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Shortcut WP:VRTN Wikimedia's volunteer response team (VRT) handles copyright permissions, email inquiries from the public, reuse inquiries, article errors, and a wide range of non-public inquiries. The email service is operated and managed by a cross-project team of volunteers at the Meta-Wiki level and not by the English Wikipedia community. Actions by VRT members on English Wikipedia are ultimately subject to review by the Arbitration Committee. Please be aware that there is sometimes a backlog in processing tickets sent to the permissions-en queue. This backlog is currently 0 days. This noticeboard is primarily for Permissions verification and inquiries for text and files (hosted on the English Wikipedia) said to have been granted permission via VRTS. Requests for VRT member review of matters that have been described as VRT comments or actions. Other inquiries to VRT members that do not involve, disclose or reference private material. Do not post Private information or links to private information (including but not limited to emails, phone numbers, physical addresses). Fishing requests (asking for all details of a ticket or generally probing ticket information). You should make a specific request and clearly state the reason for your request. Additional questions on a point, once a VRT member has indicated they cannot answer due to privacy issues. (Further inquiries and any complaints should be made via email.) Requests for VRTS access (use meta:VRT/Volunteering instead). Questions regarding media hosted on Wikimedia Commons (use Commons:Volunteer Response Team/Noticeboard instead). Media questions unrelated to VRT (use Wikipedia:Media copyright questions instead). Disputes For disputes over VRT actions on English Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team § Dispute resolution and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution § Sensitive issues and functionary actions. Useful VRT email addresses Removal of private or defamatory information Requests for oversight or oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org Submission of photos to be used in a Wikipedia article photosubmissionwikimedia.org Follow the instructions here Confirmation of copyright permission permissions-enwikimedia.org Follow the format given here Reports of threatened harm to self or others emergencywikimedia.org Guidance: Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm Reports of child pornography legal-reportswikimedia.org See Wikimedia Legal Policies Issues with an article about you or your organization info-en-qwikimedia.org Guidance: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Help Any other inquiries involving private information info-enwikimedia.org

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I would like to propose that we move to monthly dated categories similar to what Commons has at Commons:Category:OTRS_pending and Commons:Category:OTRS received. I think individual daily categories are overkill, but monthly ones (with images sorted by date within the category) would let us more efficiently make sure that images where we don't receive permission don't hang around forever and that we are not duplicating effort in reviewing them. My suggestion is that a bot would do the following:

1. Create monthly categories named "OTRS pending as of April 2015", "OTRS pending as of May 2015", "OTRS received as of April 2015", "OTRS received as of May 2015", etc. The categories would have the same auto-csd thing where if they are empty after the month ends, they tag themselves for speedy deletion.
2. Find uses of ((OTRS pending)) and ((OTRS received)) that don't have a date and tag them with month/day/year parameters. Within the category, they would be sorted by date.
3. If an ((OTRS pending)) tag has been in place for more than MIN(((OTRS backlog)), 30) days + a 7-day grace period (in case we're not great about keeping the backlog template up-to-date or to allow time for the email to be sent in case it wasn't sent right away when the tag was added), then tag the image with ((subst:npd)) and notify the uploader.
4. For ((OTRS received)) tags that stay in place for a while, I think having some sort of SOP here would be a good idea.
   • Alternative #1 - do the same thing we do for ((OTRS pending)) - if it's tagged with OTRS received for backlog + 7 days, then tag it with ((subst:npd))
   • Alternative #2 - If it's tagged for backlog + 7 days, post a note to the tagger's talk page asking them to check the ticket and send another email to the requestor to follow up or, if they are confident that we will not receive one, ask that they tag the image with ((npd)). This way, we're not going to delete the image without someone having a chance to look at the OTRS ticket and see if it's worth sending a follow-up email
   • Alternative #3 - Post a daily (or weekly?) summary here of images that should be followed up on.
5. Keep track of images that once had ((OTRS pending)) and post somewhere a list of images that lost their ((OTRS pending)), but did not get an ((OTRS received)) or ((OTRS permission)).
6. Post a daily (or weekly?) summary (probably here) of AbuseFilter hits for adding the OTRS tags by a non OTRS member, with exceptions for anyone who is an admin here or on Commons, or is a bot (possibly with a whitelist of other non-OTRS users who are sufficiently trusted that we believe they know what they are doing. Possibly also filter out reverts if the abuse filter doesn't do that already). This way, we can follow up on these in an orderly fashion and not duplicate effort.

Thoughts? --B (talk) 17:28, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Fine by me — prefer alternative 2 for OTRS received. Stifle (talk) 14:49, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some notes:

1. User:Ronhjones often tags files with ((subst:npd|((NoOTRS30)))), and the bot would essentially replace his manual tagging. Maybe he has an opinion on what to do.
2. ((OTRS backlog)) currently reports 78 days and the template was last edited on 28 April. In my opinion, the bot should only tag files which were tagged with ((subst:OTRS pending)) more than 78 days before 28 April, even if it is after 28 April when the file is tagged by the bot. The ((OTRS backlog)) template may sometimes be outdated.
3. When a human tags a file with ((subst:npd)), the file is checked by at least two users: the tagging user and the deleting admin. Other users possibly see the file but might not look at it. If a bot tags the file, then there is only one user (the deleting admin) who looks at the file. In my opinion, the bot should not use ((subst:npd)) but list the file at WP:PUF as this may increase the possibility that someone else might take a look at the file.
4. The bot should check that the file doesn't contain ((OTRS permission)). If it contains both ((OTRS permission)) and one of the other templates, then OTRS members should be alerted as something is wrong. --Stefan2 (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Stefan2:

1. Ronhjones notified.
2. Good point on #2. That was part of the reason I had in mind with the 7-day grace period. I could have it yell at me if the template hasn't been updated in some reasonable amount of time. Maybe yell at me if it hasn't been updated in 5 days and post on this noticeboard if it hasn't been updated in 10 days. (What I would like for us to do is get to the point where we're talking about the backlog in terms of < 1 week. It's ridiculous that you email us and it's three months before anything is done.)
3. I'm not sure what my opinion is on #3 and need to think it for a bit. My first thought is that chances are, the reason the ((OTRS pending)) template was put on there in the first place is that someone came along and tagged it with ((subst:npd)) and then the user replaced that with ((OTRS pending)). So it is likely that two humans have already looked at it. Maybe I could only list it at PUF only if no non-bot user other than the original uploader has ever edited the page? Those are probably the ones that should be reviewed most closely. (Perhaps it's also worth listing if it's a PNG, since those tend to be logos and more likely should have just been tagged as fair use to begin with?) In any event, something that would probably be useful here - since the uploader would have already been sent ((subst:Di-no permission-notice)) once (that's why they added the ((OTRS pending)) template to begin with) - would be to give them a different message that isn't so boilerplate ... something that sounds more like it came from a human and less like a form letter. Instead of inundating them with links, we really just want to give them a simple message that if you're the copyright holder, please email permissions-en@wikimedia.org and if you're not the copyright holder but are in touch with that person, please ask him or her to email us. Otherwise, the image will be deleted. If you need help, please post a message on WP:MCQ.
4. Very good point. Something else I thought about was that if an image with OTRS permission is tagged with npd or another deletion tag, it's probably worth notifying this noticeboard so that someone can take a look at the ticket. I could create a daily report with any oddities like this that need to be reviewed. --B (talk) 22:28, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go ... something like ((Di-no permission-notice-final)) is a little more directly on point. It sounds slightly less automated and doesn't inundate the user with 1000 links to click on and things to do. We have one straight and to the point request - send us an email and let us know you have done so. --B (talk) 23:02, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

About #3: It seems that many new users who upload files use an upload wizard where the user selects various options without understanding what the options mean. That is at least my impression of the bogus fair use rationales and copyright tags I have seen. Some users might use an option which inserts ((OTRS pending)) even if the user doesn't know what this mean, so it is better to offer the user a place to discuss the matter. I think that it would be easier to simply list all files at PUF instead of trying to identify exceptions as it just makes things more complex without any real benefit. It's not like there are hundreds of affected files per day, so it shouldn't be a problem to have a few extra PUF sections. --Stefan2 (talk) 23:50, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

• Sounds good to me. Let me know if I can help (within the boundaries of my rookieness) Mlpearc (open channel) 23:33, 28 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• I'd love to see these categorized and managed this way. I do like the format B proposed at ((Di-no permission-notice-final)) - to the point but not officious. - Peripitus (Talk) 11:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• Great idea, now can it be built into WP:Twinkle? At the moment all these are tagged/deleted under F11 - no evidence of permission can we modify Twinkle so that there is a second F11 choice e.g. "No permission confirmed via OTRS"? Nthep (talk) 11:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a very good point. I'm asking at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle. --B (talk) 12:02, 29 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
• (Struggling with an ancient laptop, as PC is in bad way...) Sounds good to me, it should help the slow build up of non-approved images (I'm sure there must be people out there just using ((OTRS pending)) as a way of keeping up images); before PC died, I kept wading through all the >30 days category, but it does takes ages - the amount of people who send in a message and don't include the url makes searching OTRS a right pain. Ronhjones  ^(Talk) 17:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]