Henri Sivonen wrote:
> Could you elaborate on what you mean when you refer to "users" and
> "testers"?
I think, I did already in this thread, not? If you file mostly useful
bugs, you are a tester. If you ask questions answered in the
release-notes, you are a user.
Maybe replace "user" with "end-user", if that is more clear (dunno).
> What, in your scenario, motivates someone to
> become a "tester" (or code contributor) if (s)he doesn't get to be a
> user as well (and, more importantly, doesn't get to be a user *first*)?
Using a build from a distributor. As I said, users which want to
actively participate in the development process (which includes writing
good bug reports and well-thought feature proposals) will end up at
mozilla.org anyway.
Neither Netscape nor Beonex hide that they use Mozilla as base, so
people interested in the software will go to the "source".
Additionally, Beonex will send users which seem to be interested and
willing to invest time to mozilla.org. Dunno about Netscape.
> I suggest linking to good weeklies from the mozilla.org front page so
> that interested people *would find* them.
No. People who are interested don't need to find things directly on the
frontpage. OTOH, things on the frontpage are likely to be used by the
"main stream" (and the main stream will find mozilla.org, considering
how often its URL is mentioned in the press). Do you want the nightlies
or "weeklies" to be used by normal users? I don't.
I suggest to have a "Testing" link on the left bar on the homepage, just
as today, but even remove the "Download" link under it. The download
page would then be referenced on the "Testing" page.
I say that because a lot of users go to the homepage, search for the
word "download", click on it, search for the link to the binary, without
reading any text, download and run it. Even if they read "for testers
only", they may think, "Yes, I want to try it out.". Then, some of them
rant on the next forum they find, how crappy the stuff is. That's the
user group you encourage with a download link on the homepage. Frankly,
I don't even want these users for Beonex, so why mozilla.org would want
them?
On the homepage, there would be a prominent paragraph which explains
that mozilla.org does not provide builds for end-users, and link to a
page which refers to distributors.
> There are already complaints
> about a high barrier of entry for those who wanted to care about the
> project.
Yes, but this barrier is not the frontpage, and it won't be with my
suggestion. The high barrier comes e.g. from custom (behaviour and
organizational) rules which are hardly documented and a very poor
overall website.
