What do you like to do for Mozilla?

Communities North America
#1

We’re all contributing in different areas of Mozilla. To start to coordinate regional activities, we need to find some interests in common. This post is a wiki post, so add in your areas of interest here, add your name to other people’s entries and discuss in the comments.

Privacy Education

@Kensie: I’d be interested in running local events or online campaigns that help teach end users that privacy is not a lost cause, and things they can do to help protect their data, and why they should care. I’d like to see us as Mozillians pushing for better social networks that a) use protocols rather than locking the user in to a single platform and/or b) have better privacy protections for users like Diaspora or Mastodon. I think social media is due for a shake-up.

End-user Support and Education

@Kensie: I’d be interested in running events and online campaigns that help end users get more comfortable with the browser itself. Understanding the settings, keyboard shortcuts, the URL bar, how to understand URLs. I think that many end users could be more savvy than they are if we gave them good ways to learn rather than trying to dumb everything down. Not everyone of course, but I think it would be good for the internet if the collective knowledge level were raised

Community Building/Recruitment

@Kensie: I like helping people do what they want to do. I like connecting people and having a community. I would be interested in running events to onboard new contributors. I’d be interested in helping run an online portal where we help connect potential volunteers to opportunities and communities. Mozilla’s plans for a Get Involved page have always tried to automate connecting people with opportunities. That works for people who are focused on the code, but is not what people who are looking for a community to belong to want to see.

Language

@Kensie: I am very interested in the potential the internet provides not for us to consolidate around one language, but to each speak in our own languages and be understood by others in their languages. I don’t think we should be allowing big corporations, like Google to own this. Yes they have made a lot of headway, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities along the way. I also think there is room to explore tools Mozillians can use (including from those big corporations :wink: ) so that they don’t have to be fluent in English to be able to fully participate.

en-CA or en-FR l10n

@Kensie: Canadians use both British and American English. Even more than that though we do have a need for customized URLs. Our laws are different and so US content doesn’t always work for us. French is more different but we’d need contributors from Quebec I think.

B2G

@Kensie: Another one where I have a lot of interest in a coding project that I have no skill in. :wink: As a consumer FirefoxOS was a very important product for me. I would very much want to see the community take over. I think there is a lot of potential. There are lots of people who think it’s a lost cause but if they put their skills together it wouldn’t be. I’m not sure the current state of the project, but it’s one I care a lot about.

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#2

If you didn’t know, Discourse allows you to make a post a wiki post. To edit the main post to add your ideas click the green edit icon:

wiki_post.png1014×259 34.4 KB

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#3

I still like the b2g project, too. :slight_smile:

#4

What about a live translation programme that auyomatically translates for that region? What about a Firefox browser extension that would do automatic translation for that region? If this hasn’t already been created, why not make it for Firefox browser?

#5

End-user support and education is actually given where I work as a Computer Technician. But, doing this in more than just the SuMo website and there, would be helpful. How do you suggest we Mozillians do so? :slight_smile:

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#6

Community building and recruitment:

I think this is a great topic and idea of which I have done to some extent, online, as a Rep. And, I have noticed that new contributors are highly interested in coding to help contribute, but need projects of which to help. I have shown them the Mozilla/Kuma (MDN) project, as one example of the ways they can help code, and contributing to Thimble and to Firefox as another. But, could use assistance to get that handled, easier, as my time has been less as I have been handling biopsies and soon tumour removal, plus more scans, plus work on top if it all (I am juggling getting my IT business more up and running and working at a Tech job for a different company). I have not had too much time to contribute to further this to find a better way as you might have found. Please do assist me.

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#7

Last I looked, the SUMO site focuses a lot more on support than education, ie how to help someone solve a problem they know they have, rather than built to teach people about the browser.

Some of us actually had an idea ages ago to build some tutorial add-ons that would walk you through what you were trying to do. So if someone was trying to learn how to change a particular setting they would run the add-on and it would guide them through where to click to get to the setting and then helping them choose what to set it to.

The idea was well received but we didn’t have the coding skills to implement it.

Another idea would be to have a site kinda like MDN but rather than being about building the internet it would be about using the internet.

And then I think in person workshops would be great. We could offer them at libraries in North America. I had been trying to think of ways we could partner with libraries. I think in NA that is a better place for us than coffee shops. I don’t see a MozCoffee working as well here. Especially since we do not have the same type of coffee shops. Ours are a lot more like fast food places where you’re not expected to stay so the seating is not the same as in EU.

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#8

In terms of coding contributions, I think we could try to help leverage this. We have a better chance of developing relationships with Mozilla developers, for example quite a few work in my city. If we can build relationships with the teams we can help connect volunteers.

Though also it has been my past experience that a good way to get started with code contributions is actually to start out with QA on Bugzilla. It’s sort of like developer orientation.

I’ve also had a plan for a while to revive the Dev Derby competition, but again it needed volunteers with dev skills.

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#9

Very valid and great points you gave, herein. I agree with them, especially about the add-ons that will teach users to learn how to use Firefox. And, I think that in person work shops held in libraries can be the better choice. But, what about ALSO holding these same types if events within the CoLab? I already have a year’s membership at both CoLab Spaces within the Roanoke, VA area. So, that wouldn’t cost me anything to hold those, there.

#10

May I help with the Dev competitions?

#11

If we can find a few more people interested, I would be happy to start discussions back up again and see how far we can get this time. There was a lot of staff support, just couldn’t find the volunteers last time around.

#12

I definitely can find them. But, most are not of North America. :frowning: What if
I cannot find more of North America to contribute for this? Should we then
use contributors who are devs from outside of North America, or?

#13

As I’ve always been somewhat averse to learning programming, I like to give user-level feedback and occasionally design a theme or two.

Speaking of Themes, what I’d really like is for the Firefox folks to modify the handling of the user-submitted Theme designs so the entire bottom half isn’t cut off upon applying the design, and the image hugely focused in on.

After all, we put just as much work into the bottom half of our designs as our top halves, and the automatic zooming-in that Firefox does when you apply a specific theme, also makes other weird and unsightly changes to the chosen theme, too.

#14

Absolutely. This doesn’t need to be exclusively a Mozilla NA thing. It
would just be an active project that we would be able to help other NA
volunteers get involved in because we’d (you and I and whoever else is in)
be running it.

#15

Hi Ronnigon,

Have you see this article about themes? http://vanillaorchidstutorials.blogspot.ca/2015/11/mozilla-themes-focal-point-sizing.html

Also have you seen topics like this in the Themes forum - https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/confusion-over-pixel-size-of-themes-for-header/3007 ?

You also have to remember that when Personas were first introduced there was a lot more toolbar showing by default, and people could still put them back now if they wanted to.

#16

Oh, and I should mention that we need help with Mozilla Community Web Services. With documentation, with process management and with Sys Admin type work.

#17

Thanks for the info. Someone else showed me an example of how to lay out Theme designs so they appear properly once they’re installed. Apparently you the image has to be exactly 200 pixels tall, but the image that you actually want to appear has to begin about 10 pixels down from the top and then extend down to just a bit below the halfway mark. And also the desired image really has to be on the right right and then have a monochrome fill to the left, out to a whopping 3000 pixels.

It’s a really strange format, and it also looks like even that’s going to be changing in the upcoming months. In the meantime, here are the themes I submitted with this new knowledge:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/user/Ronnigon/themes

#18

I will do what I can, but my programming skills remain remedial at best, although I did get my CCNA back in 2009 for all the good it did me, with nobody even remotely interested in hiring me despite having it and my bachelor’s degree from Lah Dee Dah University. I also have creative design skills.

#19

It is called B2G OS now. Community developed. To contribute please see the B2G/Hacking page and the Firefox OS Participation Hub. The meetings are held at 9 AM PST every Tuesday at https://wiki.mozilla.org/B2G/Meeting. The code and bulidng guide is here https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/B2G/blob/master/README.md

#20

Nice. :slight_smile: K. Cool. :slight_smile: