Dear Andreas Francis Ingham is DG of the PRCA. Its fee-paying members include RLM Finsbury (among other WPP companies), so, ultimately, it contributes to his salary. Possible COI?
Paul
On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Paul Wilkinson <paul.wilkinson@pwcom.co.uk
wrote:
Dear Andreas Francis Ingham is DG of the PRCA. Its fee-paying members include RLM Finsbury (among other WPP companies), so, ultimately, it contributes to his salary. Possible COI?
Paul
Come on, you are a CIPR fellow, and CIPR and PRCA are rival bodies. In fact, Ingham used to be the CIPR's assistant director, until he defected to the PRCA. Shall I make an ad-hominem comment based on your COI too?
Yes, Finsbury is one of several hundred members of PRCA. Even so Ingham did not condone their behaviour. And what he says about the poor perception of PR professionals is the same thing CIPR have said (and according to Wikipedia, it's one thing CIPR and PRCA agree on, and have collaborated on).
The question is not, does the man have a COI; the question is, Is there merit in what he says?
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
PR professionals could be invited to post to the COI noticeboard AND the article talk page at the same time (leaving a link on the article talk page to the COIN discussion), so they get a prompt response. There should be a discussion whether PR professionals should be forbidden or encouraged to contribute to COI noticeboard queries where they do not have a COI themselves beyond being PR professionals too. These are some ideas.
Andreas
Dear Andreas, We need to remember that this is a volunteer driven process, and the commodity in short supply is volunteer time not PR professionals time. Encouraging PR people to forum shop by raising the same thing in multiple venues is disrespectful of the community, it also risks damaging things for the PR flacks as the temptation would be to ignore them as they are likely to have raised things elsewhere. What we should be doing is advising them of the best place to go with their problem, and the best way to escalate things if that doesn't work. The confict of Interest noticeboard is not usually going to be appropriate for them, as it says: "Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV. Where a Living person is being misreported then the BLP noticeboard is an option for escalation. But encouraging PR flacks to forum shop is not going to be part of a workable solution. We need to work with the grain of the community and that means understanding that forum shoppers get short shrift.
As for the idea that all PR complaints should be responded to within 24 hours, that would have the effect of prioritising the updating of a company article to name a company's new chair above dealing with a case of cyber bullying in a school playground. I suspect that most of us would take the ethical line that dealing with cyber bullying gets priority over a slightly out of date business article. Yes it would be good to know how quick OTRS is, and if OTRS needs additional volunteers, but if OTRS needs to prioritise anything it should be serious issues above less serious ones, and some business related issues will be more urgent than others. I would be surprised if OTRS doesn't already have some such prioritisation system, if only that volunteers will concentrate on the urgent stuff.
WSC
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Paul Wilkinson < paul.wilkinson@pwcom.co.uk> wrote:
Dear Andreas Francis Ingham is DG of the PRCA. Its fee-paying members include RLM Finsbury (among other WPP companies), so, ultimately, it contributes to his salary. Possible COI?
Paul
Come on, you are a CIPR fellow, and CIPR and PRCA are rival bodies. In fact, Ingham used to be the CIPR's assistant director, until he defected to the PRCA. Shall I make an ad-hominem comment based on your COI too?
Yes, Finsbury is one of several hundred members of PRCA. Even so Ingham did not condone their behaviour. And what he says about the poor perception of PR professionals is the same thing CIPR have said (and according to Wikipedia, it's one thing CIPR and PRCA agree on, and have collaborated on).
The question is not, does the man have a COI; the question is, Is there merit in what he says?
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
PR professionals could be invited to post to the COI noticeboard AND the article talk page at the same time (leaving a link on the article talk page to the COIN discussion), so they get a prompt response. There should be a discussion whether PR professionals should be forbidden or encouraged to contribute to COI noticeboard queries where they do not have a COI themselves beyond being PR professionals too. These are some ideas.
Andreas
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:40 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Andreas, We need to remember that this is a volunteer driven process, and the commodity in short supply is volunteer time not PR professionals time. Encouraging PR people to forum shop by raising the same thing in multiple venues is disrespectful of the community, it also risks damaging things for the PR flacks as the temptation would be to ignore them as they are likely to have raised things elsewhere. What we should be doing is advising them of the best place to go with their problem, and the best way to escalate things if that doesn't work. The confict of Interest noticeboard is not usually going to be appropriate for them, as it says: "Post here if you are concerned that an editor has a COI, and is using Wikipedia to promote their own interests at the expense of neutrality"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV. Where a Living person is being misreported then the BLP noticeboard is an option for escalation. But encouraging PR flacks to forum shop is not going to be part of a workable solution. We need to work with the grain of the community and that means understanding that forum shoppers get short shrift.
As for the idea that all PR complaints should be responded to within 24 hours, that would have the effect of prioritising the updating of a company article to name a company's new chair above dealing with a case of cyber bullying in a school playground. I suspect that most of us would take the ethical line that dealing with cyber bullying gets priority over a slightly out of date business article. Yes it would be good to know how quick OTRS is, and if OTRS needs additional volunteers, but if OTRS needs to prioritise anything it should be serious issues above less serious ones, and some business related issues will be more urgent than others. I would be surprised if OTRS doesn't already have some such prioritisation system, if only that volunteers will concentrate on the urgent stuff.
WSC
Oh, I didn't mean that PR people should get an answer within 24 hours and everyone else can wait four weeks. :) I meant that *everyone* should get an answer within 24 hours. If you feel an article is really harmful to you, even 24 hours can seem a very long time.
The advantage of a noticeboard like COIN is that there are regulars: people check that page daily. A page like Talk:Vodacom is checked by no one. You can post a message there, and it will probably be ignored for months.
The idea is not to encourage people to forum-shop, but to direct them to a single functioning noticeboard to raise their complaint, and to leave a pointer on the article talk page so that any regulars at that article are advised of the noticeboard discussion.
It doesn't have to be COIN, but it would be good to have a well-publicised and centralised place, if only to be able to assess responsiveness. When things are spread out over God knows how many unknown talk pages, it is hard to see how well Wikipedia responds to justified complaints.
Andreas
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Paul Wilkinson < paul.wilkinson@pwcom.co.uk> wrote:
Dear Andreas Francis Ingham is DG of the PRCA. Its fee-paying members include RLM Finsbury (among other WPP companies), so, ultimately, it contributes to his salary. Possible COI?
Paul
Come on, you are a CIPR fellow, and CIPR and PRCA are rival bodies. In fact, Ingham used to be the CIPR's assistant director, until he defected to the PRCA. Shall I make an ad-hominem comment based on your COI too?
Yes, Finsbury is one of several hundred members of PRCA. Even so Ingham did not condone their behaviour. And what he says about the poor perception of PR professionals is the same thing CIPR have said (and according to Wikipedia, it's one thing CIPR and PRCA agree on, and have collaborated on).
The question is not, does the man have a COI; the question is, Is there merit in what he says?
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
PR professionals could be invited to post to the COI noticeboard AND the article talk page at the same time (leaving a link on the article talk page to the COIN discussion), so they get a prompt response. There should be a discussion whether PR professionals should be forbidden or encouraged to contribute to COI noticeboard queries where they do not have a COI themselves beyond being PR professionals too. These are some ideas.
Andreas
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the
OTRS
e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be
responded to
the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on
how
quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not,
there is
another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty much everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing system we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
Andreas
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty much everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing system we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
Charles
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to
the
OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty
much
everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing
system
we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
What do you suggest the WMF should or could do? In my experience, they are wary of getting involved in anything that might imply they are exercising control over content, as that could conceivably jeopardise their Section 230 safe harbour protection, and leave them with liability for anonymous people's edits.
Andreas
On 14 November 2012 12:58, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 12:53 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
What do you suggest the WMF should or could do? In my experience, they are wary of getting involved in anything that might imply they are exercising control over content, as that could conceivably jeopardise their Section 230 safe harbour protection, and leave them with liability for anonymous people's edits.
Let's get back down to earth. "Cumbersome" in the title of the thread implies we are dealing with people who are not the type to read instructions patiently, and follow them. These people may be "normal" by many standards.
There is a big underlying debate here about "barriers to entry" for WP editing. We need the help of more editors on WP - but not just at any price. The content for me of Wikimania this year was that the WMF has funded various initiatives on "barriers". There is plenty more to do.
Charles
On 14 November 2012 13:06, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Let's get back down to earth. "Cumbersome" in the title of the thread implies we are dealing with people who are not the type to read instructions patiently, and follow them. These people may be "normal" by many standards.
And specifically, "cumbersome" is the PRCA making excuses for a member having been busted whitewashing Wikipedia. The entire premise of the supposed problem is fraudulent.
- d.
David; I think Charles and Andreas have gotten beyond the original issue and are talking about the real problems that exist.
"cumbersome" doesn't strike me as a hugely unfair way of putting it...
@Richard; I've always been disappointed in WMF support of OTRS, it being a key point of contact. I burned out of OTRS recently (just taking a break till more time comes available) when we cleared out the whole queue (I handled something like 300 tickets in a month) but I see it is already back at massive-scale...
Apparently we will finally be getting a software upgrade "soon", but even that is not entirely fit for purpose.
Overall these are not easy problems to fix; I think we desperately need to implement pending changes, and the WMF should enforce this system. There are technical/community drawbacks to that technology but we need to consider the moral obligations to our subjects first.
Tom
On 14 November 2012 13:08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 13:06, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Let's get back down to earth. "Cumbersome" in the title of the thread implies we are dealing with people who are not the type to read instructions patiently, and follow them. These people may be "normal" by many standards.
And specifically, "cumbersome" is the PRCA making excuses for a member having been busted whitewashing Wikipedia. The entire premise of the supposed problem is fraudulent.
- d.
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 14 November 2012 14:43, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
David; I think Charles and Andreas have gotten beyond the original issue and are talking about the real problems that exist.
"cumbersome" doesn't strike me as a hugely unfair way of putting it...
Well-judged spin, in other words.
Charles
For what it's worth, my opinion (as some who has had access to a fair few OTRS queues for a fair number of years) is that we need more OTRS volunteers. Lots more. At the moment, Wikimedia UK has about a dozen semi-active volunteers for its queue, and we have reasonable response times (48 hours ish). I'm not sure how many the WMF has for the global queues, but to answer every email within, say, 48 hours, would require (in my opinion) at least several hundred volunteers, with several dozen being active daily.
Wikimedia UK did run an OTRS workshop, which was useful, but it turned into more of an OTRS planning weekend, with only a few new people trained to use OTRS. It's a very slow way of training people - it's not just the OTRS software, but customer service skills which are needed. Most Wikipedians can't reliably answer emails from OTRS because they don't have the needed levels of WIkipedia experience, OTRS system experience, and customer service experience. There's the added (necessary) stumbling block of identifying to the WMF.
<radicalthinking> Perhaps OTRS access to the English Wikipedia courtesy queue could be given to English Wikipedia admins who are willing to identify to the WMF? That would free up the experienced OTRS agents to handle the more important 'quality' queue. </radicalthinking>
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 14 November 2012 12:53, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com
wrote:
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to
the
OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty
much
everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing
system
we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Richard: a slight correction, the processes for obtaining OTRS access have changed - I think in 2009/2010.
Instead of the full 'identification' to the WMF (where you send in a copy of your ID to prove you're >18), OTRS access only requires you to send an email with your full real name and age (OTRS access can be given to people >16) to the OTRS admins.
If people aren't required to send their full identification documents perhaps that could reduce that stumbling block slightly?
Thehelpfulone https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
On 14 Nov 2012, at 14:36, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
For what it's worth, my opinion (as some who has had access to a fair few OTRS queues for a fair number of years) is that we need more OTRS volunteers. Lots more. At the moment, Wikimedia UK has about a dozen semi-active volunteers for its queue, and we have reasonable response times (48 hours ish). I'm not sure how many the WMF has for the global queues, but to answer every email within, say, 48 hours, would require (in my opinion) at least several hundred volunteers, with several dozen being active daily.
Wikimedia UK did run an OTRS workshop, which was useful, but it turned into more of an OTRS planning weekend, with only a few new people trained to use OTRS. It's a very slow way of training people - it's not just the OTRS software, but customer service skills which are needed. Most Wikipedians can't reliably answer emails from OTRS because they don't have the needed levels of WIkipedia experience, OTRS system experience, and customer service experience. There's the added (necessary) stumbling block of identifying to the WMF.
<radicalthinking> Perhaps OTRS access to the English Wikipedia courtesy queue could be given to English Wikipedia admins who are willing to identify to the WMF? That would free up the experienced OTRS agents to handle the more important 'quality' queue. </radicalthinking>
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
On 14 November 2012 12:53, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty much everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing system we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Oh, that's much better - but the process still needs an overhaul :-(
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 14 November 2012 15:25, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.comwrote:
Richard: a slight correction, the processes for obtaining OTRS access have changed - I think in 2009/2010.
Instead of the full 'identification' to the WMF (where you send in a copy of your ID to prove you're >18), OTRS access only requires you to send an email with your full real name and age (OTRS access can be given to people
- to the OTRS admins.
If people aren't required to send their full identification documents perhaps that could reduce that stumbling block slightly?
Thehelpfulone https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
On 14 Nov 2012, at 14:36, Richard Symonds < richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
For what it's worth, my opinion (as some who has had access to a fair few OTRS queues for a fair number of years) is that we need more OTRS volunteers. Lots more. At the moment, Wikimedia UK has about a dozen semi-active volunteers for its queue, and we have reasonable response times (48 hours ish). I'm not sure how many the WMF has for the global queues, but to answer every email within, say, 48 hours, would require (in my opinion) at least several hundred volunteers, with several dozen being active daily.
Wikimedia UK did run an OTRS workshop, which was useful, but it turned into more of an OTRS planning weekend, with only a few new people trained to use OTRS. It's a very slow way of training people - it's not just the OTRS software, but customer service skills which are needed. Most Wikipedians can't reliably answer emails from OTRS because they don't have the needed levels of WIkipedia experience, OTRS system experience, and customer service experience. There's the added (necessary) stumbling block of identifying to the WMF.
<radicalthinking> Perhaps OTRS access to the English Wikipedia courtesy queue could be given to English Wikipedia admins who are willing to identify to the WMF? That would free up the experienced OTRS agents to handle the more important 'quality' queue. </radicalthinking>
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
On 14 November 2012 12:53, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to
the
OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data
on
how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty
much
everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing
system
we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
More OTRS agents would certainly help (any experienced Wikpedians, please do go to meta:OTRS/volunteering if you can help). But lack of agents isn't the only problem with OTRS. We're inundated (and that's not an exaggeration) with emails we can't do anything about.
Many people email us with issues that can easily be resolved on-wiki or don't realise that OTRS agents don't have superpowers and can't intervene in disputes. We get rants, chain letters, and plain old spam (because the email addresses are plastered all over the Internet). We get emails that we *can* help with but end up taking up a lot of our time (I have a ticket that's been open for over a year and I still get regular emails from the client). We get all sorts of general enquires, feedback, and other things that probably should go elsehwhere. It adds up to thousands of tickets a week. Try finding the urgent BLP complaints amongst that lot, bearing in mind that OTRS agents are volunteers and that we have other commitments on Wikipedia, not to mention in real life.
I don't have a proposed solution, I'm just trying to let people knowwhat we're up against.
So Andreas' suggestion of directing people to COIN makes a lot of sense Harry Mitchell
Phone: 024 7698 0977 Skype: harry_j_mitchell
________________________________ From: Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk To: Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com Cc: Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Wednesday, 14 November 2012, 15:48 Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] PR industry blames 'cumbersome' Wikipedia (Andreas Kolbe)
Oh, that's much better - but the process still needs an overhaul :-(
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
On 14 November 2012 15:25, Thehelpfulone thehelpfulonewiki@gmail.com wrote:
Richard: a slight correction, the processes for obtaining OTRS access have changed - I think in 2009/2010.
Instead of the full 'identification' to the WMF (where you send in a copy of your ID to prove you're >18), OTRS access only requires you to send an email with your full real name and age (OTRS access can be given to people >16) to the OTRS admins.
If people aren't required to send their full identification documents perhaps that could reduce that stumbling block slightly?
Thehelpfulone https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Thehelpfulone
On 14 Nov 2012, at 14:36, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
For what it's worth, my opinion (as some who has had access to a fair few OTRS queues for a fair number of years) is that we need more OTRS volunteers. Lots more. At the moment, Wikimedia UK has about a dozen semi-active volunteers for its queue, and we have reasonable response times (48 hours ish). I'm not sure how many the WMF has for the global queues, but to answer every email within, say, 48 hours, would require (in my opinion) at least several hundred volunteers, with several dozen being active daily.
Wikimedia UK did run an OTRS workshop, which was useful, but it turned into more of an OTRS planning weekend, with only a few new people trained to use OTRS. It's a very slow way of training people - it's not just the OTRS software, but customer service skills which are needed. Most Wikipedians can't reliably answer emails from OTRS because they don't have the needed levels of WIkipedia experience, OTRS system experience, and customer service experience. There's the added (necessary) stumbling block of identifying to the WMF.
<radicalthinking> Perhaps OTRS access to the English Wikipedia courtesy queue could be given to English Wikipedia admins who are willing to identify to the WMF? That would free up the experienced OTRS agents to handle the more important 'quality' queue. </radicalthinking>
Richard Symonds Wikimedia UK 0207 065 0992 Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
On 14 November 2012 12:53, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 12:42, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 11:55 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 14 November 2012 00:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
And there is. Oliver's revamp of the Contact Us pages has made a huge difference, because previously, PR professionals would pass three invitations to fix the article themselves before they would come to the OTRS e-mail address.
But there is still room for improvement. OTRS e-mails should be responded to the same day, not up to four weeks later. Is anyone collecting data on how quickly OTRS mails are responded to? Are those data public? If not, there is another potential area for improvement.
What WSQ said.
Also, rethinking the "contact us" route is one thing, encouraging more people to use it early is another. The first may well be helpful, the second in current circumstances is not going to improve things. Some of your questions here are clearly for the WMF.
Charles
For better or worse, Wikipedia is the number one Google link for pretty much everything and everyone. With that comes a responsibility to get things right; a responsibility we cannot live up to, given the open editing system we've got, and the number of articles and editors we've got.
The trouble is ... we have no power over Google, do we? It is a familiar argument that you are putting.
The actual solutions are (1) to grow the community (and I mean growing it with responsible, well-trained editors). I personally have put time and effort into this in the past, as well as editing many hours a day. And (2) to make it easier for the community to do useful work.
Now the WMF is well resourced, we should really be discussing these matters. The traditional spiralling blame game set off by "case studies" is not the best way, IMX.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 14 November 2012 17:44, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
We get all sorts of general enquires, feedback, and other things that probably should go elsehwhere. It adds up to thousands of tickets a week. Try finding the urgent BLP complaints amongst that lot, bearing in mind that OTRS agents are volunteers and that we have other commitments on Wikipedia, not to mention in real life.
Triage is all, and if OTRS isn't set up to make it easy then it should be. (General point about volunteers' time being valued, and "free" software being a misnomer as soon as you do that.)
BTW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-11-12/News_an... is relevant to th whole debate.
Charles
On 14 November 2012 17:52, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com
wrote:
On 14 November 2012 17:44, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
We get all sorts of general enquires, feedback, and other things that probably should go elsehwhere. It adds up to thousands of tickets a week. Try finding the urgent BLP complaints amongst that lot, bearing in mind
that
OTRS agents are volunteers and that we have other commitments on
Wikipedia,
not to mention in real life.
Triage is all, and if OTRS isn't set up to make it easy then it should be.
Sadly it isn't. There are several queues, but probably not enough for effective triage (i.e. most of it ends up in quality or courtesy). There is also an "urgency" attribute on tickets that can be changed - but this only puts them higher up the queue (which a lot of people work on from the end).
Moving tickets is a pain - you have to scan through a dropdown menu mostly consisting of unrelated other-language tickets to find the english queues, then pick one & hit submit. At which point the queue you are on is reloaded, and if you happened to have been on e.g. a ticket or differnet queue in another tab you will end up there...
Pain in the..
:P
Tom
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
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 5:56 PM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas@googlemail.com
wrote:
On 14 November 2012 17:52, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 14 November 2012 17:44, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
We get all sorts of general enquires, feedback, and other things that probably should go elsehwhere. It adds up to thousands of tickets a
week.
Try finding the urgent BLP complaints amongst that lot, bearing in mind
that
OTRS agents are volunteers and that we have other commitments on
Wikipedia,
not to mention in real life.
Triage is all, and if OTRS isn't set up to make it easy then it should be.
Sadly it isn't. There are several queues, but probably not enough for effective triage (i.e. most of it ends up in quality or courtesy). There is also an "urgency" attribute on tickets that can be changed - but this only puts them higher up the queue (which a lot of people work on from the end).
Moving tickets is a pain - you have to scan through a dropdown menu mostly consisting of unrelated other-language tickets to find the english queues, then pick one & hit submit. At which point the queue you are on is reloaded, and if you happened to have been on e.g. a ticket or differnet queue in another tab you will end up there...
Pain in the..
:P
Tom
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
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
On 15 November 2012 12:04, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
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, the "customer" on Wikipedia is the reader. And forgetting that leads to a confusion of "contact Wikipedia" with "complaints service".
Readers and editors play different roles in the system. We need to keep clear the distinction. (Even if the mechanism for contacting WP could do with tweaking, we still need to be clear that the reader matters.)
Charles
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
Tom
On 15 November 2012 12:32, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com
wrote:
On 15 November 2012 12:04, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
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, the "customer" on Wikipedia is the reader. And forgetting that leads to a confusion of "contact Wikipedia" with "complaints service".
Readers and editors play different roles in the system. We need to keep clear the distinction. (Even if the mechanism for contacting WP could do with tweaking, we still need to be clear that the reader matters.)
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Tom , I think that's a fair comment - but we have the problem that we can't actually employ anyone to provide that service. An an OTRS volunteer yourself, do you have any suggestions on how we can bring more people into the fold? It doesn't seem to be something we can reasonably incentivise, either. It's something of a quandary!
Stevie
On 15 November 2012 14:10, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.comwrote:
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
Tom
On 15 November 2012 12:32, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 15 November 2012 12:04, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
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, the "customer" on Wikipedia is the reader. And forgetting that leads to a confusion of "contact Wikipedia" with "complaints service".
Readers and editors play different roles in the system. We need to keep clear the distinction. (Even if the mechanism for contacting WP could do with tweaking, we still need to be clear that the reader matters.)
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Stevie Benton < stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Tom , I think that's a fair comment - but we have the problem that we can't actually employ anyone to provide that service. An an OTRS volunteer yourself, do you have any suggestions on how we can bring more people into the fold? It doesn't seem to be something we can reasonably incentivise, either. It's something of a quandary!
Stevie
More OTRS volunteers would help, but in a situation like this it's more important to think about problem prevention than about increasing the number of people fixing problems.
That means things like flagged revisions, to prevent malicious edits from ever being seen by readers and subjects, and providing a responsive service on-wiki to fix whatever does slip through, so people have no need to come running to OTRS.
Andreas
On 15 November 2012 14:10, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.comwrote:
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
Tom
Hi stevie. Long emial, sorry.
Simplest answer; Improve the OTRS software.
That would be big step, but my recent attempt to do so didn't get anywhere.
Barring that, OTRS recruitment isn't the best solution. Agents get burnt out and, as delicately as I can, some of us are terrible at customer service (I once picked up a hanging ticket where the first respondent had sent a clearly upset individual a load of wiki-jargon).
The key change is cultural. As editors we are quite self centred, with strong opinions on our mission, and often forget that we are talking about real people.
I've seen subjects or their reps appear on talk pages with concerns and for them to be basically insulted. (In fairness I have also seen editors go out of their way to help an article subject)
I was guilty if this once, an actor who had divorced some years ago felt the press had unfairly dragged him through the mire. He tried to fix the "truth", and as a result we clashed.
It took me a long while to reflect on that exchange, but I realised how much that content affects him as an individual.
Now, it seems likely that a lot of the stuff he objects to is nit picking. Things he obsesses over for some reason or another. But some of that content was essentially gossip, and who can say of a 20 year old tabloid had the Truth of it or not. Whatever, it's recorded for history now...
I still don't know what to do about that content. But I do now recognise the impact of our actions on real life.
We helped stop some US legislation for goodness sake, if that is not an example of our intellectual mindshare then I don't know what is.
So the key change that is needed is this: we need a social change where we are humble about our role and where we recognise the impact of our work on real people.
Im in the office today, so will bend your ear some more in person if you like, and if time permits.
Tom Morton
On 15 Nov 2012, at 14:16, Stevie Benton stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Tom , I think that's a fair comment - but we have the problem that we can't actually employ anyone to provide that service. An an OTRS volunteer yourself, do you have any suggestions on how we can bring more people into the fold? It doesn't seem to be something we can reasonably incentivise, either. It's something of a quandary!
Stevie
On 15 November 2012 14:10, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.comwrote:
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
Tom
On 15 November 2012 12:32, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 15 November 2012 12:04, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
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, the "customer" on Wikipedia is the reader. And forgetting that leads to a confusion of "contact Wikipedia" with "complaints service".
Readers and editors play different roles in the system. We need to keep clear the distinction. (Even if the mechanism for contacting WP could do with tweaking, we still need to be clear that the reader matters.)
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 15 November 2012 14:10, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
No, that assumes what needs to be proved.
This thread arose because the readers' interests were damaged by PR editing. PR folk should only be charging for a service they can actually deliver.
If they can't edit properly, within NPOV and all that implies, they have no right to be on WP, and they also have no right to ask for money from clients for alleged services they can render. And you can call the attitude "if the guidelines are inconvenient we can game them" many things, but "professional" is not one of them.
If PR folk wish to have any status as professional representatives of individuals or organisations, it must be on our terms, and they must respect, at a bare minimum, the mission of the site and the terms of use. From my experience, subjects of BLP would to better to hire a lawyer, who would at least understand some of that.
Charles
If they hire a lawyer it goes to legal@,which can be even slower and usually ends up with a recommendation back to OTRS.
Your reply here is what I call the insider fallacy. Because we are wikipedians we consider Wikipedia and the mission the most important thing.
An article subject justifiably doesn't care about that compared to his reputation.
Now of course I agree a PR company is not necessairuly altruistic in the sense of protecting a clients reputation. They are paid after all, and the more positive the coverage the better their payout!
But people DO hire PR firms to handle genuine issues with their biographies, and we currently treat those people badly.
Tom Morton
On 15 Nov 2012, at 15:14, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 15 November 2012 14:10, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
We have two customers, and one "employee" role, I think. And it should go something like (in order of importance):
Reader (Customer) Subject (Customer) Editor (Employee)
Or in other words; because the PR company represents the subject of the article, and we rank so highly on Google etc., they should reasonably expect to receive a good service from us.
No, that assumes what needs to be proved.
This thread arose because the readers' interests were damaged by PR editing. PR folk should only be charging for a service they can actually deliver.
If they can't edit properly, within NPOV and all that implies, they have no right to be on WP, and they also have no right to ask for money from clients for alleged services they can render. And you can call the attitude "if the guidelines are inconvenient we can game them" many things, but "professional" is not one of them.
If PR folk wish to have any status as professional representatives of individuals or organisations, it must be on our terms, and they must respect, at a bare minimum, the mission of the site and the terms of use. From my experience, subjects of BLP would to better to hire a lawyer, who would at least understand some of that.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 16 November 2012 08:08, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
If they hire a lawyer it goes to legal@,which can be even slower and usually ends up with a recommendation back to OTRS.
Your reply here is what I call the insider fallacy. Because we are wikipedians we consider Wikipedia and the mission the most important thing.
It is not so much a "fallacy" as integral to the definition of "conflict of interest" we use. Which, as Andy was pointing out, is actually more permissive than it might be. That is because it allows us to distinguish between "potential conflict of interest" and actually not being able to hack it with NPOV.
An article subject justifiably doesn't care about that compared to his reputation.
Now of course I agree a PR company is not necessairuly altruistic in the sense of protecting a clients reputation. They are paid after all, and the more positive the coverage the better their payout!
But people DO hire PR firms to handle genuine issues with their biographies, and we currently treat those people badly.
Those of use who contributed to the draft CIPR guide are aware of the need to improve the relationship.
On the other hand I don't think your stance here really holds water.
If a PR firm promises a client that it will do something that is outside the recognised way of editing WP for PR pros, it is not behaving properly. If it invoices a client for a service and the service has not been carried out properly, it is treating the client badly. Particularly if anyone working for a PR firm indulges in "misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity" (see terms of use at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_...) to get under our radar, they are behaving in a markedly unprofessional fashion.
I mentioned lawyers for a couple of reasons. They are not going to throw up their hands at procedures, and likewise are not going to promise clients that something can be done quickly unless it can be. Also they will be trained (by moots etc.) to see the point of "writing for the enemy" which is the crux of NPOV from the point of restraining advocacy. The snag with lawyers is that they will likely treat policy pages as legal drafting when they are not. But in any case the contrast is instructive, I think.
Charles
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 9:29 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 November 2012 08:08, Thomas Morton morton.thomas@googlemail.com wrote:
If they hire a lawyer it goes to legal@,which can be even slower and usually ends up with a recommendation back to OTRS.
Your reply here is what I call the insider fallacy. Because we are wikipedians we consider Wikipedia and the mission the most important thing.
It is not so much a "fallacy" as integral to the definition of "conflict of interest" we use. Which, as Andy was pointing out, is actually more permissive than it might be. That is because it allows us to distinguish between "potential conflict of interest" and actually not being able to hack it with NPOV.
An article subject justifiably doesn't care about that compared to his reputation.
Now of course I agree a PR company is not necessairuly altruistic in the sense of protecting a clients reputation. They are paid after all, and the more positive the coverage the better their payout!
But people DO hire PR firms to handle genuine issues with their biographies, and we currently treat those people badly.
Those of use who contributed to the draft CIPR guide are aware of the need to improve the relationship.
On the other hand I don't think your stance here really holds water.
If a PR firm promises a client that it will do something that is outside the recognised way of editing WP for PR pros, it is not behaving properly. If it invoices a client for a service and the service has not been carried out properly, it is treating the client badly. Particularly if anyone working for a PR firm indulges in "misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity" (see terms of use at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use#4._Refraining_from_Certain_... ) to get under our radar, they are behaving in a markedly unprofessional fashion.
I mentioned lawyers for a couple of reasons. They are not going to throw up their hands at procedures, and likewise are not going to promise clients that something can be done quickly unless it can be. Also they will be trained (by moots etc.) to see the point of "writing for the enemy" which is the crux of NPOV from the point of restraining advocacy. The snag with lawyers is that they will likely treat policy pages as legal drafting when they are not. But in any case the contrast is instructive, I think.
Charles, I really am a bit mystified here. First of all, I would echo Tom's point about the insider fallacy. In quality management terms, the people Wikipedia writes about are customers, just as readers are. That's quality management ABC, and I can't imagine why you would contest that.
Secondly, even the WMUK/CIPR guideline allows that there is a way for PR companies to contribute: by using the talk page and noticeboards. At least those PR professionals who comply with that guideline deserve to receive efficient service, and there can be no intimation that what they do is in any way improper, and had better be done by a lawyer. And if all they do is use talk pages and noticeboards, then they don't have to be able to edit within NPOV to have a right to be at the WP table. Just turning up on a talk page is enough. Do you disagree?
Thirdly, as Andy has pointed out, PR professionals and employees are not actually at present forbidden from editing Wikipedia. Until four weeks ago, people who clicked "Contact us" to report an article problem were presented with one invitation after another to just go and fix the article themselves. And the number of articles edited by organisations' staff is legion. I sometimes think a quarter of Wikipedia wouldn't exist if it weren't for conflict-of-interest edits. They're everywhere. Pick any article on a minor company, musician or publication, and chances are you'll find the subject or staff members in the edit history.
People have PR departments, or hire PR agents, to manage their reputation. That's just how it is. If they come to Wikipedia with a justified complaint, Wikipedia should have a process in place that does not require them to edit the article themselves, but provides them with a reasonable level of service, and gets things done when that's the right thing to do. There should be no quibbling that PR professionals have no right to complain in Wikipedia.
I don't think that's what you're saying, as you say you are well aware of the need to improved the relationship between Wikipedia and PR professionals, but just what you *are* saying to Tom then escapes me at the moment.
Andreas
On 16 November 2012 09:54, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Charles, I really am a bit mystified here. First of all, I would echo Tom's point about the insider fallacy. In quality management terms, the people Wikipedia writes about are customers, just as readers are. That's quality management ABC, and I can't imagine why you would contest that.
Well, ask the management of "The Sun" whether the celebs they write about are the "customers", and they'll have a good belly-laugh. Since I'm not interested in the "tabloid" side of WP I know what you are saying here, but I don't think you are expressing the point. Everyone knows that WP operates on universal principles rather than things you find in management books.
Secondly, even the WMUK/CIPR guideline allows that there is a way for PR companies to contribute: by using the talk page and noticeboards. At least those PR professionals who comply with that guideline deserve to receive efficient service, and there can be no intimation that what they do is in any way improper, and had better be done by a lawyer. And if all they do is use talk pages and noticeboards, then they don't have to be able to edit within NPOV to have a right to be at the WP table. Just turning up on a talk page is enough. Do you disagree?
About the lawyer: I think I have been misunderstood here. I meant that a lawyer probably has had enough training and background to deal with the actual issues of representing a client on WP. I was not suggesting that anyone should be using a lawyer to make legal threats and so on.
Since I was involved in the CIPR guideline draft I know what it says.
I think we (the WP community) should show a courteous face to all who come to talk pages and elsewhere on the site needing help.
Thirdly, as Andy has pointed out, PR professionals and employees are not actually at present forbidden from editing Wikipedia.
I was heavily involved in drafting the COI guideline in 2006, so I know what it says (or used to say, at least).
Until four weeks ago, people who clicked "Contact us" to report an article problem were presented with one invitation after another to just go and fix the article themselves. And the number of articles edited by organisations' staff is legion. I sometimes think a quarter of Wikipedia wouldn't exist if it weren't for conflict-of-interest edits. They're everywhere. Pick any article on a minor company, musician or publication, and chances are you'll find the subject or staff members in the edit history.
I think your estimate assumes too much. It would be more helpful to understand how big the problematic sector really is.
People have PR departments, or hire PR agents, to manage their reputation. That's just how it is. If they come to Wikipedia with a justified complaint, Wikipedia should have a process in place that does not require them to edit the article themselves, but provides them with a reasonable level of service, and gets things done when that's the right thing to do. There should be no quibbling that PR professionals have no right to complain in Wikipedia.
The "right to complain" on behalf of someone else is an innovation, I think. And this is where I have a problem. Arrogating to ones' self the right to complain not just about the content (which surely anyone can do) but as representative of a particular interest is questionable. Historically lobbyists had to wait in the lobby?
I don't think that's what you're saying, as you say you are well aware of the need to improved the relationship between Wikipedia and PR professionals, but just what you *are* saying to Tom then escapes me at the moment.
As I said, my example of lawyers was more to do with fitness to do the job actually required than about role.
I have had a couple of interesting conversations with people outside the community about training PR folk to the point where they could more fruitfully do the job of defending clients on WP. What was interesting was that my estimate of how much training it would take was at odds with the estimate I was being given of how long the trainees' companies would be prepared to allow them to take off the job. Time is money, in that sector. But we have to face this as a practical issue, if WMUK (for example) is to move to doing workshops with the PR sector. My actual problem comes down to this: if we are required to teach a quick-and-dirty approach to WP editing to PR pros who then expect simple steps to give good results, there may be disappointment.
The conflation of WP and "social media" in the PR Week online piece shows the trouble here. WP predates social media as people now understand it, and is fundamentally more complicated. We have to make that point clearly in order to get progress here, and if what we get back is based on, say, Facebook as comparison, we are not in serious communication with the other side.
Charles
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 November 2012 09:54, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Charles, I really am a bit mystified here. First of all, I would echo
Tom's
point about the insider fallacy. In quality management terms, the people Wikipedia writes about are customers, just as readers are. That's quality management ABC, and I can't imagine why you would contest that.
Well, ask the management of "The Sun" whether the celebs they write about are the "customers", and they'll have a good belly-laugh. Since I'm not interested in the "tabloid" side of WP I know what you are saying here, but I don't think you are expressing the point. Everyone knows that WP operates on universal principles rather than things you find in management books.
Let's just say then that both readers and subjects have certain rightful expectations of Wikipedia, and how well Wikipedia fulfils them is a measure of the quality of Wikipedia's service.
Secondly, even the WMUK/CIPR guideline allows that there is a way for PR
companies to contribute: by using the talk page and noticeboards. At
least
those PR professionals who comply with that guideline deserve to receive efficient service, and there can be no intimation that what they do is in any way improper, and had better be done by a lawyer. And if all they do
is
use talk pages and noticeboards, then they don't have to be able to edit within NPOV to have a right to be at the WP table. Just turning up on a
talk
page is enough. Do you disagree?
About the lawyer: I think I have been misunderstood here. I meant that a lawyer probably has had enough training and background to deal with the actual issues of representing a client on WP. I was not suggesting that anyone should be using a lawyer to make legal threats and so on.
Since I was involved in the CIPR guideline draft I know what it says.
I think we (the WP community) should show a courteous face to all who come to talk pages and elsewhere on the site needing help.
Thirdly, as Andy has pointed out, PR professionals and employees are not actually at present forbidden from editing Wikipedia.
I was heavily involved in drafting the COI guideline in 2006, so I know what it says (or used to say, at least).
Until four weeks ago, people who clicked "Contact us" to report an article problem were
presented
with one invitation after another to just go and fix the article
themselves.
And the number of articles edited by organisations' staff is legion. I sometimes think a quarter of Wikipedia wouldn't exist if it weren't for conflict-of-interest edits. They're everywhere. Pick any article on a
minor
company, musician or publication, and chances are you'll find the
subject or
staff members in the edit history.
I think your estimate assumes too much. It would be more helpful to understand how big the problematic sector really is.
People have PR departments, or hire PR agents, to manage their
reputation.
That's just how it is. If they come to Wikipedia with a justified
complaint,
Wikipedia should have a process in place that does not require them to
edit
the article themselves, but provides them with a reasonable level of service, and gets things done when that's the right thing to do. There should be no quibbling that PR professionals have no right to complain in Wikipedia.
The "right to complain" on behalf of someone else is an innovation, I think. And this is where I have a problem. Arrogating to ones' self the right to complain not just about the content (which surely anyone can do) but as representative of a particular interest is questionable. Historically lobbyists had to wait in the lobby?
I don't think that's what you're saying, as you say you are well aware of the need to improved the relationship between Wikipedia and PR professionals, but just what you *are* saying to Tom then escapes me at
the
moment.
As I said, my example of lawyers was more to do with fitness to do the job actually required than about role.
Okay, I see what you're saying now. Lawyers are perhaps more used to situations where they have to tell a client, You can't do that, or You can't do it that way.
I have had a couple of interesting conversations with people outside the community about training PR folk to the point where they could more fruitfully do the job of defending clients on WP. What was interesting was that my estimate of how much training it would take was at odds with the estimate I was being given of how long the trainees' companies would be prepared to allow them to take off the job. Time is money, in that sector. But we have to face this as a practical issue, if WMUK (for example) is to move to doing workshops with the PR sector. My actual problem comes down to this: if we are required to teach a quick-and-dirty approach to WP editing to PR pros who then expect simple steps to give good results, there may be disappointment.
The supreme irony here is that Wikipedia set out to be open, in contrast to the ivory tower of academe. Yet over the space of a decade, Wikipedia has become so involved, and its policy so impenetrable and contradictory, that people are now making a living from guiding others through it.
The conflation of WP and "social media" in the PR Week online piece shows the trouble here. WP predates social media as people now understand it, and is fundamentally more complicated. We have to make that point clearly in order to get progress here, and if what we get back is based on, say, Facebook as comparison, we are not in serious communication with the other side.
Charles
Wikipedia has one thing in common with social media: just like anyone can register a Facebook or Twitter account and write what they like about whoever they like or dislike, anyone can edit Wikipedia – and that really does include anyone, regardless of fitness or motivation.
Andreas
On 16 November 2012 13:11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
The supreme irony here is that Wikipedia set out to be open, in contrast to the ivory tower of academe. Yet over the space of a decade, Wikipedia has become so involved, and its policy so impenetrable and contradictory, that people are now making a living from guiding others through it.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system#Layered_defense . It's about living in the real world.
It is quite possible for policies to contradict each other, or be in tension. I don't regard this as one of our major issues, however.
Charles
I was involved in the CIPR guidelines and I pushed very had for the guidelines to say PR people reading the guidelines should not edit the COI pages. There are circumstances where a PR pro can edit a page but they need a bit of experience editing WP first.
The CIPR guidelines are not aimed at those people. They are aimed at the PR pro but WP noob who has been told by his boss to fix something on WP. The CIPR guidelines give him something from the CIPR that he can show his boss to explain why it is not practical to fix it just like that. You do not want much grey in those guidelines, none in the intro and the first few paragraphs. At most have some 'advanced techniwues' in the last paragraph.
Joe
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 November 2012 13:11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
The supreme irony here is that Wikipedia set out to be open, in contrast
to
the ivory tower of academe. Yet over the space of a decade, Wikipedia has become so involved, and its policy so impenetrable and contradictory,
that
people are now making a living from guiding others through it.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_system#Layered_defense . It's about living in the real world.
It is quite possible for policies to contradict each other, or be in tension. I don't regard this as one of our major issues, however.
Charles
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 16 November 2012 21:11, Joe Filceolaire filceolaire@gmail.com wrote:
The CIPR guidelines are not aimed at those people. They are aimed at the PR pro but WP noob who has been told by his boss to fix something on WP. The CIPR guidelines give him something from the CIPR that he can show his boss to explain why it is not practical to fix it just like that. You do not want much grey in those guidelines, none in the intro and the first few paragraphs. At most have some 'advanced techniwues' in the last paragraph.
Yep. Remember that among the bad actors, there are many perfectly decent PR people, and we want to help them not shoot themselves or their client in the foot.
- d.
On 16 November 2012 22:13, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 16 November 2012 21:11, Joe Filceolaire filceolaire@gmail.com wrote:
The CIPR guidelines are not aimed at those people. They are aimed at the PR pro but WP noob who has been told by his boss to fix something on WP. The CIPR guidelines give him something from the CIPR that he can show his boss to explain why it is not practical to fix it just like that. You do not want much grey in those guidelines, none in the intro and the first few paragraphs. At most have some 'advanced techniwues' in the last paragraph.
Yep. Remember that among the bad actors, there are many perfectly decent PR people, and we want to help them not shoot themselves or their client in the foot.
Indeed. The gap between us (volunteers who are mostly trying to create a fair picture) and them (who are paid to avoid unfairly bad pictures) is not unbridgable. Assuming good faith, of course.
On 14 November 2012 17:44, HJ Mitchell hjmitchell@ymail.com wrote:
More OTRS agents would certainly help
My offer to be an OTRS operator has been accepted; thank you Harry, and Fae, who reach supported it.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org