For prospective volunteers
- 2012
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)
- 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.
| Closed accounts
|
#
|
| Resigned |
13
|
| Inactive |
95
|
| Chapter related |
12
|
| Other * |
9
|
- Other: 3 removed, 3 employee accounts, 2 resigned-role (Oversight), 1 test account
- 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.
- Note: The VRTS software formats subqueues after two colons. For example, info-en::Vandalism is the Vandalism subqueue of the info-en queue.
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
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
- 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.
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
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
| 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 |
|
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 |
|
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 |
|
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 |
|
