Volunteer Response Team - Meta-Wiki

Volunteer Response Team - Meta-Wiki
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Volunteer Response Team
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VRT
The
Volunteer Response Team
VRT
) is a group of volunteers who handle queries, complaints, and comments from the public by email to Wikimedia projects since September 2004. Volunteers trusted to give courteous, helpful, and accurate responses are given access to the VRT software (
VRTS
) via the web at
. More volunteers are always needed, so if you are interested in volunteering please read
VRT/Recruiting
for more information on how you can help out. Generally, if you are an experienced editor and feel qualified to help with answering emails in your language, please consider submitting an
application
to volunteer. If you would like to help set up an email address for a project/language that does not yet have a queue in VRTS, please contact
a VRTS admin
to set one up.
The Volunteer Response Team was previously known as
OTRS
, named after the software that powered the system,
Open-source Ticket Request System (OTRS)
. ("Volunteer Response Team" was then used as an alternative name in some wikis.) In 2021, the open-source edition of OTRS is discontinued, and in Wikimedia it is replaced by an open-source fork,
Znuny
. The term "VRT software" is meant to prevent future renames in case of other software or structural changes.
There is also an IRC channel (
#wikimedia-vrt
connect
),
private wiki
, and several mailing lists dedicated to Wikimedia VRT. Access of VRTS wiki and other related resources are governed by
the access policy
. There is a global
vrts-permissions
user group; members in this group have access to at least one permissions-related queue.
Queues
E-mails received by the VRTS are sorted into "queues" based on the address they were sent to (and/or subject matter of the messager). VRTS volunteers (often referred to as "VRTS agents") have access to one or more queues, depending on their position within the
Wikimedia community
. Tickets in a particular queue are visible to all volunteers who have access to that queue. The
Wikimedia Foundation
cannot guarantee confidential treatment of any sensitive information you include in your message, although all volunteers are required to treat it with confidentiality. Users should be careful of revealing personally-identifying information of subjects or creators, particularly names, physical addresses, and emails.
Listed below are "community queues", which typically represent a specific project or language. Wikimedians interested in volunteering are able to apply to any of the queues listed below. Info and permission queue (other than permissions-commons) are categorized by
language
, not by
project
. For example, the info-zh queue deals with all matters written in Chinese, whether they are about Chinese Wikipedia, other Chinese sister projects or Chinese-related issue in multilingual projects such as Commons. There are many other queues within the system but they have restricted access (for example chapter queue access is approved by a chapter representative).
Daily reports of high-traffic queues are
available on Toolforge
VRTS queues are managed by VRTS administrators. To request a new queue,
contact VRTS administrators
Info
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). Emails to these addresses usually deal with questions from readers of Wikipedia and from the subjects of articles. Emails are sorted into queues 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. Info queues are currently available in the following languages:
info
(for all other languages)
info-als
Alemannic
info-ar
Arabic
info-az
Azerbaijani
info-bn
Bangla
info-ca
Catalan
info-cs
Czech
info-da
Danish
info-de
German
info-el
Greek
info-en
info-es
Spanish
info-et
Estonian
info-fa
Persian
info-fi
Finnish
info-fr
French
info-he
Hebrew
info-hr
Croatian
info-hu
Hungarian
info-id
Indonesian
info-it
Italian
info-ja
Japanese
info-ko
Korean
info-mk
Macedonian
info-nds
Low German
info-nl
Dutch
info-no
Norwegian
info-pl
Polish
info-pt
Portuguese
info-ro
Romanian
info-ru
Russian
info-scn
Sicilian
info-simple
Simple English
info-sk
Slovak
info-sl
Slovenian
info-sr
Serbian
info-sv
Swedish
info-tr
Turkish
info-uk
Ukrainian
info-ur
Urdu
info-vi
Vietnamese
info-zh
Chinese
Permissions
Sometimes Wikimedians would like to use images to illustrate an article 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 holder of an image and ask them to license it so that it can be used on Wikimedia projects. The permissions team on VRTS then processes the "permission" e-mail, attempts to verify the identity and legitimacy of the copyright holder and confirms the application of an appropriate license. The copyright holder will be informed about the proper procedure and its implications. The e-mails are then stored in the ticket system so that they can be verified if needed.
permissions-commons
(for Commons-hosted media)
permissions-ar
Arabic
permissions-az
Azerbaijani
permissions-cs
Czech
permissions-de
German
permissions-el
Greek
permissions-en
permissions-es
Spanish
permissions-et
Estonian
permissions-fi
Finnish
permissions-fr
French
permissions-he
Hebrew
permissions-hr
Croatian
permissions-hu
Hungarian
permissions-it
Italian
permissions-ja
Japanese
permissions-ko
Korean
permissions-ml
Malayalam
permissions-nl
Dutch
permissions-no
Norwegian
permissions-pl
Polish
permissions-pt
Portuguese
permissions-ro
Romanian
permissions-ru
Russian
permissions-sk
Slovak
permissions-sl
Slovenian
permissions-sr
Serbian
permissions-sv
Swedish
permissions-tr
Turkish
permissions-uk
Ukrainian
permissions-vi
Vietnamese
permissions-zh-hans
Simplified Chinese
permissions-zh-hant
Traditional Chinese
Photosubmissions
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 subjects (or their agents) of articles on the project to easily submit (via email to us) photos to help illustrate their articles.
Similar to the operation of permissions queues, the photosubmission team verifies that the person submitting the image 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 by
uploading
and adding the image(s) to the relevant articles. The Dutch VRT has a similar initiative as part of their info-nl queue:
Wikiportrait
Sister projects
Multilingual projects
Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia
Commons
Wikispecies
Wikidata
Wikifunctions
MediaWiki
Translatewiki.net
(outside Wikimedia)
Localized projects (one wiki for each supported content language)
Wikibooks
Wikinews
Wikipedia
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wikiversity
Wikivoyage
Wiktionary
Although the majority of our mail goes to Wikipedia-related queues, we do have dedicated queues set up for each of the "sister projects" shown above. These queues were created to give each of our projects the special attention they deserve so that we can seek out the best volunteer agents to serve on our team on those particular queues. If you have any particular knowledge about any of the Sister projects above, please feel free to request access to them individually as part of your application.
Other queues
There are many other queues in use within our VRTS implementation. They range in purpose but share one core purpose: to assist in facilitating communication amongst Wikimedia users, readers, customers and anybody else who has something to say! Through Wikimedia VRTS we support “
Wiki Loves Monuments
”, a number of
Wikimedia chapters
, several local
oversight
teams and numerous other foundation-related projects.
VRTS administrators
If you have any questions about
applying
or anything else relating to Wikimedia VRTS, feel free to contact one of the people below. You can also email
volunteers-vrt
wikimedia
org
or join us on the
Libera
IRC network in
#wikimedia-vrt
connect
If you disagree with an action that is linked to an VRTS ticket and would like it reviewed by other members of the VRT, please see
VRT/Review
or contact one of the administrators below.
User
Languages
Location
Time zone
IRC nickname(s)
DCB
de, en-2
Germany
UTC+01:00 –
Central European Time
Emufarmers
en
United States
UTC−05:00 –
Eastern Time (North America)
Emufarmers
Geagea
he, en-3, ka-3
Israel
UTC−02:00 –
Israel Standard Time
Glane23
en
United States
UTC−08:00 –
Pacific Standard Time (North America)
Krd
de, en-3
Germany
UTC+01:00 –
Central European Time
Krd
Matthewrb
en, es-3
Colorado
UTC−07:00 –
Mountain Time Zone
Matthew_
Reinhard Kraasch
de, en-3
Hamburg
UTC+01:00 –
Central European Time
Ruthven
fr, it, en-4, es-4
France
UTC+01:00 –
Central European Time
ruthven
VRTS admins are appointed by cooptation.
See also
List of VRT members
Becoming a volunteer
Apply to become a volunteer
VRT permissions agents:
global permission
global groups (toolforge)
member list
group changelog
Global groups
User groups
Local
groups
On Meta
Without global effects
Account creators
Autopatrollers
Bots
Bureaucrats
CheckUsers
Community Wishlist managers
Confirmed users
Event organizers
Flood flag
Importers
IP block exemptions
Users blocked from the IP Information tool
Oversighters
Patrollers
Transwiki importers
Temporary account IP viewers
Uploaders
With global effects
Administrators
Central notice administrators
Global renamers
Interface administrators
MassMessage senders
OAuth administrators
Push subscription managers
Translation administrators
WMF Office IT
WMF Trust and Safety
On some wikis
Uploaders
Autopatrollers
Patrollers
Reviewers
Rollbackers
Autochecked users
Extended confirmed users
File movers
Interface editors
Abuse filter editors
Template editors
Eliminators
Translation administrators
MassMessage senders
Arbitration committee members
Extended movers
Bots with administrator rights
Flooders
Curators
Election clerks
On one wiki
(except Meta)
Noratelimit accounts
Engineers
Upload Wizard campaign editors
Image reviewers
Test wiki administrators
Property creators
Wikidata staff
Researchers
IP block exemption grantors
Movers
Functioneers
Maintainers
Wikifunctions staff
On all wikis
Blocked users
Unregistered users
Newly-registered users
Registered users
Confirmed users
Autoconfirmed users
Account creators
Bots
Administrators
Interface administrators
Bureaucrats
Oversighters
CheckUsers
IP block exemptions
Importers
Transwiki importers
Temporary account IP viewers
Users blocked from the IP Information tool
Structured Discussions bots
Historical groups
Extended uploaders
Course coordinators, Instructors, Online volunteers and Campus volunteers
ZeroRatedMobileAccess administrators
WMF ops monitoring
GWToolset users
Global
groups
Locked accounts
Unified accounts
Abuse filter helpers
Abuse filter maintainers
API high limit requestors
CAPTCHA exemptions
Founder
Global bots
Global deleters
Global Flow creators
Global interface editors
Global IP block exemptions
Global rollbackers
Global sysops
Global temporary account IP viewers
New wikis importers
Ombuds
Recursive export
Staff
Stewards
System administrators
U4C members
VRT permissions agents
wmf-email-block-override
WMF researchers
Links in
italic
are separate account statuses that are not assigned through user groups.
See also:
Wikimedia user groups
Retrieved from "
Categories
VRT
User groups
Global user groups
Hidden category:
WMF-COM
Volunteer Response Team
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