Re: Web Platform Public Involvement

I'm not a fan of having yet-another piece of software installed for people
to need to go to and have an account for. I believe we are already
complicated enough when it comes to accounts and software, plus it is Ruby
on Rails based which I don't think most here are familiar with, which adds
more things to the mix.

However, I do agree with the idea of intermediaries. It really doesn't end
up like a game of telephone, someone simply voices their issue to someone
in a group of people and they can be pretty sure that it will be looked
into. I can see now from one of the recent tweets there are some people who
asked valid questions in response, but never got a response from
@webplatform. Having some "relations" people who you could target with that
(and who would also have access to the @webplatform Twitter account and
other social platforms) could be very useful in aiding contributions.


On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 5:50 PM, Janet Swisher <jswisher@mozilla.com> wrote:

>  On 6/6/13 4:14 PM, Nic da Costa wrote:
>
> Hey Everyone
>
>  I have been chatting with some folks over in IRC about general public
> involvement and how we can look at improving this aspect and one of the
> ideas that came up was to setup a sort of "Dev Rel" team. The aim of the
> team would be to be the main interface with the public, sort of a buffer or
> intermediate for those people who do not wish to take part in the mailing
> list but have ideas to bounce around. The aim of this would be to try and
> improve our channel of communication with the general public, to get more
> involvement, even if it is for some base ideas. The team could then report
> on people's behalf and carry on any discussions that need to take place.
>
>  They could also act as an entry point and help any new comers on how to
> get started, even if it means pointing them in the right direction or
> telling them who would be best to speak to.
>
>
> I like the idea of having "welcomers" who help people get started and
> connect them to appropriate other people. I don't like the idea of such
> people becoming intermediaries who end up having extended games of
> "telephone" between the list and others. That doesn't seem like it would be
> good for anyone involved.
>
> It sounds like the mailing list is a barrier to entry. Casual
> participation is discouraged by having to subscribe to the mailing list
> (and implicitly, receive all of the list traffic in your inbox) in order to
> post something. Maybe we should move towards a communication channel that
> is easier to drop into, like a web-based discussion forum (for example,
> Discourse, http://www.discourse.org/).
>
> We previously had a Q&A forum, but that was geared toward support rather
> than discussion. (BTW, the forum link on this page:
> http://talk.webplatform.org/ no longer works.) I thought we were keeping
> it around, but hidden, but maybe I misunderstood. In any case, it would not
> really be suitable as a replacement for the mailing list.
>
>
> --
>  Janet Swisher <jREMOVEswisher@mozilla.com>
> Mozilla Developer Network <https://developer.mozilla.org>
> Developer Engagement Community Organizer
>