[Advocacy Advisors] Mozilla Advocacy in Brussels

Wed Apr 22 16:06:59 UTC 2015

Hi all -

I recently joined the list. Since it's my first time emailing, I wanted to
introduce myself -- I'm Dave Steer. I work on Policy & Advocacy at Mozilla.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about our experience with Discourse.
We're just getting started with the platform, so we are experimenting with
different types of conversation to see what helps the policy & advocacy
community the most.

Our initial idea is to use Discourse in two ways: first, for people who
applied to the Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellows program to engage with NGOs on
specific job and volunteer opportunities. We saw so many qualified people
with tech skills that want to participate in policy during the application
process and, with Discourse, we want to keep them engaged especially as
many NGOs are looking for people with engineering backgrounds to advance
their campaigns.

We're also organizing by issue area. Our hypothesis is that email
distribution lists are good, but threaded online discussions can be
additive with more ongoing, nuanced discussions and organizing.

Experience so far backs up everything that Bekka pointed out. Again, we're
in the early stages (please join the conversation!) and happy to report out
on what we're learning along the way.

--Dave
_________
Dave Steer
Director, Advocacy
Mozilla Foundation

Email: davesteer at mozillafoundation.org
Cell: 415-845-5110
Twitter: @davesteer and @MozillaAdvocacy
www.mozilla.org/advocacy

On Wed, Apr 22, 2015 at 1:03 AM, Rebecca Kahn <bekka at p2pu.org> wrote:

> Hi All
>
> We've been using Discourse for a while at P2PU
> <http://community.p2pu.org/>, in various deployments ( discussion space
> for online courses, as a replacement for mailing lists) and have found
> several things:
>
>    - It's kind of like the Linux of community management. It takes some
>    work to install and set up properly, and needs a degree of ongoing
>    gardening-care.
>    - It is a slow-burn community building tool because there is quite a
>    high bar to entry and initial engagement (you have to earn a degree of
>    trust permissions in order to participate)
>    - On the plus side (and this is a big plus) it's great at filtering
>    out bad stuff.
>    - However, it's also hard to surface good stuff.
>    - Overall, it's fantastic for smaller, highly engaged conversations,
>    and it actively discourages shallow, large scale conversations
>
> If anyone has any more questions about Discourse as a community management
> tool, let me know, I'm busy writing a report on our deployment of it for a
> P2PU / Mozilla OER project and am happy to try and answer any questions...
>
> Bekka
>
>
>
> On 22 April 2015 at 09:53, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
> dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> @Luis
>>
>> I would be happy to try this platform and perhaps this group can be one
>> of the first use cases. The current issue I see with this mailing list is
>> that is makes it very hard for newcomers to catch up. The issue I have with
>> Meta is that it doesn't really appeal to non-wiki/non-techie crowds.
>>
>> Dimi
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> 2015-04-21 17:37 GMT+02:00 Luis Villa <lvilla at wikimedia.org>:
>>
>>> I'm curious to hear what people think of the use of Discourse (
>>> http://www.discourse.org/) in this use case; I've been keeping an eye
>>> on that project for a long time and think it might be interesting for some
>>> of our discussion forums once their support for email <-> forum bridges
>>> matures.
>>>
>>> Luis
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 7:55 AM, Yana Welinder <yana at wikimedia.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> +1.  We've also chatted with their policy team in San Francisco a
>>>> little bit and they have interesting initiatives in the pipeline. They
>>>> recently launched an online discussion space for internet policy that you
>>>> may want to check out: https://discourse.mozilla-advocacy.org
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Yana
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 7:25 AM, Stevie Benton <
>>>> stevie.benton at wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Dimi,
>>>>>
>>>>> This is excellent news. I've done some work with Gervase in the past,
>>>>> including recently in some copyright workshops with Open Rights Group. He's
>>>>> really smart and I think he will be an excellent ally.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you,
>>>>>
>>>>> Stevie
>>>>>
>>>>> On 21 April 2015 at 14:21, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
>>>>> dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hello, everybody!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Me and Karl just had a meeting with Mozilla's Jochai (San Francisco
>>>>>> based) and Gervase (UK based and on this list). Mozilla will very quickly
>>>>>> get active in Brussels hiring a full-time representative.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Their policy goals will be published soon and are centred around "not
>>>>>> breaking the internet" and copyright, with a focus on goals such as having
>>>>>> an "open norm" (i.e. fair use), an audiovisual citation exception and
>>>>>> fighting against linking liability.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We're also likely to experience similar organisational challenges, as
>>>>>> they're also looking into a way to ensure a coherent message and strategy
>>>>>> and involve their volunteer community.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I personally am excited that we'll have another advocate for
>>>>>> free&open things on the ground here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>> Dimi
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>>
>>>>> Stevie Benton
>>>>> Head of External Relations
>>>>> Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173
>>>>> @StevieBenton
>>>>>
>>>>> Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
>>>>>
>>>>> *Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>>
>>>> Yana Welinder
>>>> Senior Legal Counsel
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>> 415.839.6885 ext. 6867
>>>> @yanatweets <https://twitter.com/yanatweets>
>>>>
>>>> NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
>>>> have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
>>>> mistake.
>>>>
>>>> As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons
>>>> I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members,
>>>> volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. In other words,
>>>> IANYL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL>. For more on what this
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Luis Villa
>>> Sr. Director of Community Engagement
>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>> *Working towards a world in which every single human being can freely
>>> share in the sum of all knowledge.*
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
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>
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>

-- 
_________
Dave Steer
Director, Advocacy
Mozilla Foundation

Email: davesteer at mozillafoundation.org
Cell: 415-845-5110
Twitter: @davesteer and @MozillaAdvocacy
www.mozilla.org/advocacy
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