Engaging developers in Mozilla docs
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The Mozilla Developer Network site provides documentation not for only developers working on or with Mozilla code, but also for web developers working with open web technologies. I'll discuss various efforts for encouraging this diverse audience to participate in maintaining the documentation. Some of these are led by Mozilla, such as documentation sprints (both face-to-face and virtual) and "Wiki Wednesdays". Others are from external sources, such as other organizations, and the grassroots "Promote JS" campaign. I'll talk about how these strategies can be applied to other open source projects.
Engaging developers in Mozilla docs
- 1. Engaging Developers in Mozillas Documentation Janet Swisher (@jmswisher) Mozilla Developer Network
- 2. Why are we here?
- 3. What is MDN? https://developer.mozilla.org
- 4. What Is MDN? Content Web development: reference, tutorials, and guides Mozilla APIs Mozilla project (building, testing, debugging, process) Firefox add-on development Audience Web developers Developers using Mozilla code/libraries Developers working on the Mozilla project Add-on developers
- 5. Where content comes from Some historical content (e.g., inherited from Netscape) New material Some paid for by Mozilla Some contributed by Mozilla community Some from other communities
- 6. Documentation process Using Bugzilla as a documentation planning tool Documentation-specific bugs Tags on engineering bugs Prioritization and delegation Tagging for review
- 7. Communication channels IRC (#devmo on irc.mozilla.org) Mailing list/news group/Google group (dev-mdc@lists.mozilla.org) Blog posts ( http://hacks.mozilla.org ) Talk pages (under-used)
- 8. MDN community meetings Every other Wednesday, 10 am PT Agenda in Mozilla project wiki Discussion in IRC
- 9. Wiki Wednesdays Target Audience: Mozilla developers Blog post, with chunks to topic-specific mailing lists Credit given to last weeks contributors Special email alias
- 10. Doc sprints First one in-person in Paris, Oct. 2010 Virtual, late January 2011 Virtual, early April 2011 Following this conference
- 11. Why people don t contribute They don t realize it's a wiki They don t want to bother setting up an account They re intimidated by changing the documentation
- 12. Webdev community
- 13. Cooperation with other groups
- 14. What could we do better? Welcome Wagon 5-minute tasks More/better recognition (badges?) New contributor map
- 15. Take Away View your mission as bigger than software. Ask for help and reviews in small chunks. Talk to developers and contributors through their preferred channels. Look for alliances based on your (broad) mission.
- 16. Thanks! Janet Swisher: jswisher@mozilla.com, @jmswisher https://developer.mozilla.org/
Editor's Notes
- #2: The purpose of this presentation is not to say that we are awesome, but to share wh
- #6: Other community content can be donated or paid for by other organizations, like Google or IBM.
- #7: Note also that Bugzilla is open to everyone to read (with the exception of specific security bugs), and to edit with a login. Talk about Florian s tool a bit.
- #9: Announced on the mailing list Conducted in IRC, no phone charges Page on the Mozilla project wiki serves as both agenda and notes
- #10: Script-generated lists, based on tags Posted to Mozilla developer mailing lists Credit given to previous weeks contributors Email responses accepted (good and bad)
- #11: About to have our 2 nd in-person sprint Have done 2 online-only sprints Biggest participation was when we promised t-shirts
- #12: Tell the story of the guy who was hesitant to edit docs written by the guy that invented JavaScript.