Ticket system

[Hobbesistan]

Has there been any discussion for, say, implementing something like JIRVA for technical/moderation tickets?

I am aware the current system more or less "works", but a dedicated ticket system would work wonders organizationally.

Just a idea at 3am.

[Reploid Productions]

That's... basically how the Getting Help page already works. Granted, it isn't set up so you can track your tickets and it doesn't notify you if it's been cleared or whatnot if the mods don't let you know. Admittedly, the system was pretty bare bones when it was first implemented, and there's only been minor improvements since, virtually all of which only help the mods out. If folks have some ideas on how to improve the thing, it can't hurt to bandy some suggestions around.

The way it works right now goes pretty much like this:
-User goes to the Getting Help page and submits a ticket.
-It gets added to the moderator tasklist, which includes a task number, date and timestamp, the name of the nation logged in making the report (or the IP if no nation is logged in,) the task's status, the type of report, and the actual submitted text.
-Mods can tack comments onto the task, and mark them open/closed/etc.
-... and that's it, not counting any actual mod actions taken in dealing with the task or sending the reporter notification that we've gotten it or whatnot.

I can already think of a couple of tools that would be potentially handy to improve the tasklist's functionality, such as:
-Let the reporter view tasks and the task ID numbers they have filed in the past. (Well, for reports that are filed by logged in nations, anyways. If you aren't logged in, then you're SOL on reviewing your past reports!) That way if there's a repeat occurrence or a series of reports relating to an ongoing problem (such as harassment,) the user can reference those older tasks when making a new report, which would make it a little faster for mods to cross-reference it. Might be a nuisance though since we would probably not want the reporter to see the mod commentary (if there is any) on it, so I dunno how feasible it might be.

-Let the reporter add additional commentary to an open report- right now, if the mods have a follow-up question, we have to Voice of Mod the user and tell them to file another report, sometimes making note to include that it's related to task #xyz. Or the reporter might find additional relevant material to add, and they have to file a separate report entirely to let us know under the current setup.

I honestly have no idea how viable or technically difficult any such changes would be to make, but it can't hurt to make some suggestions.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I agree with a lot of what you said, Reppy. I also recall someone saying once that the categories we select have absolutely zero effect on your end - perhaps those could either do something or be removed?

[Frisbeeteria]

Having worked IT support with tools such as Remedy and some other tools, I can tell you that they are pretty much overkill for our purposes. The current system is rudimentary but functional, and [violet] continues to provide occasional tweaks to improve it. (Our new Banners and Flags monitor is very nice!) We used Bugzilla for a while for technical issues, but [violet] has a bad habit of ignoring our suggested priorities and doing her own thing ... which make sense, as she does about 98% of the tech changes.

I also recall someone saying once that the categories we select have absolutely zero effect on your end - perhaps those could either do something or be removed?

It's in the hopper, but low priority. Any improvements there would be mostly for our benefit, not yours, and they're totally non-critical.

[Sichuan Pepper]

My suggestion would be more feedback to the users. Too often I have logged reports and because no action is taken (that can be seen) and there is no communication I feel it is ignored and unattended to. The simple matter is that it quite likely has been looked at but deemed not actionable. Feedback always is a good thing.
An automated system to send a TG when a ticked has been signed off to the player that logged it to say the matter was attended to and the ticked is now closed would relieve a lot of angst.

[Euroslavia]

My suggestion would be more feedback to the users. Too often I have logged reports and because no action is taken (that can be seen) and there is no communication I feel it is ignored and unattended to. The simple matter is that it quite likely has been looked at but deemed not actionable. Feedback always is a good thing.
An automated system to send a TG when a ticked has been signed off to the player that logged it to say the matter was attended to and the ticked is now closed would relieve a lot of angst.

Makes sense, and I would agree.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Not sure if this is new or I've just never seen it before, but I wanted to say that the Voice of Mod TG with the "To respond to this message, please click here" line that links to a GHR with a task ID is pretty cool.
That's all

[[violet]]