Default scope of Mozilla forums: all or Mozilla?

[Mitchell Baker]

One of the topics that has come up recently is whether Mozilla
communications forums -- in particular Planet, but not necessarily
limited to that forum -- should default to Mozilla-focused topics, or
should include whatever each Mozillian wants to include there.

Here's a summary of the goal, as I understand it: Mozilla is a
gathering place for people, not worker-bots. Having content broader
than work helps us get to know each other. We shouldn't limit this. We
might encourage people not to include disruptive social issues in the
mainstream feed, but it should remain the decision of each individual
contributor what gets syndicated to Planet.


I support the general goal of creating a community of people that are
more than worker bees. Getting to know each other is helpful, it's
often fun, it makes a different kind of bond, and part of our goal is to
create distributed networks. There are some key questions about how
we do this:

-- do we deliver this to people as part of their core Mozilla
activities; or do we allow people to choose the degree to which they do
this?

-- is Planet Mozilla still the right place for this? Today we have a
ton of tools today for getting to know each other that we didn't have 5
years ago.

As I noted in my last post, we share a commitment to Mozilla but are
*wildly* divergent on most other issues. Pick a contentions social,
environment, religious, or political issue and Mozillians have wildly
divergent views. Getting to know and understand and respect these
views -- and the people who hold them -- has many positive benefits.
It is also tiring, emotionally difficult, potentially unsuccessful, and
potentially highly disruptive.

I'm not a fan of organizing Mozilla so that when I step up to work on
what we all agree on --- Mozilla -- I *have* to address all the other
non-Mozilla topics where my colleagues and I have (potentially deep and
contentious) disagreements. I may choose to do this sometimes. And
it's probably helpful if we encourage ourselves to do this regularly. I
may even need to do this sometimes to get to to know another
Mozillians. But to be required to do this every time I turn to Mozilla
seems a bad default to me.

That's why I believe we need key communications forums that focus by
default on what we all share -- our commitment and activities related to
Mozilla. Design so that what we share -- Mozilla -- is front and
center and the rest is easy to find.

In this regard Planet may currently have a different default than much
of the project. I note the From etiquette guide Myk pointed to
(http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette.html) has a "stay on
topic" message. Planet to date has taken the opposite default --
include everything and let individuals find a way to not post all or
somehow (possible but complicated I think) to not view all. So my view
may be a change in the basic default position that Planet uses.

I'm pretty sure this is the right basic approach, but the discussion is
still pretty new, so a change in thinking is certainly possible.

Mitchell

[Majken Connor]

One thing I have thought about since it's been brought up whether or not to
apply the same standards everywhere, including IRC... I think the
difference is the platform. On IRC I can see my audience. It's also much
easier to walk away if it's a topic I'm not interested in, or is not to my
taste (I'm hesitant to include offended in here because in any case I can
remember if someone says they don't like the discussion enough to actually
bring it up, we change it). We also have different channels where we know
which topics are welcome, so it's a bit different from following one place
to get one person.

> http://www.mozilla.org/about/**forums/etiquette.html<http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette.html>)

> has a "stay on topic" message. Planet to date has taken the opposite
> default -- include everything and let individuals find a way to not post
> all or somehow (possible but complicated I think) to not view all. So my
> view may be a change in the basic default position that Planet uses.
>
> I'm pretty sure this is the right basic approach, but the discussion is
> still pretty new, so a change in thinking is certainly possible.
>
> Mitchell

> ______________________________**_________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/**listinfo/governance<https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance>
>

[Robert Accettura]

Playing devils advocate… is it any "easier to walk away" on IRC than
to not read a blog post, newsgroup message etc? It could actually be
harder than the others. You just go to the "next" blog post or message
(down arrow on your keyboard in many casess). IRC is a conversation of
unknown length. Diff channels also exist.

I actually suspect IRC may be more hostile overall since it's
unfiltered and fast paced. People tend to think more before hitting
send vs. an instant communication like IRC (or IM, SMS).

-R

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--
Robert Accettura
rob...@accettura.com

[Majken Connor]

And there's a distinction to make as well between offtopic channels and
team channels.

But yes, I say things on IRC that i wouldn't say on a blog, so in that
sense it's more "hostile" but I also would find it hostile not to be able
to share things *anywhere.* I also find it less hostile to be able to solve
conflicts or misunderstanding in realtime. Being able to walk away, well
sometimes you can get the gist of a conversation and ignore it, but i guess
that also applies to blog posts, depending on how they're written. Though I
think it's also easier to take IRC more lightly because of how you said
people have thought less. I think posting something somewhere with some
permanence and knowing anyone will read it adds more weight to your words.

But in any case we both agree the mediums are different, I'd like to see
that considered in any sort of policy. Same thing for Twitter or Facebook.
There are some other distinctions here like Mozilla hosted, Mozilla
promoted, promoted and hosted...neither...

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 3/12/2012 11:37 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> One of the topics that has come up recently is whether Mozilla
> communications forums -- in particular Planet, but not necessarily
> limited to that forum -- should default to Mozilla-focused topics, or
> should include whatever each Mozillian wants to include there.

[snip]

> That's why I believe we need key communications forums that focus by
> default on what we all share -- our commitment and activities related
> to Mozilla. Design so that what we share -- Mozilla -- is front
> and center and the rest is easy to find.

It seems to me that we already have these forums. Most notably, the
newsgroups are our primary communication tool across the project and all
of them have a pretty rigorous on-topic mandate.

IRC also is pretty clear about this: each of the main
development/project channels expects people to stay roughly within a
certain set of Mozilla topics.

But in most of these cases there are also places where you can go to
explicitly be offtopic: #bs and a few other channels on IRC, for
example. In the moco-internal forums there is explicitly a "Chatter,
random socializing, and other fun stuff not directly related to work."
section.

I valued Planet Mozilla over the years primarily as a way to get to know
my Mozilla colleauges better (both in and out of the corporation). At
various points I've learned really interesting things about Humph's
homeschooling and breadbaking, about KaiRo's love of American Football
and especially the Cowboys, and many other things. I personally would
feel impoverished if I did not have some way of achieving this same
goal. I don't much care if this takes the *current* form of planet
mozilla, or some system of publishing feed URLs from Mozillians which I
can subscribe to in Google Reader.

If Planet Mozilla becomes just another way to communicate
Mozilla-related information within our community, isn't it basically a
duplication of mozilla.dev.planning, but with poorer threading and
ability to carry on conversations? Maybe it would be better to have no
Planet Mozilla at all, instead of making it yet another source which
everyone in the project must watch in order to stay up-to-date.

--BDS

[Majken Connor]

SO MUCH of Mozilla doesn't happen on dev.planning!

the threading and conversations can be a burden to staying informed, too
much coming through. I think Mozilla already recognizes this through
supporting the about:mozilla newsletter, and having team blogs.

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 3/12/2012 3:06 PM, Majken Connor wrote:
> SO MUCH of Mozilla doesn't happen on dev.planning!
>
> the threading and conversations can be a burden to staying informed,
> too much coming through. I think Mozilla already recognizes this
> through supporting the about:mozilla newsletter, and having team blogs.

We definitely need *some* way for everyone to get a high-level overview
of Mozilla stuff. I still believe that the best place to do this is or
should be dev.planning, and have about:mozilla and all the team notes,
be posted to dev.planning instead of blogs.

If we really want Planet to be that tool, then we should definitely
restrict the topic, but I think we should restrict it even further from
"stuff that's Mozilla-related" to "stuff everyone in the project should
spend time reading".

Or we could go whole-hog on about:mozilla and say that if there is
*anything* important that the whole Mozilla community should be aware
of, it should be made available in about:mozilla.

--BDS

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/12/2012 8:37 AM, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> In this regard Planet may currently have a different default than much
> of the project. I note the From etiquette guide Myk pointed to
> (http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette.html) has a "stay on
> topic" message. Planet to date has taken the opposite default --
> include everything and let individuals find a way to not post all or
> somehow (possible but complicated I think) to not view all.

I don't think this is the right way to frame it. Yes, other forums have
a "stay on topic" message. So does Planet. Planet's topics are just much
wider that most other forums because Planet's goals are much different
than other forums.

I know this sounds pedantic, but I think it's important for people to
understand that we didn't just say "hey people, anything goes. the web
is all about freedom of speech. have fun." We built a forum with a
specific set of goals in mind and our content policy is a deeply
considered one that we believe supports our forum's goals.

The b2g newsgroup is set up by its owners/moderators to facilitate
discussion about b2g. That's the goal/purpose of the b2g newsgroup.
Those owners/moderators have determined the scope of "on topic" content
for their forum and are right to enforce that content policy because it
was set up in supports their forum goals. It's not arbitrary. It's there
for a reason. It's there to support the goals of the forum.

The Planet module was set up by its moderators/owners to facilitate
Mozilla contributors sharing their lives -- work, play, and other
interests with each other. Those owners/moderators have determined the
scope of "on topic" content for that forum.

It wasn't that Planet team said "nothing's off topic. go have fun." The
Planet team said "we want to facilitate getting to know one another" and
restricting to work-only content was seen as a far too narrow range of
"on topic" content to accomplish our goals.

- A

[Alina Mierlus]

Hi,

I'm for the "Mozilla only topics" (if we consider that Mozilla's
Mission is about user sovereignty - this is already a vast topic to cover).

As you say Mitchell, there are plenty of tools available today that
could help solve those kind of problems.

I personally think that the planet should be a place where people
could find what's happening in the project, highlighting the news,
finding on thoughts about a certain mission related topic etc.

In fact, a few months ago, a fellow Mozillian from the Mozilla Open
News Initiative was already proposing some solutions to "decrease the
noise":

*
http://www.phillipadsmith.com/2011/12/rethinking-planet-mozilla-hacking-the-core-of-mozillas-story.html
*
http://www.phillipadsmith.com/2011/12/rethinking-planet-mozilla-the-challenge-of-too-much-signal.html

-Alina

> One of the topics that has come up recently is whether Mozilla
> communications forums -- in particular Planet, but not necessarily
> limited to that forum -- should default to Mozilla-focused topics, or
> should include whatever each Mozillian wants to include there.
>

> That's why I believe we need key communications forums that focus by
> default on what we all share -- our commitment and activities related to
> Mozilla. Design so that what we share -- Mozilla -- is front and center
> and the rest is easy to find.
>

> In this regard Planet may currently have a different default than much
> of the project. I note the From etiquette guide Myk pointed to
> (http://www.mozilla.org/about/forums/etiquette.html) has a "stay on
> topic" message. Planet to date has taken the opposite default -- include
> everything and let individuals find a way to not post all or somehow

> (possible but complicated I think) to not view all. So my view may be a
> change in the basic default position that Planet uses.
>
> I'm pretty sure this is the right basic approach, but the discussion is
> still pretty new, so a change in thinking is certainly possible.
>
> Mitchell

> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance

--
Alina Mierlus
Community engagement geek

Identi.ca: @alinamierlus
Twitter: @alina_mierlus
www.alinamierlus.com

[Nicholas Nethercote]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 8:37 AM, Mitchell Baker <mitc...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> One of the topics that has come up recently is whether Mozilla
> communications forums -- in particular Planet, but not necessarily limited
> to that forum -- should default to Mozilla-focused topics, or should include
> whatever each Mozillian wants to include there.

I stumbled across a Clay Shirky quote yesterday
(http://www.cjr.org/overload/interview_with_clay_shirky_par.php?page=all)
that I think perfectly encapsulates the right solution to this
problem.

"There is no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure."

Everyone has different ideas of what constitutes "signal" and what
constitutes "noise" on Planet. Any kind of pre-emptive filtering will
likely please some people but annoy others. I think we should instead
let individuals decide how to filter Planet themselves.

One suggestion along these lines: I personally find that the
author/blog a post comes from is the best indicator of whether it's
interesting. For example, I find pretty much everything that Robert
O'Callahan writes to be worth reading, Mozilla-related or not. And
there are some authors (who I won't name) who I find always
uninteresting; I also never read the Thunderbird meeting minutes,
because I don't work on Thunderbird. Therefore, I'd love to be able
to say "ignore this blog" and have Planet remember my decision.

A smaller suggestion: many posts on Planet are very long (esp.
meeting minutes), and skipping over them isn't easy. (I read Planet
via RSS for exactly this reason.) If every post had a small "skip
this post" button next to its title, that would help.

(I actually sent both these ideas to the Planet team yesterday. Reed
said he'd thought of the first idea as well but it might be hard to
implement technically. And he said he might try to implement the
second idea soon. I'd be interested to hear other ideas for better
filters.)

Finally, as far as I can tell, Planet is the only communication
channel where this whole "what is considered on-topic" question is
controversial. People have mentioned IRC, but I certainly haven't
heard people complaining about discussions on IRC being off-topic,
probably because there are so many IRC channels. If I'm right about
this, it might make sense to keep this discussion to just being about
Planet.

Nick

[Asa Dotzler]

On 3/12/2012 6:22 PM, Nicholas Nethercote wrote:

> Finally, as far as I can tell, Planet is the only communication
> channel where this whole "what is considered on-topic" question is
> controversial. People have mentioned IRC, but I certainly haven't
> heard people complaining about discussions on IRC being off-topic,
> probably because there are so many IRC channels. If I'm right about
> this, it might make sense to keep this discussion to just being about
> Planet.

You and I are obviously not in the same channels. There's plenty of
off-topic discussion on IRC and sometimes it's effectively routed to
other channels, sometimes it requires kicking a person that won't quit.

- A