Re: [mozillians] Mozillian Access Levels and Affiliations on the Mozillians Phonebook

[Reuben Morais]

Hi Aakash,

A central authorization service that is more flexible and used by more projects than LDAP is a wonderful idea, and could improve dramatically the barrier to entry for contributors that want to help with new projects. Currently we have different authentication protocols for product and website repositories, Bugzilla access levels, product L10n, web L10n, metrics is completely closed to community members, individual projects have unique deployment strategies, etc. A central service would make it easier for both new people and existing contributors that want to engage in new areas to gain trust from project maintainers.

On the other hand, nothing about a "closed place to chat" feels right to me. As a volunteer contributor that serves as an "air traffic controller", directing and introducing interested people in the Brazilian community to Mozilla projects, I watch a lot of different places in order to know what's going on and who's doing what. I am constantly talking to people that had no idea about existing projects/forums inside Mozilla because those are hard to discover. One of the greatest qualities about Mozilla is that not only our products, but also our processes are completely open. Let's keep it that way. I'm concerned that by hiding our decision making we're going against our existing projects to ease the path for new contributors – and by new I mean new to a project, not necessarily new to Mozilla –, and making it harder for people to feel like they are part of the project.

-- reuben

On Aug 6, 2012, at 12:36 PM, Aakash Desai <moza...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> There has been a lot of talk about how a Mozillian forum or a closed place
> to chatter would look like. Gerv's written a post[1] about what he feels
> the project needs to have a safe place to talk about important items within
> the Mozillian community. These topics can range from strategic initiatives
> we're applying within the community[2], changes in our board[3] to opinions
> made from our community [4] about the current priorities and implementation
> strategies of what we decide upon. I'd like to put my two cents in here on
> implementation of access and trustedness as the Product Manager of the
> Mozillians Phonebook.
>
> There's been a long sought out goal for the Phonebook to be an
> authorization service[5] for Mozillians to activate greater access to
> various sites, tools and platforms across the community. We wanted
> Mozillians to have access to communication forums like our Yammer instance,
> better forum software available only to Vouched Mozillians, previews to our
> early-stage product releases, greater account privileges on sites like
> SUMO/AMO/MDN, etc. We were hoping to have the Mozillians Phonebook API out
> already (hey, it was in our goals for Q2! [6]), but there were a number of
> issues found around technical implementation and privacy/legal concerns
> that halted it. We're re-focusing and create a better implementation as you
> read this.
>
> I've read about concerns and confusion around being vouched on the
> Mozillians Phonebook; we wanted to a way to identify and bring in our
> active/core contributors and in a way that matched our (at the time, Gerv
> and David were helping guide the feature and roadmapping efforts)
> definitions for them [7]. That is, a Web of Trust approach rather than
> something hierarchical. Every Mozillian was empowered to vouch for another
> contributor and we approached Stewards, Mozilla Reps and key community
> members to identify and get their contributors into the Mozillians
> phonebook.
>
> The first thing everyone can help do is head over to our
> mozilla-dev-community-tools forum where we have technical discussions of
> this nature [8]. I'd like to start a public discussion there of what site
> operators and project/product leads would like to have seen done with
> Mozillian access levels on the Phonebook as well as how we can get there.
> It's been less than a year that this project has been underway and we've
> gone so much farther than any other similar initiative in Mozilla's
> history. I urge everyone to help take it to the next level.
>
> Note: There should be a discussion about the social aspects of trustedness
> and would love to work with whoever wants to take the cue and push that
> discussion.
>
> Thanks,
> Aakash Desai
> Product Manager, Community Tools
>
> [1] http://blog.gerv.net/2012/07/more-evidence-for-trusted/
> [2]
> http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/06/26/mozilla-launches-a-speedy-and-powerful-upgrade-to-mobile-browsing-with-firefox-for-android/
> [3]
> https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/25/cathy-davidson-joins-mozilla-foundation-board/
> [4] http://www.evilbrainjono.net/blog?permalink=1094
> [5]
> http://aakash.doesthings.com/2012/03/19/community-tools-platforms-roadmap-2012/
> [6] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozillians/Milestones/Phase2
> [7] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Community
> [8] https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla-dev-community-tools

[Stephanie Daugherty]

>
> On the other hand, nothing about a "closed place to chat" feels right to
> me. As a volunteer contributor that serves as an "air traffic controller",
> directing and introducing interested people in the Brazilian community to
> Mozilla projects, I watch a lot of different places in order to know what's
> going on and who's doing what. I am constantly talking to people that had
> no idea about existing projects/forums inside Mozilla because those are
> hard to discover. One of the greatest qualities about Mozilla is that not
> only our products, but also our processes are completely open. Let's keep
> it that way. I'm concerned that by hiding our decision making we're going
> against our existing projects to ease the path for new contributors – and
> by new I mean new to a project, not necessarily new to Mozilla –, and
> making it harder for people to feel like they are part of the project.
>
>

Generally agree with this, however in the wake of the Thunderbird leak and
it's potential motivations (one of them being a lack of perceived ability
to discuss the matter during the embargo), which created a lot of
unwarranted FUD about the future of Thunderbird, I think this is something
we need to look at. I'm strongly against maintaining a closed chat system
on an ongoing basis as I feel like it's anathema to the values of openness
and transparency that make Mozilla great, however, I do see the need to
have the capability on a less-regular basis - specifically in response to
particular events and announcements that require discretion, and would
suggest one approach would be that closed chats only happen as needed, in
response to specific communication needs, and are always hosted events
focused on a particular sensitive topic, rather than just keeping a private
"backroom" available at all times where it will be seen as some sort of
private exclusive club.

-Stephanie

[Majken Connor]

On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 6:09 PM, Stephanie Daugherty
<sdaug...@gmail.com>wrote:

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

I think it would also help the situation to talk about why things can't or
shouldn't be open. If the community at large can have a greater
understanding of the reasons behind it, it will make it easier to be more
cooperative rather than adversarial about making sure everything is as open
as possible. It's a conversation that would need to happen regularly, and
repeated when specific examples come up.

I do like the idea of a forum closed to vouched Mozillians. I don't have a
problem with this as anyone can meet the criteria to join - be an active
contributor. There will still be lots of blog posts and other things for
potential contributors who probably aren't best off jumping straight in to
all the noise. I think the lack of this is part of why the leak happened.
There was no place to ask questions and raise fears that the community was
being left out. Discussing it on any of the mailing lists would have made
it public!

[Reuben Morais]

On Aug 17, 2012, at 7:09 PM, Stephanie Daugherty <sdaug...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On the other hand, nothing about a "closed place to chat" feels right to me. As a volunteer contributor that serves as an "air traffic controller", directing and introducing interested people in the Brazilian community to Mozilla projects, I watch a lot of different places in order to know what's going on and who's doing what. I am constantly talking to people that had no idea about existing projects/forums inside Mozilla because those are hard to discover. One of the greatest qualities about Mozilla is that not only our products, but also our processes are completely open. Let's keep it that way. I'm concerned that by hiding our decision making we're going against our existing projects to ease the path for new contributors – and by new I mean new to a project, not necessarily new to Mozilla –, and making it harder for people to feel like they are part of the project.
>
>
> Generally agree with this, however in the wake of the Thunderbird leak and it's potential motivations (one of them being a lack of perceived ability to discuss the matter during the embargo), which created a lot of unwarranted FUD about the future of Thunderbird, I think this is something we need to look at. I'm strongly against maintaining a closed chat system on an ongoing basis as I feel like it's anathema to the values of openness and transparency that make Mozilla great, however, I do see the need to have the capability on a less-regular basis - specifically in response to particular events and announcements that require discretion, and would suggest one approach would be that closed chats only happen as needed, in response to specific communication needs, and are always hosted events focused on a particular sensitive topic, rather than just keeping a private "backroom" available at all times where it will be seen as some sort of private exclusive club.
>
> -Stephanie

The Thunderbird leak is a good example of something that shouldn't have been made private in the first place. The decision had already been made, it should be publicized just like any other MoCo decision, through the mailing lists and blogs. The unusual Mozillians-only, please-don't-share-this-secret-information heads up just created anxiety and the feeling that it was a bigger deal than it actually was. What if I wanted to discuss the news with my colleague who is a contributor but for some reason is not a registered Mozillian? That would be a pretty awkward situation, and would likely make him feel like his contributions are worth less than mine. There's no reason why I should know about Mozilla's decisions sooner than the guy who just contributed his first patch yesterday or the girl who loves Thunderbird and watches the project closely.

-- reuben

[Reuben Morais]

On Aug 17, 2012, at 10:12 PM, Majken Connor <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it would also help the situation to talk about why things can't or shouldn't be open. If the community at large can have a greater understanding of the reasons behind it, it will make it easier to be more cooperative rather than adversarial about making sure everything is as open as possible. It's a conversation that would need to happen regularly, and repeated when specific examples come up.
>
> I do like the idea of a forum closed to vouched Mozillians. I don't have a problem with this as anyone can meet the criteria to join - be an active contributor. There will still be lots of blog posts and other things for potential contributors who probably aren't best off jumping straight in to all the noise. I think the lack of this is part of why the leak happened. There was no place to ask questions and raise fears that the community was being left out. Discussing it on any of the mailing lists would have made it public!

The problem with that line of thinking is that we're making the choice for the potential contributor. Whether to start slowly and only follow a couple blogs or to jump straight in to all the noise should be his choice. Maybe the data is relevant to him right now, not when he eventually gets vouched by a Mozillian. Maybe he's got that brilliant idea to solve the problem that was broadcasted to Mozillians only. I strongly believe openness is our most valuable asset – we shouldn't be throwing that away unless it's absolutely necessary, and I haven't seen a case where it is.

-- reuben

[Majken Connor]

Yes it would have to be done right. Certainly not everything should be in
private forums, but Mozilla isn't a democracy either. I think higher level
governance discussions could be vouched Mozillians only. Especially given
how easy it is to become one. And how much easier it's getting to be with
the Grow Mozilla and Reps initiatives. It would certainly be a better
situation than what we have now, where things default to internal only. I'd
rather exlude potential contributors and include all current contributors,
given the right mechanisms to onboard potentials.