Contact us/blocked 2718 Wikipedia:Contact us/Contact a user 2160 Wikipedia:Contact us/Links 1893 Wikipedia:Contact us/login problems 3106 Wikipedia:Contact us/other 6704 Wikipedia:Contact us/Photo submission 3570 Wikipedia:Contact us/Top questions 2228 Wikipedia:Contact us/Warning messages
I said I'd check back in a week, didn't I ... er. Well, the new links have been on [[Help:Contents]] for most of March!
The numbers from stats.grok.se show March hits so far as:
* Wikipedia:Contact us/Article problem - 11595 (up from 7773 in Feb and 8259 in Jan) * Wikipedia:Contact us - 253665 (up from 232227 in Feb and down from 279774 in Jan)
The increased hits on "article problem" may be worth the effort. The increased hits on "Contact us" not so much.
The problem, of course, is that every new link or word of text on that page lowers its utility. That "help!" page should be as sparse as possible for user interface reasons.
What do you all think?
- d.
David Gerard, 30/03/2009 23:37:
The problem, of course, is that every new link or word of text on that page lowers its utility. That "help!" page should be as sparse as possible for user interface reasons.
What do you all think?
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiuto:Aiuto is much lighter.
Nemo
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