So that I can respond to commit access requests in a more prompt and standardised manner, I've set up an OTRS queue: commit-access-requests@wikimedia.org. I will get an email notification when new tickets are opened in it. It has the same permissions as the noc queue, but I imagine I'll be the only one looking at it for a while.
Moving to OTRS will make dialog with requesters easier and more reliable.
I will shortly migrate the outstanding requests to the queue, and update the mediawiki.org page to indicate that new requests should be sent to it.
I have modified the approval response template to encourage new users to create a user page on mediawiki.org. This means that there will still be a chance for new users to interact with mediawiki.org regulars and to talk about their projects.
-- Tim Starling