Hi Dr Li and all,
I think you're mentioning the list issues in the memo we gathered from
community to be discussion with MoCo-TW on behalf of your suggestion[1],
but the end there is no discussion, only direct reply on some of the
issue[2], and I'd to specific emphasize out I did not REQUEST these things
you mention, there must be some misunderstanding or fault conclusion on the
info you got.
First of all, these issues in list we gather is for discussion (as you said
at Jan. 14 on community list[3]), not request, if you take it as request,
of course it seams in-practical at some part. Because
that's widely community people's thought and expectation on how Mozilla
should work, I agree that some should be done in different levels (like
"openness") or some cannot be done for now, but it should be discussion,
not replied as our request.
I'm going to emphasize again, these suggestions are raise for discussion,
not request. If we don't discussion, how do we know which is "unrealistic
or impractical" as you said?
[1] https://etherpad.mozilla.org/ep/pad/view/moztw-issue-on-mocotw/rev.4219(in
zh)
[2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/moztw-general/k04IZVEL7nM/rpQuNVQjBcgJ
[3] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/moztw-general/Ssju-0I1tLs/E8PGSnw90rEJ
I'll explain at each part you mention to everyone, and please correct me if
I made some mistake.
Post by Li Gong1. The stories you presented are quite one-sided. Some of your "demands"
and "expectations" are unrealistic or impractical. (I use the word "you"
and "your" to loosely denote MozTW, because you are the current
coordinator, although I am fully aware that there are different voices
among the group.) You wanted Mozilla Taiwan to open all marketing and
engagement staff meetings to MozTW members, and to publicly share meeting
minutes. (Instead we have agreed to share all significant things relevant
to the community, to the MozTW group alias, as early as possible.)
I did not request Mozilla Taiwan to open ALL marketing and engagement staff
meetings to MozTW members and publicly share meeting minutes. In fact, the
meeting notes were open by Mozilla Taiwan initiative (on Nov. 14 [4]), it's
before we raise some issues on the notes below, not doing upon my request.
Although it's seems too simplify for people to understand, and only
published for 4 weeks then stop, so we raise this issue at list to be
discussion.
The related issues we raised were point 3-1 and 3-2 of the list[1].
3-1 said, "Mozilla should work in openness", it's not question of 'open or
not', it's the question on 'level of openness'. Beside the commercial and
confidential one, the campaign run by employee should not be close
operation.
3-2 said, "Do publicly of meeting notes seriously.", 'do not doing it
sometimes and not sometimes, and do not cut the content too shorten to be
understand.'
[4]
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.community.taiwan/uNaercd5a0k/62Me9fDiMwQJ
The suggestion we rise on this topic in the following is that, 1. Marketing
team should working on a openness mailing list, think everyone as remotie
on non-confidential things 2. Do some recording and broadcasting while
meeting (like on airmozilla) 3. open chance of people involve in meetings.
4. Open the chance for community people to involve from the beginning of
planning marketing campaign event, 5. List out the things which request for
for community's help on meeting notes.
Post by Li GongYou wanted to be able to directly assign MozTW tasks to Mozilla Reps (or
Campus Ambassadors), and we declined (although we encourage all reps to be
aware of MozTW and its activities and we believe some of them are active
participants).
It should be on our discussion list[1] as point 2, it said:
2-1. Community problem (Firefox campus ambassador)
Running campus ambassador program is to widely community, stronger the
community power, we should avoid to separating the community power in the
end, with the MoCo-TW running community program, and try to help newly
people involved in the current community, not set-up another community by
company. While we broading the community with some campaign, the current
community can and should help.
The background of the issue why we raise state in following,
2-2, 'Campus ambassador', the campaign of building a student community in
Taiwan, are not open for current volunteer to involved and help, the
communication channel of this "campus ambassador" are not open at all,
current community volunteer cannot help them at any way. The program of
campus ambassador also not encourage them to participate in current
community-running projects.
2-3 The suggestion we made on this issue is that, open the current
conversation channel (a secret group on Facebook) used by employees and
joined students, or set up a open mailing list and let someone who is
interesting to help and discussion with these student, to be able to get
involve.
Post by Li GongYou wanted Mozilla Taiwan to mandate participation by paid staff at MozTW
events, and we said we could encourage them to attend but cannot put that
into job requirement. These are just a few examples I can easily recall at
this moment.
And this should be the point 5 on the list,
5. Community and MoCo-TW interactive:
Community and company are lake of communication, community and company are
lake of interaction and cannot familiar with each other.
The suggestion is that, try to participate in the event of community, in
the last one year we barely see the marketing employee participate. to
create the chance for community and employee to know each other.
The point is that you cannot use the "open" moniker to try to force
Post by Li Gongeveryone to work the way you want, and label people as being "un-Mozillian"
if they do not agree with you.
I'm not doing so, and I have to state out again, the list of issues is
gather for discussion between community people including me and employees,
you should not take it as my personal requestment.
I believe in Mozilla should operation in openness, but I'm not saying that
those people and department not operating this way are not Mozilla.
Post by Li Gong2. I fully accept that Mozilla Taiwan has a lot to learn and have a lot of
room to improve in how it communicates and works with the local communities
(MozTW being one of the most vocal ones, but clearly not the only Mozilla
community in Taiwan). We made mistakes in our first year of the new office,
for sure, and we will probably make some more unavoidably in the coming
years. Ironically, we initially hired Bob Chao, the then (and long serving)
MozTW coordinator into the paid staff as community manager, believing that
was the best way to bridge the new office with the existing community. To
our surprise and disappointment, that did not achieve the intended
results. After the issues have surfaced late last year, we have made, and
we continue to make, improvements and try to adjust the way things are
done. We have repeatedly said that we are open to constructive suggestions
and will adapt wherever it makes sense.
The problem is that, if we hired a community people, but he was hardly to
working with community volunteers in above non-so-open operating way, how
could he be the bridge of new office and existing community?
Post by Li Gong3. In order to improve working relationships between any two parties,
having trust and confidence on both sides is essential. If your posture
continues to be on the lookout for any missteps at MT and then stomp on it
and run a victory lap, that does not help the situation. And I want to flag
your reference to Beijing, where Mozilla has an office. It is plain common
(not just at Mozilla) to work together among people at different offices,
and in this instance our Beijing office has had 7 years of desktop
experience so it is natural for them to lend a hand to the new Taipei
office (just as our Taipei office is lending a strong hand to the Beijing
office on our mobile work). But there is a strong sentiment among certain
people in Taiwan at large (and certainly among some vocal MozTW members)
that "Beijing is the enemy". I understand that this is related to bigger
geopolitical context and the cross-strait relationship at the country level
and we cannot completely avoid that in our work life. Nevertheless, I do
not see any leadership person at MozTW taking any action to counter this
geopolitical issue. It would be good if the MozTW leadership can articulate
a clear position over this issue, just as we have made it clear to our paid
staff to not bring this type of politics into work at the MT office.
I don't know whom your feel to have "Beijing is the enemy" thought, and I
personally not feeling this. In fact, I always want to visit the office if
possible some time.
I'm mention of that only because of the topic of the discussion, "Some of
the employee won't seeking for the help from local volunteer", but rather
to rely on the lengthly far office on some things which volunteer could
help.
Post by Li GongTo conclude, I would state again that we have every intention to work
closely together. What could help us right now is a series of confidence
building steps to improve how we work over time. I believe the Mozilla
Taiwan office has already started taking steps in that direction, and we
are open to further suggestions and ideas. Lastly, let me be super clear
that I am not saying the issue (of paid staff vs volunteers), in general,
should not be discussed. It should be, no doubt, but it is more fruitful to
have that discussion in a mutually supportive and constructive manner.
I always feel that the about question and suggestions raised from community
are supportive and constructive, but we're also looking for the practical
discussion and responses from the company, than it will be more help on
improving the confidence to office across the community and volunteer.
And I always hoping that to share my observations and doing more of these
kinds of discussions can preventing the problem happening in Taiwan to be
re-happening in other regions in future.
Dr Li, I'm always thanksful for your kindly reply, and for all other
friends for reading,
Irvin
Thanks,
Post by Li GongLi
--
Li Gong (宫力)
CEO Mozilla Online Ltd and Mozilla Taiwan
Hi Irvin,
I hear your frustration.
I don't have an easy answer to the problem but I just wanted to let you
know that many of us Mozillians, paid staff and nonpaid staff alike, have a
lot of faith in our whole community. I know the work the community is doing
is great! On many teams that I am a part of at Mozilla, work is welcomed by
anyone who would like to contribute.
That said, I think communication and trust building are real challenges for
Mozilla as we grow and add new products. We'll need to all continue to work
together - and it won't always be easy! - to make sure our team building
and communication channels make us better. I know there are many efforts in
place to make sure that we can clearly communicated who's a trusted member
of our community (Mozillians, Mozilla Reps, etc) and ways we are working to
bring people together (more open work weeks, Mozilla Summit, etc).
So please continue the great work and we'll all figure this out together!
Stormy
We'd feel this problem a lot at marketing side at Taipei newly office.
The marketing team of TW office begin with a marketing Lead, marketing
manager and web designer at winter 2011,
beside make a website, they also opened a blog translate news from
http://blog.mozilla.org, which community had done for more than 5 years,
but they not letting community to help on office's blog for any bit.
In fact, they done it badly, the translated article are usually contain
mistake and not fluency compare to community-owned blog.
I just feel that they just don't believe anything non-employee had done,
we had maintain highly quality news blog (mostly the same resource as
company's),
a product website, a lot of subtitled videos, made a numbers of posters
before,
and they use really small thing we made on the "official event", and
nothing on "official site".
I can understand why this "official" insist came from,
for those newly hired employees formally worked at other company,
"volunteer" just mean un-trust for them,
even they'd hired a formal community liaison,
the manager still don't trust him on 'community can help' idea.
But this should not be at Mozilla, and it just don't work for as to
suggesting that "we can help", for many many times through out the whole
one and half year,
we just gave up, and make better quality things after they publish bad one.
For ex., there is an "Mozillia 2012" poster made by employee, and it done
badly not only on translating but also on layout.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vem1uxjipuipmbk/Mozilla-in-2012%20%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E7%89%88.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jww8g8h7rtaqxqe/Mozilla-in-2012.png
http://images.plurk.com/3TOFjy1QuOFweeWvsJ87ic.jpg
http://blog.mozilla.com.tw/posts/1706/mozilla-2012-%E5%85%A8%E9%AB%94%E5%8B%95%E5%93%A1%E4%BB%A4
It just one example, and we'd face many, like "release channel poster",
translate of "Mozilla 15 anny. fact"...
After we share with them, they still resistant to use better one on there
published blog[1], only because it's NOT OFFICIAL MADE BY EMPLOYEE.
In fact, as we observed, when they really need help, they'd rather to call
for help with employee of Beijing office than community volunteer who is
good at the things they need.
And to solve the badly translating issues, guess what, they finally hired a
employee specific to do that this month. I just wonder Why bother spend
salary on things community can help (and community had done for years),
because they had budget?
I think as we open more offices and hire more non-premozillian employees,
the problem will getting worse.
I don't see any chance for us to change this situation, if we had someone
in Mozilla Corporation who have faith and insist on "Official production",
and even seated as regional marketing lead, in such situation, volunteer's
'non-official' opinion means Nothing.
Always sadly and disappointment on the things happened at that office,
which usually against what we believed on Mozilla for years before it
opened.
Irvin
Taiwan community liaison
On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 1:39 AM, Rubén Martín
Hi,
I would like to open a discussion here about something that I've been
observing more and more at Mozilla, starting probably 2 years ago or so.
When some team or employee (it's not everyone but a big number) needs
help, first tries to hire or pay someone and then, if he can't or needs
extra help, pings the volunteers. This lead to a lot of situations where
the volunteers are not needed or they are like a extra or free resource,
last bullet good to have.
Historically this was completely the opposite, you have a project or an
idea, you work with all mozillians (current employees and volunteers)
and if you can't make it this way, you look for extra paid help.
Why and when this switch happened?
I would start the discussion saying that I think this a huge problem
right now, if new employees are instructed or used to paid help first,
we will kill the community. It's not nice to feel like free people only
needed if we can't get anything better paying...
Regards.
--
Rubén Martín [Nukeador]
Mozilla Reps Mentor
http://www.mozilla-hispano.org
http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano
http://facebook.com/mozillahispano
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@ irvinfly: community liaison
moztw.org Mozilla Taiwan community
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@ irvinfly: community liaison
moztw.org Mozilla Taiwan community