Hi, everyone -
As part of a Planet refresh [1] planned for the new year and aiming for
end-Q2, the Planet peers are going to be revising the somewhat-sparse
Planet documentation and policies [2]. Existing policies haven't
reflected reality in some time and, like virtually everything about
Planet, need a fair bit of love.
While part of the refresh will be technical - clearing out dead feeds,
making search work right, a mobile theme, etc - we'll also be proposing
some changes to how feeds are included on Planet. Our aim is to advance
the core Mozilla mission and foster an inclusive, diverse community
around that mission without denying anyone the freedom to seek out
like-minded Mozillians and speak to things they care deeply about.
In short: lots of Mozillians care passionately about non-Mozilla stuff;
sometimes that's crafting and music and sometimes it's activism,
politics and religion.
While we don't want to see Planet become a place where people aren't
free to express themselves, we also don't want Planet to become a
platform that alienates Mozillians who feel differently, if just as
strongly, on those same issues.The Mozilla participation guidelines [3]
are an important baseline, but we believe that by taking an active role
in this we can do better.
To that end, we are going to propose that Planet have a participation
policy including words to the effect that "in discussing contentious or
personal topics outside of Mozilla's mission, please consider
invitations to conversation welcome, position statements not, and
exercise your judgement with the growth of a kind and inclusive
community in mind."
Further, that we ask Planet's participating authors to:
- add a "mozilla" tag to posts that are relevant to Mozilla, so that
it's explicit that their inclusion in Planet is deliberate, and
- when addressing the community on a topic others may find challenging,
that there be a brief disclaimer at the top of those posts outlining the
contents. We intend to provide boilerplate text and HTML snippets people
can paste into posts to make that as painless as possible, though people
can always roll their own.
Our hope is that this small up-front investment will lead to Planet's
content being generally more focused without costing anyone the
opportunity to learn about, learn from and grow with other Mozillians
who share their values or beliefs.
As always feedback is welcome; if you have concerns you'd prefer be
discussed privately, don't hesitate to contact me directly.
- mhoye
[1] - https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1101785
[2] - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Planet_Mozilla
[3] -
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/
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