Modules proposal: documenting existing webdev modules

[morg...@mozilla.com]

Ahoy!

We have quite a few major web products, properties or services that have not been properly documented as modules. See list below:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhiX365xacl1dE5sRzhDUjVRaFEyWElLZlAzWWJ2aUE&usp=sharing

This has created confusion at times around:
1. who owns what
2. how does someone contribute
3. who do you talk to about issues or suggestions
4. where is the code? where do I send my pull request?

As a part of our effort to move toward HA (high-availability) for multiple pieces of our infrastructure, we've had to clear a lot of this up so any future "run books" (incident response procedures for a NOC) clearly outline who is responsible for the health, operation and maintenance of a particular web property. Since we had to do all of this anyway, many of us saw this as an opportunity to clean up how module ownership for these web projects is documented.

On the bright side, most of the proposed modules have:
1. owners responsible for them who already fill the role
2. github repositories, many already with outside contribution (PR's and forks)
3. a way to contribute (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webdev/GetInvolved)
4. their own bugzilla product or component
5. ample documentation

The list includes only important/critical web projects and (hopefully!) these should not be a surprise. If you have questions or comments I'd like to discuss!

Thanks for your time,
Mike

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 4/11/2013 3:11 PM, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:
> Ahoy!
>
> We have quite a few major web products, properties or services that have not been properly documented as modules. See list below:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhiX365xacl1dE5sRzhDUjVRaFEyWElLZlAzWWJ2aUE&usp=sharing
>
> This has created confusion at times around:
> 1. who owns what
> 2. how does someone contribute
> 3. who do you talk to about issues or suggestions
> 4. where is the code? where do I send my pull request?
>
> As a part of our effort to move toward HA (high-availability) for multiple pieces of our infrastructure, we've had to clear a lot of this up so any future "run books" (incident response procedures for a NOC) clearly outline who is responsible for the health, operation and maintenance of a particular web property. Since we had to do all of this anyway, many of us saw this as an opportunity to clean up how module ownership for these web projects is documented.
>
> On the bright side, most of the proposed modules have:
> 1. owners responsible for them who already fill the role
> 2. github repositories, many already with outside contribution (PR's and forks)
> 3. a way to contribute (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Webdev/GetInvolved)
> 4. their own bugzilla product or component
> 5. ample documentation

Is your intention for the contents of this spreadsheet to end up at
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules ? It sounds reasonable to have a new
category for these modules, since none of the existing categories seem
to fit well.

--BDS

[jber...@mozilla.com]

Thanks for kicking this off, Mike!

One suggestion: it might be helpful to list technical and content owners for websites where applicable (as was once done for mozilla.org at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Module_Owners_Activities_Modules#www.mozilla.org_Module)?

[morg...@mozilla.com]

On Thursday, April 11, 2013 12:31:24 PM UTC-7, Benjamin Smedberg wrote:
> Is your intention for the contents of this spreadsheet to end up at
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules ? It sounds reasonable to have a new
> category for these modules, since none of the existing categories seem
> to fit well.

Yeah, that's the intention. New category could be "Web" or "Webdev" -- any suggestions? In this context my intent is that "Webdev" (or whatever we name this) is seen as the broader collection of web engineers inside or outside Mozilla, not what people have historically called my org.

There is a category of product/project that requires web engineers with a particular core competence -- applied experience in Python, server-side JS, web scalability and security, operations, etc. -- and those types of applications I'd see living in this category.

Mike

[morg...@mozilla.com]

On Thursday, April 11, 2013 12:31:24 PM UTC-7, Benjamin Smedberg wrote:

> Is your intention for the contents of this spreadsheet to end up at
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules ? It sounds reasonable to have a new
> category for these modules, since none of the existing categories seem
> to fit well.

[morg...@mozilla.com]

On Thursday, April 11, 2013 12:41:28 PM UTC-7, jber...@mozilla.com wrote:
> One suggestion: it might be helpful to list technical and content owners for websites where applicable (as was once done for mozilla.org at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Module_Owners_Activities_Modules#www.mozilla.org_Module)?

Thanks Jennifer. For something like mozilla.org that might make sense -- and we should probably update that module given the onset of "one mozilla" anyway. I think that should be up to you and Chris to figure out with David and Reed.

For the other modules I think it's more clean cut. The content in mozilla.org in a lot of cases IS the code (HTML/CSS) but other modules on the list don't share that ambiguity.

You probably read this but my understanding of "module owner" is formed from:
http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/module-ownership.html

Hope that helps,
Mike

[morg...@mozilla.com]

FYI - I posted some edits to Mozillians and mozilla.org based on some feedback from Andrei and Mkelly. Also added Snippet server which is actually pretty important since it serves content to things like the Firefox start page.

To be clear, the spreadsheet can and should be adjusted/updated before we make anything official in the wiki -- my main goal is to have this discussion and write this stuff down.

Thanks!
Mike

[Anthony Ricaud]

What about "Web properties"? "Web" or "Webdev" could be confused with
our webdev tools or webdev outreach.

[Benjamin Smedberg]

On 4/12/2013 8:18 AM, Anthony Ricaud wrote:
> On 11/04/13 21:54, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:

> What about "Web properties"? "Web" or "Webdev" could be confused with
> our webdev tools or webdev outreach.

The point here (I think) is that these are the owners of the tools, not
the content. I think "Webdev" or even "Web Projects" might be the right
name.

For example, jsocol is the owner of the MDN codebase, but I'm pretty
sure he's not responsible for maintaining the content of MDN, which is
the docs team. Similarly, Socorro the webtool is owned by Laura, but
KaiRo and I are primarily responsible for making sure that it's
displaying useful information on crash-stats.mozilla.com.

--BDS

[davidweld...@gmail.com]

> Since we had to do all of this anyway, many of us saw this as an opportunity
> to clean up how module ownership for these web projects is documented.

I think this is a great idea. There are so many web sites right now and very little clarity about who to contact about what.

In the past this lack of clear ownership information has made efforts like rolling out Tabzilla to bring some cohesion across all of Mozilla's sites a difficult challenge.

Whatever structure we put in place, we should make sure we include space for volunteer run websites. For instance, there are dozens of actively maintained local community sites and having clear ownership information for those would be helpful too.

http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/local/

If I can help with any of this, let me know.

David

[Stormy Peters]

I think this list accurately reflects the people that own the code behind
the various web pages but we also need to capture the product owners and
content owners for it to be accurate.

For example, mozilla.org.

Paul McLanahan does an awesome job of coding and maintaining Mozilla.org.
If you see a technical issue or see a way you could improve the site, you'd
talk to Paul.

If you want to add "Mozilla is a nonprofit" to every page on Mozilla.org,
you would talk to Jennifer Bertsch, the Mozilla.org product manager.
Assuming she thought your proposal had merit she would pull in all the
stakeholders, have the discussion and make the decision about whether or
not to put "Mozilla is a nonprofit" on every page. If she decides the idea
is a good one and we should move forward, she'd work with Paul (and others)
to figure out how and when to implement it.

So if the module system is supposed to reflect ownership and help guide
people to the right people to talk to, I think it would be incomplete to
list Paul without listing Jennifer.

Stormy

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

[morg...@mozilla.com]

I interpreted modules as engineering specific and many other modules have content owners and product managers. They are not listed as module owners but it's implicit that any module owner is responsible for working with content or product owners along with the broader community.

Maybe Brendan or someone else has comments on how they worked it out for things like Firefox.

Contact in context with the NOC is about escalation and what to put in the run book. That means a NOC engineer wouldn't be able to resolve something and it'd go to the engineer who knows the app best. So regarding HA stuff, our primary concern was engineering escalation.

Definition for module owners is here:
http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/module-ownership.html

[morg...@mozilla.com]

[lau...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013 12:51:00 PM UTC-4, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:

>
> Definition for module owners is here:
>
> http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/module-ownership.html

The relevant part of this is:
"A module owner's OK is required to check code into that module."

This is about code modules, and does not affect product or content ownership.

For example, see Firefox:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Firefox

You will see that critical product owners, such as Asa Dotzler, do not appear in that list. Submitting these webdev projects as modules is about code ownership and these codebases as open source projects.

[Stormy Peters]

Ownership in an open source project implies that the owner can make
decisions and decide what is in and out. I thought Mozilla modules were
equivalent to open source project maintainers or owners. But if they just
have check in authority, and have to get ok from someone else first, I'd
argue they are not owners or maintainers.

If you want to make a major change to mozilla.org, you have to work with
Jennifer Bertsch. I'd actually argue that Chris Beard owns mozilla.org if
you include content, branding, etc. Then code, content, etc can all be sub
modules.

There are many modules that are not about code. Reps, conductors, etc.

[Gavin Sharp]

On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 10:45 AM, Stormy Peters <sto...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> Ownership in an open source project implies that the owner can make
> decisions and decide what is in and out. I thought Mozilla modules were
> equivalent to open source project maintainers or owners. But if they just
> have check in authority, and have to get ok from someone else first, I'd
> argue they are not owners or maintainers.

In practice, it's not "complete ownership", but it's also not "just
check in authority" - it's gotten quite a bit more complicated as
Mozilla has scaled the "ownership" of products extended beyond the
people actually managing the code. As Laura notes, though, this seems
like a broader disagreement about what our modules should represent
exactly. Which is fine to discuss on its own merits, but I don't think
it's fair to suggest that resolving that disagreement is a
prerequisite for adding these webdev modules.

Gavin

[lau...@gmail.com]

On Wednesday, April 17, 2013 12:51:00 PM UTC-4, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:

>

> Definition for module owners is here:
>
> http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/module-ownership.html

[Justin Dolske]

On 4/17/13 3:19 AM, Stormy Peters wrote:
> I think this list accurately reflects the people that own the code behind
> the various web pages but we also need to capture the product owners and
> content owners for it to be accurate.

While this thread is proposing a set of _engineering_ modules, we could
certainly create a parallel set of _content_ modules. (And even
interleave them in published form, if that's useful.)

Justin

[Stormy Peters]

I don't oppose holding up the webdev modules. I would be happy to discuss
what our modules represent. Or to hear what other people think they should
represent moving forward - I think they are now different than what they
were - because I think others are working on that. Maybe an FAQ on what
modules are or are not would be helpful to many of us.

Stormy

[Majken Connor]

As a community member it seems to me that the purpose of the module system
is to know who to go to to get something moved forward. Sometimes that is
coding sometimes it isn't. I think since this proposal suits the context
that many of the other modules are in it should be ok to add it as it is,
continue the discussions about how to better show ownership and than add
the missing people to the different groups once it's sorted out.

[Gervase Markham]

On 11/04/13 20:11, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:
> maintenance of a particular web property. Since we had to do all of
> this anyway, many of us saw this as an opportunity to clean up how
> module ownership for these web projects is documented.

I think this is an awesome idea, and it would be great to create modules
to give clarity of ownership for all these web properties.

My only feedback is that I agree with the assertion that each property
should have two ownership "slots" - code and content. In some cases,
these will be currently filled by the same person, and that's fine. In
other cases they will be different people.

The module ownership system does extend to non-code things - see here
for many modules of this type:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Activities
In the case of websites, it seems wise to me to make sure that both
sides of the ownership question are represented.

Whether we consider this two aspects of a single module, or two separate
modules whose information is published in interleaved format, doesn't
really matter to me. But I do think the info should be presented together.

It could be that we don't yet know, or Mike doesn't have in his head,
the right name for the Content slot for all sites. So we should not
block the move on filling all those slots with the right names. But I
think we should have the slots, and start a process to work out the names.

Given the above, I would call the new category either "Websites" or "Web
Properties" if the term "sites" is now considered too limiting.

Gerv

[Mike Connor]

On 2013-04-18, at 6:06 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

> On 11/04/13 20:11, morg...@mozilla.com wrote:

>> maintenance of a particular web property. Since we had to do all of
>> this anyway, many of us saw this as an opportunity to clean up how
>> module ownership for these web projects is documented.
>

> I think this is an awesome idea, and it would be great to create modules
> to give clarity of ownership for all these web properties.
>
> My only feedback is that I agree with the assertion that each property
> should have two ownership "slots" - code and content. In some cases,
> these will be currently filled by the same person, and that's fine. In
> other cases they will be different people.
>
> The module ownership system does extend to non-code things - see here
> for many modules of this type:
> https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Activities
> In the case of websites, it seems wise to me to make sure that both
> sides of the ownership question are represented.
>
> Whether we consider this two aspects of a single module, or two separate
> modules whose information is published in interleaved format, doesn't
> really matter to me. But I do think the info should be presented together.
>
> It could be that we don't yet know, or Mike doesn't have in his head,
> the right name for the Content slot for all sites. So we should not
> block the move on filling all those slots with the right names. But I
> think we should have the slots, and start a process to work out the names.
>
> Given the above, I would call the new category either "Websites" or "Web
> Properties" if the term "sites" is now considered too limiting.

How to incorporate non-technical decision makers has been a long-running discussion (I remember discussing potential models with Mitchell and Brendan as far back as 2007). While I'd love to see it resolved, I agree with Gavin that it should not block creation of these modules. I believe the status quo (which is generally working) is less risky than imposing a new model in a hurry, but I'd love to work on a better solution.

I believe a key requirement of any potential module owner is a strong understanding of the context of that module. In the case of Firefox, it's clear that where issues involve more than just code it's expected that the module owner (Gavin) involve and empower key stakeholders, such as Asa. In this case of these new modules, I would expect that the same principles would apply, and that the module owners being nominated are aware of their responsibilities to engage and work with key stakeholders across the project. I trust Mike Morgan to make the right recommendations and ensure that the module owners (as currently defined) will act in appropriate ways.

-- Mike

[Stormy Peters]

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 7:38 AM, Mike Connor <mco...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> In this case of these new modules, I would expect that the same
> principles would apply, and that the module owners being nominated are
> aware of their responsibilities to engage and work with key stakeholders
> across the project. I trust Mike Morgan to make the right recommendations
> and ensure that the module owners (as currently defined) will act in
> appropriate ways.
>

I picked Mozilla.org as an example because both Paul (code) and Jennifer
(product manager) work on my team. Paul is brilliant and responsible and
will certainly be a good module owner and pull in the right people as
needed. Jennifer's job is to coordinate across groups, so if there are
people with requests to change features or content on Mozilla.org, we'd
rather they bugged her. She "owns" making sure Mozilla.org has correct
content, features, design, etc.

Stormy

[David Ascher]

a) the webdev technical modules have value today, will have more value when the NOC is in place, and nobody is really objecting to them anyway ;-). I do want to give props to morgamic et al. for realizing that the module system could be applied to his part of the project, which will make it easier for people not deeply involved in webdev to understand and contribute.

b) Stormy & others have raised the point of non-code decision-makers, which is an excellent one. I think that now isn't a bad time to start a broader discussion about how we want to evolve the module/governance system, to both recognize that non-code decisions may (or may not!) need different approaches, and that even in the code world, maybe there are tweaks to consider (e.g. to be intentional about how to work across modules).

The latter is something that I'm happy to dive in on, wearing my hat as a peer of the module ownership module.

It's worth thinking hard whether that the formal governance model that came out of the earliest phases of the project to be the right one for all decisions. It would be good to explore what we _want_ out of a governance model, and, related, what we expect out of our area leaders.

Feels like a good topic to work on ahead of the summit.

--da

[Gervase Markham]

On 18/04/13 14:38, Mike Connor wrote:
> How to incorporate non-technical decision makers has been a
> long-running discussion (I remember discussing potential models with
> Mitchell and Brendan as far back as 2007).

We are not trying to solve that problem in general, and anyway it's been
solved for areas which are solely non-technical by the creation of
Activity Modules.

> While I'd love to see it
> resolved, I agree with Gavin that it should not block creation of
> these modules. I believe the status quo (which is generally working)
> is less risky than imposing a new model in a hurry, but I'd love to
> work on a better solution.

I don't think that "the status quo" is that "the technical owner is the
final decision-maker", which would be implied if we created these
modules to cover each web property without at least a slot for "content
owner".

> stakeholders, such as Asa. In this case of these new modules, I
> would expect that the same principles would apply, and that the
> module owners being nominated are aware of their responsibilities to
> engage and work with key stakeholders across the project. I trust
> Mike Morgan to make the right recommendations and ensure that the
> module owners (as currently defined) will act in appropriate ways.

I think saying that the person responsible for the technical running of
the site is "the module owner (as currently defined)" is begging the
question (in the correct sense of that phrase).

Gerv

[Gervase Markham]

On 18/04/13 19:39, David Ascher wrote:
> a) the webdev technical modules have value today, will have more
> value when the NOC is in place, and nobody is really objecting to
> them anyway ;-). I do want to give props to morgamic et al. for
> realizing that the module system could be applied to his part of the
> project, which will make it easier for people not deeply involved in
> webdev to understand and contribute.

+1 to that.

> b) Stormy & others have raised the point of non-code decision-makers,
> which is an excellent one. I think that now isn't a bad time to
> start a broader discussion about how we want to evolve the
> module/governance system, to both recognize that non-code decisions
> may (or may not!) need different approaches, and that even in the
> code world, maybe there are tweaks to consider (e.g. to be
> intentional about how to work across modules).

Perhaps it is; I know Mitchell is keen to have a discussion about how we
should govern Mozilla in 2013, but there are a lot of moving parts and
dependencies. The work that I was doing to try and set up that
discussion is on hold pending a "go" from her. Perhaps best to touch
base with her before diving in too deeply.

In the mean time, can we attempt to find a non-revolutionary way of
accounting for the fact that websites very often have one person
ultimately responsible for keeping the code running, and another person
ultimately responsible for their content?

Gerv

[Gavin Sharp]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
> I don't think that "the status quo" is that "the technical owner is the
> final decision-maker", which would be implied if we created these
> modules to cover each web property without at least a slot for "content
> owner".

That implication is an existing issue with all of our existing code
modules. I don't really have a objection to adding a "content owner"
slot for these, but if that is contentious or if there is doubt about
how that should be implemented across all of our module definitions, I
don't think it should hold up putting this information in the wiki.

Gavin

[davidweld...@gmail.com]

> My only feedback is that I agree with the assertion that each property
> should have two ownership "slots" - code and content. In some cases,
> these will be currently filled by the same person, and that's fine. In
> other cases they will be different people.

It is worth noting that the www.mozilla.org site is already set up as a module that is divided between having an owner for technical issues and for content issues.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Activities#www.mozilla.org

This was created years ago back when www.mozilla.org was a volunteer run effort and that division worked very well. I think this acts as an existing model that can easily be rolled out to other sites.

Reed and I are no longer actively involved in the site and I'd be happy to see new owners listed there.

David

[Gervase Markham]

On 19/04/13 20:34, Gavin Sharp wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>> I don't think that "the status quo" is that "the technical owner is the
>> final decision-maker", which would be implied if we created these
>> modules to cover each web property without at least a slot for "content
>> owner".
>
> That implication is an existing issue with all of our existing code
> modules.

But a module like "Layout" doesn't have content (at least, in the same
sense :-).

> I don't really have a objection to adding a "content owner"
> slot for these, but if that is contentious or if there is doubt about
> how that should be implemented across all of our module definitions, I
> don't think it should hold up putting this information in the wiki.

I don't think it _applies_ to most of the rest of our module
definitions. Most websites (although not all; something like
input.mozilla.org where all the content is user-generated might be an
exception) have human-readable curated content separate from their
technical implementation. I can't think of a core code module which has
this issue.

My concern is this: if we anoint technical maintainer/responsible person
X as the module owner of foo.mozilla.org, I would be concerned if they
then "pulled rank" on /de facto/ content owner Y regarding a content
change. If we can say explicitly when we put up this info that it is
without prejudice to determining the relationship between technical
owners and content owners, then that might be OK.

Gerv

[Stormy Peters]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:27 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:

>
>
> My concern is this: if we anoint technical maintainer/responsible person
> X as the module owner of foo.mozilla.org, I would be concerned if they
> then "pulled rank" on /de facto/ content owner Y regarding a content
> change. If we can say explicitly when we put up this info that it is
> without prejudice to determining the relationship between technical
> owners and content owners, then that might be OK.
>

I can't speak for all sites but I think we have pretty good relationships
between technical and content owners. To me the concern is mainly putting
interested people quickly in contact with the right person.

Stormy

[Gavin Sharp]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 2:27 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:

> On 19/04/13 20:34, Gavin Sharp wrote:

> > On Fri, Apr 19, 2013 at 9:21 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org>
> wrote:
> >> I don't think that "the status quo" is that "the technical owner is the
> >> final decision-maker", which would be implied if we created these
> >> modules to cover each web property without at least a slot for "content
> >> owner".
> >
> > That implication is an existing issue with all of our existing code
> > modules.
>

> But a module like "Layout" doesn't have content (at least, in the same
> sense :-).
>

Not "content", no, but whether "the module owner is the final
decision-maker" is a broader issue than "content vs. code". But we digress.

> My concern is this: if we anoint technical maintainer/responsible person
> X as the module owner of foo.mozilla.org, I would be concerned if they
> then "pulled rank" on /de facto/ content owner Y regarding a content
> change. If we can say explicitly when we put up this info that it is
> without prejudice to determining the relationship between technical
> owners and content owners, then that might be OK.
>

If a module owner takes their name listed on a wiki page as an opportunity
to "pull rank", then I think we have more serious problems. I don't expect
this to actually be a problem in practice - the modules in question already
work quite well in practice.

Gavin

[Justin Dolske]

On 4/22/13 2:27 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

> My concern is this: if we anoint technical maintainer/responsible person
> X as the module owner of foo.mozilla.org, I would be concerned if they
> then "pulled rank" on /de facto/ content owner Y regarding a content
> change.

I'm not greatly concerned about that here -- I'd say it's part of the
responsibility of being a module owner to constructively work with other
stakeholders. Doesn't really matter if it's two MOs touching a shared
area of interest, or one MO and a submodule. If folks can't work
together, it's a big problem (and a sign that module ownership isn't
something they're ready for yet).

I'd generally suggest biasing toward having a clear ownership and
decision-making structure. It won't always matter, but it's good to have
when it does.

Justin

[Mitchell Baker]

I'm going to try to respond to a bunch of the topics that were raised in
various messages:

1. morgamic, awesome that this effort is underway. It is needed, and
great to see the team doing this.

2. Something very clear and specific like "Mozilla Websites" seems best
to me. I would not use "web" or "web-dev" as they are not nearly as clear.

3. Very helpful to get this info into the module system and documentation.

4. We do have a long-standing issue with the code modules about
decision-making that is about product, or market fit, or practicality of
product and not specifically code or APIs. I believe it is time to
address this soon, if not now. But not in this message.

5. The code for running a website vs the content displayed on that
website is related to the topic of item 4, but more clearly 2 different
topics. We did already address this with mozilla.org, as david boswell
points out. Although the data (he and Reed) is old, the analysis of the
need and the implementation of two owners was made for reasons Stormy
has articulated well.

6. My suggestion for the Mozilla web properties:
a: you go ahead and make the modules
b: you note a code and a content owner, as we have long done for
mozilla.org
c: include the community =run websites ins some fashion, perhaps david
has a good idea
d. we watch how this works and see if we think we should have separate
modules related to content.


7. My other suggestion is that we encourage dasher to dive into the
question of decisoin-making for things different from, or related to
code. Actually, that we jump up and down, offer david chocolate and
wine, or whatever else he's found of, and encourage him *strongly* to
get us started in this effort :-)

8. And finally, as we find area of the modle ownerhsip document that
seem limited or needing revision, or suggesting answers that don't work,
we update it. For example, it's been pointed out that the current doc
suggests only code matters. We should fix that.

Any volunteers :-)


Mitchell

[Gervase Markham]

On 17/05/13 13:14, Mitchell Baker wrote:
> 6. My suggestion for the Mozilla web properties:
> a: you go ahead and make the modules
> b: you note a code and a content owner, as we have long done for
> mozilla.org

....leaving the content owner blank for now if morgamic doesn't know who
it is or if it's not clear?

> 8. And finally, as we find area of the modle ownerhsip document that
> seem limited or needing revision, or suggesting answers that don't work,
> we update it. For example, it's been pointed out that the current doc
> suggests only code matters. We should fix that.
>
> Any volunteers :-)

Happy to fix that. Can someone point me at the message which brought
this issue up and perhaps has suggestions?

Gerv

[Stormy Peters]

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 6:11 AM, Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:

> On 17/05/13 13:14, Mitchell Baker wrote:

> > 6. My suggestion for the Mozilla web properties:
> > a: you go ahead and make the modules
> > b: you note a code and a content owner, as we have long done for
> > mozilla.org
>

> ....leaving the content owner blank for now if morgamic doesn't know who
> it is or if it's not clear?
>

I would put Jennifer Bertsch down as the content owner. She's the product
manager for Mozilla.org and coordinates all the stakeholders.

Stormy

>
> > 8. And finally, as we find area of the modle ownerhsip document that
> > seem limited or needing revision, or suggesting answers that don't work,
> > we update it. For example, it's been pointed out that the current doc
> > suggests only code matters. We should fix that.
> >
> > Any volunteers :-)
>

> Happy to fix that. Can someone point me at the message which brought
> this issue up and perhaps has suggestions?
>
> Gerv
>

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/05/13 16:56, Stormy Peters wrote:
> I would put Jennifer Bertsch down as the content owner. She's the product
> manager for Mozilla.org and coordinates all the stakeholders.

Jennifer Bertsch is responsible (within MoCo) for the content for SUMO,
Socorro, MDN, Input, Mozillians etc.? I'm fairly sure that's not true.

morgamic is trying to create modules for a fairly long list of sites:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhiX365xacl1dE5sRzhDUjVRaFEyWElLZlAzWWJ2aUE#gid=0

Gerv

[Fred Wenzel]

I'll go ahead and add a "content owner" column to the document and work
with the (prospective) module owners to fill them in. Then we'll see if
there's even much confusion at all.

Sound good?

Fred

On Mon May 20 09:09:39 2013, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 20/05/13 16:56, Stormy Peters wrote:

>> I would put Jennifer Bertsch down as the content owner. She's the product
>> manager for Mozilla.org and coordinates all the stakeholders.
>

> Jennifer Bertsch is responsible (within MoCo) for the content for SUMO,
> Socorro, MDN, Input, Mozillians etc.? I'm fairly sure that's not true.
>
> morgamic is trying to create modules for a fairly long list of sites:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhiX365xacl1dE5sRzhDUjVRaFEyWElLZlAzWWJ2aUE#gid=0
>

[Stormy Peters]

On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 10:30 AM, Fred Wenzel <fwe...@mozilla.com> wrote:

> I'll go ahead and add a "content owner" column to the document and work
> with the (prospective) module owners to fill them in. Then we'll see if
> there's even much confusion at all.
>
> Sound good?
>

+1

(FYI, Jennifer Bertsch is for Mozilla.org, For others I'd start with ...
someone on David Tenser's team is likely SUMO, MDN is Ali Spivak,
Mozillians is William Reynolds.)

>
> Fred
>
> On Mon May 20 09:09:39 2013, Gervase Markham wrote:
> > On 20/05/13 16:56, Stormy Peters wrote:

> >> I would put Jennifer Bertsch down as the content owner. She's the
> product
> >> manager for Mozilla.org and coordinates all the stakeholders.
> >

> > Jennifer Bertsch is responsible (within MoCo) for the content for SUMO,
> > Socorro, MDN, Input, Mozillians etc.? I'm fairly sure that's not true.
> >
> > morgamic is trying to create modules for a fairly long list of sites:
> >
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhiX365xacl1dE5sRzhDUjVRaFEyWElLZlAzWWJ2aUE#gid=0
> >

[Gervase Markham]

On 20/05/13 17:30, Fred Wenzel wrote:
> I'll go ahead and add a "content owner" column to the document and work
> with the (prospective) module owners to fill them in. Then we'll see if
> there's even much confusion at all.
>
> Sound good?

Yes :-)

Gerv

[Mitchell Baker]

On 5/20/13 2:11 PM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 17/05/13 13:14, Mitchell Baker wrote:
>> 6. My suggestion for the Mozilla web properties:
>> a: you go ahead and make the modules
>> b: you note a code and a content owner, as we have long done for
>> mozilla.org
>
> ....leaving the content owner blank for now if morgamic doesn't know who
> it is or if it's not clear?

Yes.

>
>> 8. And finally, as we find area of the modle ownerhsip document that
>> seem limited or needing revision, or suggesting answers that don't work,
>> we update it. For example, it's been pointed out that the current doc
>> suggests only code matters. We should fix that.
>>
>> Any volunteers :-)
>
> Happy to fix that. Can someone point me at the message which brought
> this issue up and perhaps has suggestions?

it was this thread, which talks about responsibilities of the owner
being about patches, etc. that doc was written before activities
modules were developed, so there is a bunch of work there
>
> Gerv
>

[Mitchell Baker]

another +1 from me. thanks!

ml

[Gervase Markham]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=875259 .

Gerv

[davidweld...@gmail.com]

> c: include the community =run websites ins some fashion, perhaps david
> has a good idea

In terms of volunteer-run sites, I would suggest limiting the scope to the regional sites listed at

http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/local/

These are key entry points for people in different regions around the world and it would be great to have more visibility into who is running those and to then be able to empower those people through the module system.

There is some documentation about many of these sites at

https://wiki.mozilla.org/MCS:Hosting#Hosted_communities

That list isn't comprehensive and doesn't list owners right now, but it could be expanded.

David

[lau...@gmail.com]

Some updates:

1. The list as specified has been added to the Modules page. There's no way in the template to dd a Content owner: if there is someone who can help with mediawiki templates please let me know so we can get those in place ASAP.

2. The original peers for the upper level module - myself, wenzel, and clouserw - agreed I would become the top level module owner (as successor to morgamic).

3. I had a question about Content owners. For many of the apps I am personally responsible for, content is not necessarily a relevant item, since the content is machine rather than personally generated. In this case I assume the engineering owner is also the content owner. Correct?

[Gervase Markham]

Sorry to be late on this.

On 10/07/13 19:03, lau...@gmail.com wrote:
> 1. The list as specified has been added to the Modules page. There's
> no way in the template to dd a Content owner: if there is someone who
> can help with mediawiki templates please let me know so we can get
> those in place ASAP.

I've added a optional "contentowner" key to the template. Example:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Activities#www.mozilla.org
The technical owner uses the existing "owner" key.

(Note: I used this module as an example because it already had two
owners defined in the existing markup.)

> 2. The original peers for the upper level module - myself, wenzel,
> and clouserw - agreed I would become the top level module owner (as
> successor to morgamic).

Although this is a weird situation because morgamic had been owner for
such a short time, it's worth mentioning that generally changes of
top-level module owner need to go through the Module Ownership Module group:
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Activities#Module_Ownership_System

> 3. I had a question about Content owners. For many of the apps I am
> personally responsible for, content is not necessarily a relevant
> item, since the content is machine rather than personally generated.
> In this case I assume the engineering owner is also the content
> owner. Correct?

If there are no or few creative or policy decisions to make about the
content, then yes, it makes sense to me that the two owners are the
same. (In that case, simply do not add a 'contentowner' key in the markup.)

Gerv