1115911 - IT Request: Fan The Flames (Tanner Filip [:tanner])

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Mozilla Reps Graveyard :: Community IT Requests, task)

Description

[Tanner Filip [:tanner]]

Name:
Tanner Filip [:tanner]

Mozillians.org Profile:
https://mozillians.org/en-US/u/tanner/

Reps Profile:
-

Community Name:
Fan The Flames

:: Google Apps Emails

Domain Name:
fantheflames.org


Comments:
Fan The Flames is going to be a Firefox OS fan forum, and we need incoming mail for it to work like a mailing list. For this, we need one Google Apps inbox.

Comment 1

[Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] ❌ [away till Aug 31st]]

Question, have you considered creating a Firefox OS category on Mozilla Community discourse? Why a separate site?

Comment 2

[tad]

As far as I'm aware, this is a semi-external fan site that we are supporting, led by Kensie.

Comment 3

[Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] ❌ [away till Aug 31st]]

Can Kensie give us more background here?

Project goals, current status, how the scope is different from Community Discourse...

Comment 4

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

Yes, this request is a bit different. The site itself is already being hosted on non-MCS resources, we just need mail for it before we can launch. It's meant to be a fan forum for Firefox OS. The idea is to build a community of users, so not just a support forum or a marketing forum. It's meant to be intentionally community, not Mozilla run so that it maintains its purpose as a fan site, not as a Mozilla run marketing initiative.

The current community discourse is meant to be a discussion forum for Mozillians, with different topics. This is meant to be centered around Firefox OS enthusiasts. It needs its own discourse instance as it needs its own sets of categories and sub-categories, and again needs to be arms-length. It's not meant to be official Mozilla community discussion about Firefox OS.

I think it is ok to be Mozilla supported, ie, I don't think that Mozilla paying for the email account would be a conflict of interest, so long as it doesn't come with strings attached other than use. I understand that if the forum doesn't wind up with a good user-base then it doesn't make sense to pay for the account.

Comment 5

[Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] ❌ [away till Aug 31st]]

My main concern is that it's not an already established project (something that we ask everyone requesting IT resources) and that the goal is to do something I think we should be doing from Mozilla community.

I don't get the point of creating a fan site to "build a community of users" external to Mozilla **community** and then at the same time ask Mozilla for resources.

Why Mozilla Community Discourse can't be used by anyone interested in a Mozilla product? We are currently doing that for the tablet contribution program.

Comment 6

[Brian King [:kinger]]

I'm kind of stuck in the middle right now. I see the value in the idea, but agree with Nuke's logic that if it is community driven then perhaps it shouldn't be directly supported by Moz resources.

This needs to be discussed further and we need a clearly defined policy for such sites moving forward. Firefox10.org recently kind of comes close, but that was a clear mandated campaign.

Comment 7

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

Yes, I understand the conflict. I'm not sure how arms-length other groups stay. I'd see it as sponsorship and support, as opposed to direction and control. It is still of benefit to Mozilla. The idea isn't to *exclude* Mozilla staff and contributors, just to make sure it doesn't *feel* like it's meant for promoting Firefox OS nor that criticism or free discourse would be unwelcome.

Nuke - why build it separately? I think it's the same reason why different communities to have their own websites. You have to factor in audience, what they're interested in, how they identify, what they want to use the forum for, what feels comfortable. We don't invite all of our users into our mailing lists, when they make that jump it's usually because they are making the jump from user to contributor. By having a community for users, it can be a gateway for potential contributors without the commitment or "noise" of joining the *contributor* community forums.

Also to refer back to regional community sites, Mozilla proper doesn't run those sites, but it still supports them. They aren't marketing wings for the corporation. It's just that as there is a product involved here, and I'd be targeting users, not core contributors, I feel the need to take more care to make that clear.

Brian, I do believe that this is meant to go to council for a vote since it isn't an obvious yes or no, though hopefully my arguments above convinced you that this is actually not different than the other approved requests ;)

Comment 8

[Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] ❌ [away till Aug 31st]]

Community sites have been using different platforms because:

* Language.
* Historically Mozilla didn't have a common platform to offer.

You can see how communities are right now using Mozilla Community Discourse to host their conversations with country categories. The same way users can go to /c/firefox-os and don't have to worry about that we also have other categories for contributors or core contributors, but it's good to have everyone in the same place so they will be able to know and see what other parts of the community are talking about.

The good thing is that we can separate topics with categories, and I'm sure a category for Firefox OS discussion will be used by users and contributors (a good number are also users), which I think it's the way to go, not having users here and contributors there.

So, my point is that I don't get why this has to be done outside the community tools and platform, when it's clearly a community initiative.

BTW: I don't see Discourse as a contributor only forum, since we have things like the TCP and we should expand to other products. Also I don't think that people are not going to criticize mozilla vision/products because it's run by mozilla community. If you have concerns about this for some particular reason (or past experience) I would like to know, I've never had this problem.

Comment 9

[Brian King [:kinger]]

I'm willing to let this through as an experiment. I think the audience will indeed be different. And this request is only for the gapps account. 

So I am changing to approved. Let's review at 3 months.

One caveat - please consult one person in engineering and one in marketing to get their thoughts on the idea.

Good luck!

Comment 10

[Brian King [:kinger]]

One other thing ... I would like to see a plan for this in document form. Goals, proposed timeline, and so on. Thanks.

Comment 11

[Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] ❌ [away till Aug 31st]]

Hey all,

Please can you confirm that the domain we are creating the email is under mozilla's ownership?

If not, please transfer it before.

Thanks!

Comment 12

[Benjamin Kerensa [:bkerensa]]

(In reply to Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] from comment #11)
> Hey all,
> 
> Please can you confirm that the domain we are creating the email is under
> mozilla's ownership?
> 
> If not, please transfer it before.
> 
> Thanks!

Per Comment 2 and Comment 4 it is an externally hosted and owned site. Privately registered http://who.is/whois/fantheflames.org

Comment 13

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

(In reply to Rubén Martín [:Nukeador] from comment #11)
> Hey all,
> 
> Please can you confirm that the domain we are creating the email is under
> mozilla's ownership?
> 
> If not, please transfer it before.
> 
> Thanks!

I don't believe this is necessary. Please elaborate.

Comment 14

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

This was sorted.