Comments on: The hard sell http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/ Five Different Types of Fried Cheese Fri, 28 May 2010 20:51:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Community Management in Open Source Slidecast http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/comment-page-1/#comment-19989 Community Management in Open Source Slidecast Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:34:56 +0000 http://coop.deadsquid.com/?p=1064#comment-19989 [...] es. The feedback from the talk itself has been great. You can reviews, good and bad, here, here, here, here, and in the comments here. I’m already working on a second version so if you have any th [...] [...] es. The feedback from the talk itself has been great. You can reviews, good and bad, here, here, here, here, and in the comments here. I’m already working on a second version so if you have any th [...]

]]> By: Coop http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/comment-page-1/#comment-19068 Coop Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:41:10 +0000 http://coop.deadsquid.com/?p=1064#comment-19068 <em>> In my experience, community is a bootstrapping exercise, and it feels like you’re doing a lot of the right things. I’m not totally convinced I understand your specific concern. Can you elaborate a bit more?</em> If my concern sounds a bit nebulous, there's a reason. I'm still trying to figure out precisely what is gnawing at me. At MoCo, we commonly voice the desire to leverage our small investiture in people and tools multi-fold as the only way to adequately support our growing user base. For the Mozilla QA team, this would currently be hard without hiring more people to work specifically with the community or re-assigning current staff. No one on the Mozilla QA team is 100% full-time dedicated to working with the community, but all of us are expected (probably the wrong word, since most of us *do* enjoy it) to help out. I'm not convinced that getting the community involved more is *necessarily* that useful. If growing the community allows us to get better coverage or test new things, that's great, but adding more noise to the process won't help anyone. Perhaps we do need 1 (or more) QA people dedicated to building community. Although the goals are somewhat different, I look to <a href="http://addons.mozilla.org/" rel="nofollow">AMO</a> as a good model here because they've had success in growing/leveraging a large community with relatively few "managers" and modest tools. However, I think it would be more useful to first look at current community QA contributions and figure out how, when, and if we can make them more effective before simply throwing more undirected effort at the problem. > In my experience, community is a bootstrapping exercise, and it feels like you’re doing a lot of the right things. I’m not totally convinced I understand your specific concern. Can you elaborate a bit more?

If my concern sounds a bit nebulous, there’s a reason. I’m still trying to figure out precisely what is gnawing at me.

At MoCo, we commonly voice the desire to leverage our small investiture in people and tools multi-fold as the only way to adequately support our growing user base. For the Mozilla QA team, this would currently be hard without hiring more people to work specifically with the community or re-assigning current staff. No one on the Mozilla QA team is 100% full-time dedicated to working with the community, but all of us are expected (probably the wrong word, since most of us *do* enjoy it) to help out.

I’m not convinced that getting the community involved more is *necessarily* that useful. If growing the community allows us to get better coverage or test new things, that’s great, but adding more noise to the process won’t help anyone.

Perhaps we do need 1 (or more) QA people dedicated to building community. Although the goals are somewhat different, I look to AMO as a good model here because they’ve had success in growing/leveraging a large community with relatively few “managers” and modest tools.

However, I think it would be more useful to first look at current community QA contributions and figure out how, when, and if we can make them more effective before simply throwing more undirected effort at the problem.

]]> By: Open source fun, Open source problems… http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/comment-page-1/#comment-19067 Open source fun, Open source problems… Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:41:20 +0000 http://coop.deadsquid.com/?p=1064#comment-19067 [...] future. Once the video is available I’ll also post the slides. Also, I want to thank Coop and Shane for blogging the positive feedback. I’m looking forward to building on and refining the id [...] [...] future. Once the video is available I’ll also post the slides. Also, I want to thank Coop and Shane for blogging the positive feedback. I’m looking forward to building on and refining the id [...]

]]> By: James Napolitano http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/comment-page-1/#comment-19065 James Napolitano Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:29:47 +0000 http://coop.deadsquid.com/?p=1064#comment-19065 <blockquote>If we can somehow find a way to *not* make Bugzilla the entry gate into the Mozilla community, that in itself would be a huge win.</blockquote> What might be good is a QMO forum for "is this a bug?" topics, where people can discuss possibly buggy behavior they've observed before filing an actual bug report. This gives them a chance to talk with others to catch common sources of error, recognize frequently dup'd bugs, etc. This results in both better quality bug reports, less invalid bug reports, and not getting chastised for filling a poor bug report.

If we can somehow find a way to *not* make Bugzilla the entry gate into the Mozilla community, that in itself would be a huge win.

What might be good is a QMO forum for “is this a bug?” topics, where people can discuss possibly buggy behavior they’ve observed before filing an actual bug report. This gives them a chance to talk with others to catch common sources of error, recognize frequently dup’d bugs, etc. This results in both better quality bug reports, less invalid bug reports, and not getting chastised for filling a poor bug report.

]]> By: Dan Mosedale http://coop.deadsquid.com/2007/10/the-hard-sell/comment-page-1/#comment-19062 Dan Mosedale Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:44:02 +0000 http://coop.deadsquid.com/?p=1064#comment-19062 > And that’s really the crux of our current problem: how can we grow our > community with only a small number of community “managers” on our end and > still have it feel like a real community to everyone participating? In my experience, community is a bootstrapping exercise, and it feels like you're doing a lot of the right things. I'm not totally convinced I understand your specific concern. Can you elaborate a bit more? > And that’s really the crux of our current problem: how can we grow our
> community with only a small number of community “managers” on our end and
> still have it feel like a real community to everyone participating?

In my experience, community is a bootstrapping exercise, and it feels like you’re doing a lot of the right things. I’m not totally convinced I understand your specific concern. Can you elaborate a bit more?

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