[Foundation-l] IRC Group Contacts

[Sean Whitton]

Okay, right, I think it's time for some explanation from me about
what, quite rightly, prompted you to make this suggestion. I think I
need to clarify a few things and apologise.

I have got a pretty efficient system going with the script on the
toolserver that gathers requests and checks them for validity. It has
improved things vastly and my thanks pour over to GeorgeMoney for
helping me to code it. I enforce pretty stringent cloak requirements
in terms of requiring e-mail addresses and alt nicks etc., and this
means that before I was getting huge numbers of invalid requests. Now,
only about one in every ten is a request I have to refuse for whatever
reason.

However, this all went wrong a few weeks ago and this meant that a
large number of people are waiting in vain, and this is what I intend
to apologise for. When I changed my username I got my toolserver
username changed from xyrael to swhitton but didn't realise the
database credentials hadn't been moved properly by the admin who
renamed the account (my fault for not checking, not theirs for doing
it wrongly), This meant that a load of requests that were memo'ed and
talk paged correctly are not in the database and so I can't really do
them. Yes, I could try and piece together the different parts myself,
but I don't think this is very efficient, and it wouldn't always work.

Instead, I am going to be asking all those I have partial requests for
to re-do their requests from the top, which is rather unfortunate, but
I think it's probably going to be faster overall.

***PLEASE DO NOT JUST GO AND DO THIS YET*** (indeed, this is the
reason I didn't post to the list before to avoid a deluge of requests
with a system in a bit of a mess)

I will send memos out to those I have memos but no database, and those
in the database with no memo should get something similar. When you
get a memo, that should tell you do redo your request.

If this plan works then the system will become efficient again and I
will get back to rattling through cloaks at the speed you have kindly
praised me for in this thread :)

I would also like to address the issue with the other side of
group-contacting which is managing channels as an oversight.
Essentially, James and I try and be pretty laid-back and prefer
channel owners and ops with access already to deal with things because
they know more about specific channels than us: I go to a specific
person for #wikipedia issues, for example. This is nothing new and has
long been the case that we try and let things handle themselves the
vast majority of the time.

On the other hand there are cases where things can't be dealt for
technical and social reasons and in such a situation please don't be
afraid to to e-mail me, or if appropriate drop me a talk page message.
I'm always happy to help and because I'm also a freenode staffer I'm
always willing to dispense general IRC advice, outside of my contact
role: I try to be a helpful person!

So, to summarise: once the cloak request system is fixed then things
will probably move a lot faster, and then all concerns presented here
will be lifted. Isn't it nice when things work?

Sean
Your friendly IRC group contact

On 16/05/07, Casey Brown <cbrown1023 at comcast.net> wrote:
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_Group_Contacts
>
> This is not a concern about the quality of the contacts' work, which is
> fantastic, but rather the fact that we have only two people in this role and
> their availability is sometimes limited.  We currently only have two
> contacts, but sometimes their other Wikimedia and real-life commitments
> create delays.
>
> We also have to look at the nature of the job itself and the size of our IRC
> network.  The job entails setting up cloaks and coordinating the Wikimedia
> Foundation and its users with the Freenode staff.  Handing out cloaks itself
> is a rather labor-intensive process and there are many that need to be done.
> Sean is rather inactive and while he always replies, it is sometimes days
> later.
>
> For a group as large as Wikimedia, I believe we need at least 4 or 5 active
> contacts.  The Foundation and the community need to figure whether or not we
> do need more contacts and, if so, who we want these users to be.
>
> Casey Brown
> Cbrown1023
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


-- 
—Sean Whitton (seanw)
<sean at silentflame.com>
http://seanwhitton.com/