[CLOSED] Announcing "Mozilla Community Mobilizers" (Community Run Experiment)

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

Update: This thread is being closed based on conversation with @nukeador and @debloper and I’ve decided to work with reps team and bring incremental changes towards the final goal of an inclusive reps program (there is no way I can see a disruptive change will be brought on, no matter what I do)

Original post below the line

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Dear Mozillians,

Welcome to the Community Mobilizers program. Community mobilizers are passionate Mozillians who mobilize and develop functional and local/regional communities. They are committed to empowering others to contribute to Mozilla projects.

Overview

Community Mobilizers are passionate Mozillians who mobilize and develop functional and local/regional Mozilla communities. They are committed to educate and empower people to support Mozilla’s mission and contribute to the project based on Mozilla’s priority areas.

Community mobilizers are community coordinators interested in:

• finding and connecting new talent with Mozilla projects they are contributing to
• developing communities on a functional or local level
• supporting local communities and Mozilla to have an effective and decentralized environment for contribution
• creating collaborations with adjacent communities to spread Mozilla’s mission and expand Mozilla’s outreach in the open source ecosystem
• collecting local knowledge from Mozilla communities to inform and inspire Mozilla’s strategy, activities and priorities

Community mobilizers are here to help, empower and inspire people to contribute to Mozilla projects.

The Community Mobilizers Program is open to everyone who is a Mozilian. Following are the benefits of joining the Community Mobilizers Program:

• Access to a global community which includes people from many different countries and cultural backgrounds
• Opportunity to help your local community grow
• Grow your leadership and communication skills and build networks with new people from many different countries around the globe
• Amplify Mozilla’s impact in your local region and functional area.

An open and community-run program

The Community Mobilizers program is open to anyone who is:

• passionate about the Mozilla Project
• knowledgeable of the Mozilla organization, its mission, its products and its community
• willing to communicate to as many people as possible and keen to inspire people to contribute to Mozilla

Anyone can sign-up to become a Community Mobilizer by joining this Telegram group.

FAQ

Can anyone become a Community Mobilizer?

Yes, any Mozillian who is passionate about the mission can become a community mobilizer. If you are not feeling confident about your abilities as a community mobilizer, but would love to become an effective community mobilizer, do join the program as others will help you become an effective community mobilizer.

Isn’t the reps program same as this?

The reps program is similar to the community mobilizer program. But there are a few major differences:

• The community mobilizers program is an unofficial, community-run experiment and as such does not get budget or swags from Mozilla.
• The community mobilizers program is open to all and selection to the program is through self-selection.

Can reps also join the program?

Of course they can. It is an open program.

How is the program governed?

As of now, the program is at its infancy and therefore the governance structure is evolving. Please join the conversation in the telegram group to help.

Isn’t this duplication of efforts in the reps program?

There is some amount of duplication of efforts. But, that is necessary for helping a lot of Mozillians who do not become eligible to join the reps program to be able to effectively mobilize communities.

Wouldn’t it be better to modify the reps program to suit this purpose?

The reps program has grown too big to change and it takes considerable amount of effort to engage with the program and modify it to suit the needs of mozillians. This experiment, being new, and having no baggage from the past, can quickly be converted into a form that suits the needs of the community.

Will this last 2019, at least?

You have to answer that. If you see the need for an open program to help every mozillian effectively mobilize communities, join the program and keep it alive.

[nukeador (Ruben Martin ❌ [away till Aug 31st])]

The reps program has grown too big to change and it takes considerable amount of effort to engage with the program and modify it to suit the needs of mozillians. This experiment, being new, and having no baggage from the past, can quickly be converted into a form that suits the needs of the community.

I respectfully disagree with this. @asdofindia you have opened various topics this and last week to provide feedback about the Reps program, everyone has been listening and taking notes on the point we can improve.

Now I read this and I feel you are trying to duplicate all the efforts we are doing over Reps instead of helping to improve. The Reps program is already a volunteer-lead program where anyone can chime in to help improve.

If you are motivated to help how mozillians mobilize communities, my recommendation is that you focus your energies helping Reps to improve the program, by identifying and analyzing the current problems and working with other volunteers on testing the best solutions, that might or might not be the ones you initially had.

Thanks.

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

The Reps program is already a volunteer-lead program where anyone can chime in to help improve.

Will the reps program be willing to become an open program which any mozillian can join? If not, no matter how much energy I put in, it is not worth my time.

[nukeador (Ruben Martin ❌ [away till Aug 31st])]

Will the reps program be willing to become an open program which any mozillian can join? If not, no matter how much energy I put in, it is not worth my time.

Any mozillian can join the Reps program as people have been already pointing out here:

Improving application and on-boarding

This topic was created because the previous topic was too much for people to go through. A summary of the questions and answers provided Why are the reps application bugs private? What are the questions that are still open? Leaving this empty because rhetorical questions are being considered as literal questions by the people who are responding. Converting most of the questions into problems because the questions are actually about problems. What are the problems that we want to solve? Sele…

I want to point out that creating so many topics about this and now creating a proposal to duplicate efforts is not helping people to engage with your feedback and I think it’s not positive.

Cheers.

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

Any mozillian can join the Reps program as people have been already pointing out here:

No. There is a selection criteria.

[nukeador (Ruben Martin ❌ [away till Aug 31st])]

Please add your comments to the already opened topic about on-boarding.

I as I said, I feel having so many topics about the same is disruptive and honestly I don’t have more time to track so many places, I’m sure others will engage in the existing topics over Reps discourse.

I just want to signal again that I think this is not helpful if you want to help mozillians mobilize, please listen to others, engage and compare ideas in the existing topics.

Cheers.

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

Please add your comments to the already opened topic about on-boarding.

I as I said, I feel having so many topics about the same is disruptive and honestly I don’t have more time to track so many places, I’m sure others will engage in the existing topics over Reps discourse.

I just want to signal again that I think this is not helpful if you want to help mozillians mobilize, please listen to others, engage and compare ideas in the existing topics.

Do you think I have so much time to repeatedly make the same arguments? The selection criteria of the reps program is unreasonably restricted. I’ve made my comments about it in the discourse topic you’re talking about. You can ignore me from now on as I’m no longer going to make comments about the reps program. I’m exhausted by trying to engage with the reps program.

[nukeador (Ruben Martin ❌ [away till Aug 31st])]

The selection criteria of the reps program is unreasonably restricted. I’ve made my comments about it in the discourse topic you’re talking about. You can ignore me from now on as I’m no longer going to make comments about the reps program. I’m exhausted by trying to engage with the reps program.

If you want to improve the process, please work with the people who are working on improving the on-boarding. What I’m seeing instead is that you are proposing a program to follow your criteria instead of coming to agreements with the rest of the community.

Please, engage and work with the on-boarding team with your ideas. Creating a lot of topics with a lot of questions is disruptive and people won’t engage. I personally would like to see you working with the on-boarding team before I continue my engagement.

Cheers.

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

If you want to improve the process, please work with the people who are working on improving the on-boarding. What I’m seeing instead is that you are proposing a program to follow your criteria instead of coming to agreements with the rest of the community.

Please, engage and work with the on-boarding team with your ideas. Creating a lot of topics with a lot of questions is disruptive and people won’t engage. I personally would like to see you working with the on-boarding team before I continue my engagement.

@nukeador, I trust you and respect you for the patience with which you respond. Only someone who has the long term vision of a healthy community can engage so respectfully. I can edit this thread to indicate that this experiment is closed, but only under the condition that there will be a honest attempt to question every fundamental assumptions made in the current design of the reps program and the willingness to make radical changes without asking “what is the problem you’re trying to solve?”.

The problem I’m trying to solve is enabling anyone passionate about the community to do community mobilization.

There are many restrictions in the selection criteria of the reps program which are probably inherited from the programs past where reps where official representatives of Mozilla. That is no longer the case and the selection criteria does not have to be restrictive any more. In fact, I see no reason why reps can’t be self-selected.

As long as we disagree on the above paragraph, I don’t think there is a point in me trying to engage with any team (on-boarding or council or leadership).

What do you say?

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

And one more reason why radical changes are sometimes required is that incremental changes are difficult to make in large systems.

For example, the moment I say “self-selected reps”, there will be a counter-argument, but what about training, mentorship, etc? We can’t give 10000 people training or mentorship.

We can give have 10000 reps if we are willing to make many simultaneous changes. For that, there needs to be a fundamental rethink.

Without any of that, there is no point.

[asdofindia (Akshay)]

You don’t have to agree my condition @nukeador. I’m dropping this idea voluntarily. I see reason why it maybe better to not push for disruptive changes in a program that cannot handle that. I will work with you, if the invitation is still open.

Discourse admins, please lock this thread.