1618064 - Migrate spocs from context to sponsor field

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, enhancement, P1)

Description

[Mathijs Miermans]

Firefox currently uses context="Sponsored by X".

Let's use sponsor="X" instead, and perform the localization of "Sponsored by" in Firefox instead of on the Proxy Server.

Comment 1

[Jessilyn Davis]

Requirement: Ability to have Collections be sponsored or organic.

Comment 2

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

If the goal is to have more flexibility in the copy (eg: "organic" non-"sponsored by" collections) then I'm don't think we should bake "Sponsored by" into Firefox. That would lock us into that copy for all card grid spocs and collections.

Having that copy coming from Adzerk should give us the ability to not always say "Sponsored by....", by changing the value of the context as needed.

Am I missing something here?

Comment 3

[Mathijs Miermans]

Every data entry step contains the possibility of human error, so we should avoid a situation where ad-ops needs to paste (or worse, type) localized strings into every creative that are not specific to the creative.

To meet the requirement that collections can be organic or sponsored, we could put an is_organic true/false flag in AdZerk. Firefox could use that to display the "Sponsored by" text or not. This has the benefit that all UI copy is in one place, and we don't need to build localization logic into multiple systems.

If in the future we need to have the option to render custom strings here, then we could have Firefox default to "Sponsored by" and override it if the AdZerk value is non-empty.

Comment 4

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

Ok, that sounds reasonable. Just to recap the proposed logic:

• If context has a value then use it as-is (eg: if context contains Brought to you by Mozilla just show that)
• If context is null, undefined, or an empty string then we will show Sponsored by + sponsor in the client

If we do this then we should have no need for an is_organic boolean, right?

Comment 5

[Jessilyn Davis]

Tawanda (/Tyler) - do we need the ability to have organic recs without any "Sponsored by" or context string for Collections? Ie just a Title of the Collection. (Thinking about if we did a Pocket-curated Collection - what would we want it to say there if anything?)

Comment 6

[Tyler Miller]

(In reply to Jessilyn Davis from comment #5)

Tawanda (/Tyler) - do we need the ability to have organic recs without any "Sponsored by" or context string for Collections? Ie just a Title of the Collection. (Thinking about if we did a Pocket-curated Collection - what would we want it to say there if anything?)

We do want the ability to show the card collection without sponsored text, though I don't know if that is the same component as a card collection with a sponsor.

Comment 7

[Gavin Suntop [:gvn] (they/them)]

We do want the ability to show the card collection without sponsored text, though I don't know if that is the same component as a card collection with a sponsor.

In the logic outlined above, that would just mean setting context to whatever we want to show.

Comment 8

[Jessilyn Davis]

Will there be a scenario where there wouldn't want to be anything there? (ie, would someone want to hack context by putting in a space so that it wouldn't be null but wouldn't show any filler text? If so, does that mean there'd be an extra space with only the space showing?)

Comment 9

[Mathijs Miermans]

1. Good question Jess. We could solve that by having a special token like "none" that would return an empty string. Not setting the value in AdZerk would result in dropping the field altogether.
2. We can't use context for this purpose, because that is currently being used by Firefox clients and we need to keep it around for a while to support backwards compatibility. We could call the new field sponsored_by_override.

Proposed logic:

• If sponsored_by_override has a value then use it as-is (eg: if sponsored_by_override is "Brought to you by Mozilla", then just show that)
• If sponsored_by_override is an empty string then don't show the label.
• If sponsored_by_override is missing, then we will show "Sponsored by " + sponsor in the client.

Comment 10

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Attachment: Bug 1618064 - Moving sponsored by field into fluent with override for specific content.

Comment 11

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Steps to test:

1. Set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.endpoints to http,https
2. Set spocs-endpoint to https://e5e8374d-fffa-4a77-a604-31603852b6fd.mock.pstmn.io/spocs/context
3. Ensure you can see spocs.

Expected:

First spoc should say "Spoc 1 override" <- this is the override field.
Second spoc should say nothing. <- this is the override field with an empty string.
Third spoc should say "Sponsored by spoc 3" <- this is sponsor and fluent translating it.
Fourth spoc should say "Sponsored by spoc 4 ..." <- this is backwards comp for context.

Comment 12

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/3d91ba9e1d25
Moving sponsored by field into fluent with override for specific content. r=gvn,fluent-reviewers,flod

Comment 13

[Noemi Erli[:noemi_erli]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/3d91ba9e1d25

Comment 14

[Marius Coman [:mcoman], Ecosystem QA]

I have verified this enhancement using the steps from comment 11 and I can confirm the following:

• The "Spoc 1 override" label is displayed on the first SPOC.
• There is no label displayed on the second SPOC.
• The "Sponsored by spoc 3" label is displayed on the third SPOC.
• The "Sponsored by spoc 4 context" label is displayed on the fourth SPOC.

Verified using the latest Firefox Nightly (78.0a1 Build ID - 20200521093657) installed on Windows 10 x64, Mac 10.15.4, and Ubuntu 18.04 x64.