[Foundation-l] Report a problem link

[Birgitte SB]

I there is simpler way to solicit these reports this without all the false positives that might come from a "report a problem"  link.  I imagine that all these people who have issues must click on the "Help" link in the sidebar while looking contact information. Why not have a banner on that page saying "If you have a problem with information about yourself that is on Wikipedia report it here."  And send it to a specific email address.

Birgitte SB


--- On Mon, 3/2/09, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Report a problem link
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Monday, March 2, 2009, 6:06 PM
> I'm breaking this specific idea out of the main thread,
> in order to focus on it.
> 
> There seems to be considerable support for adding some kind
> of "Report
> a problem" link to pages, (probably not necessarily)
> to the sidebar.
> 
> I'd like to give a little more thought to this idea,
> i.e. where we
> want a link to go, and what we want it to do.
> 
> Personally I think if such a link simply mails OTRS, that
> would be
> suboptimal.  It would risk creating a lot of email volume
> for
> relatively minor problems, and make it harder to
> differentiate
> important issues from minor ones.
> 
> By preference, I'd like to see a link that goes to a
> simple page for
> requesting help with options such as, "post a public
> message on the
> talk page", "email a volunteer for help",
> etc.  In principle, such a
> page, could even have a single text box for composing a
> message, a set
> of instructions, and a dropdown list of actions to take
> ranging from a
> talk page post to an OTRS email, etc.  Reports of vandalism
> and other
> simple problems might also be channeled automatically to
> one of the
> existing onwiki noticeboards if the reporter is not asking
> for
> privacy.
> 
> Clicking on the "report a problem" link should
> automatically fill in
> what page one came from.  Even more ideally, the report a
> problem link
> might be modified based on indicators in the page, such as
> "Category:Living people", in order to better
> prioritise and direct
> correspondence.  If the person reporting the problem does
> choose to
> post publicly, the post could be flagged with something
> like
> "Category:Unresolved problem reports", which
> might then be replaced
> with "Category:Resolved problem reports" after it
> has been looked at
> and handled.
> 
> Ideally, I think problem reports should include the option
> of being
> completely anonymous (though presumably with a CAPTCHA or
> other device
> to limit spam posts).
> 
> -Robert Rohde
> 
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