Entry points and guide posts: Helping contributors find their way

Entry points & guide posts:Helping contributors find

their wayJanet Swisher

Community Manager, Mozilla Developer Network

@jmswisher

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What the heck am I talking about?

open documentation

Docs, internal or external, that people outside your team can modify

contributor

Anyone who modifies your docs who doesn't have "Technical writer for

{your_team_name}" in their job description

Background: http://www.slideshare.net/janetswisher

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How to drive people away

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Ways to encourage contribution

Strategy Tactic

Streamline the path frominterest to success

More-focused Getting Started page

Create invitations, notroadblocks

Show non-English readers what'snot translated

Expose what areas need help, inwhat ways

Doc status pages for topics andlocales

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Streamline thepath frominterest tosuccess

Createinvitations, notroadblocks

Expose whatareas need help,in what ways

Results over time

Data are noisy; direct cause and effect is hard to prove. But we seem tobe doing something right. 21

Do it yourself

•  Streamline the path from interest to success

•  Create invitations, not roadblocks

•  Expose opportunities

•  What needs to be done

•  How to do it

Improve the CX (Contributor Experience)

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Plain old UX work is good too

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Continue the conversation on Twitter: @jmswisher

Thanks! Discuss!