KDE has added new dimensions to our repertoire over the last few years. A move towards greater awareness that we are part of a larger free culture movement that has taken hold in various ways and form around the world is one such shift. It hasn't changed what we do (create client-side software with all the trimmings) but it has changed some of how we do it and what we include in our software.
A key concept in free culture is participation: it isn't a spectator sport or a watch-the-rock-star-on-stage-from-the-audience experience. We each take our turns as audience and the performer, sometimes simultaneously. The implication here is that the people who are our audience can also be performers in their own right. We're starting to see this happen, but to be honest it's all a bit awkward at times. That is not too surprising: it's something new, and new skills take time to build up. We also don't have many examples in history to pattern our behavior after; most examples we could look to are contemporaneous to our own experience. (Examples might include Wikipedia and OpenStreetmap for content, Mozilla for software, various social media sites, ..)
If we can find ways to enable KDE users to spend more time "up on stage" themselves, at least to the extent they feel self-compelled to, I think we could all win a lot. It would be more enjoyable for our "fan base" (I'm a card carrying member of our fan base, btw :), it could help spread the KDE love and experience and it would bring new rewards to the KDE community.
In 2009 we saw some seeds sown that may well turn into our "first crops". The bug days are doing terrific things, and the trick there is simple: advertise then facilitate IRC meetings then report on the good that was achieved for everyone to take notice of. There is the KDE brainstorm is helping people connect in a much more positive and helpful way with developers (I"ve snagged a few good ideas from there already, in fact, and it's much more enjoyable than the usual dysfunction at bugs.kde.org). Then there is Userbase that is aiming to collect a body of user-generated content and documentation. I'm especially inspired by the various ideas and efforts that Anne Wilson is spearheading with Userbase.
I think 2010 could be a breakthrough year for these efforts, where they transition from "new additions to KDE" to things we just take for granted and come to rely on with a healthy amount of support from our users.
Then there is promo and communication. The organization of release parties (in this case for the KDE Software Compilation v4.4) is good and the level of attendance for trade show booths year after year is very impressive, but perhaps we can do more and get more people involved. Can we make it easy for people to give KDE related presentations in their area through materials or even some online training? How can we enable KDE fans to show KDE to others as much, as often and as accurately as possible?
In one question: What else can we do to harness the latent energy in our biggest fans?
I'd love to see 2010 be a year where more of our closest users feel more involved with achieving our shared goals than ever before.
(This article is part of the "Key Quests for KDE in 2010" series)
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6 comments:
on the "spend more time on stage" idea:
Perhaps an participation integration in all the kde apps. Perhaps in the "About Menu". If you click on something like "develop application" and automated wizzard will start and guide you with a kde-app checkout , and automatically fires up kdedevelop4 and opens the project, with all the integration needed.
I think that Userbase is great but it isn't very "discoverable". There should be a way to access to it's content inside KDE (without using a web browser ?).
Just my 2 cent.
> There is the KDE brainstorm [...], and it's much more enjoyable than the usual dysfunction at bugs.kde.org
What about aiming to make bugs.kde.org itself a friendlier place, wouldn't that be a worthy goal for 2010? It could definitely contribute to "mobilizing and enabling KDE users" in a much more constructive way than it does now.
Just a comparison, from a user's perspective:
- Reporting a bug/wish to Ubuntu's Launchpad feels like contributing, like taking a step to participate in the big open-source community (even if it's only a tiny little contribution). A Launchpad bug report does not "feel" like some statement by some indivisual, but as something that instantly "belongs" to the community as a whole and is collectively taken care of as such. Has it been forwarded to a more appropriate category? Is there a need for more info?). People will ask follow-up questions and show genuine interest in your bugs (or ideas), even if they're not affected by them themselves. The bug hunters/moderators are friendly and welcoming, always maintain a high level of professionalism, and are forgiving towards the occasional toughtless or rude comments by users. No matter how stupid/insignificant the bug report/feature request is, there will be a comment by a moderator/developer thanking the reporter and giving some hint as to what's happening next (Will the issue have a chance to get fixed/implemented? Anyways, reporting an issue to Launchpad and then monitoring its progress is quite a positive experience and might very well motivate people to dare to take further steps towards playing a more active role in the open source community...
...on the other hand:
- Reporting a bug/wish to KDE's bugs.kde.org feels like coming as a solicitant. A bug report at bugs.kde.org is the problem of the individual who reported it. It's his own responsibility to raise more awareness for it, provide all the needed information without someone asking for it, etc. If he's lucky, someone might take a look at it - and then often enough just close it as "can't reproduce", without any follow-up questions or further signs of interest. Reports that go without any reply or reaction whatsoever for months are also no exception at all. Reporters of feature requests can count themselves lucky if they receive an answer by a developer stating the reasons why the suggested feature is currently not/will not be implemented (Bad idea? Not enough man power? Has someone even read the request?) - you're usually left wondering...
The logical consequence is that users many users will refrain from reporting bugs or participation at all, and those that do stay become louder and more pushy in order to defend their bug/wish reports (because, as mentioned before, that's all these are: *their* reports, *their* problems). This in turn is not very healthy for the community - it can even lead to developers being driven away, as with the oKular team recently.
Just my 2 cents about "mobilizing and enabling KDE users"...
an enthusiastic +1 to @Pierre's idea! What about putting a browser plasmoid directed at http://userbase.kde.org in by default so it's one of the first things people see after starting KDE? Easy to get rid of for those that don't want it but a readily available resource to those that need it.
@Pierre @neomantra: Ben Cooksley (System Settings maintainer and fellow admin guy at the forums) is working on a rewrite of khelpcenter (khelpcenter-ng) that will also enable access to UserBase directly from the application.
@neomantra: [quote]What about putting a browser plasmoid directed at http://userbase.kde.org in by default so it's one of the first things people see after starting KDE? Easy to get rid of for those that don't want it but a readily available resource to those that need it.[/quote]
An excellent idea. Taking that even further, how about someone mentoring a Klassroom course on writing plasmoids - making this one of the targets?
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