SUMO Day!
Majken Connor
link, I'll respond with it later if someone else doesn't) we should organize
scheduled days for new contributors to stop by to check us out while we're
prepared for them. A "day" will also make it easier for our current
contributors to be around when each other are around and get to know each
other, as well as collaborate on work. I know with Live Chat it's much
easier to help when others are going to be around.
IMO we should make this a regular occurance, maybe once a month or so on a
smaller scale similar to test day. Cww's suggestion was more of a larger
scale, and that's a great idea, but I think it would help us be able to
reach the goals he laid out by having a few smaller days first to get the
ball rolling. They will also give us a good idea of things we didn't forsee
in initial planning. If the release is far enough in the future we might be
able to have the smaller scale SUMO day first, and then have the large scale
day shortly after release.
Some thoughts:
- We should do this close to the Firefox 3 release so that we have the
momentum from this day going in to the rush from the release
- We need to pick a day when many of our current contributors can
devote a fair bit of time to being around
- We need some community "hubs" for the day, IRC channels, forum
threads etc where people who are around can communicate with each other
- We should each have some small events or projects preplanned to give
our contributors something to start from
- We need to plan how and where to advertise this day
- We need to evaluate any potential issues that might come from having
many people on at once, e.g. for the KB we need to make sure people
aren't all trying to work on the same article at once, trolls will also be a
concern
- We should hold some sort of feedback session at the end of the day
to discuss what went well and what we could do differently. Perhaps have a
survey ready for the day. Something easier than the newsgroup to get
feedback from the more casual passers-by
I think getting this off the ground *before* the release is key. We want to
have just enough time between the two that we've had time to cultivate the
new helpers so that they're ready to handle the release day/week rush
without too much supervision from the current contributors as we really
won't have time for that. I think we'll also want to appeal to beta users
as they'll already be familiar with Fx3's workings. Having a good core of
those people ready to go and familiar with how we do things will be
invaluable.
What does everyone think?
Ray Kiddy
> Along the lines of one of Cww's ideas mentioned earlier (sorry for lack of
> link, I'll respond with it later if someone else doesn't) we should organize
> scheduled days for new contributors to stop by to check us out while we're
> prepared for them. A "day" will also make it easier for our current
> contributors to be around when each other are around and get to know each
> other, as well as collaborate on work. I know with Live Chat it's much
> easier to help when others are going to be around.
>
<snip>
I care about support documentation but I have not been very successful
at getting things written for sumo. Part of this is my own organization
issues, but I suspect everyone who wants to help is also busy and has
many things they want to do.
I keep looking at the list of sumo bugs and the "KB article:" bugs in
particular. I want to pick one of those and do some writing, but it
seems that whenever I do, it is not clear what needs to be written.
Often there are questions that still need to be answered before writing
can be done. And one has to read all the bug to discover this. I can
write something, but I feel that it will be seen as not the correct
answer. I cannot seem to find the bug for the article to write that is
actually ready to write. But I do not look at every bug. I dive in, do
not see what to write and I have other things to do.
If something in this is just my problem, I would be ok with hearing
that. Do I just need to start writing and if it is wrong, we can work it
out after? Do I need to search for bugs another way, sort of looking for
a "KB article really" tag? Do other people see other information that
tells them what content people will care most to see?
thanx - ray
Majken Connor
> _______________________________________________
Ray,
That's a perfect example of why I think this day will be a good idea. You
can come around and get started when you know others will be around
specifically to answer your questions and help you out. That will also make
it easier for others in your situation to let us know exactly what parts are
still too hard.
I'll let Chris or Jason answer your specific questions as I'm sure they'll
have better advice than I will.
-Majken "Lucy" Connor
Jason Barnabe (np)
> I keep looking at the list of sumo bugs and the "KB article:" bugs in
> particular. I want to pick one of those and do some writing, but it
> seems that whenever I do, it is not clear what needs to be written.
> Often there are questions that still need to be answered before writing
> can be done. And one has to read all the bug to discover this. I can
> write something, but I feel that it will be seen as not the correct
> answer. I cannot seem to find the bug for the article to write that is
> actually ready to write. But I do not look at every bug. I dive in, do
> not see what to write and I have other things to do.
Thanks for the feedback. You can ask questions in the bug itself. I've
updated http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Creating+articles to
explicitly say this.
> If something in this is just my problem, I would be ok with hearing
> that. Do I just need to start writing and if it is wrong, we can work it
> out after? Do I need to search for bugs another way, sort of looking for
> a "KB article really" tag? Do other people see other information that
> tells them what content people will care most to see?
There's no extra information that's not visible to you. It's probably
best to have a fairly good idea of what to write about before you
start so you don't end up throwing away work. Once you do a few, you
should get a good idea of what kind of information should be included.
I've written a lot of bug requests, so I'm probably guilty of not
being as clear as I should be. Often what happens is that I don't even
know what the article should be about because I haven't researched the
subject, but I know enough to know there should be an article.
Jason Barnabe (np)
On Mar 14, 1:52 am, "Majken Connor" <maj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> IMO we should make this a regular occurance, maybe once a month or so on a
> smaller scale similar to test day. Cww's suggestion was more of a larger
> scale, and that's a great idea, but I think it would help us be able to
> reach the goals he laid out by having a few smaller days first to get the
> ball rolling.
Rather than saying it'll be regularly occurring, let's try one and
base how often it'll happen on the results of that.
What differences would a "small" day have compared to a "larger" day?
> If the release is far enough in the future we might be
> able to have the smaller scale SUMO day first, and then have the large scale
> day shortly after release.
In the past, how much time has come between the first RC and the
final? It might be good to start when the RCs start.
> - We need to pick a day when many of our current contributors can
> devote a fair bit of time to being around
Do you have any sense of whether a weekday or weekend would be more
appropriate?
> - We should each have some small events or projects preplanned to give
> our contributors something to start from
"Events" such as?
> - We need to plan how and where to advertise this day
I think it would also be good to think of a few types of target
audiences for the day. Like,
-People who are fans of Firefox, but haven't contributed before.
Providing support is a good way to get started.
-People who have contributed in the past or contribute in other
support areas.
Chris Ilias
> I care about support documentation but I have not been very successful
> at getting things written for sumo. Part of this is my own organization
> issues, but I suspect everyone who wants to help is also busy and has
> many things they want to do.
>
> I keep looking at the list of sumo bugs and the "KB article:" bugs in
> particular. I want to pick one of those and do some writing, but it
> seems that whenever I do, it is not clear what needs to be written.
> Often there are questions that still need to be answered before writing
> can be done. And one has to read all the bug to discover this. I can
> write something, but I feel that it will be seen as not the correct
> answer. I cannot seem to find the bug for the article to write that is
> actually ready to write. But I do not look at every bug. I dive in, do
> not see what to write and I have other things to do.
>
> If something in this is just my problem, I would be ok with hearing
> that. Do I just need to start writing and if it is wrong, we can work it
> out after? Do I need to search for bugs another way, sort of looking for
> a "KB article really" tag? Do other people see other information that
> tells them what content people will care most to see?
>
> thanx - ray
You're certainly not the only one. The FTP article comes to mind.
I'm a big fan of starting small. Asking people to create new articles as
a fist step is the worst way to start. I'd like to encourage new
contributors to first make small edits to current articles, rather than
tackling entirely new articles.
David Tenser
> Along the lines of one of Cww's ideas mentioned earlier (sorry for lack of
> link, I'll respond with it later if someone else doesn't) we should organize
> scheduled days for new contributors to stop by to check us out while we're
> prepared for them. A "day" will also make it easier for our current
> contributors to be around when each other are around and get to know each
> other, as well as collaborate on work. I know with Live Chat it's much
> easier to help when others are going to be around.
Yes, this is one of the strengths as I see it with "days":
collaboration, exchanging knowledge among contributors, and generally
increase the community feeling. As you say, it's easier to help with
Live Chat when others are around. While you don't interact directly with
other people when contributing to the KB, the need to ask quick
questions or gather feedback is very important.
Ideally, this sumo day would lead to more people regularly connecting to
#sumo, which would then naturally become a place where article writers
can consult others for feedback, just as people are currently helping
each other out in Live Chat and the forum.
>
> IMO we should make this a regular occurance, maybe once a month or so on a
> smaller scale similar to test day.
We should probably do a pilot sumo day and see what kind of outcome we
get from it before planning on frequency and agenda/contents for the
following days, but generally I agree.
> Cww's suggestion was more of a larger
> scale, and that's a great idea, but I think it would help us be able to
> reach the goals he laid out by having a few smaller days first to get the
> ball rolling. They will also give us a good idea of things we didn't forsee
> in initial planning.
I agree 100% here. It's better to start small and see what kind of
result we can get, to figure out where our primary focus should be.
> If the release is far enough in the future we might be
> able to have the smaller scale SUMO day first, and then have the large scale
> day shortly after release.
Maybe even a sumo day somewhere next week with a focus on generally
being around for contributors. Experienced contributors get together
with us in #sumo and actively talk to others in the channel, helping
them getting started with whatever they prefer to contribute with.
We'd announce this in time on different channels: sumo blog, private
blogs, about:mozilla newsletter, sfx, etc.
>
> Some thoughts:
>
> - We should do this close to the Firefox 3 release so that we have the
> momentum from this day going in to the rush from the release
> - We need to pick a day when many of our current contributors can
> devote a fair bit of time to being around
> - We need some community "hubs" for the day, IRC channels, forum
> threads etc where people who are around can communicate with each other
> - We should each have some small events or projects preplanned to give
> our contributors something to start from
Not sure exactly what you mean here. Please elaborate! :)
Fwiw, I view this more as a "get together and help others helping
firefox users" kind of thing, where we focus on being available for new
contributors, as well as exchanging info and ideas with more experienced
ones.
> - We need to plan how and where to advertise this day
> - We need to evaluate any potential issues that might come from having
> many people on at once, e.g. for the KB we need to make sure people
> aren't all trying to work on the same article at once, trolls will also be a
> concern
> - We should hold some sort of feedback session at the end of the day
> to discuss what went well and what we could do differently. Perhaps have a
> survey ready for the day. Something easier than the newsgroup to get
> feedback from the more casual passers-by
Could be as simple as linking to the blog post announcing the sumo day,
and allow people to comment right there. Creating a survey would require
IT/webdev, unless tiki has functionality for this as well (is there
anything it can't do?!).
Majken Connor
> > If the release is far enough in the future we might be
> > able to have the smaller scale SUMO day first, and then have the large
> scale
> > day shortly after release.
>
> Maybe even a sumo day somewhere next week with a focus on generally
> being around for contributors. Experienced contributors get together
> with us in #sumo and actively talk to others in the channel, helping
> them getting started with whatever they prefer to contribute with.
>
> We'd announce this in time on different channels: sumo blog, private
> blogs, about:mozilla newsletter, sfx, etc.
By sometime next week, you mean 7-11 days from today, yes?
> >
> > Some thoughts:
> >
> > - We should do this close to the Firefox 3 release so that we have
> the
> > momentum from this day going in to the rush from the release
> > - We need to pick a day when many of our current contributors can
> > devote a fair bit of time to being around
> > - We need some community "hubs" for the day, IRC channels, forum
> > threads etc where people who are around can communicate with each
> other
> > - We should each have some small events or projects preplanned to
> give
> > our contributors something to start from
>
> Not sure exactly what you mean here. Please elaborate! :)
For kb for example, the project could be to find all references to certain
instructions and make sure they're using the dynamic content. Or it could
be to improve a specific group of articles. Some specific task that can
have instructions up before the date so that users can research or prepare
in advance.
For the forums it might be to try and reply to all threads that have a
connection issue in them, or if we had capability to mark threads as
answered yet that could be a project specifically for that day, find all
threads that need to be marked as answered.
For live chat our project could be to try and make sure every question we
have is mentioned in support somewhere as if we have lots of extra helpers
around we should have time in between chats to take notes and double check.
Otherwise, our project might be to have some sort of powertraining plan
where trainees might actually be able to make full fledged helpers in the
same day.
>
>
> Fwiw, I view this more as a "get together and help others helping
> firefox users" kind of thing, where we focus on being available for new
> contributors, as well as exchanging info and ideas with more experienced
> ones.
>
> > - We need to plan how and where to advertise this day
> > - We need to evaluate any potential issues that might come from
> having
> > many people on at once, e.g. for the KB we need to make sure people
> > aren't all trying to work on the same article at once, trolls will
> also be a
> > concern
> > - We should hold some sort of feedback session at the end of the day
> > to discuss what went well and what we could do differently. Perhaps
> have a
> > survey ready for the day. Something easier than the newsgroup to get
> > feedback from the more casual passers-by
>
> Could be as simple as linking to the blog post announcing the sumo day,
> and allow people to comment right there. Creating a survey would require
> IT/webdev, unless tiki has functionality for this as well (is there
> anything it can't do?!).
Actually, tiki does have survey functionality, though IIRC nelson said it's
fairly basic and unused, though replying to the blog and maybe a forum
thread should be enough especially for a first time.
David Tenser
http://blog.mozilla.com/sumo/2008/03/21/sumo-day/. If you're a SUMO
contributor, please leave a comment there with your suggested date.
We should also work on an action list that needs to be completed asap,
with stuff to do in preparation for the day. I can think of:
* Figure out good projects/events that new contributors can just dive
into, e.g. "find and eliminate spelling errors in kb articles" or "make
sure no forum post is left unanswered."
* Prepare announcements for the decided date of the SUMO day
* Send out announcement to SUMO blog, personal blogs, mozillaZine news,
other mozilla news sites, tech sites, etc
* Make improvements to the contributor home page. zzxc will file bugs
for some stuff we should be able to do before the event ("adding recent
forum topics, quick links to popular destinations, a link to a
contributors forum, and the sumo blog RSS feed would be easy fixes").
* Make sure we've documented all stuff that we know should be
documented, e.g. how to localize content blocks.
* Prepare announcements for actual SUMO day. Can be different
announcements depending on if we're addressing the Mozilla community, or
general tech sites. We probably want to attract both contributors and
end-users (where a % of the latter can become part of the former).
David Tenser
> I've blogged about this to figure out the best day to host this event:
> http://blog.mozilla.com/sumo/2008/03/21/sumo-day/. If you're a SUMO
> contributor, please leave a comment there with your suggested date.
>
> We should also work on an action list that needs to be completed asap,
> with stuff to do in preparation for the day. I can think of:
>
> * Figure out good projects/events that new contributors can just dive
> into, e.g. "find and eliminate spelling errors in kb articles" or "make
> sure no forum post is left unanswered."
Chris, Jason, Lucy: think about stuff that's easy for new people to
quickly get involved with, and stuff that's helpful for us and for our
users.
>
> * Prepare announcements for the decided date of the SUMO day
Who wants to help writing the announcements? I think we need an
announcement as soon as possible about this day and what to expect of
it. And of course, we need announcements to be published on the actual
day (April 11th).
>
> * Send out announcement to SUMO blog, personal blogs, mozillaZine news,
> other mozilla news sites, tech sites, etc
>
> * Make improvements to the contributor home page. zzxc will file bugs
> for some stuff we should be able to do before the event ("adding recent
> forum topics, quick links to popular destinations, a link to a
> contributors forum, and the sumo blog RSS feed would be easy fixes").
zzxc, let me know if you won't have time for this so someone else can do
it. Thanks for your help!
>
> * Make sure we've documented all stuff that we know should be
> documented, e.g. how to localize content blocks.
Chris, what's the status on this and e.g. documentation about localization?
>
> * Prepare announcements for actual SUMO day. Can be different
> announcements depending on if we're addressing the Mozilla community, or
> general tech sites. We probably want to attract both contributors and
> end-users (where a % of the latter can become part of the former).
Is there anything missing in the above list?
Majken Connor
wrote:
> David Tenser wrote:
> > I've blogged about this to figure out the best day to host this event:
> > http://blog.mozilla.com/sumo/2008/03/21/sumo-day/. If you're a SUMO
> > contributor, please leave a comment there with your suggested date.
> >
> > We should also work on an action list that needs to be completed asap,
> > with stuff to do in preparation for the day. I can think of:
> >
> > * Figure out good projects/events that new contributors can just dive
> > into, e.g. "find and eliminate spelling errors in kb articles" or "make
> > sure no forum post is left unanswered."
>
> Chris, Jason, Lucy: think about stuff that's easy for new people to
> quickly get involved with, and stuff that's helpful for us and for our
> users.
>
> >
> > * Prepare announcements for the decided date of the SUMO day
>
> Who wants to help writing the announcements? I think we need an
> announcement as soon as possible about this day and what to expect of
> it. And of course, we need announcements to be published on the actual
> day (April 11th).
We should be able to get away with a basic announcement that doesn't give
many details, something of a save-the-date. We can use that to get more
people helping us plan and giving us ideas for projects.
>
>
> >
> > * Send out announcement to SUMO blog, personal blogs, mozillaZine news,
> > other mozilla news sites, tech sites, etc
> >
> > * Make improvements to the contributor home page. zzxc will file bugs
> > for some stuff we should be able to do before the event ("adding recent
> > forum topics, quick links to popular destinations, a link to a
> > contributors forum, and the sumo blog RSS feed would be easy fixes").
>
> zzxc, let me know if you won't have time for this so someone else can do
> it. Thanks for your help!
>
> >
> > * Make sure we've documented all stuff that we know should be
> > documented, e.g. how to localize content blocks.
>
> Chris, what's the status on this and e.g. documentation about
> localization?
>
> >
> > * Prepare announcements for actual SUMO day. Can be different
> > announcements depending on if we're addressing the Mozilla community, or
> > general tech sites. We probably want to attract both contributors and
> > end-users (where a % of the latter can become part of the former).
>
> Is there anything missing in the above list?
> _______________________________________________
> support-planning mailing list
> support-...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-planning
>
Majken Connor
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 6:17 PM, David Tenser <djst.m...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > David Tenser wrote:
> > > I've blogged about this to figure out the best day to host this event:
> > > http://blog.mozilla.com/sumo/2008/03/21/sumo-day/. If you're a SUMO
> > > contributor, please leave a comment there with your suggested date.
> > >
> > > We should also work on an action list that needs to be completed asap,
> > > with stuff to do in preparation for the day. I can think of:
> > >
> > > * Figure out good projects/events that new contributors can just dive
> > > into, e.g. "find and eliminate spelling errors in kb articles" or
> > "make
> > > sure no forum post is left unanswered."
> >
> > Chris, Jason, Lucy: think about stuff that's easy for new people to
> > quickly get involved with, and stuff that's helpful for us and for our
> > users.
> >
> > >
> > > * Prepare announcements for the decided date of the SUMO day
> >
> > Who wants to help writing the announcements? I think we need an
> > announcement as soon as possible about this day and what to expect of
> > it. And of course, we need announcements to be published on the actual
> > day (April 11th).
>
>
> We should be able to get away with a basic announcement that doesn't give
> many details, something of a save-the-date. We can use that to get more
> people helping us plan and giving us ideas for projects.
>
>
> >
> >
> > >
> > > * Send out announcement to SUMO blog, personal blogs, mozillaZine
> > news,
> > > other mozilla news sites, tech sites, etc
> > >
> > > * Make improvements to the contributor home page. zzxc will file bugs
> > > for some stuff we should be able to do before the event ("adding
> > recent
> > > forum topics, quick links to popular destinations, a link to a
> > > contributors forum, and the sumo blog RSS feed would be easy fixes").
> >
> > zzxc, let me know if you won't have time for this so someone else can do
> > it. Thanks for your help!
> >
> > >
> > > * Make sure we've documented all stuff that we know should be
> > > documented, e.g. how to localize content blocks.
> >
> > Chris, what's the status on this and e.g. documentation about
> > localization?
> >
> > >
> > > * Prepare announcements for actual SUMO day. Can be different
> > > announcements depending on if we're addressing the Mozilla community,
> > or
> > > general tech sites. We probably want to attract both contributors and
> > > end-users (where a % of the latter can become part of the former).
> >
> > Is there anything missing in the above list?
> > _______________________________________________
> > support-planning mailing list
> > support-...@lists.mozilla.org
> > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-planning
> >
>
>
here's something I've done up, feel free to polish it up or make
suggestions:
On April 11th we'll be hosting a day all about getting to know SUMO and how
to use our site to help Firefox users enjoy their favorite browser. We hope
to provide an opportunity for our existing community to work together, as
well as give a chance for new contributors to join us while more experienced
contributors are around to answer their questions and lend a hand.
Not only will we be working on the usual tasks that come with supporting
users through the Knowledge Base, Forums and Live Chat, we will also have
preplanned projects designed to help contributors get to know the different
features of our site. Just as importantly, this will be an opportunity for
our community to let us know what we still need to improve to make things
easier for new contributors to jump in and help out.
Check back for more details as we get closer to the day, or come find us on
mozilla.support.planning or in #sumo on irc.mozilla.org.
David Tenser
That's great, thanks! I'd like to put this on the blog asap, and include
it (or an excerpt of it) on the about:mozilla newsletter.
Any other places we should add some noise about this right now? mZ?
Mozilla News? That sounds like a good idea to me. :)