normal Support Firefox Day: Nov 21st 2008

Focus on SUMO Localization
Author
Message
Cww

A quick background on Support Firefox Day

Support Firefox Day is an event that we put together to introduce new people to SUMO with presentations and Q&A sessions. This time, the theme will be localization and localizing SUMO.

When/where will it be?

We're planning to have a 3-hour event in 3 different timeslots: one for Asia, one for Europe and one for the Americas.

* Friday Nov 21st, 5 AM GMT (2 PM Tokyo time, 6 AM Central European time, Thursday 9 PM PST)
* Friday Nov 21st, Noon GMT (9 PM Tokyo time, 1 PM Central European time, Friday 4 AM PST)
* Friday Nov 21st, 7 PM GMT (Saturday 4 AM Tokyo time, 8 PM Central European time, 11 AM PST)

As with last time, the format of the event is that it's being held via mogulus on the SFD page with people linked into the IRC channel. The presenters will have screen capture software installed so the audience can follow along with live demos.

What will be happening?

Each session will have the following "events":

  • Presentations: These will be mostly short and pre-recorded screenshot/video presentations with someone present to do followup and answer questions and perhaps do live demos as they see fit. The reason we need prerecorded is because of the three separate timeslots. The presenter will play the prerecorded video in segments, taking questions as they go.
    • Localizing SUMO: Getting started and translating your first article. (Cww)
    • Keeping your translations and locale up to date: finding out when things change and working with your locale to complete translation, also things like SHOWFOR and advanced tikimarkup may be covered. (cilias)
  • Roundtable on longer term goals for 2010. There will be a brief presentation by Mitchell Baker (hopefully) that will cover all of Mozilla's goals for 2010, in particular how they relate to SUMO. Then we'll open the floor to comments, ideas and statements from the participants on how they see Mozilla heading into the next decade.
  • An open meet-and-greet. This will completely open time. We'll start with some introductions of everyone participating and then encourage people to find each other and talk about whatever they want. I'm hoping that people will use this time to find other localizers in their language or to try starting a translation while there are lots of other people around to help and provide support.

What kind of help is needed

Since there are lots of events and three timeslots for each, there are actually a lot of things that could use help. Here is a preliminary grid of tasks for day-of responsibilities. As you can see, there are a lot of gaps that hopefully you can volunteer for. If you are a localizer, this is a great way to get involved in other SUMO projects and extend your involvement and share your collected knowledge with other people. If you're not a localizer yet but you're interested, absolutely volunteer. There's no better way to learn than to teach.

RoleAsiaEuropeAmericas
Time9pm-mid PST4-7am PST11a-2p PST
Master of Ceremonies
Introduces presentations, queues filler videos, tracks time
zzxcdjstzzxc
Presenter, Session I
Basics of Localizing SUMO
CwwCwwCww
Presenter, Session II
Localizing Tips and Tricks
ciliascilias
Roundtable moderator
Mozilla 2010
CwwdjstMitchell Baker?
Open time
Everyone should be here to help answer questions. Even if you're not a localizer you can help with answering questions about KB articles, tikimarkup or just be supportive of the project as a whole.

Presenters will have prerecorded video segments by Cww (Session I), cilias (Session II) and djst/Mitchell Baker (Roundtable) at their disposal but should be familiar enough with the topics to be able to answer questions and do live demos as needed. This is actually really fun, especially if you're the kind of person who enjoys explaining things in a step by step way to others.

To make sure everything goes smoothly, Cww will schedule some time for technical run throughs with each presenter during the week before the event so we can make sure your microphone is working and everything is easy to read and you are at least familiar with the software.

Most importantly, even if you aren't in charge of an event, show up. Especially for the roundtable and open session which aren't only about localization. There is a big effort to get feedback from the Mozilla community as a whole (and in this case SUMO as a whole) as to the direction that Mozilla should be taking as we push into the next few years. This roundtable is a great way to get your voice heard. Show up and talk about what projects are important to you, suggest new avenues that can be explored, discuss the current policies and organizational structure. What makes Mozilla great is that as community members, your voice and opinions are listened to and valued.

What kind of non-day-of help is needed

There is a lot of stuff that needs to be done in advance also. We need to write the main SFD page, make a banner, make some filler videos and advertise. Since the focus is on localization, it'd be fun if we had videos in non-English languages talking about how cool the SUMO project is and use that as a form of advertising.

Ok, that's it. If there are any questions, suggestions, comments or if you'd like to volunteer for any of these tasks, please post below.



Hi, i'm in england I can do it (providing i get my homework done) but I dont know if i need any software to do it, or is it all done on the irc?

I suppose I can do some other stuff as well like writing some stuff.



Cww

What each of the tasks is

To give an overview of what will be required of people who help day of, we've put together this guide:

The entire day will be run through mogulus which is a online Flash video streaming system and on IRC. If you are giving a presentation or acting as master of ceremonies, you will need an account with mogulus so you can queue videos and slides and direct the audio. You will only need to download anything if you are uploading any live video or screencasts, however it may be a good idea to have that option even if you plan on only using pre-recorded material. I will be scheduling time with each of the presenters individually so that we can make sure you're familiar with the software and technical aspects.

Master of ceremonies

For this, you will need to have access to mogulus (you can make your own account and I'll give you access or you can use a communal account, just ask me for the username and password). Mogulus has a very intuitive system which allows you to queue up videos or direct the video to live streaming.

As master of ceremonies, you'll be in charge of announcing what's going to be happening and maintaining order in the IRC channel. If sessions are running long, you can help remind presenters to start wrapping up, if sessions are short, you can have a break and make sure that the attendees are back in time for the next event. You will also be given ops in the IRC channel as well so you can kick attendees who are disruptive. It may be a good idea to have downloaded the video uploader software (see Software section below) even if you don't plan on using it, just in case something needs to be presented on the fly or as filler.

Master of ceremonies is a pretty fun job since you can still take part in all the events and also see how it all runs behind the scenes.

Presenters

In this role, you'll be presenting the information on how to localize sumo. cilias and I will be prerecording video segments so you won't have to script anything, just queue the slides and answer questions. Since we're doing presentations semi-live, we ask that you have a microphone and that you have the video upload software downloaded so that you can describe things or do live demos to help answer questions. Since you may be presenting someone else's material, it's also important to have reviewed it carefully in advance.

Roundtable moderators

For the roundtable, moderators can decide exactly how they want to run it. In advance of the event, I'll be e-mailing out a list of suggested topics that you can cover but it'll by no means be binding. You can have your discussion over IRC completely with no audio, have it over audio with people raising points in IRC and repeating relevant things over the streaming flash. You can use mogulus as a board for holding notes or simply have it blank out for the duration of the session. It's completely up to you. As a roundtable moderator, you'll just have to steer the discussion and make sure that no one person dominates the conversation. That is all.

Software

As I said before, I will be offering technical assistance for setting up this software.

For Windows:
To upload high-quality video to mogulus, use Flash Media Encoder
You can couple that with the VH Screen Capture Driver to capture portions of your screen with live streaming.
Flash Media Encoder can also upload from a webcam attached to your computer if you are not showing live screencasts.

For OSX:
There are a few utilities that do this but I'm still looking for the free one that we've used in the past.



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