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Volunteer Response Team/Reports/2012

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2012

Introduction

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This is a statistical report of general activity of emails sent to Wikimedia's VRTS, that was using at the time Open-source Ticket Request System to process emails by the Volunteer Response Team for the year 2012. Emails sent to VRTS are assigned "queues" based upon the nature of the request, the language of the request, and/or the Wikimedia project it might represent. This report reflects queues that are not related to the Wikimedia Foundation, Chapters, GLAM, or any other project that may share space on VRTS. Its summary is to reflect the general work of the Volunteer Response Team. The statistics listed below are raw reports on account activity, administrative action logging, all language information queues, breakdowns of info-en and any other language project that contains subqueues, Sister Projects, and permissions/photosubmission processing. These numbers for queue activity are a snapshot of the entire year.

Communication continued regularly in 2012 with the Wikimedia Foundation on upgrading the software to OTRS 3.0. The Wikimedia Foundation has informed us that they have hosted and communicated with technical representatives from OTRS on migrating the software. This is on the Legal and Community Advocacy priority list for technical requests. (bugzilla:22622)

Account activity

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  • Accounts created: 158
  • Of these, 11 were for WMF employees, 40 were chapter representatives and 8 were for role-specific access, such as oversight. 65 new users were given access to an info queue (in any language) and 61 new users received access to permissions queues. 11 to the Sister projects' queues. Of the new users, often more than one role is assigned upon account creation. As an example, someone from Commons might receive Sister projects, photosubmission, and Permissions.
  • Accounts re-opened: 17
  • Accounts closed: 129
Closed accounts #
Resigned 13
Inactive 95
Chapter related 12
Other * 9
  • Other: 3 removed, 3 employee accounts, 2 resigned-role (Oversight), 1 test account

Admin activity

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Note: While a VRTS administrator may have zero/few logged actions, the majority of things we are tasked with are not logged. Such includes updating formatted replies, handling system maintenance tasks such as spam blacklist, message sorting, monitoring queues and agents for response time and quality, performing inactivity cleanups and creating statistics, orientating/coaching new (and existing) respondents, handling escalated tickets and issues with both agents and 'customers', recruiting agents and evaluate/process new applications. And of course, the VRTS administrators assist in answering tickets, just like all VRT members.
Action Abisys Cbrown Daniel JeLuF Jredmond Keegan Lyzzy Mailer diablo Raymond Rjd0060 Sebmol Tiptoety
Accounts created 3 37 0 0 0 10 4 6 31 31 0 27
Accounts closed 1 23 0 0 0 4 6 0 23 16 0 55
Roles changed 7 75 0 0 0 42 11 9 59 52 0 44
Addresses created 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 35 8 1 1
Queues closed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0
Queue created 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 5 0 1
Total 11 142 0 0 1 56 21 15 155 119 1 128
  • avatar, guillom, mindspillage and bastique were former admins who resigned/went inactive in 2012. Tiptoety was welcomed as a new VRTS admin in March while Rjd0060 resumed his administrator status in September after an extended wikibreak.
  • JeLuF retains administrator access for technical reasons. Sebmol retains access for some chapter-related requests.

Queues

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Note: The VRTS software formats subqueues after two colons. For example, info-en::Vandalism is the Vandalism subqueue of the info-en queue.

Opened

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The following queues were opened:

  • chapters::wm-de::wm-de-bildung
  • chapters::wm-de::wm-de-community
  • chapters::wm-de::wm-de-fundraising-eMailing
  • chapters::wm-de::wm-de-spenderfragen
  • chapters::wm-se::wiki-skills
  • chapters::wm-za
  • info-de::komplex
  • info-en::Organizations
  • info-ka
  • info-uk
  • permissions::permissions-uk
  • Sister projects::Wikidata
  • Sister projects::Wikiversity
  • Sister projects::Wikivoyage
  • wlm::wlm-123poi
  • wlm::wlm-in
  • wlm::wlm-press
  • wlm-by

Closed

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The following queues were closed:

  • ambassadors::ambassadors-ind
  • info-en::Advocacy
  • info-en::Article Feedback
  • info-en::Blacklist
  • info-en::Call required
  • info-en::From other queues
  • info-en::info@wikipedia.org

Traffic

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Notes
  • Totals include all tickets closed between 2012-01-01 00:00:00 and 2012-12-31 23:59:59 UTC.
  • The column headings +, - and nrn are our internal ticket disposition options. + means the ticket was closed successfully, where the ticket has been closed to the correspondents satisfaction. - means that the ticket was closed unsuccessfully and the correspondent may not have been satisfied with the outcome of the inquiry. nrn stands for no response needed, which is used for tickets that do not require any reply.
  • In OTRS, the "root", or "parent", queue can also contain tickets. As every queue has its own address, sometimes messages are not filtered ahead of time to a subqueue and end up in this root queue. They can be moved to a more appropriate subqueue if it is exists, but sometimes they are just responded to from within that parent queue. Wherever the parent queue is mentioned in the subqueue breakdowns, the numbers only refer to tickets that were in the parent queue; any other mentions include all of the tickets in the parent queue and subqueues added together.

info queues

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These queues are the general information addresses that are displayed on the Contact us pages on the Wikipedia projects. (See the English Wikipedia's page, for example.) They usually deal with questions from readers of Wikipedia and from the subjects of articles. They are divided based on the language that they are written in, not the project that they relate to, because the queues are staffed by Wikimedia volunteers speaking a certain language, not from a certain project.

Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info 1 0 4 5 Language without queue
info-af 6 0 12 18 Afrikaans
info-als 0 0 1 1 Alemannic German
info-ar 164 0 0 164 Arabic
info-ca 82 0 8 90 Catalan
info-cs 371 40 8 419 Czech
info-da 104 3 8 115 Danish
info-de 7270 30 347 7647 German
info-el 96 9 20 125 Greek
info-en 16938 245 2929 20112 English
info-es 2092 115 192 2399 Spanish
info-et 21 1 0 22 Estonian
info-fa 26 4 2 32 Persian
info-fi 14 1 16 31 Finnish
info-fr 1413 2 8 1423 French
info-he 189 0 9 198 Hebrew
info-hr 3 0 1 4 Croatian
info-hu 176 1 6 183 Hungarian
info-it 449 18 53 520 Italian
info-ja 366 13 5 384 Japanese
info-ka 0 0 0 0 Georgian [created 2012-08]
info-ko 79 1 2 82 Korean
info-nds 1 0 16 17 Low Saxon
info-nl 2566 1 80 2647 Dutch
info-no 220 7 51 278 Norwegian
info-pl 467 52 244 763 Polish
info-pt 93 1 75 169 Portuguese
info-ro 91 7 67 165 Romanian
info-ru 902 20 33 955 Russian
info-scn 0 0 17 17 Sicilian
info-sk 2 0 0 2 Slovak
info-sr 28 0 21 49 Serbian
info-sv 281 1 50 332 Swedish
info-tr 158 1 0 159 Turkish
info-uk 0 0 0 0 Ukranian [created 2012-12]
info-vi 4 0 20 24 Vietnamese
info-zh 126 0 52 178 Chinese
Total 34799 573 4357 39729 All info tickets closed

info-en breakdown

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Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info-en 5715 123 1479 7317 General tickets that have not been sorted
info-en::Copyvio 456 6 59 521 Tickets alerting of potential copyright violations
info-en::Courtesy 6316 54 602 6972 General inquiries/comments/questions, not complex
info-en::Mobile 189 1 5 195 Relating to Wikipedia Mobile, including technical issues
info-en::Organizations 8 0 1 9 Inquiries from business, charity and other organizations [created 2012-11]
info-en::Quality 1911 25 380 2316 Sensitive subjects, primarily relating to Biographies of living persons
info-en::Reuse 367 0 33 400 Information about re-using Wikipedia content
info-en::Schools 54 2 0 56 Inquires from educational institutions
info-en::Tech-issues 247 1 25 273 Technical inquiries from readers and users
info-en::Urgent 5 0 2 7 Tickets requiring immediate attention
info-en::Vandalism 1510 6 103 1619 From readers, pointing out unreverted vandalism
info-en::Voice messages 114 25 237 376 Voice messages forwarded from Foundation staff
info-en::info-en (Mohammed) 46 2 3 51 Tickets related to a 2008 controversy regarding the depiction of Muhammad
Total 16938 245 2929 20112

info-nl breakdown

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Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info-nl 1287 1 46 1334 Dutch
info-nl::wikiportret 1279 0 34 1313 Photo/media submissions
Total 2566 1 80 2647

info-de breakdown

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Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info-de 7253 30 346 7629 German
info-de::komplex 17 0 1 18 Tickets which would probably benefit from review or comments? [created 2012-05]
Total 7270 30 347 7647

info-pl breakdown

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Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info-pl 421 47 212 680 Polish
info-pl::baninfo 46 5 32 83 Polish Wikipedia block appeals
Total 467 52 244 763

info-zh breakdown

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Queue + - nrn Total Notes
info-zh 58 0 41 99 Chinese
info-zh::info-zh-hans 31 0 3 34 Chinese (Simplified)
info-zh::info-zh-hant 37 0 8 45 Chinese (Traditional)
Total 126 0 52 178

Sister projects

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Though the general information queues technically serve all projects, the majority of the queries received tend to be related to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia projects as a whole. As the numbers below show, there are not many tickets that relate to non-Wikipedia projects, but the Sister projects queues were created to give them special attention so that they could be handled by people who know more about the specific project.

Queue + - nrn Total Notes
Sister projects 0 0 1 1 Projects without queues
Sister projects::Commons 250 23 105 378
Sister projects::Wikibooks 69 1 10 80
Sister projects::Wikidata 0 0 0 0 [created 2012-12]
Sister projects::Wikinews 15 9 39 63
Sister projects::Wikiquote 48 5 38 91
Sister projects::Wikisource 2 0 5 7
Sister projects::Wikiversity 12 0 0 12 [created 2012-04]
Sister projects::Wikivoyage 1 0 0 1 [created 2012-12]
Sister projects::Wiktionary 71 2 25 98
Total 468 40 223 731

permissions

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Sometimes Wikimedians would like to use images in articles that do not have clear cut licensing information. These images might not be licensed already, might have a license that is not permissive enough for use on Wikipedia, or might otherwise need confirmation that the copyright holder has agreed to the license shown on the projects. Wikimedians often contact the copyright holders of various images and ask them to license them so that they can be used on Wikimedia projects. The permissions team on VRTS is the one that processes these "permissions" e-mails and attempts to verify that the copyright holder releases the images under an allowable license, that they do so clearly while understanding what that means, and that they actually are allowed to license the images in such a way (e.g. they hold copyright). These e-mails are then stored in the ticket system so that they can be verified by anyone with appropriate access. For more information, see commons:Commons:Permission.

Queue + - nrn Total Notes
permissions 42 0 18 60 Languages without a queue
permissions::commons 3341 159 72 3572 Tickets related to Commons
permissions::commons::de 739 0 2 741 German - Commons
permissions::commons::es 107 10 6 123 Spanish - Commons
permissions::commons::fr 182 0 0 182 French - Commons
permissions::commons::he 930 0 3 933 Hebrew - Commons
permissions::commons::pl 100 1 39 140 Polish - Commons
permissions::commons::pt 83 7 3 93 Portuguese - Commons
permissions::de 2067 3 26 2096 German
permissions::el 64 2 3 69 Greek
permissions::en 2365 106 78 2549 English
permissions::eo 1 0 1 2 Esperanto
permissions::es 107 26 11 144 Spanish
permissions::et 33 0 0 33 Estonian
permissions::fi 14 0 0 14 Finnish
permissions::fr 646 0 0 646 French
permissions::hu 281 11 3 295 Hungarian
permissions::it 232 12 14 258 Italian
permissions::ja 0 0 0 0 Japanese
permissions::ml 4 0 0 4 Malayalam
permissions::nl 222 0 1 223 Dutch
permissions::pl 108 5 65 178 Polish
permissions::pt 127 2 5 134 Portuguese
permissions::pt::nf 4 0 0 4 ????
permissions::ru 698 21 10 729 Russian
permissions::sk 40 0 0 40 Slovak
permissions::sk::erby-sk 0 0 0 0 ????
permissions::sl 9 0 0 9 Slovene
permissions::sr 23 6 17 46 Serbian
permissions::tr 26 0 0 26 Turkish
permissions::uk 16 14 0 30 Ukranian [created 2012-10]
permissions::vi 0 0 2 2 Vietnamese
permissions::zh 39 0 6 45 Chinese
permissions::zh::hans 76 1 2 79 Chinese (Simplified)
permissions::zh::hant 61 1 2 64 Chinese (Traditional)
Total 12787 387 389 13563

photosubmission

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Wikimedia projects often lack good, freely-licensed images for certain articles, especially biographies of living persons. To mitigate this, the photosubmission queues were created on VRTS. They allow readers of Wikipedia and article subjects (or their agents) to easily submit photos to illustrate their articles. Similar to with the permissions queues, the photosubmission team verifies that the person submitting the article is capable of freely licensing it, that they clearly state their intent to license it under a specific free license, and that they understand what they are doing. The team then helps to add the images to the relevant articles.

Queue + - nrn Total Notes
photosubmission 579 46 61 686 English language file submission
photosubmission::ar 0 0 0 0 Arabic
photosubmission::da 0 0 0 0 Danish
photosubmission::de 31 0 0 31 German
photosubmission::es 14 1 2 17 Spanish
photosubmission::fr 0 0 0 0 French
Total 624 47 63 734