Le 12/09/2012 06:04, Majken Connor a écrit :
I think Ruben's suggestion is that since the reps program helps
support and organize contributors globally the reps program could
present the framework for getting feedback from the community at large.
The words you choose to describe what the reps program could be suggests
an unbalanced relationship: MoCo/MoFo would generate ideas and the
community would provide "feedback". The Reps program would just be a way
to structure the Community-->MoCo/MoFo channel efficiently. But the idea
of the community deciding the next strategic steps doesn't seem part of
it. As a concrete example, the decision to invest in B2G has been made
by employees. Is it possible that Mozilla next big project will come out
of the community? With my current knowledge of Mozilla decision-making
process is that no, it isn't. My initial post is an attempt to explain
why and an attempt to find a solution for that.
I have spoken to many people who had high hopes about the Reps program
and were disappointed. They described it as a way for Mozilla to "pet
the community". I do not necessarily share this point of view, but it's
an interesting indicator of how the program is being received by some.
The wiki is a bit outdated, but it still didn't mention the
recruitment factor in the program.
I'm not sure I see how this point relates to the point in my original
message.
When you represent Mozilla the end goal of course is to recruit new
contributors and community members.
I disagree. When you represent Mozilla, the end-goal is to work toward
moving the shared values forward. Recruiting new people is a mean, not
an end. The vast majority of people in the globe will never become
Mozilla contributors and that's the majority of people who I talk to,
but it shouldn't stop us from educating them about the open web.
Not just go out and speak or set up booths.
I disagree with this too. I've been to several events, some
barcamp-style where I've held sessions about Mozilla. I've not recruited
anyone, but I feel I've made a valuable contributions by sharing and
answering questions on the mission and Mozilla actions (and there is a
huge amount of work to be done in this area!). Educating people to what
the open web is and why it's important without the goal of recruiting
them advances the mission. Maybe the Reps program measures its success
through a "conversion rate" or "number of new contributors" and maybe
that's a good thing, but for sure that's not the only valuable way to
contribute to Mozilla while representing it in the outside world.
So the reps program is really a network of community leaders, though
you don't have to be a rep to be a community leader.
But being a community leader doesn't mean being part of strategic
decisions. It seems that a lot of the frustration some have toward the
Reps program is exactly this confusion.
Being a "community leader" doesn't give you the authority to decide that
next year the focus will be to create a generation of open web
advocates. It gives a local authority, not organisation-wide authority.
I believe the context of the general discussion is the identified
priorities for the year. Of course we can't just have all the
volunteers drop everything and only contribute to those priorities or
there will be nothing innovative waiting in the wings. We also need to
remember that skills and interest come into play. You can't
necessarily take a volunteer off of one project and put them on
another. Someone who enjoys doing QA may not enjoy doing support, even
though they can be quite similar.
I agree with you, priorities doesn't mean everyone drops everything they
do. Mozilla has shifted priorities to mobile and still a lot of people
do not work on mobile directly for very good reasons and there is no
reason for this to change. I'm aware of what a "priority" is, what it
implies and what it doesn't imply. But it doesn't change my point.
I think the real answer is figuring out how to have MoCo goals and
priorities coexist with supporting an autonomous volunteer community.
Once again, the words you're choosing reveal a lot of your mental
representation of how Mozilla works. You're verbalizing them here, but I
think it's representative of the mental representation a lot of people
have. "MoCo goals and priorities". Does MoCo has a specific agenda that
different from the overall Mozilla project agenda?
Otherwise, I agree with your intent and my answer is not to have 2
groups co-existing, but just one group deciding as one entity.
In fact I think that is the role MoCo fills that justifies itself. It
fills gaps that a volunteer based community can create.
Interesting. Can you provide specific examples of what you mean here?
I think we need to make sure the existence of employees is enhancing,
not excluding volunteer contributions. The manifesto is the ultimate
priority. Every piece of the Mozilla community has their own
priorities for how they will achieve the goals laid out by the
manifesto. MoCo should be seen as a piece of the community along-side
of, not on top of the other pieces.
I have read enough from Mozilla involved people to know that what you
describe is a shared sentiment. And that's a very nice theorical
description.
Now, how do we move from the current top-down situation to a situation
where every relevant people is part of the strategic decisions
regardless of their employment situation with Mozilla?
To give another example, at MozCampEU [1] were 6 tracks: Grow Mozilla
1/2, Desktop and Mobile 1/2 and Apps and B2G 1/2. This seems to closely
relate to MoCo/MoFo expressed priorities. Apparently, some people in the
community would think Thunderbird or SeaMonkey are priorities (that's
not my case, just to clarify). If that's the case, why isn't there a
Thunderbird/SeaMonkey track?
As for the rest of your point, how to get volunteers in on the
discussions, I think that is about openness. If the teams are open
with each other, and listen to their volunteer teammates as well as
their paid teammates then the points of view will naturally be taken
into consideration.
It seems the discussion has shifted. What teams are you talking about?
I'm talking about structural decisions, not team-wise decisions.
It sounds like you're saying Mozilla either doesn't take volunteer
opinions as seriously because they're "sensitive" or they are not
included in hard discussions to avoid upsetting them (I have seen both
happen)?
In the words "take volunteer opinions" is induced the idea that
volunteer has no power to make large-scale decisions. Someone makes
decision and chooses to listen to some groups, one of them being
volunteer. He/she can also decide at any point to not listen anyone.
This model works currently, but it won't scale in my opinion.
David
[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/schedule
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