This document summarizes key concepts about open documentation and community-generated content. It defines community as interactions within a group, discusses different types of communities, and explains that community comes before content. Community-generated content is defined as wiki-based documentation, comments, and forums. The document outlines why being open is important for participation, agility, and leverage. It describes the Mozilla Developer Network (MDN) as a resource for web developers that uses an open documentation model. Challenges of open documentation include getting people to contribute and ensuring accuracy. The document provides tips for avoiding pitfalls like intimidating new contributors and engaging a community.
(Things to think about) Before you pick a wikiJanet Swisher
Is your company moving documentation to a wiki? What process and policy issues should you consider (preferably) before selecting a wiki for documentation? If the choice of a wiki has already been made for you, learn to manage expectations and produce the best outcome for your situation.
Presentation by Janet Swisher at Technical Communication Summit, May 2011
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.
Customer communities: some companies have been nurturing them for years through support forums; some companies are just discovering how to cultivate community through social media. A few companies are beginning to explore how to tap the knowledge and power of customer communities to enhance their information offerings. Meanwhile, open source software projects have been generating products, documentation, and real-world value based on community efforts for a few decades. This session will explore some of the lessons about community and community-generated content that have emerged from open source projects, and how they can apply to more traditional companies and products. We’ll look at:
* Reasons to invite community-generated content
* What to expect from community-generated content (and what not to)
* Ways to encourage more productive and meaningful contributions
What's it like to not just allow community contributions to your documentation, but depend on them? What if literally anybody could edit the docs and see your work as you write? Mozilla doc team members share their experiences working with radically open documentation for developers.
Presentation by Eric Shepherd and Janet Swisher at the Technical Communication Summit, May 2011
Entry points and guide posts: Helping contributors find their wayJanet Swisher
For "open documentation", a contributor is anybody who modifies your docs and is not paid to be on your team. This presentation describes strategies and tactics that Mozilla Developer Network has used to help contributors get started and keep going, by telling them know what we need help with, and how to help.
(Things to think about) Before you pick a wikiJanet Swisher
Is your company moving documentation to a wiki? What process and policy issues should you consider (preferably) before selecting a wiki for documentation? If the choice of a wiki has already been made for you, learn to manage expectations and produce the best outcome for your situation.
Presentation by Janet Swisher at Technical Communication Summit, May 2011
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.
Customer communities: some companies have been nurturing them for years through support forums; some companies are just discovering how to cultivate community through social media. A few companies are beginning to explore how to tap the knowledge and power of customer communities to enhance their information offerings. Meanwhile, open source software projects have been generating products, documentation, and real-world value based on community efforts for a few decades. This session will explore some of the lessons about community and community-generated content that have emerged from open source projects, and how they can apply to more traditional companies and products. We’ll look at:
* Reasons to invite community-generated content
* What to expect from community-generated content (and what not to)
* Ways to encourage more productive and meaningful contributions
What's it like to not just allow community contributions to your documentation, but depend on them? What if literally anybody could edit the docs and see your work as you write? Mozilla doc team members share their experiences working with radically open documentation for developers.
Presentation by Eric Shepherd and Janet Swisher at the Technical Communication Summit, May 2011
Entry points and guide posts: Helping contributors find their wayJanet Swisher
For "open documentation", a contributor is anybody who modifies your docs and is not paid to be on your team. This presentation describes strategies and tactics that Mozilla Developer Network has used to help contributors get started and keep going, by telling them know what we need help with, and how to help.
This was presented at This is IT!, 2007 at Durham College, Oshawa, Ontario. It covers Info Management 2.0 tools such as social bookmarking and RSS readers.
Provides some ideas on how you can get more involved in the open source community. Contains information on contributing to and managing open source projects.
SDOs as de facto do-ocracies — how standards are really madeTobie Langel
This talk was given at the "Decision-making in standard developing organisations for the internet" workshop at the University of Warwick's Brussels office in April 2017.
It explores how Web standards are actually developed in practice, and how technological changes in the way browsers are built, distributed, and licensed has impacted the role of standard organisations.
Building Community, Interaction, Collaboration, and Engagement with VoiceThreadmaritezita
Maritez Apigo's presentation at San Jose City College's Professional Development Day on January 27, 2017
How can VoiceThread build community, increase active participation, boost interaction, facilitate collaborative activities, and foster engagement to support student success? VoiceThread allows for humanized asynchronous conversations about digital media (images, videos, documents, etc.) through not only text, but also audio and video comments. The presenter will demonstrate techniques and share examples that are applicable to face-to-face, online, or hybrid courses and all departments. A “goody bag” of resources for getting started and troubleshooting will be provided. Enter to win a free VoiceThread Single Instructor License ($99 value)! Bring your laptop, tablet, or phone.
RuralWeb uses Wikiversity to create, share and improve information. It is not only book knowledge, but also about experiences, that are useful for communities worldwide.
We now focus on entrepreneurship, start-up finance, ICT-education and soon on agriculture. Come and learn & Share your experiences too!
Wikipedia - How Should Pharma go about editing?Gary Monk
A presentation on how pharma should approach editing Wikipedia for corporate, health and brand related pages. It outlines the pillars of Wikipedia and how to work with the Wikipedia community when making edits. If you are interested in Pharma editing wikipedia you should definitely read and get in touch!
Three years ago, there was almost no tech scene in Oklahoma City. Today, there are over 20 active user groups, and half of those started in 2014. Living in an area with little to no tech community can be a drag, but with a little work, you can help build one in your area. Listen to the story of how myself and other volunteers built up the tech community in Oklahoma, and started the non-profit Techlahoma Foundation that supports all the community events and activities in the area - including a national conference called Thunder Plains.
This was presented at This is IT!, 2007 at Durham College, Oshawa, Ontario. It covers Info Management 2.0 tools such as social bookmarking and RSS readers.
Provides some ideas on how you can get more involved in the open source community. Contains information on contributing to and managing open source projects.
SDOs as de facto do-ocracies — how standards are really madeTobie Langel
This talk was given at the "Decision-making in standard developing organisations for the internet" workshop at the University of Warwick's Brussels office in April 2017.
It explores how Web standards are actually developed in practice, and how technological changes in the way browsers are built, distributed, and licensed has impacted the role of standard organisations.
Building Community, Interaction, Collaboration, and Engagement with VoiceThreadmaritezita
Maritez Apigo's presentation at San Jose City College's Professional Development Day on January 27, 2017
How can VoiceThread build community, increase active participation, boost interaction, facilitate collaborative activities, and foster engagement to support student success? VoiceThread allows for humanized asynchronous conversations about digital media (images, videos, documents, etc.) through not only text, but also audio and video comments. The presenter will demonstrate techniques and share examples that are applicable to face-to-face, online, or hybrid courses and all departments. A “goody bag” of resources for getting started and troubleshooting will be provided. Enter to win a free VoiceThread Single Instructor License ($99 value)! Bring your laptop, tablet, or phone.
RuralWeb uses Wikiversity to create, share and improve information. It is not only book knowledge, but also about experiences, that are useful for communities worldwide.
We now focus on entrepreneurship, start-up finance, ICT-education and soon on agriculture. Come and learn & Share your experiences too!
Wikipedia - How Should Pharma go about editing?Gary Monk
A presentation on how pharma should approach editing Wikipedia for corporate, health and brand related pages. It outlines the pillars of Wikipedia and how to work with the Wikipedia community when making edits. If you are interested in Pharma editing wikipedia you should definitely read and get in touch!
Three years ago, there was almost no tech scene in Oklahoma City. Today, there are over 20 active user groups, and half of those started in 2014. Living in an area with little to no tech community can be a drag, but with a little work, you can help build one in your area. Listen to the story of how myself and other volunteers built up the tech community in Oklahoma, and started the non-profit Techlahoma Foundation that supports all the community events and activities in the area - including a national conference called Thunder Plains.
Slides for a talk on "Using Social Media to Promote 'Good News'" given by Brian Kelly, UKOLN at a media conference for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) held at Queen Mary, University of London, London on 17 April 2012.
See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ahrc-social-media-2012/
A discussion about various techniques and mechanisms for generating revenue in and around open source projects.
This presentation uses the Cake Software Foundation (http://cakefoundation.org) who own the rights to the CakePHP framework (http://cakephp.org) as an example, and how a separate company (Cake Development Corporation http://cakedc.com) works with the Cake Software Foundation, but as a separate entity to generate money, and pay employees to with with and on open source software.
What does it mean to localize? As an nonprofit goes international, it may encounter cultural differences, language barriers, issues of brand credibility in other countries, and more. Tools may need to be translated in more than language to make sense for different audiences.
We’ll discuss how to decide when to make the leap, available tools, and the importance of partnerships and community. Is crowdsourced localization for you? We’ll cover best practices in translation, software, and beyond.
Don't Design Websites. Design Web SYSTEMS! (BADCamp 2011)Four Kitchens
This presentation was given at BADCamp by Todd Nienkerk of Four Kitchens (October 23, 2011)
For more Four Kitchens presentations, please visit http://fourkitchens.com/presentations
The Open Source Geospatial Foundation does much more than hold FOSS4G each year.
This talk will look into what makes OSGeo a software foundation. What software foundations have to offer members, software projects and developers.
This talk is structured around the “incubation” process by which new software projects join the OSGeo.
If you are new to open source take this is a great chance to see how OSGeo evaluates software projects and how these checks protect you!
For managers it is especially important to understand the risks associated with the use of open source. Understand what assurances OSGeo incubation offers, how to double check the results, and what factors are left for your own risk assessment.
If you are a developer considering getting involved in OSGeo this is great talk to learn what is involved, how much work it will be, and how you can start!
Come see what makes OSGeo more than a user group!
1. Open Documentation
Eric Shepherd (@sheppy)
Janet Swisher (@jmswisher)
Mozilla Developer Network
2. Questions welcome!
• What are you looking for?
• What problems are you facing?
• What do you hope to learn?
3. What we’re gonna tell ya
• Ideas and definitions
– Community
– Community-generated content
– Openness
– Open documentation
• Radically open docs on MDN
• What you can do
5. What is community?
“It is not merely the group that generates
community, but the interactions within it.”
―Jono Bacon, The Art of Community
6. Types of community
Place Circu Interes
(e.g.,
mstan Action
neighbor- t (shared
hoods) ce (products, h goal)
Positio (e.g., obbies)
Purpos
cancer
n Practic
survivors) e
(e.g., teen e
agers) (similar
goals) (shared
expertise &
methods)
7. What is community-generated
content?
• Wiki-based docs • Comments on web-
• Wiki-based knowledge based docs
article • Comments on blogs
• Open source docs • Support forums
(parallel to code)
• Sample code
10. Which comes first?
“The Apache Software Foundation …
believes that its first order of business is
creating healthy software content
development communities focused on
solving common problems; good software
content is simply an emergent result.”
―Brian Behlendorf, former president of
the Apache Software Foundation
12. Why be open?
Goals What it is not
• Participation • Public performance
• Agility • Endless opinion-sharing
• Momentum • Magic “crowd-sourcing”
• Rapid prototyping
• Leverage
http://openmatt.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/how-to-work-open/
13. What is open documentation?
For Mozilla Developer Network, it means:
• Open to read (without login)
• Open to modify (with login)
• Open to copy and distribute (Creative
Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike)
• Open to remix (CC-BY-SA, again)
(See the The Free Software Definition by GNU)
15. What is MDN?
Content Audience
• Web development:
• Web developers &
reference, tutorials, and
guides Web app developers
• Mozilla products
•
• Mozilla APIs
Developers using
Mozilla code/libraries
• Mozilla project (building,
testing, debugging,
process)
• Developers working on
the Mozilla project
• Firefox add-on
development • Add-on developers
16. 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 or
organizations
17. Documentation process
• Bugzilla as a documentation planning tool
• Documentation-specific bugs
• Tags on engineering bugs
• Prioritization and delegation
• Tagging for review
18. Engaging contributors
• Multiple communication channels
• Community meetings
• Doc sprints
• Express gratitude early and often
21. 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
22. Avoiding pitfalls and villains
•Vigilant content review
•Good, easy-to-find guidelines and templates
•Patience
•Constant community engagement
27. Who will contribute?
90%: “lurk” but
never contribute
9%: do a little
1%: do a lot
Jakob Nielsen, Participation
Inequality: Encouraging More
Users to Contribute
Image by verbeeldingskr8
28. Why do people contribute?
“Why do people contribute free documentation? Results of a survey,” Andy Oram
29. Challenges
• Access
–Who can see, contribute, approve?
• Accuracy
–How do you make sure it’s correct?
• Authority
–How can readers trust it?
30. Contribution Process
Wiki Model Patch Model
• Submit > Publish > Review • Submit > Review > Publish
• Content is public • Content is not public until it
immediately. is reviewed.
• May want to visually
differentiate unreviewed
content.
Or, allow comments but not direct edits at all.
31. Paths to success
• Welcome Wagon
• Tasks for newbies
• Multiple communication channels
• Recognition and reputation
• Mentor and empower
• Gratitude
• Recognition and reputation
32. Being “Gameful”
• Positive Emotion and engagement
• Building positive Relationships
• Meaning: connecting to a mission or goal
greater than ourselves
• Accomplishment: opportunity to do
something that matters
34. Resources
• The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation,
Jono Bacon
• Conversation and Community: The Social Web for
Documentation, Anne Gentle
• “Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to
Contribute,” Jakob Nielsen
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
• “Why do people write free documentation? Results of a
survey,” Andy Oramhttp://onlamp.com/onlamp/2007/06/14/why-do-people-write-
free-documentation-results-of-a-survey.html
• Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They
Can Change the World, Jane McGonigal
Editor's Notes
Group discussion is not very feasible in an online conference, but we’ll keep an eye on the chat window and try to address questions as they come up.
Wikipedia has separate entries for different types of communities, based on what brings them together. These include communities of:Circumstance: bound by circumstances, usually beyond their control (e.g., cancer survivors)Place: shared geographic locationPosition: shared station in life Interest: shared common interest (e.g., “I like product X”)Purpose: people trying to achieve similar goals (e.g., car-buying)Action: united by a shared goal (e.g., create an online encyclopedia)Practice: people who choose to collaborate over a period of time (often applied to professions or traditional crafts)Most communities around commercial products or services are communities of interest, which have fairly weak ties. Those ties become stronger if you manage to transform the community into one of action, practice or purpose. For example, draw your community into your organizational mission or vision.
Give me examples or definitions, whichever you prefer. We can extrapolate to definitions, based on examples.Examples: Comments on blogsComments on web-based docsSupport forumsWiki-based knowledgebases, wiki-based documentation – This is the one I’ll tend to refer to most, since it’s where I live.
Anne Gentle makes a distinction in her book, Conversation and Community, between community-generated content and user-generated content.User-generated content: all about me, single voice (facebook, flickr, twitter?)Community-generated content: collaborative, helps us reach our common goalhttp://justwriteclick.com/2009/02/25/user-generated-content-versus-community-generated-content/
CGC is not “crowd-sourcing”.You can get a crowd to do the thriller dance, or have a pillow fight, or kiss someone of the same gender while the Pope drives by. But you cannot get an anonymous crowd to create community content.“Crowds aren’t smart. Communities of peers are.” Matt Thompson, http://openmatt.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/how-to-work-open/Crowdsourcing is good if you have a large amount of small tasks, that people can work on pretty much independently.For larger tasks, especially where people need to collaborate, you need a community of individuals who have relationships with each other, not a crowd.This forces us to take a step back, and ask, “What is a community?”
This applies to content as well as to software.CGC helps create community by giving a group a shared goal. Getting useful content is a side-benefit.
Participation: rocket fuel for smarter collaborationAgility: Speed, flexibility, getting stuff done.Momentum: Communities want to push boulders that are already movingRapid prototyping: Iterating and refining as we go.Leverage: Getting greater bang from our limited resources. Punching above our weight.Public performance: Creating the fake appearance of consultationEndless opinion sharing: never-ending “feedback”. Bike-shedding.Magic “crowd-sourcing”: Crowds aren’t smart. Communities of peers are.
We (as employees) are peers with the rest of the community when it comes to creation and curation of content. Sheppy is “documentation lead” in that he tries to organize the content and project management side of things, and we are wiki admins because someone needs to be, but we are not the end-all of power on the site. Content Janet and Sheppy create goes through the same process, and carries the same weight, as anyone else’s.
Other community content can be donated or paid for by other organizations, like Google or IBM.
Note also that Bugzilla is open to everyone to read (with the exception of specific security bugs), and to edit with a login. Talk about Florian’s tool a bit.
Outdated or incorrect informationPoor organizationPoor formatting and layoutBad grammar and spelling
The spammerThe black-hat hackerThe troll and the grieferThe well-intentioned but wrong
If you build it, they might not come.Building a community is hard. Reaching critical mass is hard.
Do not be surprised or disappointed by this. If get a handful of people actively contributing, that can be a huge success.To get specific content written on specific deadlines, you usually have to pay someone. Your job is not at risk.
Number one is Personal Growth: wanting to learn something.Community is a bigger factor for documentors of free software, possibly because it’s explicitly discussed in free software contexts.A bigger factor for documentors of proprietary software is “thrills”: seeing your comments appear on a worldwide forum, as well as watching others succeed with your help and praise you for it.
Game designer Jane McGonigal promotes the idea of “gamefulness”.You can strive to achieve a gameful community, regardless of whether you employ gamification.
CGC is mostly about people solving problems; content is a side-benefit.Contributing to doc communities requires a healthy ego, neither too big nor too small.You don’t have to be open to the world to build a community around content. You can start by tapping expertise within your company.Most people don’t contribute, and that’s OK. People contribute for varied reasons: personal growth, gratitude, and thrills are high for those contributing to proprietary products.Make sure that communication channels exist for both content discussion and relationship building.