Volunteer Response Team/Volunteering

Fluffy89502

• User links: Fluffy89502 (talk • contribs • CentralAuth • global • count • blocks)
• Babel/Languages you can reply in: English-N
• Your most active user talk page(s): commons:User talk:Fluffy89502
• Queues you would like access to: info-en, permissions-en
• Email sent? Yes

Hello! I am applying to help out here from time to time. I have multiple permissions on Commons and have never had a record of getting and sending communications with a mad tone. Thank you! ~ Fluffy89502 (talk) 00:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Ed6767

• User links: Ed6767 (talk • contribs • CentralAuth • global • count • blocks)
• Babel/Languages you can reply in: en-N
• Your most active user talk page(s): w:en:User talk:Ed6767 (archives w:en:User talk:Ed6767/archive)
• Queues you would like access to: info-en
• Email sent? Done

I spend quite some time in talk pages, help desks and the Teahouse helping users with their queries, and would love to help elsewhere too with both non and newer Wikimedians with OTRS tickets and queries. Helping with some of the backlogs at OTRS and encouraging curious newer Wikimedians to help with projects or just the general public who know little about Wikimedia projects, especially ones that may be difficult to approach given the complexity of some policies has also always been a priority of mine. I am also the lead developer and creator of RedWarn, a popular enwiki counter-vandalism tool, and during my work and development in the counter-vandalism space, I have become familiar with many English Wikipedia policies, and understand how to manage reports of content quickly and safely, such as reporting to the appropriate venues or teams such as oversight or Wikimedia Trust and Safety if necessary. Civility, accepting responsibility and my overall willingness to help other Wikimedians, be it through answering queries or developing tools is a priority for me, and I'd love to carry these skills to non-Wikimedians through the OTRS system.

• I have signed the OTRS Users Confidentiality Agreement

• I am aged 16 or over

Many thanks for your consideration, Ed6767 (talk) 19:29, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

• Ed6767 certainly cares about the Community at an intense level, including trying to make it more user-friendly for newcomers (a helpful position for an OTRS agent). Redwarn has had some backlash issues, but I should note that Ed has been extremely reactive to these, with several detailed threads immediately resolving after rapid responses and significant coding re-writes done near immediately. I've not engaged with Ed outside that so can't speak to his other skillsets, but I think his personality shows promise as an OTRS agent. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:10, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

• I cannot support at this time. They show a worrying lack of understanding when it comes to privacy issues - there was some significant concerns about portions of their RedWarn software being hosted off-wiki and it took them a little time to really understand those issues. I would prefer they demonstrate more thoroughly their understanding of privacy issues first before they're entrusted with access to more private information. Nick (talk) 19:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

  Hi Nick - I understand your concerns, and think I should clarify. Those privacy issues were more of a technical point and oversight on my part. At the time, I did not know that using external resources on Wikimedia sites was such a major issue as the exact policies and practices for user scripts weren't clear to me. In all my experience prior to this, the use of external CDNs was a common practice on small projects who could not afford or did not find it viable to have their own hosting. I tried to take adequate precautions when using CDNs at the time by ensuring no cookies or user data were sent to external services, and only a basic web request would be made. However, upon editors privacy concerns of exposing IP and referrer information (which are sent by default in all web requests) being made clear during the AN discussion, I immediately began researching some alternatives, such as merging all the code on-wiki, which did not prove viable due to size and potential licensing issues with other open-source projects, reworking RedWarn to not require any external resources (which would be a major UX compromise) and other options. When I discovered it was available for all developers involved in Wikimedia related projects, I then immediately worked on moving to Toolforge, which is used by many other tools and gadgets. As I said in my application, accepting responsibility is a priority of mine, I made a mistake and did not know using a CDN was a major issue, I discussed, worked to fix it, and, consequently, I learnt and improved. I always have and always will hold privacy as an extremely high priority, and have fully read and understood the OTRS Users Confidentiality Agreement, which unlike the user script issues are understandable and clearly set out, and I have signed and agreed to all the terms set out in which. I'm unsure how on a public-facing site I can express a more thorough understanding of privacy issues, but if and when the opportunity arises, I will do so. I hope this has given clarification enough to relieve your concerns, and I'm very open to answering any further queries. Many thanks, Ed6767 (talk) 22:51, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

  I appreciate the response, but I'm left unconvinced. I know you think you know the issues well now, but I'm not sure you really 'get' the whole ethos behind privacy here on the various Wikimedia projects, and that you may not really understand why in some cases you'll need to be even more careful when it comes to privacy and how you handle personal information, just following the OTRS rules may not be enough. It's often said to be hyperbole, but for some people, editing Wikipedia, indeed, just reading Wikipedia, places them at great personal risk. There are authoritarian regimens around the world who will physically punish people for editing or reading our projects, so how we handle any correspondence concerning these people (whether from them, or about them) is a matter of exceptional importance. Nick (talk) 23:08, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

It's worthy of note that I feel someone could have different perspectives on what they think is a suitable amount of privacy and not have any issues following the OTRS/agreement requirements. Nosebagbear (talk)

I wasn't corresponding with you and do not care what you think, Nosebagbear. Nick (talk) 23:08, 2 September 2020 (UTC)