What's going on here???

Talk about stuff specific to the site -- bugs, suggestions, and of course praise welcome.
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malliz
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Post by malliz »

ChrisI wrote:What will it take to get most MozillaZine KB contributors to warm up to the Firefox Support KB?
(I won't do xxx.)


"Please" and "Thank you" is all it takes.

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Post by Alice »

ChrisI wrote:What will it take to get most MozillaZine KB contributors to warm up to the Firefox Support KB?
(I won't do xxx.)

Maybe some more information about how the editorial approval process is going to work and who will be in charge of the content and style reviews:
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Support:PRD#Content_Creation
New documents:

Volunteer writes documents and assigns priority for editor review

Two separate editorial approval processes: content and style (content can be published initially if correct, even if not style guide needs to be implemented)

Existing documents / edits:

Minor (spelling, grammar, etc): Push live

Major: Same review as new documents

Style Guide: All Firefox support documents should be written for an audience of a slightly below average internet user (doesn’t read blogs—or at least wouldn’t know one if he saw one) and take the tone of a friendly, helpful community volunteer.


Even so, I don't know if I can "warm up" to a process like that. I think I'll stay with MozillaZine's KB which doesn't put such restrictions on content creation and editing and instead allows for anyone to create and edit articles "live", without need for prior approval. I much prefer peer review and discussion as editorial methods, in the wiki tradition.

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Post by ChrisI »

malliz wrote:"Please" and "Thank you" is all it takes.
You sure, that's all? As I understand this discussion topic, the original complaint was about lack of communication, not lack of appreciation; and that led to some pretty pessimistic (and incorrect) assumptions.

I really don't want inter-community politics to get in the way of giving users good support. Of all the possible reasons for not having good user support, that would probably be the dumbest.

Alice wrote:Maybe some more information about how the editorial approval process is going to work and who will be in charge of the content and style reviews:
Whoever wants to be. We don't even know if we are going to be using MediaWiki. Currently, there's a meeting scheduled for Tuesday (open to anyone), to go through the candidates, and hopefully make a selection.

Alice wrote:Even so, I don't know if I can "warm up" to a process like that. I think I'll stay with MozillaZine's KB which doesn't put such restrictions on content creation and editing and instead allows for anyone to create and edit articles "live", without need for prior approval. I much prefer peer review and discussion as editorial methods, in the wiki tradition.
From the meeting notes, the reason for that proposal is because we don't want incorrect information to ever be live. Incorrect information on mozilla.com would look very bad. I suppose we can create a system, where when someone is deemed trustworthy, their major edits / new pages can go live automatically. Sorta like getting CANCONFIRM privileges on bugzilla.

Anyone can review and discuss the style guide on mozilla.support.planning. The style review is just there to make sure all pages are consistent in their presentation.
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Post by Daifne »

ChrisI wrote:
malliz wrote:"Please" and "Thank you" is all it takes.
You sure, that's all? As I understand this discussion topic, the original complaint was about lack of communication, not lack of appreciation; and that led to some pretty pessimistic (and incorrect) assumptions.

I really don't want inter-community politics to get in the way of giving users good support. Of all the possible reasons for not having good user support, that would probably be the dumbest.


Not all, but it would help. ;-)

The biggest problem has been the lack of communication and the appearance of doing things in an underhanded/sneaky way. The attitudes of certain members of the Mozilla community have certainly not helped in this.

Be open and honest with us. That's all I ask. The thank you's are a nice addition and would go a long way to smoothing some of the feathers. An apology for how this has been handled so far would also help a lot, especially from those certain people. I'm not saying that anything was necessarily intentional (no matter how it appeared), but it did go very wrong.
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

ChrisI wrote:
malliz wrote:"Please" and "Thank you" is all it takes.
You sure, that's all? As I understand this discussion topic, the original complaint was about lack of communication, not lack of appreciation; and that led to some pretty pessimistic (and incorrect) assumptions.

OK, how about "Here's what we want to do. Can you please help us?" The complaints about communication seem valid, and the assumptions pessimistic. Everybody should just be nice, and communicate.

The reason for requiring review is absolutely valid. No argument there. If it ever gets backed up like Bugzilla, though, you can kiss the volunteers good bye. The only way we have of fixing anything on a timely basis is to put it in the KB, and not to wait for bug fixes.

Thanks for telling us about the meeting. Please, somebody keep us informed.
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Post by old zmanzero »

i observe, and i will tell you people something. we are all part of the same movement. freedom.

this differentiation of views is meaningless. ego is nothing out here, even the egos that decide.

freedom, open source, is the goal. if i see this fracture i will be disappointed. that's my 2 cents.
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Post by Lucy »

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=545425 was linked on page 2 of this thread. For people who are skimming and not clicking on the links, it's Sam Sidler (employee of moco) posting about the planning meetings a week before the first one. I dunno, maybe that needed to be in a different forum to get any attention? It's in an appropriate forum for the subject matter, but should it have been in the support forum instead to catch more eyes? (Also for those who aren't clicking through, it has _zero_ replies (well there's one but it's Sam following up with the newsgroup address).

I think the biggest problem we're hitting other than that is that some people observe conflict (non-immediate adoption of ideas, critiques etc.) and see that as a negative. If a suggestion is right, then not only will it win out in the end, but it is much better served to have everyone understand it. It would be great if people could instantly see an idea and immediately be able to weigh all the pros and cons of it and come to the same conclusion, but that's not how it works. Sometimes people either don't see the pros in someone else's idea, and sometimes they miss the cons in their own ideas. Sometimes the idea is mostly great, but there are one or two pros or cons that new eyes can point out, giving everyone a chance to address the issues and make the idea even better. Sometimes the idea was thought of previously and passed on for reasons that aren't immediately obvious. It's not a personal attack. If people didn't respect or value someone's opinions, they wouldn't bother questioning them or explaining why they were already considered and discarded. It's an opportunity to teach, or to learn and most importantly to get to a better solution than if ideas were just accepted or rejected out of hand.
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Post by malliz »

We are not talking about peoples ideas being right or wrong we are just asking for some clear concise information. Please don't try to muddy the waters. Thank You
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Post by Lucy »

I was replying to something someone else said, something that comes up in almost every discussion like this that happens. I was *hoping* to dispel or at least address some of the negativity that some people have expressed concern with, since it was brought up as a reason they were reluctant to participate. I didn't think there'd be anything wrong with that since I took the first paragraph to address the main issue. Of course the main issue doesn't matter if people still don't want to participate because they're afraid of not being listened to anyway.

I would appreciate it if you could read my first paragraph and respond to the legitimate questions I asked, then since it is what "we're" talking about. (but thanks for demonstrating my point about engaging someone whose opinions you value as opposed to shutting down someone you don't)
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Post by malliz »

Lucy wrote:I didn't think there'd be anything wrong with that since I took the first paragraph to address the main issue.

And then rambled on about a side issue. And yes, I did read your first paragraph. Really just a reiteration, hardly worth posting. Please keep on topic thank you.
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Post by Lucy »

The topic is you guys want to be informed, but there's a thread where an EMPLOYEE tried to inform and engage you and there are _zero_ comments on it, and everyone that mentions that thread either gets ignored or shut down. So I'm asking, what was wrong with that thread? What needs to be done differently in the future to make sure the information that does get posted here actually catches attention? Did he word something wrong? Should it have gone to the support forum to catch more eyes?
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Post by trolly »

Stop discussing. There is no need to.
For sure the post can be moved to Camino support and made a sticky. And still can. But as far as i can remember the OP has posted it in Site discussion and not Camino Support. He can have easily asked to make it sticky. There is a lot of traffic here so sometimes things get lost unnoticed. There is also some responsibility for the OP. If he thinks his announcement is really important it takes a minute to ask to make it sticky.
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Post by Lucy »

Ahh maybe that's what went wrong, people thought it was about Camino? Very good point about sticky.
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

The meetings were a good first step, and I guess something has come of it. But a meeting notice is one thing, but there hasn't been much since then. The little bit of published information on plans is so incredibly scattered on random newsgroups and blogs that it's quite difficult to find. Whether that's an accurate perception or not, it seems to be a widespread opinion, which must be taken seriously.

Of course there are no comments on Sidler's notice. What's there to say about a meeting notice? We've made plenty of public comments. We were hoping for information flowing the other way for a change.

If Mozilla is interested in support from volunteers and they wish to engage them on matters of support, or if they have anything to say about plans for support and information forums, they might want to go where the volunteers are. Just a suggestion, of course, not a mandate.
Last edited by VanillaMozilla on July 3rd, 2007, 6:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by VanillaMozilla »

Meeting here: http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=22172 <b>today!!</b> Be there or forever lose your right to complain about lack of communication. :furious: :lildevil:

Not new, but this may be worth reading again: Firefox Help Needs Your Help

Comments on that blog are interesting. One demented soul, bless his heart, writes, "My experience is that the Moz/Fox/gecko (OPEN SOURCE) support is easily located, well organized & indexed...." \:D/

And speaking of demented users, some of them posted support requests. :er:
Last edited by VanillaMozilla on July 3rd, 2007, 6:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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