Talk:Volunteer Response Team/Archives/2019

Bild genehmigen lassen.

Hallo, ich hatte in der deutschen Wikipedia ein Bild eingestellt: Chinese Chuandong hound was ich buchstäblich über 2 Ecken erhalten habe. Das Bild stammte von Franki Leung, dem Präsidenten des CKU (China) und erreichte mich über einen Umweg. Alle haben nichts direkt mit der Wikipedia zu tun. Es besteht eine Freigabe für Wikipedia, die aber nicht den Normen entspricht. Der, über den ich das Bild erhalten habe hatte Rücksprache mit dem Chinesen, der daraufhin das Bild geschickt hatte. Franki Leung spricht auch englisch (ich sehr schlecht). Wie können wir in dem Fall weiter verfahren um das Bild wieder einzustellen? Gruß aus der Eifel Caronna (talk) 13:33, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Using the Örkény's portraits in FAWIKI

Dear All, I was wondering if there is a way for me to add this portrait [1] to the persian article [2]. Please can you advise. The OTRS number seems to be 2016041810014101. Salome mi (talk) 20:59, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

@Salome mi: I have copied the file to File:Örkény István 1974.jpg on Wikimedia Commons, you can now use it on any wiki. If you would like to use any other Vahl Ottó photographs, please ask someone at the c:COM:OTRS/Noticeboard to create a special license and permission template for these works. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 01:49, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: Thank you so much. Salome mi (talk) 08:12, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: --Krd 17:53, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Proposal for name change - "Wiki client services"

I wish to propose that we change the name of this service from "OTRS" to anything else, such as "Wiki client services".

OTRS is a proprietary product, and saying "Wikipedia uses OTRS to manage emails" is like saying "Wikipedia uses Microsoft Outlook or Google's gmail". The significance of what we do is not the email system, but that we have a communication process.

Here is some corporate and advertising information about OTRS.

• https://otrs.com/
• en:OTRS
• d:Q369550#sitelinks-wikipedia
• twitter.com/otrsgroup

I recognize that the Wiki community uses "OTRS" as if it were a name for a wiki service, but actually, it is like name dropping any commercial organization. Lots of organizations use the OTRS software to manage their tickets, and typically, they hide the OTRS name in the same way that offices do not typically use the brand of their office software to describe their services.

This mattered less in the past when we mostly had behind the scenes conversations among Wikipedia agents. What has changed is that there are some communities collaborating to better document and advertise these services to external organizations, including to establish long term Wikimedia community partnerships with universities, museums, government agencies, and every other kind of knowledge center. If we are going to start broadcasting more, then I wish we could change the name to "Wiki ticketing" or "Wiki mail" or "Wiki client services" or anything other than the OTRS commercial product name.

The Wiki community has only a few hundred OTRS agents and perhaps only 100 are highly active. Maybe only 1-3000 Wikimedia community members even recognize the name OTRS, and fewer understand the service. If we start producing higher quality documentation about OTRS and use this name, then that will entangle our Wikimedia services to the OTRS brand. If use the OTRS brand name when we establish partnerships, then suddenly that will be teaching 1000s of people at 100s of organizations to use and understand the OTRS brand name. Using this name in external communication accomplishes nothing useful, because from the client perspective, they only know they are sending email and will never even see the OTRS interface that the Wikimedia community agents are using. What if we ever switched email clients? When we use new software, would we still call it OTRS, in the same way that some older people who used Yahoo in the 90s might call all email services "Yahoo"?

I recognize that we currently use the name "Wikimedia OTRS agents" and "OTRS team", but as we do external relations, naming our wiki team after someone else's product is becoming troublesome. I know any name change in wiki could be controversial, but is the time ripe for us to consider changing the name of all this to something else both internally and for clarity in external communications?

Two questions - who would support a name change, and if there were a name change, what is an appropriate name? Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:08, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

1. What about something like "Volunteer response team"? I'd generally support a change, since it's weird to define the team/process by the software it uses. – Ajraddatz (talk) 21:13, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

   +1 to the latter. I believe it is what my OTRS t-shirt says to boot. --Base (talk) 21:14, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

   There are OTRS T-shirts? Why don't I have one!? :S Nosebagbear (talk) 23:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

   +1 to Volunteer response team, esp. because people are already familiar with it (it's the From: header on emails from the OTRS team). Gaelan (talk) 21:27, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

2. I support changing the name. There are two great options so far (Wiki client services & Volunteer Response Team). I'm looking forward to other suggestions before choosing to support one. And just to add another thought, what about "Community Response Team" since it's the members of the community responding to other members of the community or people who mainly need the community's assistance with an issue? Operator873^talkconnect 21:19, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
3. I agree that OTRS is not a good name. However, I don't think "Wiki client services" would be a good fit. It looks too much like "place to request that they put my client info into Wikipedia" (which sadly some people already think OTRS would do!). Platonides (talk) 21:30, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
4. Please not "Wiki client services". The way the OTRS software refers to people as customers is bad enough. I'd also like a name that makes it clear we don't have the authority to issue blocks, protections, desysop people, etc. etc. which volunteer response team doesn't really convey. (though it doesn't hurt either) --Krenair ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:34, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
5. +1 to "Volunteer response team" and a rather strong -1 to "Wiki client services" or anything else that uses the term "client". It sounds far too related to paid editing, and I think it would cause legitimate confusion in article subjects as to what the purpose of OTRS is. While we internally sometimes refer to those emailing us as "clients" or "customers", that's not what they actually are. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 21:43, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
6. Terrible idea, OTRS is wonderful for international use. If we change the name to a English term, how should we implement that in other languages? DutchTom (talk) 21:47, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
7. +1 for "Volunteer response team". -1 for "Wiki client services". Client has several meanings including A person or organization using the services of a lawyer or other professional person or company. Natuur12 (talk) 22:04, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
8. A solution in search of a problem. +1 if it must be changed for "Volunteer response team" and -1000 for the absurd and chronically shit "Wiki client services". Nick (talk) 22:38, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
9. "Volunteer response team" is much better. But I have serious doubts whether a community so steeped in COM:ABC WP:XYZ is going to go along with an "official name change" even if it had a consensus on meta. GMG^talk 22:46, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
10. In English, I support it being "Volunteer Response Team". Note, however, that there's many languages which this would need to be translated into. On the English Wikipedia, it's already referred to as the Volunteer Response Team, and Email Help Team on the Simple English Wikipedia, for example. Vermont (talk) 22:54, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

    I thought it was called that somewhere... I couldn't remember if it was in the signature block for emails from the en info queue. But I guess this means I can't take credit for a completely original name :'( – Ajraddatz (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

    Well, there's been a redirect on meta since 2013 Vermont (talk) 23:19, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

11. This 3000 Wikimedians does probably include both the most active and the most difficult to get to change our names. I'm concerned we're going to end up strung across at least 2 different names and having to call ourselves both to make sure it's understood. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:33, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
12. "Wiki client services" is inconsistent with the purpose of OTRS. We don't have clients. We don't provide services to anyone. And Wikimedia is not "wiki". I don't like "Volunteer response team" as it seems to convey a position of authority (another thing we don't have), but it's certainly better than "Wiki client services". "Volunteer email response team" is a bit more clear about what we do, and it also has a nice four-letter acronym. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:01, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
13. Anything is better than OTRS, but Wiki client services is not right either. "Volunteer Response Team" is in my opinion the best of the ones suggested so far, but if "Email Response Team" will be more widely understood that would be OK also. DGG (talk) 01:14, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
14. I like "Email Response Team". Easy and descriptive. "Volunteer response team" is less descriptive of what we actually do. Agree the current name is poor. If we look at "wiki" we should go with "wikipedia" something we have trademark over. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:41, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
    • Wikimedia is preferable over Wikipedia for this. Vermont (talk) 11:20, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
15. Current name is poor, 'Volunteer Email Response Team' sounds good and has a nice acronym (VERT). Don't mind 'Volunteer Response Team' or 'Email Response Team' but 'Wiki Client Services' is -99999999999... RhinosF1 (talk) 07:33, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
16. I would also support a name change to VERT or VRT, per RhinosF1, and others above. — AfroThundr ^{(u · t · c)} 11:18, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
17. Piling onto the support for renaming to Volunteer Response Team, which has the additional benefit of working fine together with project names, i.e. Wikipedia Volunteer Response Team, Commons Volunteer Response Team etc. In order to differentiate between project teams (i.e. agents with access to the respective project's queue(s)), I'd refer to the entire group of OTRS volunteers as Wikimedia Volunteer Response Team or WVRT.    FDMS  4    17:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
18. Support "Volunteer Response Team". It emphasizes that we are volunteers, not paid staff, as many clients who contact us seem to think. Anachronist (talk) 18:23, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
19. Support "Volunteer Response Team". Blue is right, it is a terrible name for many reasons. I worry about the inertia, but I talk about my involvement to others, and explaining that I an involved with OTRS is never a good way to start a conversation.--Sphilbrick (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
20. Question How do other languages feel about this change? It makes sense to me in English but since the name works across languages now I have been waiting to hear from a non-English wiki person that this change makes sense before supporting. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

    Regardless of language, it shouldn't be called "OTRS". Vermont (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

    In Chinese, I typically refer OTRS as Volunteer response team. zh:WP:OTRS had that as well.--Cohaf (talk) 02:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

    @Vermont: I agree but we have a few different ideas floating around and other wikis thoughts matter. @Cohaf: Thanks for that insight. Barkeep49 (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

    Like I wrote above, changing the name to yet another English thing is just terrible. OTRS stands for the name of the system, thats where we refer to. Because the tickets are saved in OTRS. You simply can't say the tickets are saved in VRT/VERT/WC Service or whatever. So the change of the name OTRS will only affect the name of the OTRS team, so we will no longer be the OTRS team but the VRT/VERT/WC Service etc. team. But what changes? Tickets are still stored in OTRS but people call it VRT/VERT/WC Service or people call us team VRT/VERT/WC Service? We will still have to refer to OTRS tickets on Commons i.e. so we are now creating a problem just so people can call us team **? DutchTom (talk) 01:39, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

21. Thanks to @Bluerasberry: for thinking about it. I Support for changing the name. There are several options so far. But I'm looking forward to other suggestions such as specific and more understandable one. Where I surely oppose "Wiki client services", because of two words- 'Wiki' commonly means just Wikipedia and it makes kind of barrier, alongside sender isn't our client. So, I'm thinking to go with "Wikimedia Email Response Team" or only "Email Response Team". ~Moheen ^{(keep talking)} 10:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
22. Support Email Response Team. Simple, straightforward, tells it like it is. Bradv🍁 15:06, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
23. Email Response Team and Volunteer Email Response Team both make sense (in English at least). I do like the inclusion of "Volunteer" to show that the people responding are not staff. Please nothing including "client". Natureium (talk) 15:11, 21 March 2019 (UTC)
24. Grudging VERT - if we do have to change from OTRS, then Volunteer Email Response Team is both more descriptive and a better acronym Nosebagbear (talk) 21:08, 24 March 2019 (UTC)
25. Support name change. I also favor something like "Volunteer Email Response Team". Geoff ^{Who, me?} 18:18, 25 March 2019 (UTC)
26. Unconvinced of the wisdom of moving to an English versus universal name. That said either Volunteer Email Response Team or Email Response Team work for me. I have a slight preference to include volunteer if we're going down this route for the reasons Blue laid out. Barkeep49 (talk) 01:29, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
27. Support name change. "Volunteer Email Response Team" sounds good IMHO. --Ganímedes (talk) 23:20, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
28. Support Volunteer Response Team, I think adding 'Email' is as redundant as OTRS itself. I also don't like anything containing 'client/service' or its variations. –Ammarpad (talk) 08:52, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
29. Strong oppose. We are currently referring to OTRS as a system Wikimedia movement is using. We are using w:Etherpad (and not generic "Wiki real-time documenting"), w:Phabricator (and not generic "Wiki ticket collaboration") and so on. This page speaks specifically of Wikimedia's OTRS installation and not of other services. It is not only a volunteer response system, OTRS also has chapter and project queues that can be operated by staff. For example, in my case I have access to Wikimedia Ukraine queue that is neither a "wiki client service" nor a "volunteer email response team" nor anything mentioned here; however, it is an OTRS queue. If our issue is that OTRS is bad, let's discuss moving to another platform like we moved from Bugzilla to Phabricator. At the moment we are using OTRS, and this page documents how we are using OTRS , exactly like pages Etherpad or Phabricator — NickK (talk) 21:26, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
30. Strong oppose Per above, as well as the following. OTRS is the system we use; local projects can refer to the team as whatever it is in their language. Taking the English Wikipedia name and making it global does nothing except move a meta page and cause confusion. Vermont (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
31. Strong oppose I see no need for a rename, OTRS seems fine to me. --Steinsplitter (talk) 07:14, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

More than email in future?

Right now we get all of our request tickets from email. In the future this same team could respond to tickets from sources other than email, such as forms, chatbots/virtual assistants, or some other new technology like a Wikimedia mobile app or API. Some people suggested adding "email" to the name - I want to ask for second thoughts.

We have a prototype request form which uses email, but which we could set up in another way. At on the main Commons page we have a link to the Wikimedia OTRS release generator, which BU Rob13 set up to generate text which a copyright manager can send in to provide email confirmation of a media license. Currently this tool still directs users to email the output. However, in the future, we could be getting tickets for copyright license and other kinds of requests through this and other online forms. If we did this, then form requests might outnumber email requests, making "email" in the name go obsolete with changing technology.

Another way we might get tickets is through a Wikimedia chatbot. We currently do not have this technology, but I expect that the experiments will start in a few years and probably within 5-10 years people will be making requests through virtual assistant services like Siri, Alexa, or the Wikimedia equivalent virtual assistant when we establish one.

Lots of companies in the world try to share images, particularly logos. Again, currently we do identity verification with email, but in the future we might do that with an app which requires cross checking with some stronger digital identity like the Twitter, Facebook, or Google signin. This team would still serve the same role of doing human verification that the proof of identity is coming from the correct entity, but that process might not be primarily by email.

I am pinging everyone who requested "email" to be in the title -

• @Doc James, RhinosF1, Moheen, Bradv, and Natureium:
• @Nosebagbear, Glane23, Barkeep49, and Ganímedes:

How would you feel about "Volunteer Response Team", which was a name that many others support? Do you want another call for name proposals, or can that work? Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I had expressed a preference for VERT because of the acronym but VRT is fine by me. Barkeep49 (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) We already have the IRC channel #wikipedia-en-help^connect, which provides live chat for the English Wikipedia and is not connected to OTRS. If at some point live chat gets integrated into the OTRS system we can reconsider the name then, but for now I'm still in favour of the name Email Response Team. My concern with your alternative is that it describes the program from our perspective rather than from the perspective of those who are using the service, which is less than helpful. Bradv🍁 18:54, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

I think the potential for other methods of volunteer response in the future is a good reason to include the word "Email", but I also don't think it would be a huge deal either way. Natureium (talk) 18:56, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

• I think any significant change to how we accepted tickets would require such a significant discussion that changing our name again at that point would be fairly minor. These changes are a good length into the future that it's somewhat Crystal Ball-esk to decide our name on these potential alterations at this point. As such, I remain significantly in favour (if we must change our name at all) of VERT. Nosebagbear (talk) 20:05, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
• Volunteer email response team is good. I think we should keep email in there. If other systems become more common in the future we can reconsider. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:47, 30 March 2019 (UTC)
• I also like the idea of email in the title ("VERT") based on current state, but Volunteer Response Team ("VRT") wouldn't trouble me overmuch. So I can support either. Geoff ^{Who, me?} 16:11, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
• @Bluerasberry: Just as a minor note, I didn't create the release generator. I did encourage people to use it once created, though. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:12, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
• I don't mind Volunteer Response Team but prefer VERT as I think the acronym sounds better and per what others have said shows they deal with email not live chat support (IRC). RhinosF1 (talk) 20:00, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

International support

This image is the current visual identity of this service.

DutchTom I see two objections from you - one is changing OTRS to another English language name, and the other is that despite the name change we still are going to be in the OTRS platform.

I will agree with you that a name change has problems, but can you say something about why you think changing the name is worse than keeping the current one? Do you think the letters OTRS are better for a multilingual userbase than something else? Personally, I see no problem with the service having a different name in different Wikimedia projects. I recognize that OTRS has been the name across languages because it is a brand and a unique string of letters. Is that why you like it?

About the platform name - I expect that few agents read the the OTRS software documentation, and I hope that agents can respond to tickets regardless of the name. Can you say more about why you think that internally agents will still have to call it OTRS? When do agents get deep enough into the platform that they need to use a brand name, instead of a general name like the "ticket list" or "request queue"?

Your objections made me think of the logo, which is currently a ticket that says "OTRS". I suppose that it would be better to not use any letters, and instead come up with an image which should be international. The words might be different in different languages, but the image could be the same. If we organized a call for a no-text logo then could that make things better for you? Thanks for talking this through. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Bluerasberry, my oppose is that we still need to use the term OTRS. Tickets ARE stored in OTRS. If we change the name of the team from Team-OTRS / OTRS-Team to VR-Team / VRT etc. we still need te refer to OTRS. You simply can't say tickets are stored in VRT, you know what I mean? On our Wiki (NL) there are some pages about OTRS with texts like: "OTRS is a central system used by the Wikimedia Foundation to handle all e-mail traffic with Wikimedia e-mail addresses. All e-mails that arrive via OTRS are handled by a group of trusted users to ensure the quality of the answers.". I don't know how other Wiki's tell users what OTRS is but we clearly talk about the system we use. So I see no need to change that name. Of course I support a name like VRT for the team that uses OTRS, that is much more clear than OTRS. But we can't deny OTRS is a name we have to use even though the name of the team is different. DutchTom (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Indeed you have to distinguish between the name for the group of volunteers dealing with OTRS and the name used when referencing the OTRS platform. But this is what this proposal does. I see a proposal to change the name of the former into "Volunteer Response team" (and similar) and proposals to change the latter into a name like ""Wiki ticketing" or "Wiki mail" or "Wiki client services"". However, it seems many of those commenting above prefer to only reference the team under a different label, not the system itself. --Vogone (talk) 19:55, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

That indeed is my whole point. If you look at this Commons template you see how we use the term OTRS on-wiki. I don't see how we could use another name in this template. It clearly talks about a permission saved in OTRS. That will still be the case, even if the name of the team changes to VRT. So based on what do we need another name? DutchTom (talk) 20:46, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

This discussion is to distinguish the team using the OTRS plaform, not changing what we use to refer to the OTRS platform. Vermont (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) Are you sure? The initial proposal says otherwise … "I wish to propose that we change the name of this service from "OTRS" to anything else, such as "Wiki client services" and "If we are going to start broadcasting more, then I wish we could change the name to "Wiki ticketing" or "Wiki mail" or "Wiki client services" or anything other than the OTRS commercial product name". I imagine the initial idea was to have something like "Hello, we are the Volunteer Response Team, dealing with queries submitted to Wikimedia's Volunteer Response Service" rather than "… OTRS team … OTRS". --Vogone (talk) 21:17, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

The software will still be OTRS; we're just changing the name of the team that uses it, and that name can be internationalized as necessary. Similarly people with access to the wiki interface are called editors not MediaWiki agents. – Ajraddatz (talk) 21:13, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for uninvolved user to begin closing process

I made a request at Wikimedia_Forum#Request_for_close_-_OTRS_rename. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

• It's not clear from the discussion above whether notifications were sent to all affected people in the usual places. Do you think all the language are already represented in the discussion above? The initial comment also contained a rather radical error: OTRS is not proprietary, it's free software. Moreover, it's not clear what you want to do with the subpages which don't relate to the volunteer response team, such as the staff-run queues. Nemo 12:05, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nemo bis: Can you advise on one point - should this discussion start over in the meta Requests for comment (RfC) process, or would it be sufficient to give notice for more discussion here? I can solicit more conversation, but can you check the discussion till now and give an opinion on whether we can convert this to the RfC process or whether we can treat the outcome of this as equivalent to an RfC? I can solicit more comments in the usual way, but at this point, can you give some brief advice on the process and its legitimacy? If I gave notice then I would draft text, post it here, note where I sent it, and encourage anyone to pass the text on to their communities. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:31, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe this should either not be closed just yet (per continuing conversation/undiscussed views) or moved to an RfC. Vermont (talk) 01:25, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Why a non OTRS user have to close OTRS consensus on OTRS page? Why this not on RFC so other non OTRS members can also gave their opinion?--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 18:08, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Aldnonymous: Would you please turn this into an RfC? Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:20, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Bluerasberry, more rather, I can not turn this into RFC, the RFC has to start from the scratch, moving everything from here to RFC seems like cheating to people who never heard about this rename and suddenly the consensus is already half done and ready to close. Though of course, if this decision is internal only for OTRS members to decide, then moving this to RFC seems inappropriate.--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 18:23, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Aldnonymous: Yes this is why I did not want to touch it. What do you think should happen? Throw all this away? Move this into an RfC? Close this somehow with some kind of summary, then do an RfC? Have an RfC and this going at the same time? Close this and treat it as an RfC? If you proposed any plan it would be useful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Since I'm not an OTRS member I don't know if I can comment here, but here's my idea, scrap everything here and start new RFC, then use Mass message sender to notify every wikis that have OTRS members in it, and also use Central Notice Banner to notify everyone.--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 18:32, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Aldnonymous: Anyone can comment because everyone is a stakeholder in this process and service. It makes no difference that you are not an OTRS agent. @Vermont and Nemo bis: Do you agree with Aldnonymous that this conversation should be scrapped and restarted as a formal RfC? If not, then what is the plan for guiding this to some useful end? Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:38, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

This begs one to ask Aldnonymous, why, as a GS, local admin, and multi-lingual contributor, are you not an OTRS member? GMG^talk 22:47, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo I used to be OTRS member until I got removed by inactivity policy. And lastly I don't think I have the right temperament to become OTRS member, when I think I can tackle my temperament issue I will think about volunteering again to become OTRS member :).--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 03:02, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Or, conclude there isn't an actual problem to solve here (especially given the mistaken statement about OTRS being proprietary, which it isn't), and close with status quo. Asaf (WMF) (talk) 18:34, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Asaf (WMF): The organization called OTRS sells the product called OTRS which is their own trademark. They sell it at otrs.com/how-to-buy Does this not meet your understanding of a proprietary product? We are using a company's brand name instead of any generic term for the general product, are we not? Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:09, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: No, it does not meet my understanding of a proprietary product. Linux is also a trademark, and yet it is obviously free software. So is MediaWiki. The fact OTRS also sells a premium supported/hosted service is not a problem, in my opinion. Ijon (talk) 22:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Asaf (WMF: Yes I agree, the issue is not sales or whether something is free/libre. The issue is that we are using someone else's brand name for a software product to describe our Volunteer (Email) Response Team and set of volunteer services. The resource that we should advertise is our volunteer support, not someone else's trademark for a product which companies use and which does not even appear anywhere to the end users of the service. Can you say more about why you you think it is best to name our volunteer community after another company's trademarked product? Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
Each individual wiki has a different name for the team in their own language. I see no reason to adopt the English Wikipedia name as global. OTRS is simply the software we use, and there is no issue whatsoever in using it to describe agents. Further, we're not advertising OTRS by calling ourselves OTRS agents. We're advertising that we use OTRS to do our work. Vermont (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

That's why I previously said to scrap this entire process and start a global RFC then use Mass message sender to notify every wikis that have OTRS members in it, and also use Central Notice Banner to notify everyone (addendum : This is just my suggestion, OTRS don't have to follow my suggestion).--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 13:33, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

It seems like the group here is ready to accept the outcome of an RfC and might not be able to reach consensus outside that process. If anyone has ideas for finding consensus before an RfC, or to constrain the RfC in a certain way, then let's work through that. I will draft out an RfC based on this discussion and call in those opposed to comment before I make it live. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:47, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Just for a clarification, I am absolutely fine without the RFC process, its just the closing of this particular OTRS consensus on OTRS page have to be closed by OTRS members themselves, as I feel that Meta-admin don't have the right to close this particular consensus, but if its RFC, Meta-admin (i.e like me) can close it because there's policy that allow meta-admin to close the RFC. (For example like this File:Global-bans-process-workflow.svg).--Aldnonymous^Bicara? 13:59, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm relatively happy with either an internal decision-making process or a general RFC. @Bluerasberry:, happy to discuss with you and the others to send out a reasonably even-handed RFC (both proposals and base justifications) if we do go that way. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: I am still not sure of where to take this. We could let some more time pass to see if someone wants to close this out. The discussion lacks some legitimacy in that it did not follow the RfC standard process and also that this is affects many Wikimedia projects in many languages, and I only notified the popular OTRS discussion forums in English language. I do not want to overly complicate this if it is a small decision, but there are some voices here that see this as a major change needing formal process. I do wish we could get a close on this discussion from some uninvolved person, if only to summarize this discussion to bring it to the next steps. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Question

Dear members of the OTRS team, I really got impressed with your work! I would like to join you someday (but not now). I have some questions that I feel the relevant meta page did not address:

• Firstly, I should disclose my real name?
• Secondly, the emails will be coming to my Gmail, or can I handle them through a website?
• Lastly, it is easy to ask help from someone more experienced?

I await your reply, Eni vak (speak) 22:39, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

An OTRS ticket

Hello Enivak! I'm glad to hear that you're interested in joining the OTRS team. Emails in the OTRS system are considered nonpublic personal data under the Access to nonpublic personal data policy. Editors with access to OTRS are required to digitally sign the Confidentiality agreement for nonpublic information and should use their real name when doing so. Once they have been accepted, OTRS agents can choose a real-sounding pseudonym to respond to emails with. In most cases, agents would be view and respond to emails (called tickets) using the OTRS system. The system can send an email when a ticket you've watched or previously worked on is updated. In any case, all replies are sent from a wikimedia.org email address. If an agent can't figure out how to handle a situation, they can ask in a private IRC channel, on the private mailing list, or on the private OTRS wiki. They can also return tickets to the queue for another agent to work on. Once you've gotten some more experience, I hope that you'll join us. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:48, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

@Enivak: - just an extra note from me. AntiComposite is exactly right, but we do use email for some things, like some of our internal discussions. Some use personal emails, some of us create an extra email account to handle that side. I created one originally for my wiki email (because if I replied it would attach my email address) and so I just use that for OTRS as well. [[User:|Nosebagbear]] (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: and @Nosebagbear: thank you both for your reply. I am sure I will join sometime, but of course not now. The thing about the real name is the lone thing that scares me, my name will be publicly viewable, or it will be kept on the Wikimedia archives and everyone will forget it? Eni vak (speak) 14:36, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

The non-disclosure agreement you sign as part of OTRS is not stored in any public place. It is an internal legal document. As indicated above, when responding to tickets using the OTRS system, you can use your real name, or you can use a pseudonym if you like. It is however generally more professional if you do you a pseudonym, to use one that appears to be a real given name, and not one that is obviously an internet username. GMG^talk 14:42, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

{[reply|GreenMeansGo}} Hello, and sorry for my late reply. Your reply has covered my concern; thanks. I plan to join here, but much later. Best regards, Eni vak (speak) 10:12, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

For the record, 13:34, 4 September 2019 Reaper Eternal talk contribs blocked Enivak talk contribs with an expiration time of 1 week (account creation blocked) (Abusing multiple accounts: Good-hand bad-hand sock puppetry). --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:17, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Well that's unfortunate. I'm sure we can use more Greek speaking agents. GMG^talk 18:46, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

@AntiCompositeNumber: @GreenMeansGo:, I deny every accusation. It is an innocent good-faith mistake by the checkusers, i never did anything. ("for the record"). Eni vak (speak) 22:52, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

No, Enivak. You harassed yourself as well as created an account where you admitted that you were here to vandalize and ended up getting globally locked. The CheckUser data here is quite convincing, and Reaper Eternal was nice to not block you indefinitely (which I do for anyone who plays the game of harassing themselves with socks.) I'm the third en.wiki CheckUser to review this, and I doubt all three of us are making "good faith mistakes." TonyBallioni (talk) 02:18, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

@TonyBallioni: I never did anything, but nevertheless, could you provide me a link from when the blocking admin requested checkuser, and any other clue against me? Eni vak (speak) 13:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Why would it matter if the blocking admin requested checkuser? (which they might have done, I didn't check) Three checkusers concurred you acted in violation of multiple accounts policy, and the sockpuppet edits linked above also focus on you. Also, this page is for questions on OTRS, and considering this incident I'd oppose you being accepted. Vermont (talk) 14:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

@Vermont: i didn't asked anyone's opinion about me :-). So i request Tony to reply on my meta talk page. Eni vak (speak) 15:25, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Delete our company page

Hello Dear Wikimedia Commons, we would like to delete an article related to our company. Please help us in this regard. Thanks in advance!

Our wikipedia link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azersun_Holding

62/5000 I remind you that our article in Azerbaijani has already been deleted.

The English Wikipedia is a different project and you will need to make any request there at articles for deletion. However, it is very unlikely that the community there will agree to delete the article just because you like it to be removed. QuiteUnusual (talk) 14:14, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Checking scope of OTRS permission

On English Wikisource we have an old work, a children's book, that was apparently uploaded by its author and licensed under the GFDL (before m:LU/R; I was in the process of fixing its license templates when I ran into this) with permissions emailed to OTRS. In separate OTRS tickets the book's cover image was released similarly. The work and cover images are appropriately tagged with the OTRS template.

But the book also contains several illustrations that now exist as local image files at enWS. The main work page claims the illustrators (the same who created the book's cover) granted permission for the illustrations too, but these files are not tagged with the OTRS template. Without knowing the details I am loath to just copy one over from the cover or work pages.

The work in question is s:Elemoont; the cover image is at s:File:Слун англ.jpg; and the illustration where I ran into the issue is s:File:11texta.jpg.

The OTRS tickets referenced on the various pages are:

• otrs:2008032110005275
• otrs:2008032510017013
• otrs:1427529

So, could somebody check the related tickets and tell me whether (and if so which one) covers the additional illustrations? --Xover (talk) 17:33, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: It looks like Ticket:2008032510005044 covers the release from Boyarchuk, but it doesn't look like any of them cover Saphonov. Both of them are credited on WS as creators of the images, but I'm not sure how we would tell which one created which ones? GMG^talk 19:03, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: Thanks! I'll do some research and see what I can find out. It's conceivable that Saphonov collaborated only on the cover or something like that; and we can always try leaving a message on the author's talk page (although it's been a while and project seems to have petered out, so he may be unavailable). It'd be a real shame to lose this on a technicality as the intent to license it freely is pretty clear. --Xover (talk) 19:54, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Apparent breach of confidentiality / access to non-public information

So… is anybody checking the logs to figure out who leaked OTRS email to a news organization, and what other non-public content that person has accessed lately? Given the article also contains content from deleted revisions, whoever it is likely also holds advanced permissions (+sysop) on enwp and thus potentially also has checkuser/steward/interface-admin/global-*-admin/etc. Not sure what processes are in place for this kind of stuff, but I imagine T&S and WMF Legal might want to know about it right pronto. --Xover (talk) 17:54, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: Thanks for posting the notice and please feel free to post anything similar here in the future. I am writing to say that I sent information about this issue to the English Volunteer Response Team mailing list, which is private for VRT agents in this OTRS queue. The mailing list is active and people there are discussing the issue. Please do not anticipate any response from agents as a a group or organization, although any individual agent may say whatever they wish about the issue, as can anyone else who cares to post here.

We are all volunteers and often we do not have capacity as a group to take quick action. If there is something you or anyone else wants to say to Legal or Trust and Safety then please communicate with them yourself so that you can be sure they have gotten whatever message you wish to share. By email we often get requests by people who ask us to talk with legal or safety teams. When I get these requests, I refer them to those teams themselves, because those paid professional staff teams speak for themselves. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:44, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: Thanks for responding. I have indeed contacted WMF Legal and T&S directly now, to make sure they are aware of the issue, and because, as you suggest, they would also appear to be the only instances with the mandate and competence to deal adequately with it. The downside to discussing such issues off-wiki / in private is that it makes it hard for others to know whether an issue is being followed up or not, and I'll sleep a lot easier knowing someone is actually on the case. (@TonyBallioni: fyi-ping) --Xover (talk) 21:19, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Xover: Great! Feel free to contact those offices anytime with any small reason. You never need permission from the Volunteer Response Team here or anyone else to contact them. In general I tell anyone who is considering to contact either of those offices to just do it, because those offices can sort their own activities. I am glad to hear that by contacting them you found the relief you wanted.

If you wish to discuss the matter publicly then you are welcome to post on the Village Pump or equivalent central discussion forum of any relevant wiki.

If in the future you encounter anyone in a similar circumstance to this, please tell them what I am telling you right now. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:29, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Speaking from an en.wiki perspective, please don't link the article. Our oversight team has discussed it and don't think it is appropriate for posting. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:32, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Blue: Thanks and will do. Tony: sorry, I didn't even consider that angle on it (or Bri's COI perspective for that matter). --Xover (talk) 22:33, 22 December 2019 (UTC)