Taming the firehose: a new Evangelism team project
November 2nd, 2007 | Published in Mozilla, Work | 40 Comments
As anyone who has spent any time around the Mozilla Project knows, we generate a lot (lot, lot) of information. There are dozens of things to try to follow — blogs, forums, newsgroups, mailing lists, bugs, IRC, meetings — and it can be a shade overwhelming. As it’s often described, “it’s like trying to drink from a firehose”.
There are two major problems caused by the information firehose.
First, it can be incredibly offputting for people who are new to the project. If someone just wants to dabble a little and start learning more about the project and how to get involved, diving right into the thick of things can be extremely difficult, confusing, time consuming, and intimidating. We need a kinder, gentler way for these interested new contributors to get a handle on things.
Second, even those of us who live and breathe this stuff all day can miss things. Sometimes big things. Having a single, regular, reliable overview of the major goings-on in the project would be an efficient and easy way to stay on top of critical news and events.
One of the Evangelism team’s goals this quarter is to experiment with possible solutions to these problems. Thus the “newsletter” project has been born.
Right now the newsletter (boring working title: “Mozilla News”) is envisioned as a weekly publication that will be available by email (HTML or plaintext), blog, and RSS feed. The fundamental purpose of the newsletter is to help make sense of the madness. By gathering, sorting, distilling down, and publishing regular summaries of news related to the Mozilla Project, the newsletters will make it easier to figure out what’s going on and where. They will also provide that kinder, gentler “starting place” for people who are new to the project to get their feet wet, instead of making them drink directly from the Mozilla information firehose.
I’m excited about this project for a bunch of reasons, and think it would be a lot of fun to have a group of “roving reporters” out there gathering, writing up and submitting stories for our weekly news. We’re not quite ready to put out a first issue yet, but we’re getting there. If you have any ideas or comments, or if you would like to help, please drop a comment here or email me at deb-at-mozilla-dot-com.
Oh, and if you can think of a better name than “Mozilla News” or “Mozilla Weekly News” please post it in the comments here. If we end up using your suggestion, I’ll send you a t-shirt.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:46 pm (#)
MozCast?
Mozilla World ~ Worldzilla?
The Mozilla Times ~ Mozilla Courier ~ or the like?
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm (#)
Mozilla Roundup?
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:46 pm (#)
MozCast?
Mozilla World ~ Worldzilla?
The Mozilla Times ~ Mozilla Courier ~ or the like?
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm (#)
Mozilla Roundup?
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:22 pm (#)
I think it’s a great idea and I can’t wait to see how it will look.
November 2nd, 2007 at 5:30 pm (#)
Mozilla Connection – Mozilla Red Wire – BTW, good initiative
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:10 pm (#)
Forgot one: Mozilla Chronicles?
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:22 pm (#)
I think it’s a great idea and I can’t wait to see how it will look.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:30 pm (#)
Mozilla Connection – Mozilla Red Wire – BTW, good initiative
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm (#)
A bit like Cédric’s: MozConnect
Or MozPlug
Mozilla Live! No, never mind that one.
Infozilla
Mozilla View
Mozilla Scape or Mozillascape
Mozillanet
Mozilla Wire/Mozillawire/Mozilla Wired
The Mozilla Hub
…
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm (#)
Oh, and I think this idea is great (though it’ll inevitably be yet another RSS feed about Mozilla that I subscribe to!). There is a lot of information out there, and sometimes trawling through duplicates and things gets tedious.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:10 pm (#)
Forgot one: Mozilla Chronicles?
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 pm (#)
Mozilla Week
7 Days @ Mozilla
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:42 pm (#)
A bit like Cédric’s: MozConnect
Or MozPlug
Mozilla Live! No, never mind that one.
Infozilla
Mozilla View
Mozilla Scape or Mozillascape
Mozillanet
Mozilla Wire/Mozillawire/Mozilla Wired
The Mozilla Hub
…
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm (#)
Oh, and I think this idea is great (though it’ll inevitably be yet another RSS feed about Mozilla that I subscribe to!). There is a lot of information out there, and sometimes trawling through duplicates and things gets tedious.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:09 pm (#)
Some ideas could be taken from Fedora Weekly News. They are doing a good job of summarizing what is happening around the project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:20 pm (#)
Mozilla Week
7 Days @ Mozilla
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:09 pm (#)
Some ideas could be taken from Fedora Weekly News. They are doing a good job of summarizing what is happening around the project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:27 pm (#)
Newzilla!
The Mozilla Report!
Another-witty-name-for-a-Mozilla-newsletter!
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:27 pm (#)
Newzilla!
The Mozilla Report!
Another-witty-name-for-a-Mozilla-newsletter!
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:12 am (#)
The Mozilla Space
MozSS feed
SlashMoz.org
November 3rd, 2007 at 4:12 am (#)
The Mozilla Space
MozSS feed
SlashMoz.org
November 3rd, 2007 at 12:53 pm (#)
Our Mozilla
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:53 pm (#)
Our Mozilla
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm (#)
Condenzilla
Mozilla Source
Mozilla Unwrapped
The Mozilla Pot
Mozilla Untangled
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:55 pm (#)
Condenzilla
Mozilla Source
Mozilla Unwrapped
The Mozilla Pot
Mozilla Untangled
November 4th, 2007 at 4:51 pm (#)
A link to a “contributing” page on the home page would be fine. The OpenOffice have a very good example (imho): http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html
November 4th, 2007 at 4:51 pm (#)
A link to a “contributing” page on the home page would be fine. The OpenOffice have a very good example (imho): http://contributing.openoffice.org/index.html
November 5th, 2007 at 9:36 am (#)
Mozilla Herald
November 5th, 2007 at 9:36 am (#)
Mozilla Herald
November 5th, 2007 at 4:17 pm (#)
Mozilla Universe
Mozilla Express
November 5th, 2007 at 4:17 pm (#)
Mozilla Universe
Mozilla Express
November 5th, 2007 at 5:44 pm (#)
Mozilla’s Cup of Tea…
Mozilla’s Slice of Cake?
November 5th, 2007 at 5:44 pm (#)
Mozilla’s Cup of Tea…
Mozilla’s Slice of Cake?
November 6th, 2007 at 1:37 pm (#)
Mozilla Weekly News would be better than Mozilla News because it would be both an incentive to get the news out on schedule and also a throttle and/or temptation of letting things get out inbetween.
Henry
November 6th, 2007 at 1:37 pm (#)
Mozilla Weekly News would be better than Mozilla News because it would be both an incentive to get the news out on schedule and also a throttle and/or temptation of letting things get out inbetween.
Henry
November 8th, 2007 at 2:05 am (#)
The Mozilla Inquisitor
Mozilla Free Press
Other permutations of old-timey newspaper names…
November 8th, 2007 at 2:05 am (#)
The Mozilla Inquisitor
Mozilla Free Press
Other permutations of old-timey newspaper names…
November 16th, 2007 at 1:11 pm (#)
Great news. I hope that it will be translate. I will help for the spanish localization.
My suggestions:
Mozilla Stories
November 16th, 2007 at 1:11 pm (#)
Great news. I hope that it will be translate. I will help for the spanish localization.
My suggestions:
Mozilla Stories