MozCampEU2012/Future of Discussion Forums

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Title of Session: The Future of Discussion Forums

Facilitator(s): Michael Burns

Are you paid or volunteer staff?: Paid

Area of Contribution (Team Name): IT/Operations

How are you currently involved with the community?: I maintain the Mailman installations (discussion forums, mailing lists) for Mozilla.

Location of Work (where do you reside?): Mountain View, CA

Talk Length (please choose between 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes): 60 (30min could also work)

Summary: Mozilla is in the process of evaluating the discussion forum system that currently powers the mailing lists and newsgroups for the various Mozilla projects. This session is to gather feedback on the expectations of what a new and improved system should look like, be it an incremental improvement over the status quo or a more radical reform, including moving to a third-party solution. A top priority is providing a better Web interface (similar to Google Groups) to join the conversations currently taking place over Email and Usenet. This would let us provide first class Web Forums that are more new-user friendly yet integrated with the existing newsgroups and mailing lists, and allow for cross-posting from a user's preferred medium. Also on the wish list: a mobile interface, improved SPAM protection, and a more crowd-sourced moderation system are also top goals.

How your session furthers the MozCamp Goals (https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozCampEU2012/Tracks): Mozilla requires a lot of communication to happen over the Internet, by a range of technical and non-technical users. Everything from Support to Development to Governance needs to be discussed in the open and across multiple mediums (web, email, nntp) [1]. Unfortunately, our commitment to flexibility means that communication is not always as smooth as it could be. To encourage as much participation from the community as possible, and to minimize frustration along the way, it is necessary to provide an improved discussion forum system that is both flexible and functional.

Further reading on this topic: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Request_For_Comment

[1] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Discussion_Forums/Problem_Statement


Expected Outcome or Deliverable:

0. Collect requirements for what an improved discussion forum system for Mozillians should do.

1. Feedback on how to implement and prioritize those requirements.

2. Feedback on the improvements being made with the current Mailman v3 tests, which addresses some of these goals.

3. Gauge community response to using third-party solutions (such as Jive) that may address our feature requirements.


Desired Audience Type or Skill-set:

  • community members who regularly or occasionally participate in the discussion on mailing lists (or newsgroups) for various Mozilla projects, and would like to see the process improved.
  • community members that *want* to join a discussion within Mozilla but are too frustrated or intimidated by the process.

Equipment Needs (Video projector already included): (optional) A whiteboard, chalkboard or other large writing surface to collect notes.

To Be Completed by the Audience-

(If you would like) Submit a Question for the Speaker(s) or indicate what information you hope to gain by attending this talk here:

Place your name here if you would like to attend this talk:

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