On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 7:32 PM, Doug Weller dougweller@gmail.com wrote:
It isn't a terribly rewarding role and burnout is common. Triage won't solve the problem as there are so many complaints that aren't simple to deal with satisfactorily, and we already have a system in place for it which may creak but works better than nothing. Recruitment isn't easy because it isn't something many Wikipedians really want to do. Pending changes would probably help a lot but many editors have no idea of what OTRS do and those who do probably don't understand the scale of the problem or the consequences of not dealing firmly with it. Doug
I agree Pending Changes or Flagged Revisions would help, along with an on-wiki venue where people would be guaranteed a response within 24 hours.
Pending changes would cut out a lot of the silly stuff, like those examples SmartSE gave.
An on-wiki venue with a good response time would reduce OTRS workload, increase transparency, and reduce complaints that the process is "cumbersome".
If you look at the CIPR draft best practice guidelines (which are not of course Wikipedia policy at the moment, but are quite similar to Jimbo's "bright line" rule)
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Draft_best_practice_guidelines_for_PR#A_Step-by...
you'll see that point 3 begins: "If there is no response ...", and point 4 likewise begins, "If you get no response". The process also requires people to look through the contributions history to find and contact editors who worked on the article if they don't get a response on the talk page.
That *is* cumbersome, and using a central on-wiki noticeboard would improve customer satisfaction.
Andreas