Re: Web Platform Public Involvement

Nic:

Thanks much for all of this! I'm all for getting more developers aware and involved. And these are just the kinds of gaps that we need to address. I personally feel like each one of the things you mention below should be at least looked at, if not acted upon, with priority.

But you're right: you bring up several issues. Have you checked out our project area: project.webplatform.org? That would be a good place to separate out the issues you mention. You can file a bug, enhancement, or even an ideaunder the "Community" project?[2]

Also, the community task force is meeting this coming Tuesday.[1] If you'd like to join that meeting, you can see what we're up to, and add agenda items for increasing awareness  and all.

Look forward to working with you and Doug on Monday to sort the CSS properties for the coming weeks.

Regards.
Julee
[1] http://docs.webplatform.org/wiki/WPD:Community/Meetings/Community_Development
[2] http://project.webplatform.org/community/issues/open
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julee@adobe.com
@adobejulee

From: Nic da Costa <njr.dacosta@gmail.com<mailto:njr.dacosta@gmail.com>>
Date: Sunday, June 9, 2013 12:07 PM
To: julee <julee@adobe.com<mailto:julee@adobe.com>>
Cc: "public-webplatform@w3.org<mailto:public-webplatform@w3.org>" <public-webplatform@w3.org<mailto:public-webplatform@w3.org>>
Subject: 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<mailto: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

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julee@adobe.com<mailto:julee@adobe.com>
@adobejulee

From: Nic da Costa <njr.dacosta@gmail.com<mailto:njr.dacosta@gmail.com>>
Date: Thursday, June 6, 2013 2:14 PM
To: "public-webplatform@w3.org<mailto:public-webplatform@w3.org>" <public-webplatform@w3.org<mailto: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