After a number of recent hiccups in smooth community working, here’s an “Annoyed Contributor” FAQ. [I would abbreviate Annoyed Contributor to AC, but I suspect that would cause a fair amount of confusion.]
- I’m a contributor, and I’m annoyed at something a member of mozilla.org staff or employee of the Mozilla Foundation has done. What do I do?
-
Take it up by email with the person concerned. If you can’t get no satisfaction, and if you feel the issue is important enough, email drivers@mozilla.org for code issues, and staff@mozilla.org for other issues.
Things not to do:
- Assume that just because a staff member has done it, it can’t be changed.
- Stew silently for weeks, then complain loudly in some newsgroup or forum that no staff member reads.
- Email staff@mozilla.org to complain that Ben’s tweaked the layout of the Advanced prefs dialog.
- I am reading a newsgroup or forum and see some complaining by an Annoyed Contributor. What do I do?
-
Find out what you can do to help resolve the matter to the satisfaction of everyone concerned.
Things not to do:
- Wade in with more inflammatory comments without understanding the whole issue.
- Immediately make a submission to Slashdot or some other news website.
- I work for a news organisation or website and I get a submission pointing out some complaining by an Annoyed Contributor. What do I do?
-
Find out the truth of the matter from all sides before deciding whether it’s worth posting.
Things not to do:
- Immediately post the article, with an “Unrest in the Mozilla Project” headline, thereby making the issue far bigger than it actually is.
Note: any resemblance of situations in this FAQ to actual incidents, living or dead, is possibly coincidental.
I wish the former NvuFR team could have read this post BEFORE attacking me with tons of insults and bullshits on nvufr.modzdev.org…
The beginning is a little narrowly worded – the most recent example was with Mozilla Update, and the people working on that (mostly) aren’t staff or employees of the Foundation. Some module owners also aren’t staff or employees. Really it’s anyone that the Mozilla Foundation has formally or informally delegated control of something to.
In the case of seeing an Annoyed Contributor in a forum, aside from trying to help, something that I’ve failed to do (and was told I should have done) is to bring it to the attention of staff/drivers yourself (or possibly tell Annoyed Contributor that they should do so).
Also, this is a nice blog post, but many of the people that should see it, now and in future, won’t see it here…
“Also, this is a nice blog post, but many of the people that should see it, now and in future, won’t see it here…”
Well, speaking at the person addressed to in the third question/answer*, don’t expect to see it on MozillaZine any time soon. We’d probably just give extra unwanted publicity to a post that was not made for mass publication. And we’d probably selectively quote or use quotations out of context, making it inaccurate.
* Though nobody contacted me to find out the “truth of the matter” before posting it. And I’m not sure why everyone seems to think the article was written from a submission. And can you “work for” a news website if you’re just a volunteer? And should I just quit doing this now as I clearly can’t get anything right?
“And we’d probably selectively quote or use quotations out of context, making it inaccurate.”
I’ve just apologised for my comments of that nature (back over on MozillaZine).
“And I’m not sure why everyone seems to think the article was written from a submission”
Because someone claimed to have submitted it. My earlier comment and Gerv’s blog post were both written before you pointed out that the story wasn’t based on the submission.
“And can you “work for” a news website if you’re just a volunteer?”
I’m not sure. If you can run Mozilla Update without being part of the Mozilla Foundation, then probably not.
“And should I just quit doing this now as I clearly can’t get anything right?”
Maybe you should suspend work on MozillaZine until your issues are resolved?
But no, you shouldn’t quit. Around here, nobody can do or say anything without someone else saying it’s wrong.
I can’t speak for everyone else, but personally I find I’m doing less useful stuff and more heckling as time goes on, because attempts to do useful stuff either go nowhere, or result in heckling from others…
Alex: this post may have been partly inspired by, but was certainly not directed solely at MozillaZine or you. Other contributing factors include the recent unrest in the l10n newsgroup about Thunderbird 1.0 localisations.
There are several differences between my fictional example scenario in question 3 and what happened just now. For example, your headline was not “Unrest in the Mozilla Project”, and, as you say, you don’t work for MozillaZine, you’re a volunteer. And you are not the only news organisation covering Mozilla.
The point of this blog posting is to encourage people to think and communicate rather than rant and assume. This message is directed equally to all contributors, without making any suggestions as to who needs to listen to it most.
By its nature, it’s fairly clear that this blog post is intended to be read by anyone. But, just in case there’s any doubt, it is, and you can post it on MozillaZine if you like :-)
I think part of the problem is that there is a lack of organized structure… loose is ok, lack of is a big problem.
http://www.mozilla.org/owners.html
Needs to be kept in order. So that all code, projects, ideas have owners, peer’s etc. Each should have 1 foundation member as a peer. That foundation member may have an active role, or be passive… but keep an eye on what is going on, etc. etc. *EVERY* project regardless of progress/status/code should be documented as a module. Each should have an owner, and a staff member on it. If not more than 1 of each. Anything done on mozilla servers/staff/cvs code involved… should be on that page.
And all people listed on that page should be active. If they aren’t active, they should be in a separate category of ‘inactive contributor’ or somethingt o that effect.
From a Management point of view, this is just going to be more of a problem as the project grows. The structure is to informal for the size. People don’t know what others are doing. This leads to conflict.
The resolution is to create an informal structure that doesn’t hamper development… but provides guidance, and prevents conflict.
That’s the only way this is going to be fixed. You need to create some structure. It’s to informal at this time.
>I find I’m doing less useful stuff and more heckling as time goes on, because attempts to do useful stuff either go nowhere, or result in heckling from others…
do backend stuff, the bigger the distance to the front end the less politics that you can’t influence are involved. There are enough bugs for everybody.
Robert: I understand from comments made previously (in a newsgroup by someone – Brendan?), the main reason for having inactive people on the owners page is because there are no active people to replace them.
Having more structure would be good, but I’m not sure that’s a solution in itself – it depends on Mozilla staff/employees devoting more time to management and administration. Stuff like localisation, Mozilla Update, and other areas that have had problems are pretty much managed externally. They don’t want to devote more resources to managing those things.
They may be right that stepping in when a crisis happens actually takes less of their time than keeping an eye on everything all the time. I’m not sure.
They may also be right that employing a bunch of people to mostly work on actually writing code and doing marketing gets more done than employing a bunch of people who mostly work on coordinating a large number of outsiders each doing a small amount of work.
Bernd: that’s a good point. Sadly I can’t code in any useful way, but I could get back into doing testcases and stuff…
Are weblogs fair game? :D I admit freely that sometimes when I’ve exhausted all other options, I’ve posted notes pointing people to an issue that concerned me, asking people to help. Usually (but not always) it gets results, and usually, I’m pretty nice about it.
excellent. this should go up on mozilla.org
maybe a new page and link from here? http://www.mozilla.org/contribute/
I forget who it was (I think it was one of the Foundation folks on n.p.m.seamonkey), but last time someone suggested making the Mozilla staff address more obvious, it was pointed out that it would lead to increased amounts of inappropriate emails to staff. Maybe someone should email staff@ to ask what they all think of the idea?
We already get enough emails asking for support on staff@. And as my email address is more visible than most, I personally get loads. It’s sad to say it, but I think we are just going to have to spread the procedure by word of mouth…