Mozillians/TaskBoard/1.0/Tasks
Contents
What are Tasks?
Tasks are a singular, actionable item that instructs a person or set of people to perform an activity. They have the following attributes:
- Have a defined set of instructions on how to complete it.
- Limited within scope to a small, finite summary of no greater than 10-20 words.
- May or may not have a deadline for completion.
Examples can be seen over a variety of our sub-communities. They can include, but are not limited to:
- Running a manual or automated test-run for a specific product release
- Translating a single or set of strings for a project/product release
- Submitting a patch to fix a bug within a certain product/project release
- Adding a Firefox affiliates button to your website
Why "Tasks"?
Many volunteer involvement platforms (i.e. VolunteerMatch, Idealist.org, etc.) are generally focused on events and job descriptions and require repeated commitment, being physically available and/or are non-technical activities. Within the Mozilla community, most "jobs" are singular tasks that do not require greater commitment than just performing the task itself. They do not need repeated commitment over specified time periods or require being physically present in certain locations. Tasks are a better fit as they allow community managers to siphon down activities to perform to discrete contributions in a virtual environment such as the internet.
Tasks and Time
As mentioned under "What are Tasks?", tasks not explicitly created with a deadline in mind. By default, they can be set with an indefinite time period (e.g. "[good first bugs]" or affiliates buttons) or, if necessary, with a deadline in mind (e.g. QA test runs, string translation and promotions for product/project releases). If a task is created with a deadline in mind, this will result in a task to be removed from the system once the deadline has been met. Meanwhile, if a task is created with no deadline in mind, then the task can either be removed by the creator or if the task has been complete (e.g. "[good first bugs]" bug is moved to resolved:fixed).
Task Fields within the TaskBoard
| Field | Description |
| Summary | A short, one-line grabber that can either be a bug summary for a "[good first bug]" or a short line to explain the task to perform. For inspiration, take a look at Jig.com. |
| Instructions | Multi-line box that can be the reporter's comment of a "[good first bug]" or the manual description provided by a task creator. |
| Contact Person | This will be either the person who created the task or the person who set themselves as the "mentor" of a "[good first bug]". |
| Misc. | Any ancillary information that the user should know in order to complete the task. |
| Groups | Using the Phonebook default groups list, the task creator should be able to |
| Deadline (optional) | If there is a day when this needs to be completed, then add in a the time as needed (MMDDYYYY). |
| When Created | This time/date stamp is shown in relation to the current date/time of page load. This helps with task sorting. |
Task Sign-Up
Anyone should be able to see the taskboard whether they're logged-in or not. Within each row entry is a green "Request to Perform" button which, when clicked, does two things depending on the user state:
- Logged-in Mozillians Phonebook User: An e-mail is sent to the task creator as a request for the Mozillians.org user to further contact the person and help with the task.
- Guest: A dialog pops up informing the user to submit a request to get involved in the Mozilla community. This functionality should tie in to the "get involved" method of submission on the Mozillians.org splash page.
