Volunteer Response Team/Article monitoring

Volunteer Response Team

• General information
• List of current volunteers
• Reports
• Access policy
• Activity policy
• Mailing list policy

For prospective volunteers

• Becoming a volunteer
• Apply to volunteer
• Ask a question

(Translate) ()

A channel has been set up on freenode to complement the VRTS work, where bots will report changes made on Wikimedia projects to certain pages which have concerns lodged in the OTRS system (the project proposal can be found here). The channel can be found at #wikimedia-otrs-watch.

Currently active bots are monitoring English, German, French, Spanish and Italian Wikipedias.

Guidelines

• Only add pages with BLP concerns - don't just add vandalism targets - we have special anti-vandalism channels for that.
• Be sure to remove pages which are no longer "hot".
• When an edit is reported, say "checking <page>" in the channel when looking at the edit, and "done <page>" when finished so that the other members know.
• Only OTRS volunteers, office people and trusted admins (preferably with discussion in the channel) should be given access.
• No public logging should take place, nor should personal information be revealed.

User guide

Connecting

• First, request access from a suitably privileged OTRS member (ask in #wikimedia-otrs).
• When you have confirmed access, use the command "/msg ChanServ invite #wikimedia-otrs-watch" to be invited to the channel (you will need to do this every time you connect unless you ask an op to exempt you).
• When you are invited (Chanserv will send you a message), use "/join #wikimedia-otrs-watch" to join the channel.
• You should now be in the channel! If you have problems, just ask and someone will help.

Bot operation

• Use "!xx-add <page> p=<priority code> r=<reason>" to add a page to the list for a bot. Replace xx with the language code of the Wikipedia to watch (such as de: or en:), <page> with the page, <priority code> with a code letter: A is for HOT pages, with active office concerns; B is for BLP issues; and C is for other courtesy OTRS listings. <reason> should be replaced with a reason for listing the page, such as an OTRS ticket number.
• Use "!xx-remove <page>" to remove a page from the list
• User "!xx-intel <page>" to find out if a page is on the list, and if it is, what priority it has.

Future plans

• Contact Martinp23 on IRC or here for further information/help, or to request bots in other languages.