About the doc

[Valentin]

Hi!

I asked Chris Mills (Senior Technical Writer) from the MDN team for more details about the usage of MDN by community projects and B2G OS in particular here are his answers (copied here with his permission):

Recently we moved the Firefox OS Apps content out of the Apps Center to its own subarea[0], and we moved all of the Firefox OS-specific APIs out of the /Web/API/ section into its own home[1]. This has helped to make the FxOS docs more modular, and less confusing for readers.

Future work is as follows:

1. I personally would like to rebrand all the FxOS docs to B2G, as this is the name the OS project looks like it will take going forward. Then we can make the current /Firefox_OS/ area of the site[2] into a portal for all the knowledge around the B2G OS project. Hopefully I can find some people to help me clean up this area of the site, as I’m sure there is a whole bunch of stuff we ought to get rid of, or archive!

2. I also want to move the Firefox OS TV docs[3] out of the Firefox OS area into its own section, as it will no longer fit under the B2G area after the proposed rebrand, despite being based on it; we’d probably put it under /Mozilla/, as it is a Mozilla project. It would make more sense to keep the docs modular like this, and then say “this is based on the B2G OS project”, if we need to make the connection clear.

3. For connected devices projects such as Vaani, I’m proposing to again give them their own separate docs sections under /Mozilla/.

I’ve had conversations about this stuff with various members of the engineering teams behind those projects, but I’ve not had definite answers to proceed.

For community projects in general, our policy is that we will support them with advice, helping to set up page hierarchies, etc., but we don’t have the resources available to actively participate with writing and editing, given the amount of central Mozilla/web technologies we have to work on. For each project, we’d advise the appointing of a topic driver[4] to oversee the doc project, and drive volunteer participation in creating the docs.

This is not to say that I’ll refuse to do any more work on B2G OS — I want to get it to a stable state, and I am also interested in the project still. But I realistically won’t be able to spend a large amount of time on it, going forward.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/Firefox_OS_apps
[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/API
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS
[3] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox_OS/TV
[4] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/Community/Roles/Topic_driver_role/Drivers_and_curators

So this is good news, we can use MDN going forward!

[Valentin]

Hi!

There is more news from Chris:

In terms of the docs, I think the community should do this:

• Appoint a topic driver, who can effectively be responsible for the project, be volunteer’s main point of contact, wrangle them to write stuff, and be my main contact for the project.
• Write a rough documentation structure to represent their ideal docs for this project.
• Have a look at the current docs and work out what stuff we can reuse and what stuff can be thrown out
• Liaise with me to restructure the existing resource, to get it to a point where they an start working on it.

You can reach him at cmills at mozilla dot com or chrismills on Mozilla IRC.

It is also very likely that we organize a few Doc Sprints (online and in the meatspace) to work on this. Do you think it would be a good idea? Would you like to participate?
Also, if you want to volunteer to be the “topic driver”, please let us know here!

Cheers!

[Valentin]

Hey people!

Tonight is the MDN “Mercredi Doc” meeting in Paris, whether you’re in the area or elsewhere, if you feel like contributing and starting to work on the B2G OS doc, please join!
You can chat on IRC on the channels #mdn, #frenchmoz and #l10n-f. Ping Jeremie there, he will be able to help you.

If you want to join physically, you can register here.

Cheers!

[Valentin]

Hi!

I propose we do a meeting soon to talk more about the documentation effort, what are our priorities and get the doc restructuring started!
You can vote on this poll to fix a date, times are Central Europe Summer Time (CEST).

Talk to you soon.

[penserbjorne (Paul Sebastian Aguilar Enriquez)]

Hi Valentin!

I propose to use http://doodle.com/ to organize the events, AFAIK doodle let the organizer set the time for the event and when the other participants consult the event they see the time in their own local time.

Regards!

[stargayte (Philippe)]

The meeting is a good idea, the documentation is really important. I will be there if I can.

[lapineige]

But again it’s a non-free tool
@Valentin maybe you can add the base timezone in the title.

There is a request in the repo of this project asking for it, I just add a little +1. Hopefully they will add it.

[penserbjorne (Paul Sebastian Aguilar Enriquez)]

Haha sorry! I forgot that is a non-free tool D;

I like the idea of add the base time zone, or maybe work on UTC

[Valentin]

Sorry, I can’t edit it anymore, but thanks for your feedback, I’ll put the hours in UTC next time.

[Valentin]

Also, even if Chris can’t make it today, i think it will be good to get started already.
Please join us at 18:00 CEST/16:00 UTC/9am PDT/21:30 IST on the B2G Vidyo room on the B2G OS telegram group or #fxos IRC channel on irc.mozilla.org.

An etherpad is available here : https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/B2G_doc for notes and questions.

See you!

[stargayte (Philippe)]

I see this too late. If it’s 17:00 in France, I can’t be there
I will follow the pad from my phone.

[Valentin]

No, it’s 18:00 in France (Central European Summer Time), so in half an hour.

[stargayte (Philippe)]

Ok. I will be late so I hope it will not.be finished.