Sg2009wc:mozilla

From She's Geeky Wiki

Title: Getting More Women Involved in the Mozilla Community & Open Source

Session: 3-E Bay Area Jan 2009

Convener: Marcia

Attendees:

Notes:

Summary: Conference appealing b/c opportunity to do brainstorming w/ tech-minded women about how to get more participation in Mozilla project. Ideas about different things that can be done?

Marcia Knous, Mozilla Corporation (organizer) - in quality assurance.

• Created meetup.org group
• Created upcoming events
• People do not interface enough in real life in Silicon Valley; will IRC when in next cubicle.
• Feb. 18: Organizing meetup. People can mingle. QA Team will be town. Mozilla is not just Mountain View. Germany, etc.
  • Should be informal, for newer people. First one, will need to have it in Mountain View because it's HQ, but in the future, maybe other areas/countries.
• What about younger demographic?

Discussion/Ideas:

• Some kind of isn't app builder on Facebook? This would help people who want to develop addons

• Students could have projects involved with Mozilla and get school credit?
  • Haven't really been successful. Lose people once they graduate.
  • Maybe need to meet with professors?

Easier way to navigate the how to contribute page on mozilla.org (crisp links)

• Banner ads?
• Try local tech groups?
• Maybe need wiki of projects. More detailed information about things that needed to get done. Time involved? Separated by least and most amount of knowledge
  • I.e. copy edit this page on the site

Entry Path to contributing

• Go to Mozilla.com & .org...daunting to volunteer. Where to go to contribute?
  • Revise website?
• Reporting bugs (Bugzilla), sign of status. Can put on resume.
  • Can be. Some people are really good at finding bugs and being able to describe. The more specific, the better.
  • Bugzilla does not have the most attractive interface. Lots of people turned off by that. Kind of skeptical that people are going to pay any attention.
  • Bugzilla lacks a glossary - sometimes the status terms are confusing.

Coding/Scripting Buddies/Mentors?

• In another session, talking about having coding/scripting buddies...if you could form new affinity groups of Mozilla volunteers, wouldn't that lessen anxiety? Not sure who would set that up.
• Use February 18, 2009 meetup at office and set up some kind of model.

Areas volunteers can get involved in

1. Support on Mozilla.com is really good. Newbies who don't how to install, etc. can come on and get help. Always room for that and documentation. People on team are so busy, they don't get to documention. I.e. somebody on team said they don't know difference between trunk and nightly builds.
2. What about translations? Has team doing translations. In early days, 10 locales. Mushroomed into 60-70. Sometimes one person doing Hebrew, and doesn't test in all platforms. - That's a whole another area in which volunteers needed.
3. A lot of people don't connect the dot between working at open source and getting a job. I.e. at Google, if you worked on Linux kernal, is a good skill. Would be great if people could connect docs more readily. Have more public relations? Was thinking about volunteering at dojo and whatnot, but never hear back...
4. What are participants doing in open source?

• Plome: Teaching. Wordpress + Expression Engine.
  • How'd you get involved?
    • Teaching + writing and looking for platforms that allow me to publish. Liked tool, captivated by community. How people collaborate in distributive way. Was a very small community when first got involved.

Age Demographic to recruit?

1. Hire college interns?

Past summer, had 30 interns. 3 or 4 QA. Sustainability of intern...go back to college...some remain helping.

1. Recruit baby boomers - will have more free time.

How do you get involved?

• Best way now: find a point of contact. Meetups. Maybe will have test day on private browsing. Maybe have community test day and have test-a-thons.

How do you find info about the current meetup?

• Search meetup.org and type in Mozilla. Or Quality.mozilla.org

Other ideas on how to get more participation:

1. Could have a little plugin: what we need this month. Click here and you'll be put in contact with someone.
2. Suggest that there could be a meta volunteer who takes care of the other volunteers.