Concern about 'Join Mozilla' release
Toni Hermoso Pulido
I just would like to comment about a message received in l10n list:
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.l10n/browse_thread/thread/d0d526d26f804256#
From that l10n task list I just learned that a 'Join Mozilla' site is
supposed to be released this very month
(http://l10n.mozilla.org/~stas/fx4special/). I must say that I feel
really surprised because it looks to me a very rushy decision.
Membership program is a very important area, but also charged with
strong emotional content, as we have noticed in the several ongoing
discussions that went through the blog posts syndicated on Planet
Mozilla. So, that's the reason of my major surprise and I feel that some
extra iterations have been missed so more people in the community could
feel comfortable with such a key and central initiative.
In Catalan language we have a saying:
'De bones intencions, l'infern n'és ple'
http://www.tv3.cat/pprogrames/qmd/qmdSeccio.jsp?seccio=refrany&idint=110
which means that having good intentions is not a guarantee that they
succeed.
We already experienced it with very well-intentioned initiatives, and
IMHO actually good ideas, such as Mozilla Service Week, and with some
extent with Open to Choice, and I would feel really sad if such a thing
could repeat in a program which should have strong ties to develop a
sustainable community and in the exploration of new ways of crowd-funding.
On the other hand, as a localizer I feel curious about the reasoning
behind the choice of the specific locales to be released.
Best,
--
Toni Hermoso Pulido
http://www.cau.cat
Justin Dolske
> We already experienced it with very well-intentioned initiatives, and
> IMHO actually good ideas, such as Mozilla Service Week, and with some
> extent with Open to Choice
What do you feel went wrong with those projects? I'm not aware of any
particular failure there, so I'm curious what you think might be
happening again.
Justin
Toni Hermoso Pulido
Sure, these are already ended projects, but I have not read any
post-mortem analysis anywere. So, in that sense, it is also my fault not
having offered it when I felt I should have done it.
1. Mozilla Service Week. It was a lovely idea. Mozillians to offer their
skills and values for social help. I cannot tell in the USA, but there
was no effect as far as I know in Europe or other countries. I
participated in having the site translated, considerably a lot of work,
but there was little sense in doing this in the end. We tried to
articulate the participation of local partners in the initiative, but
there seemed not to be any plan for this.
2. Open to choice. This was strictly restricted to (most of) Europe for
the Windows Browser Ballot. I must say that, because of obvious reasons,
Microsoft kept a firm grip on the whole thing. In any case, the campaign
was prepared in a too much top to down fashion. Mozilla could not
compete with Google sticking ads of Chrome in Paris or London subway,
but it could only compete with the bottom-up implication of the
community strength. In that sense, I remember no previous consultation
on this aspect to local communities for designing localized actions.
In conclusion, in these last 2 projects I complain about a lack of
previous communication, but also a misunderstanding of what community
participation should be. It's not a matter of asking for translation,
but involving people in the design at the global but also at the very
local level.
Regarding Join Mozilla, I must say there has been far a lot more
communication through different blog posts, but I still feel that there
are things that need to be more digested before a release. Having a
release so soon, we could miss the opportunity of more Mozilians to feel
attached to it for making it stronger.
My 2 cents,
Jane Finette - Mozilla
thanks for your email and your thoughtful comments. Please let me reply
in line below.
With kindness
Jane
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Concern about 'Join Mozilla' release
>> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 22:58:28 +0100
>> From: Toni Hermoso Pulido <ton...@softcatala.cat>
>> To: gover...@lists.mozilla.org
>> CC: mark...@lists.mozilla.org
>>
>>
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I just would like to comment about a message received in l10n list:
>> http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.l10n/browse_thread/thread/d0d526d26f804256#
>>
>> > From that l10n task list I just learned that a 'Join Mozilla' site is
>> supposed to be released this very month
>> (http://l10n.mozilla.org/~stas/fx4special/). I must say that I feel
>> really surprised because it looks to me a very rushy decision.
>> Membership program is a very important area, but also charged with
>> strong emotional content, as we have noticed in the several ongoing
>> discussions that went through the blog posts syndicated on Planet
>> Mozilla. So, that's the reason of my major surprise and I feel that some
>> extra iterations have been missed so more people in the community could
>> feel comfortable with such a key and central initiative.
>
> We are aiming to get 2 pages of Join Mozilla ready in 1-2 weeks time.
> This is in fact a beta version of the site / program, whereby we want
> to get feedback from both users and community members over a 3-4 week
> period. It will not be live from any where on Mozilla.com / org.
> However, the pages and backend infrastructure will be functioning, and
> we intend to get further feedback and test messages thereafter to an
> isolated audience - namely yourselves and others.
>
> Furthermore, Chelsea Novak from the Mozilla foundation will be at
> CeBIT in Germany from March 1-5 (world's largest computer show). We
> intend to talk to people who visit the booth during this time, and get
> even more feedback on direction /tone.
>
> We do intend to have something "live" where anyone can sign up to be a
> supporter around the time of Firefox 4 launch. I think you'll agree
> that this is a very important time, and its a time period where many
> people will be looking to show support in the project in a way which
> works for them, be it localizing / coding / or becoming a supporter.
>
> The Join Mozilla program itself is a way for more people to declare
> affinity for the project - they may not have the skills we are all
> lucky to possess, but they still want to help. Its a way for them to
> also show their support and get behind the good work that we are all
> doing together.
>> In Catalan language we have a saying:
>> 'De bones intencions, l'infern n'�s ple'
>> http://www.tv3.cat/pprogrames/qmd/qmdSeccio.jsp?seccio=refrany&idint=110
>> which means that having good intentions is not a guarantee that they
>> succeed.
> This is a great saying. :) And its true, nothing is guaranteed to be
> successful no matter how you try. Sometimes though, the best way is to
> get things going, and then make them even better as you go, learning
> at every twist and turn of the way. Its surely best to keep moving and
> learning always.
>> We already experienced it with very well-intentioned initiatives, and
>> IMHO actually good ideas, such as Mozilla Service Week, and with some
>> extent with Open to Choice, and I would feel really sad if such a thing
>> could repeat in a program which should have strong ties to develop a
>> sustainable community and in the exploration of new ways of crowd-funding.
>> On the other hand, as a localizer I feel curious about the reasoning
>> behind the choice of the specific locales to be released.
> In terms of the locale selection (German, Spanish and Portuguese), we
> are working with a partner who ran the Obama / Move On campaign, and
> currently their system isn't localized so completely as ours. They are
> a good partner and we want to work with them to bring more locales on
> line as we go. Its important to note that the supporter program Join
> Mozilla, will be an ongoing program with monthly communications and
> support - so its important that /we/ also create all the
> infrastructure as well to support individuals from the very beginning.
>
> We surely want to have many more locales participate - but as you
> said, its important to have a solid program first and then we can go
> forward and make sure we have the best experience for each locale and
> the people there, who also want to help build the future of the Web.
>> Best,
>> --
>> Toni Hermoso Pulido
>> http://www.cau.cat
>> _______________________________________________
>> Interested in promoting Mozilla? Check out the Mozilla Community Marketing Guide:http://contribute.mozilla.org/Marketing
>> mark...@lists.mozilla.org
>> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/marketing
Toni Hermoso Pulido
thanks for the quick reply.
Al 12/02/11 02:08, En/na Jane Finette - Mozilla ha escrit:
> Hi Toni
>
> thanks for your email and your thoughtful comments. Please let me reply
> in line below.
>>>
Thanks for all this information. However, I must stress that this should
have been known publicly before. Apart from feedback, if we want a
major commitment of present Mozilians to involve new Mozilians (that is,
supporters of the profile you comment), people must feel they are part
of it in this process.
>
>>> We already experienced it with very well-intentioned initiatives, and
>>> IMHO actually good ideas, such as Mozilla Service Week, and with some
>>> extent with Open to Choice, and I would feel really sad if such a thing
>>> could repeat in a program which should have strong ties to develop a
>>> sustainable community and in the exploration of new ways of crowd-funding.
>>> On the other hand, as a localizer I feel curious about the reasoning
>>> behind the choice of the specific locales to be released.
>> In terms of the locale selection (German, Spanish and Portuguese), we
>> are working with a partner who ran the Obama / Move On campaign, and
>> currently their system isn't localized so completely as ours. They are
>> a good partner and we want to work with them to bring more locales on
>> line as we go. Its important to note that the supporter program Join
>> Mozilla, will be an ongoing program with monthly communications and
>> support - so its important that /we/ also create all the
>> infrastructure as well to support individuals from the very beginning.
>>
>> We surely want to have many more locales participate - but as you
>> said, its important to have a solid program first and then we can go
>> forward and make sure we have the best experience for each locale and
>> the people there, who also want to help build the future of the Web.
>
I disagree with this approach. Let me explain you why.
We are not in pre-Internet age. Once a program from a global oriented
organization such as Mozilla is launched, it spreads everywhere. Let's
say, for example, how do you think French-speaking supporters could feel
about this? How local French community is supposed to react after this
and deal with the concerns of candidate supporters? I commented about
French, because we know they are specially sensitive about this, but
more groups could be included.
Something like you comment has only sense in strict regional restricted
approach test that could be creating, for instance, a joinmozilla.de
I have other more specific questions, but I hope they can asked in a
follow-up in another mailing list which already exists or specifically
created for this.
Robert Kaiser
> From that l10n task list I just learned that a 'Join Mozilla' site is
> supposed to be released this very month
> (http://l10n.mozilla.org/~stas/fx4special/). I must say that I feel
> really surprised because it looks to me a very rushy decision.
What I'm a bit concerned about is that the campaign is introducing yet
another logo for Mozilla. I think if people are behind us, they should
align behind the same logo as us, shouldn't they?
Robert Kaiser
--
Note that any statements of mine - no matter how passionate - are never
meant to be offensive but very often as food for thought or possible
arguments that we as a community needs answers to. And most of the time,
I even appreciate irony and fun! :)
Jane Finette - Mozilla
Thank you for all your helpful comments and thoughtfulness regarding the
Join Mozilla program.
I wanted to let you know that in addition to the Wednesday marketing
call update on Join Mozilla, we're going to be posting a weekly 'Join
Mozilla' status update on planet.
Furthermore, we would like to bring together more people who are
interested in building the program into much more regular communication.
This would consist of updating on Join Mozilla plans, discussing key
initiatives, and very importantly understanding how the program should
exist in your locale. It would most likely be via email / etherpad and
sometimes a call if appropriate.
If you would like to participate (and I know there are many folks who
deeply care), and help make Join Mozilla the very best it can be, please
do email me at ja...@mozilla.com
With kindness
Jane
Gervase Markham
> (http://l10n.mozilla.org/~stas/fx4special/). I must say that I feel
> really surprised because it looks to me a very rushy decision.
> Membership program is a very important area, but also charged with
> strong emotional content, as we have noticed in the several ongoing
> discussions that went through the blog posts syndicated on Planet
> Mozilla. So, that's the reason of my major surprise and I feel that some
> extra iterations have been missed so more people in the community could
> feel comfortable with such a key and central initiative.
Hi Toni,
A lot has changed about Join Mozilla as a result of the first round of
discussions. Some of the early language has been changed to make it much
more clear that we do see an enormous difference between someone who
supports Mozilla with massive amounts of time and effort (such as you)
and someone who (quite reasonably) wants to cheer us on from the
sidelines with a $5 donation.
> We already experienced it with very well-intentioned initiatives, and
> IMHO actually good ideas, such as Mozilla Service Week, and with some
> extent with Open to Choice, and I would feel really sad if such a thing
> could repeat in a program which should have strong ties to develop a
> sustainable community and in the exploration of new ways of crowd-funding.
I wasn't officially involved with Mozilla Service Week, but I'd say you
are right that we did not achieve the success that we hoped. Open To
Choice was also a bit weird, but on the l10n front I think we did well -
I seem to remember we localized our parts into every appropriate
language, only to find that several of them were not supported by the
Microsoft-hosted infrastructure! But I could be misremembering.
> On the other hand, as a localizer I feel curious about the reasoning
> behind the choice of the specific locales to be released.
I personally have been strongly advocating within Mozilla for JM to be
regionalized and localized as early as possible in its life, and will
continue to do so.
Gerv