Making an announcement
Jason Barnabe (np)
support? There have been a few complaints on the forum that the
decisions are being made somewhat privately - even though this newsgroup
is available for all to see, many people don't know about it. Can we get
an announcement on mozilla.org? Are we waiting for something before
doing that (choosing a vendor)?
JT Batson
Have you posted a link to the PRD and Overview? I think that will give people a good heads up on what is going on.
Once we have a vendor selected, we will then have a better sense of the timeline (which may be of interest to folks).
Thoughts?
support-planning mailing list
support-...@lists.mozilla.org
https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-planning
Jason Barnabe (np)
> Jason-- thanks for the heads up on this. What sort of
> announcement/information are they looking for? We definitely want to be
> as open as possible on this.
>
> Have you posted a link to the PRD and Overview? I think that will give
> people a good heads up on what is going on.
The people who are asking have links to the information. They're just
concerned that since that particular thread is the first they'd heard of
it, there are likely others who haven't read that thread and so haven't
heard of it.
I was thinking of a post in the Announcements section of Mozilla.org.
Chris Ilias
> Jason-- thanks for the heads up on this. What sort of
> announcement/information are they looking for? We definitely want to be
> as open as possible on this.
>
> Have you posted a link to the PRD and Overview? I think that will give
> people a good heads up on what is going on.
>
> Once we have a vendor selected, we will then have a better sense of the
> timeline (which may be of interest to folks).
>
> Thoughts?
IMO:
Send an announcement to <http://www.mozillazine.org/submit/>, about the
timeline for choosing a vendor, asking for input in this newsgroup.
JT Batson
can we just do a big push in mozillazine?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Barnabe (np)" <jason_...@fastmail.fm>
To: support-...@lists.mozilla.org
Oscar the Prophet
wrote:
The problem is that there isn't anywhere that seems to be an
authoritative source . Also, Jason and other visitors tend to muddy
the already murky waters when they show up. Much more reactive then
informational.
Jason Barnabe (np)
> what would you suggest we post?
Just a general overview and the fact that you're looking for some feedback.
> can we just do a big push in mozillazine?
A news posting on mozillaZine would be good, but it'd be also good to
have something official from Mozilla.
JT Batson
What sort of feedback are we looking for at this point?
I am not sure what an announcement on Mozilla.org would say other than "a working group of Mozilla volunteers and staff have formed a working group to improve the support options for Firefox. As a result of their work, they have recommended that Mozilla offer a community based support system on Mozilla.com. For more information and to see the PRD, please visit wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Overview."
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Barnabe (np)" <jason_...@fastmail.fm>
To: support-...@lists.mozilla.org
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 7:23:05 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles
Subject: Re: Making an announcement
Jason Barnabe (np)
> We don't do "authoritative" well at Mozilla-- not our style. My blog
> posting
> (http://jtbatson.blogspot.com/2007/05/firefox-help-needs-your-help.html)
> or on spreadfirefox.com is pretty official (as I am the one at Mozilla
> responsible for this).
If there truly is no authoritative place, then a posting to mozillaZine
from you stating that you're in charge of this would be good.
> What sort of feedback are we looking for at this point?
Anything people want to give. It's absolutely vital that we hear the
concerns and suggestions of the mozillaZine members whenever they want
to give them because they're going to be the ones running whatever we offer.
> I am not sure what an announcement on Mozilla.org would say other than
> "a working group of Mozilla volunteers and staff have formed a working
> group to improve the support options for Firefox. As a result of their
> work, they have recommended that Mozilla offer a community based support
> system on Mozilla.com. For more information and to see the PRD, please
> visit wiki.mozilla.org/Support:Overview."
I'd suggest a bit of background of why this is necessary, what this is
_not_ (the closing of mozillaZine), some examples of tangible benefits.
JT Batson
Also, I am in Brazil right now and will be traveling all day tomorrow (still need to pack tonight)-- major bonus points for anyone who can help me draft the main talking points-- I would really appreciate it and it wold expedite me posting.
Thanks!
JT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Barnabe (np)" <jason_...@fastmail.fm>
To: support-...@lists.mozilla.org
Sent: Sunday, June 24, 2007 7:58:29 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles
Subject: Re: Making an announcement
Majken Connor
What sort of feedback are we looking for at this point?
>
> Anything people want to give. It's absolutely vital that we hear the
> concerns and suggestions of the mozillaZine members whenever they want
> to give them because they're going to be the ones running whatever we offer.
>
I would hope it's the people who have been involved with the process
as much of the way as possible who are *running* whatever we offer,
regardless of where they come from. I'm all for making sure we get as
many people on board as possible, but I don't want to go *crazy*
trying to attract people from one area over another.
If we're going to post something new to Mozillazine then it should be
part of a fresh batch of updates, IMO (afterall the concern is letting
*anyone* who is missing out have a chance to get involved). An update
on SFX and some blogs that hit planet maybe that mention we've got a
couple demo sites for people to try. That might get more people
interested knowing that there's something to *do* and not just
discuss.
-Majken
Jason Barnabe (np)
> Could you please send me the links to the forum(s) and thread(s) where I
> should post?
I didn't mean the forum, I meant an actual news posting -
http://www.mozillazine.org/submit/ . But the thread where this
discussion is happening is at
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=560887
> Also, I am in Brazil right now and will be traveling all day tomorrow
> (still need to pack tonight)-- major bonus points for anyone who can
> help me draft the main talking points-- I would really appreciate it and
> it wold expedite me posting.
-Background on why this change is necessary
-Current software isn't the best for large volumes of support requests
- no metrics, no set method of feedback from users to support givers and
from support givers to developers, etc.
-Different languages scattered among many sites
-What is being proposed
-A Mozilla-hosted support system
-Links to the demos we have set up
-Rough timelines
-What is not being proposed
-Shutting down any part of mozillaZine
-Non-Firefox support, ATM
-What we want
-Feedback on the demos
-Any concerns people may have
sarah
now i dont think its a good idea to remove anything from mozillazine
givin the a,ount of ppl who use it and stuff i think it would alienate
thousands possably millions of users most ppl think that Mozillazine
is the offical source of firefox help as is
Kevin Brosnan
> support-planning mailing list
> support-...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-planning
>
- Kerz is working/in communication with JT on these changes.
- Kerz has stated that Mozillazine will drop features e.g support
forum or knowledge base. See the thread that np posted.
Kevin Brosnan
Chris Ilias
> - Kerz is working/in communication with JT on these changes.
> - Kerz has stated that Mozillazine will drop features e.g support
> forum or knowledge base. See the thread that np posted.
<http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=2939464#2939464>
"I have no plans to close anything, or remove content from here, just as
an FYI. I anticipate mozilla setting up their support structure and
using some of our content, but I don't plan to change any of what we
provide here."(Kerz, Jun Sun 24th 2007)
--
Chris Ilias <http://ilias.ca>
List-owner: support-firefox, support-thunderbird, test-multimedia
kerz
I have talked to JT, but I'm not in communication with anyone really
past the point of "this would be interesting, what are you thinking/
how can we help"
> - Kerz has stated that Mozillazine will drop features e.g support
> forum or knowledge base. See the thread that np posted.
I've stated we will /NOT/ drop features.
Jason
David McRitchie
> > -What we want
> > -Feedback on the demos
> > -Any concerns people may have
>
> - Kerz has stated that Mozillazine will drop features e.g support
> forum or knowledge base. See the thread that np posted.
My concern is that current process appears to be one that
was supposedly initiated on how to improve the MozillaZine
articles, when in fact it appears to be an attempt to cherry pick
a few MozillaZine articles and simplify them and put them into
a database for people on phone support.
In reality there are very few articles if you don't include
http://kb.mozillazine.org/About_config and individual entries
broken out from that article which by it's nature covers a lot
of information in a very organized fashion. Same thing for
profile files and chrome urls. The articles are easily read
and full of links to other articles which really don't total a
lot of articles considering how often they can solve problems.
The main problem with support remains not supplying the
pathname for the profile outright so it can be used for backups
to portable devices, and installing customized changes. I disagree
with previous discussion on this issue. Simply makes all users
dumb users, and misrepresents things as security, when in fact
unique profile names are not an obstacle to anyone who gains
control of a system.
Why is a change being attempted on something that works, when
something that used to work, addons.mozilla.org, has been made
practically unusable for those who were using the advanced search
which was used by many directly or indirectly in search engines
and to help others. The format was changed, the articles have been
shortened, the enlarged pictures are smaller than before and aren't
easily brought up by themselves so that you can zoom the image or
bring up an image editor for a better view. The author's site is available
only be clicking on the author's name link rather than a more direct
approach. The categories and keywords have been removed. The
promise was that it was going to be improved and in fact was all but
destroyed for someone's misconception of a prettier visual display.
Majken Connor
the back end. Updates with functionality added back in are happening
on a regular basis. You're free to file bugs for the functions you're
missing or to discuss them in #addons on irc.
It is unfortunate that it seems this process was started by chofmann's
thread on MZ but that wasn't the case, hopefully made clear by my post
that he needed to touch base with what was planned by others at
Mozilla. Chiefly whether or not we created a real support CMS like
this, Firefox 3 is going to have a web based help component, so at the
very least there was going to be duplication of articles. If anyone
is skeptical I can find documentation that this was an established
course of action long before chofmann's thread.
chofmann's thread was meant to be as an extension of SFX, offering
help to those who already give it. I'm sure that offer will not be
revoked because the decision was made to provide official support.
That being said, I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that
it's a database for phone support. Am I missing something from a MZ
thread?
-Majken
Axel Hecht
> Addons isn't the issue at hand. There's been *much* improvement to
> the back end. Updates with functionality added back in are happening
> on a regular basis. You're free to file bugs for the functions you're
> missing or to discuss them in #addons on irc.
>
> It is unfortunate that it seems this process was started by chofmann's
> thread on MZ but that wasn't the case, hopefully made clear by my post
> that he needed to touch base with what was planned by others at
> Mozilla. Chiefly whether or not we created a real support CMS like
> this, Firefox 3 is going to have a web based help component, so at the
> very least there was going to be duplication of articles. If anyone
> is skeptical I can find documentation that this was an established
> course of action long before chofmann's thread.
Web-based help was dropped from the PRD. For what it's worth.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383239
Axel
Mike Connor
> Majken Connor wrote:
>> Addons isn't the issue at hand. There's been *much* improvement to
>> the back end. Updates with functionality added back in are happening
>> on a regular basis. You're free to file bugs for the functions you're
>> missing or to discuss them in #addons on irc.
>>
>> It is unfortunate that it seems this process was started by chofmann's
>> thread on MZ but that wasn't the case, hopefully made clear by my post
>> that he needed to touch base with what was planned by others at
>> Mozilla. Chiefly whether or not we created a real support CMS like
>> this, Firefox 3 is going to have a web based help component, so at the
>> very least there was going to be duplication of articles. If anyone
>> is skeptical I can find documentation that this was an established
>> course of action long before chofmann's thread.
>
> Web-based help was dropped from the PRD. For what it's worth.
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=383239
>
> Axel
Dropping the PRD items about web-based help was my suggestion, and was
about decoupling the two projects, and not an indication that we are not
planning to move to web-based help once we have a viable system. Once
we have a web-based system, we will move users over as soon as possible.
-- Mike
JT Batson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Connor" <mco...@mozilla.com>
To: support-...@lists.mozilla.org
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:52:24 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles
Subject: Re: Making an announcement