Re: Web Platform Public Involvement

Hey Julee

Thanks for the response and the links. i wasn't aware that there was an
existing community dev team.

I have just had a brief read through the two links, they look great. I just
think that we can make that much more of a difference if we have a bigger
dedicated dev rel team that really dives into the community and just tries
to involve as many people as possible and try and show people just how
awesome Web Platform is. The team has been doing some great work and i know
it is not easy, but if we get more dedicated developers, we can really
increase awareness and involvement.

For example, one thing which i felt was missed was an official announcement
of dabblet support. As i know there was a blog post about dabblet support
"coming soon", but there wasn't one afterwards stating that dabblet has
been incorporated. I am sure there were valid reasons for doing so, but we
could have really used that aspect as a huge factor of drawing in new
community members as well as increase awareness. One thing i would have
liked to have seen, which would have gone down well is to have had some
familiar faces from the community who have been involved in the web
platform drive do a Google+ Hangout talking about and showing off dabblet
support. As this could draw a relatively large audience. As in my mind, one
of our biggest advantages is having dabblet support. Being able to create
examples via a "dev" environment as opposed to doing it in markdown. As one
of the biggest questions asked by many people, is why use and contribute to
wp when we already have mdn? We can use dabblet, as well as our other
sources ( such as MSDN ) and existing MDN content to our advantage in not
only saying why, but instead showing them why to use wp.

On a small side note, I also think that we should try and strive to have
all our articles about spec's link to the actual spec as well as have a
section in the footer "extract from spec", where we extract and quote a
particular aspect from the spec. Thus whether you want an overview, an
example or to dive right into the spec, it is all in one location that is
easily accessible to all.

Some of the other thoughts are to also start using social media to our
advantage. By using things such as hangouts to interact with the community
( holding a doc sprint via hangouts on air or have an option of a g+
hangout while an existing sprint takes place with live feed to the event
engaging with people who couldn't make it ). instead of just having people
read blog posts and tweets about what we have done, we start asking
questions ( such as what the community wants to see on wp, what features
are they wanting), looking for engagement. Go to them instead of waiting
for them to come to us.

At the same time, we could promote the community dev team so that should
people be too shy to submit features or ask questions on the ML, they could
go to the dev rels and ask them. Get them to be the intermediate between
the ML and the community. As up until now, i didn't even know we had a
community dev team.

As at the moment we have two social media accounts, twitter and G+, but
neither of them are linked to on the home page, not the docs page but the
landing wp page. As the first thing, in my mind, is someone arrives on the
home page and has links to all the necessary pages, but not to the social
media accounts to keep up to date with the latest changes ( i have already
opened an suggestion for this on the relevant issue tracker ).

I know this is a lot longer than my original intention, sorry, but there is
a lot that we can still do to help drive this and get community
involvement. To become the go to name for all web doc needs ( for both
beginner and advanced ).

// Nic da Costa


On 6 June 2013 23:21, Julee <julee@adobe.com> wrote:

> Nic:
>
> That sounds great! We do have a community development team.[1] Scott Rowe
> and Janet Swisher are leading that effort, and do have a plan started.[2] I
> think having a dedicated dev rel group would really help!
>
> Look forward to hearing more about this!
>
> Julee
>
> [1] http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/WPD:Community
> [2]
> http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/WPD:Project_Status#Goals_for_Community
>
> ----------------------------
> julee@adobe.com
> @adobejulee
>
> From: Nic da Costa <njr.dacosta@gmail.com>
> Date: Thursday, June 6, 2013 2:14 PM
> To: "public-webplatform@w3.org" <public-webplatform@w3.org>
> Subject: Web Platform Public Involvement
>
> 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.
>
> // Nic da Costa
>