Competition: The Mozilla Manifesto Principles in Simple Words

Randall Munroe of XKCD has written a whole book which explains things using only simple words. It’s called “Thing Explainer“. He’s also written a writing checker for people who want to write more things like that.

I am asking everyone to see if they can write the ten key points of the Mozilla Manifesto in a new way, saying the same things but using only simple words which his checker likes (like this writing that you are reading does).

You are allowed to use “Internet” even though it’s not a simple word, but if you find a way to not use “Internet”, that’s even better. You are also allowed to use “Mozilla” in the heading at the top, which will be “Mozilla Manifesto” but using only simple words.

It’s probably best if you put up your writing somewhere else on the Internet and then add some information here to say where it is. But if that’s a problem for you, you can put your writing here instead.

The person who makes the best writing will get something. I don’t know what yet. But making the best writing should make you happy anyway.

If you think this is a good and fun idea, then please tell everyone you know (in a nice way) so they can try as well.

I hope everything goes very well for you in this.

2 thoughts on “Competition: The Mozilla Manifesto Principles in Simple Words

  1. This was a fun project, thanks. Unfortunately, I had to rely on some idioms and metaphors in some areas, which I think sort of defeats the objective of using small words to explain things. Here’s what I came up with:

    1) The way we use computers to talk to other computers and to share our information around the world is an important part of everyone’s life today—it is important in how we teach, in how we learn, in how we share ideas, in how we work together, in how we run our businesses, in how we have fun, and in our lives as a whole.

    2) Having a world of computers that share information helps all of the people in the world, and so must remain open and within reach for all, even for people who can’t see, or can’t hear, or for some other reason need more help than normal when using their computer.

    3) It is important for every human that when they use a computer to share information around the world, it should be able to make their lives better.

    4) Each person has the need to keep some things safe from bad people who would steal from them, or to keep some things to themselves without everyone else knowing those things. When people use their computer to share information around the world, it does not take away this need. Each person must always be able to keep some things safe or to themselves, no matter what.

    5) People must be able to shape the way their computer talks to all the other computers, so they can change the system in ways that suit them. The information they get from their computer should not be a fixed thing, they should be able to make it different, if doing so helps them enjoy it more.

    6) For computers to talk to other computers and share information around the world in a way that helps every person without having problems, it is important that people agree on the different ways for the computers to talk, the different ways to store information in bits and pieces, and the ways those pieces come together to store ideas. It is also important that people can bring new ideas to the table and can share those ideas with other people around the world without needing to buy something or be a member of some special group.

    7) After you start your computer, you can run things. Some of these things, you have to pay money for and you are not allowed to make any changes to how they work. But you can also have things that run on your computer where you are allowed to make changes to how they work and you can give away what you have or what you changed to someone else without you or the other person having to pay anyone. By using and changing these things and sharing them with other people who can do the same, it helps keep all of the computers in the world working in a way that is good for all the people in the world.

    8) When we work on things with other people, it is important that we do it in a way that is not hidden from view. We should let people see what we are working on and also let other people join in if they want to work on it with us. When we do our work in this way, it makes more people want to work with us. Working in this way makes it hard for any person who is on the team to lie about what they plan to do, how/when/where/why they plan to do it, or to lie about what they said in the past. This helps make people trust us and want to help us.

    9) Some people, or companies, want to work on the things that make computers talk to other computers, or that let people share information with other people all over the world, with the hopes of making small or large bits of money for their work. This can be a good thing. But it is very important that we don’t put so much weight on making money that it hurts some of the people around the world who want to share their information. We need to keep things even between making money and looking after the good ways that people want to use their computer and share information.

    10) Giving more attention to the people who, as a group or by themselves, are trying to use their computers to share information around the world in ways that they think are good or that make them happy, is an important effort. Doing work to help these people is time well spent. We should bring attention to these people and how their part in the world should be remembered, beyond just making money from them, their computers or their shared information.

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