On 11/22/06, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
When I say OTRS-like it's deliberate - this isn't going to be bolted on to the existing system for handling @wikimedia.org emails, but rather a seperate handling system which uses the same (or similar) software and concepts. Basically, just something that lets us see what's open, what's closed, what's being handled.
What's the need, exactly? Wikipedia is littered with "work to be done" requests. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal/Opentask, fo example. None of those tasks are really tracked, monitored, prioritised - people just do them when they get to them. Is that not the appropriate strategy for this as well?
In the long run, I honestly see this taking pressure off main-OTRS - it means that the people who will jump through the extra hoop or three to contact us directly are likely to be those with a problem more significant that "OMG someone vandalised this page".
Cool :)
I feel it would be nice, in many ways; logging IP addresses is defensible for contributions, but for something as trivial as a critical comment... IMO it's overkill. YMMV.
I agree, but attempting to hide IPs would be difficult (ie, require changes to the software) and problematic (possibly allowing vandals to get around blocks etc). Desirable, but not strictly necessary?
An additional benefit of the "single flagging account" is that we can trivially go back and see how the system is being used, just by looking at the contributions of that single "user".
Logging everything on one central page would also have that advantage.
I do honestly feel that preventing blocks from governing this gives us a net benefit - sure, we'll get some abuse, but we'll also get the opportunity for a lot of users who would otherwise be unable to participate to leave comments. (Think of AOL users, or those behind school rangeblocks, etc etc)
Maybe - you could be right. Anyway, this is a bit of a side issue. We can certainly implement this a bit further down the track, can't we?
Ask yourself this: would it have worked for Siegenthaler, or for some random hoax article in a walled garden? Talk-and-categorising would work, I suppose - same effective result as central flagging.
Yep.
Yeah, that would be a problem. A sufficiently loud warning "Please do *not* leave any contact information here - your message will be made public." should be able to cover that.
How about "this article is about me, and..." cases?
Contact OTRS for that one. We can delimit specific cases that should and should not be dealt with via this method (which needs a name). The talk page is not the right place to go for "I am lawyer X. My client is being slandered. You have until sunrise tomorrow or knees get broken." type messages. It *is* the right place for "Napoleon wasn't born in 1943 you twerps." type messages.
Steve