Defining focus activities

Hello everyone,

As part of the refreshing the Participation buffet and moving forward with the participation leaders, we are currently working on defining a set of areas that are going to be more relevant for Mozilla’s goals during the next months.

Note that these are just the initial ones and we will keep updating new ones as soon as they are ready.

The areas where we are currently working are:

  • Developer engagement.
  • Rust and Servo contributions.
  • Privacy/Security outreach.

During the next weeks and months we will be posting here links to concrete activities you can start doing right away to support these areas. I just wanted to reach out to you all now so you know what’s coming! :wink:

Cheers.

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It is really nice to know the focus, waiting to know exactly for very long time.

@nukeador Will Addons come under Developer Engagement ?

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We are still figuring out with the teams the specific activities, as soon as we have them we will post here.

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The activities related to Privacy/ Security outreach will be a hit, atleast in countries like India. Given that the campaigns like Privacy month and TBTW have been a success, if I narrow down to the local community at my end, having the activities not just focused on the students of schools and universities but for others (maybe employees or homemakers) too would be great. The online space here, is shared by all of them(mostly) and I feel everyone needs to understand the importance of this.

That being said, I’ve observed a growing interest in middle aged people around here ( who are not so tech savvy but sure use the technology and the web) to understand more about how the data they share online might be used by others and how to protect themselves from this. They surely want to share data but not at the risk of the data being used against them for any kind of attack.

Most people blindly trust the websites or assume the risk involved isn’t of much concern. I’m sure they will understand the risk when they know the importance of Privacy/ Security aspects of the web. The notion of “I’ve nothing to hide” shall surely change and that’s what is mostly needed.

This is purely based on my personal experience with the people around me :slight_smile: I guess most others will agree as well ! Lastly, I’ve also seen a growing interest in these people who not only want to know and understand the privacy aspects but also share it with others of their (professional/personal) community on a small scale, purely based on a knowledge-sharing criteria. I guess, that is what we, as volunteers (at Mozilla) are trying to achieve?

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I was asked to answer the following questions with the focus areas as context.

Are you already working on them (3 focus areas)? Do you see community growth opportunities there? How?

Yes, I’m currently working on two of the listed focus areas.

With respect to developer engagement, I’m involved in organizing hackathons (both theme based and bug fixing models) and facilitating workshops. In a theme based hackathon, developers are asked to create a working prototype of an application in the platform of their own chance. This gives a chance for the devs to be innovative and provides the platform to put their thoughts into action. In the bug fixing model (also known as a developer code sprint), there is a list of curated bugs that the participants can chose from and solve in an over-night effort. The bugs can be from one project or a collection of Mozilla’s project. Adequate care needs to be taken to ensure that the mentors of the bugs are informed before hand and the development setup needs to be provided to the participants. I see a wide community growth opportunity in this area, provided the host city has a well established developer community. (Example: Bangalore) Developers are receptive to changes in technology and are willing to put in the time and effort to build something new. We can tap in to this potential to engage existing developers with Mozilla’s projects & create pathways to fix bugs. Also, the learning curve isn’t much when we talk about popular concepts like web development. At the college level, I’ve conducted multiple workshops on topics like python, web dev, bugzilla, encryyption, etc. These have helped me build a network of like mined folk & get contributors for Mozilla’s front line projects. All my workshops have a connection with either one of Mozilla’s technologies or a specific project.

The other area I’ve worked significantly is on advocating for privacy and fair internet. Like minded communities like the FSMI, Save The Interet and others come together in times of crisis like the recently concluded debate on net neutrality in India. As a promoter of the open web, I’ve staged protests, written blog posts and given speeches about how violations in net neutrality could affect the entire internet ecosystem as we know it today to a mixed audience of FSAs, Mozillians and the general public. This is not something that can be achieved by an event on one day, it’s a work in progress as it involves changing the mindsets of people. I’ve seen huge receptions at the FSA level - taking the message to let their peers know at the college level. People who are moved by such issues end up taking the initiative to ask questions and help others around them realize the reality - especially in the under 25 age group. Like @n_srushtika mentioned, there is a growing trend towards people becoming data sensitive and as leaders, we can use it to spread awareness. Programs like TBTW can be influential, but there needs to be a consistent effort in this direction.

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Yes. “Consistency” is a point I missed out on mentioning in my post.

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Thanks everyone for your feedback so far, please keep it coming. We have been diving deeper into this to see what the most impactful opportunities are for everyone.

For developer engagement, some things we’ve been looking into are: webcompat; e10s; Rust; Test Pilot (experimental browser features).

If you have already been working in these areas and have experiences to share, or if you want to suggest something else that would fit, please let me know.

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Hi @bking, can add-ons be considered as one of the development engagement activities? And how about developer sprints to fix bugs in Firefox?

Hi @bking

For developer engagement, some things we’ve been looking into are:
webcompat; e10s; Rust; Test Pilot (experimental browser features).

These are really exciting areas where contributors can get in and contribute.

@abhi12ravi I personally feel, if we are contributing to test pilot, to some extent we are also contribute to WebExtension (Add-ons ) .

Apart from writing automation test scripts, writing code patches what all the things we can focus on non-technically. I am sure around 30% (or even beyond) contributors are non-coders. If we can sit and spend sometime in having a wiki with different details or pathways where a contributor on contribute to those areas it will be very helpful.

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The goal, initially at least, is for the activities to be not too technical, but more lightweight ways to engage all types of Mozillians. With add-ons for example, it likely won’t be anything around writing add-ons. However it could be, for example, around testing add-ons as part of the e10s compatibility push as it goes into production.

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Quick update: We are finishing everything to launch a mini-site soon, we have been a bit delayed because we want to have activities 100% ready.

Thanks for your patience :slight_smile:

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