Volunteer Form

[Brad Baker]

Last year, during an intense period of complaints about the failings of our project, a few people came up with some great suggestions and offered to implement them. One of them was to create a simple form where people who genuinely wanted to volunteer could fill in their details and we as a project could then draw on  their offers for help in a more methodical and practical way.

I've started work on a simple form: https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/community.joomla.org/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dDl6U2RIdDAtak9IN3RwQzlselpFaEE6MA the submissions of this form can be made available to OSM as well as the PLT and the CLT.

I think we should, and do need to have something like this out there soon. However, there's a kicker. If people are offering to help, and take the time to fill out this form, we need to ensure that someone get's back to them at some point, even if at the worst to suggest they help on the forum etc.

So, what ideas might work do you think? Any suggestions on this form?

-----

Brad Baker

Twitter @xyzulu
The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org

[Ken Crowder]

I would suggest another field that says something like, "On average, how many hours can you help each month?"

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Joomla Leadership" group.
To post to this group, send email to joomla-l...@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.

--
Kenneth Crowder (aka ChiefGoFor)
Joomla Leadership Team

[Brad Baker]

Good one.. I had forgotten that.. thanks Ken.

[Mark Dexter]

Hi Brad. I think this is a good idea and a good form. I agree with you
that it is imperative if we do this that someone respond in a timely
manner. Ideally, we should have someone receive these emails who
serves as a clearinghouse to simply forward them to the correct teams
(docs, forums, bug squad).

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe we should have a specific
list of areas where they can volunteer: Forum Moderator, Bug Squad,
Documentation, Marketing, Website Admin, others??. That would make it
easier for them to know what we are looking for and make it easier to
forward to the right team.

Those are my thoughts. Mark

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 6:01 PM, Brad Baker

[Wendy Robinson]

I like it!

Small thing, I would add a third box at the bottom:

Skills or Areas of Interest

1) Why do you want to volunteer to help Joomla?
2) What areas of the project particularly interest you?
3) Do you have some specific skills that you feel would benefit those
areas that interest you the most?

I agree that making sure people are contacted is important. That said,
i'm not sure the best way to organize and document that. Maybe to
start, a person from each Leadership group could be designated to check
the results regularly and add a note in the results like 'contacted for
forum' or 'emailed this person regarding help with docs'. I dunno, need
to think on it a bit.

Wendy

> Twitter @xyzulu <http://twitter.com/xyzulu>
> The Joomla Community: community.joomla.org
>
>

[Jacques Rentzke]

I think it's good that we are moving forward on this.

Since personal information will be submitted, it might be a good idea
to include a basic Privacy statement at the bottom of the form. (who
has access to the information, and what it will be used for)

Also, there should be some mechanism where the volunteer is contacted
within 24 hours to confirm the receipt of their details. (and perhaps
who they can contact to follow up)

>>> submissions of this form can be made available to OSM as well as the PLT and
>>> the CLT.
>>> I think we should, and do need to have something like this out there
>>> soon. However, there's a kicker. If people are offering to help, and take
>>> the time to fill out this form, we need to ensure that someone get's back to
>>> them at some point, even if at the worst to suggest they help on the forum
>>> etc.

Perhaps one person each from OSM, PLT, and CLT should have the
ultimate responsibility to keep track of volunteer submissions and
feedback.

--
Jacques Rentzke
Secretary
Open Source Matters, Inc.

[Jacques Rentzke]

Wendy, I posted before I saw your reply, but I agree with this:

> I agree that making sure people are contacted is important. That said, i'm
> not sure the best way to organize and document that. Maybe to start, a
> person from each Leadership group could be designated to check the results
> regularly and add a note in the results like 'contacted for forum' or
> 'emailed this person regarding help with docs'. I dunno, need to think on
> it a bit.

I like Mark's idea of listing areas where volunteers are generally needed:

> Actually, now that I think about it, maybe we should have a specific
> list of areas where they can volunteer: Forum Moderator, Bug Squad,
> Documentation, Marketing, Website Admin, others??. That would make it
> easier for them to know what we are looking for and make it easier to
> forward to the right team.

Without making the form too complicated we could add a few of these
volunteer areas as multi-select check-box items, with the last option
being Other (with space to fill in details)

I wonder if we should not also add a space for voluntary Disclosure of
possible conflict of interest, for the area one is volunteering in?
(both for the protection of the volunteer and the project)

--
Jacques Rentzke
Secretary
Open Source Matters, Inc.

On 6 April 2010 03:11, Wendy Robinson

[Brad Baker]

On the privacy issue, I think we should just point to:
http://www.joomla.org/privacy-policy.html

On Apr 6, 11:26 am, Jacques Rentzke

> >>https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/community.joomla.org/viewform?hl=en...

[elin]

We actually have a new privacy policy just about ready to come online
so I would just have that cover it. You can have a link to the privacy
policy from the form introduction if you want. The current one is
fine for now, but with the demo site coming online we wanted to make
sure it was totally correct.

I would think that long term a Google form is not a great thing for
this since it can't be queried but it's fine for now.

I'd be for keeping it simple and focusing on making sure that anyone
who fills out the form gets a response. It's easy to set a Google
spread sheet to notify you on changes, so whoever the team is should
just do that.

@Jacques
With COI keep in mind that a COI is a legal issue only for board
members (i.e. those with fiduciary responsibilities) and that it is
mainly about whether there is self-dealing on things such as the
awarding of contracts. Board members are the only ones legally
required to put the best interests of the organization ahead of their
own interests if they come into conflict. These rules mainly come out
of cases such as Enron where boards did not live up to their
responsibilities. Volunteers who are not in leadership positions are
not involved in awarding of contracts, and anyway we don't have a lot
of decisions where we have to be worried about nepotism or, for
example, hiring someone's business partner as a lawyer for the
project. COI is not the same thing as acting in your own best
interests. It's in the self interest of most people in the Joomla!
community (and certainly in the commercial community) to help the
project be successful. It's in their interest to contribute some great
code because it enhances their reputation (lots of people are involved
in open source projects just for that reason) or to write some great
documentation because it shows off their ability as a technical
writer, just like it's great for someone's reputation to donate a wing
to a hospital. none of those things represent conflicts of interest.
Of course there are cases where we might thing something is overly
self-promoting or manipulative but that is more of an ethical or
community behavior issue than a COI one.

More important in terms of volunteers is that before they are working
on something making sure they have received and agreed to comply with
the code of conduct and that they understand relevant policies such as
the privacy policy. Our lawyers have said that we should make sure
that volunteers with access to personally identifiable information
(basically anyone who can see email addresses) about people understand
and comply with the privacy policy in particular. But that's
training, not a barrier to entry for participation.

Great initiative Brad!

Elin

On Apr 5, 9:26 pm, Jacques Rentzke

> >>https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/community.joomla.org/viewform?hl=en...

[Robert Deutz]

Hi Brad,

looks good, great idea.

Robert

[Wendy Robinson]

Ok, per Mark and Jacques suggestions I've edited the form to add
checkboxes for specific areas of interest and added one as well for
'other'. then asked for specific skills that would relate to the chosen
areas below that.

Added: Forum moderator, Bug Squad member, Documentation, marketing team,
website admin (?), Directory editor (JED/JRD), Shop Team and Other. If
you can think of others that should be specifically mentioned or think
some should be removed or changed, let me know.

I'm trying to think of the best way to add the links to both the privacy
policy and the Volunteer Code of Conduct as I think both should be read
and understood before submitting the form. However, it does not seem
possible to insert a link into the form. I hope its just me missing
something obvious and not a limitation of the form. Any ideas?

Wendy

[Peter Martin]

Maybe you could just add a textlink that the visitor can copy + paste in
a new browser to read those policies.
And after that a checkbox that they have to click when they've read and
agree with those policies.

Greetings,
Peter

[Javier Gomez]

Do you think that we can also ask for volunteers to translate official useful information?:

• logo and trademark
• How to create a JUG
• ...

I know we don't have yet place to put the translated documents, but we can leave them in the forum so the local communities could get them and place them in their portals for example.

--
Javier Gomez
OpenSourceMatters

[elin]

How to create a JUG is fine but legal policies need people who can do
legal translations which is a specialized skill.

Elin

On Apr 9, 12:46 pm, Javier Gomez <javier.go...@opensourcematters.org>
wrote:

> Do you think that we can also ask for volunteers to translate official
> useful information?:
>

>    - logo and trademark
>    - How to create a JUG
>    - ...

>
> I know we don't have yet place to put the translated documents, but we can
> leave them in the forum so the local communities could get them and place

> them in their portals for example.---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Wendy Robinson <wendy.robin...@community.joomla.org>

> >>> joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com<joomla-leadership%2Bunsubscr i...@googlegroups.com>

> >>> .
> >>> For more options, visit this group at
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Joomla Leadership" group.
> To post to this group, send email to joomla-l...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com<joomla-leadership%2Bunsubscr i...@googlegroups.com>
> .
> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.
>
> --
> Javier Gomez
> OpenSourceMatters

[Ryan O]

Hi Javier,

I definitely think that translations of our official communications
and documents are extremely useful for the community, and enable us to
continue our efforts in OSM to promote transparency and
accountability. As Elin has written, legal writings are going to be a
bit more difficult than other translations, as we'll need to ensure
that the writings are legally sound and written by legal experts.

I think there are many documents that could use translation. Javier,
could you start another thread to help us document this list of items
to tackle? Thanks for the thoughts!

Cheers,
Ryan

On Apr 9, 12:46 pm, Javier Gomez <javier.go...@opensourcematters.org>
wrote:

> Do you think that we can also ask for volunteers to translate official
> useful information?:
>

>    - logo and trademark
>    - How to create a JUG
>    - ...

> >>> joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com<joomla-leadership%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

> >>> .
> >>> For more options, visit this group at
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Joomla Leadership" group.
> To post to this group, send email to joomla-l...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com<joomla-leadership%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> .
> For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.
>
> --
> Javier Gomez
> OpenSourceMatters

[Wendy Robinson]

Ok, I agree that it would be great to have some translating of information on the sites happening.  Translating Information? Translation of Joomla.org content? Any other ideas?  Do we want to add it now or later when we've clarified which things require legal expertise and which do not?

On other matters, I've added the urls to the privacy policy and Code of Conduct with a checkbox as Peter suggested.

Nearing completion on this now I think.  All we need to do is decide how we're going to make it work and ensure that people's offers do not get missed. Once we get that figured out, Paul has kindly agreed to add a spot on community.joomla.org for the form and do a write up of text that people will see when they have submitted it.

I'll volunteer to catch the requests and forward them on the appropriate people/teams. If another person could also step up to help out when I'm away or don't have time, I'd appreciate that.  I think it should be the role of the teams once they are forwarded the requests to evaluate them and contact the people who've volunteered. 

Thoughts?

Let's just get this done!

Wendy

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/joomla-leadership?hl=en.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Joomla Leadership" group.
To post to this group, send email to joomla-l...@googlegroups.com.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to joomla-leaders...@googlegroups.com.