Engaging developers in Mozilla docs
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Engaging Developers in Mozilla’s Documentation Janet Swisher (@jmswisher) Mozilla Developer Network
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The Mozilla Developer Network site provides documentation not for only developers working on or with Mozilla code, but also for web developers working with open web technologies. I'll discuss various efforts for encouraging this diverse audience to participate in maintaining the documentation. Some of these are led by Mozilla, such as documentation sprints (both face-to-face and virtual) and "Wiki Wednesdays". Others are from external sources, such as other organizations, and the grassroots "Promote JS" campaign. I'll talk about how these strategies can be applied to other open source projects.
Transcript of Engaging developers in Mozilla docs
Engaging Developers in Mozilla’s Documentation
Janet Swisher (@jmswisher)
Mozilla Developer Network
Why are we here?
What is MDN?https://developer.mozilla.org
What Is MDN?Content
•Web development: reference, tutorials, and guides
•Mozilla APIs
•Mozilla project (building, testing, debugging, process)
• Firefox add-on development
Audience
• Web developers
• Developers using Mozilla code/libraries
• Developers working on the Mozilla project
• Add-on developers
Where content comes from
•Some historical content (e.g., inherited from Netscape)
•New material
•Some paid for by Mozilla
•Some contributed by Mozilla community
•Some from other communities
Documentation process• Using Bugzilla as a documentation planning tool
• Documentation-specific bugs
• Tags on engineering bugs
• Prioritization and delegation
• Tagging for review
Communication channels
• IRC (#devmo on irc.mozilla.org)
• Mailing list/news group/Google group ([email protected])
• Blog posts (http://hacks.mozilla.org)
• Talk pages (under-used)
MDN community meetings
• Every other Wednesday, 10 am PT
• Agenda in Mozilla project wiki
• Discussion in IRC
Wiki Wednesdays
• Target Audience: Mozilla developers
• Blog post, with chunks to topic-specific mailing lists
• Credit given to last week’s contributors
• Special email alias
Doc sprints• First one in-person in Paris, Oct.
2010
• Virtual, late January 2011
• Virtual, early April 2011
• Following this conference
Why people don’t contribute
•They don’t realize it's a wiki
•They don’t want to bother setting up an account
•They’re intimidated by changing “the” documentation
Webdev community
Cooperation with other groups
What could we do better?• “Welcome Wagon”
• 5-minute tasks
• More/better recognition (badges?)
• New contributor map
Take Away
•View your mission as bigger than software.
•Ask for help and reviews in small chunks.
•Talk to developers and contributors through their preferred channels.
• Look for alliances based on your (broad) mission.
