[Foundation-l] Changes to the identification policies and procedures

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 7:09 PM, MZMcBride <z at mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> Steven Walling wrote:
>> These changes were going to be discussed and documented in public...
> [...]
>> Speaking as an OTRS volunteer not as a staff member (this initiative isn't
>> part of my job)...
>
> I don't follow. How do you know that these changes were going to be
> discussed and documented in public? These changes have been discussed for at
> least some portion of January without any community involvement. When,
> exactly, was the community going be made aware that these changes were being
> discussed? When was the community going to be made aware that these changes
> had been implemented? An announcement has already been made. When was the
> Community Department going to involve the community (at least to give it a
> courtesy heads-up)?

I will note, as a member of both of these lists, that you did not
actually ask these questions - at least not publicly, that I could
find - before sending a note to foundation-l. Probably doing so would
have been helpful :)

It seems to me that a good-faith interpretation is that not announcing
changes right this second was the right thing to do -- since there was
so much controversy among OTRS agents the staff may choose to change
or modify the original plan, in which case it's not clear to me what
would be announced. The original announcement did affect only a
limited number of volunteers, and there was no implication that it
would be extended to admins, etc. Of course, broader discussion of the
issue of identification and access to non-private data (and who should
have it) in general is great, and if people have thoughts they should
weigh in.

For those not on the OTRS list, it's a list that is used
(unsurprisingly) for coordinating OTRS -- things like "there's a new
template for common question XYZ". It is and has always been a closed
list, because access to OTRS is closed and some things are sensitive
("hey, did can we merge all the mails from this person?") It is
typically pretty unexciting -- this is the longest discussion I think
I've ever seen on it in my 5+ years of being subscribed :)

-- phoebe