Improving application and on-boarding

Reps
#1

This topic was created because the previous topic was too much for people to go through.

A summary of the questions and answers provided

Why are the reps application bugs private?

What are the questions that are still open?

Leaving this empty because rhetorical questions are being considered as literal questions by the people who are responding. Converting most of the questions into problems because the questions are actually about problems.

What are the problems that we want to solve?

Selection criteria is vague

Explanation what the applicant has done regarding mobilizing communities (regional or functional), can also be outside of mozilla

What is it that is being looked for in the applicant? Is organizing events the criteria? If yes, what size should the event be?
Does mobilizing people over internet count? If yes, how do you measure that? Is the size of mailing list/telegram groups a good indicator?

Is the impact produced the indicator that is being asked for? How is this impact measured?

Should outside of mozilla be in communities that are relevant to mozilla’s mission? Or does any kind of mobilization of any community count?

How is this criteria connected to the other criteria: “What are the most important achievements of the applicant in the past 12 months in the mozilla community or in Open Source in general”

Should they be related? Can they be different?

Does the applicant have a focus area regarding mobilizing the community?

Should the applicant have one? If yes, what are considered as focus areas? Could there be a few examples?

Explanation if the applicant already organized or joined other mozilla events, also can be from other open source initiatives

What does this mean? Is this asking about event attendance? Is there a time frame that is being asked for?

Explanation of what the applicant learned on helping the community or projects that the applicant joined in the past

What is expected here? Could sample answers be provided?

Explanation of how the Reps program will enable the applicant to achieve his goals inside Mozilla and his/her local community

Could we change the language here to be more inclusive?

Can this put near the criterion about goals so that there is an easy to follow flow for the criteria?

What are the most important achievements of the applicant in the past 12 months in the mozilla community or in Open Source in general

What is the purpose of this question? What is being expected of the applicant here? Is it the activity in the last 12 months that is being questioned?

The applicant needs to be active within Mozilla for at least 6 months

Please clarify this (see the text about rejection message below) whether this refers to last 6 months or any 6 months in the past.

Also, please clarify what is considered as activity. How is objectivity brought into this criterion?

How knowledgeable is the applicant about the Mozilla project, our mission and our values?

This cannot be objectively assessed.

Application bug form doesn’t help applicants fill everything required for selection criteria

The application bug form (maybe due to technical restraints) is sparse and doesn’t really help people make a successful application. They are expected to have the selection criteria open in another page and make sure they put in links/comments for everything that is mentioned on that page. This may not be inclusive, especially for people who aren’t experienced enough to understand how selection criteria works.

There is no customized/personalized rejection messages

Rejection messages seem to be copy-pasted. If every individual has been screened objectively, there should be an objective score card of which items they passed and which items they didn’t.

The generic rejection message is inconsistent with the selection criteria

we reviewed your application and we think that you are not ready to become a Rep.
As Rep is important to have clear goals and experience to accomplish them and in your application, this seems not clear now.

Sadly this wasn’t really aligned in your application and there is no activity for the last 6 months. We suggest to you to wait before applying again and try to get involved more in Mozilla in a specific area, to be ready for the role as a community mobilizer or functional doer and get more experience.

Thank you for contributing to Mozilla and we hope to see your application in the near future :slight_smile:

This is the rejection message that I’ve seen character to character same in three different rejected applications.

As Rep is important to have clear goals and experience to accomplish them and in your application, this seems not clear now.

If this is important, perhaps it should be a question. (It is mentioned in criteria, but not in this language of compulsion)

there is no activity for the last 6 months

This is not mentioned in the selection criteria at all. There is one point that says “active in mozilla for 6 months” and another point that says “active in the last 12 months”. Neither of them are about activity for the last 6 months.

get more experience

This isn’t appropriate or respectful. Many people are rejected not for not having experience, but for not having activity in the last n months. Asking them to “get more experience” sounds very very arrogant. If you can take a lesson from this entire outrage of mine, please correct this one phrase.

Improving Program visibility and accountability
Feedback regarding the reps program in India
[CLOSED] Announcing "Mozilla Community Mobilizers" (Community Run Experiment)
#2

Yes, I don’t think this needs any discussion. Changed!

2 Likes
#3

Hello all,

As a former Reps council and I was responsible for the onboarding process, I would step in and clear up some points about the process. I would not go through the infinite questions one by one, but I would explain how is the process going so far.

How is the Reps process working?

  1. Application process (This screening phase doesn’t mean you are official Rep when you are accepted)
  2. Onboarding process (Preparation for Reps program which takes 3 months)

Application process:

  1. Fill in the application
  1. vouchers by fellow Mozillians
  • Yes we see here three vouchers
  1. Moved to the screening process
  • Yes he was moved to the screening process
  1. Review application by onboarding team

Before starting the review I would clarify some points first

What is mobilized community?

In case you missed this post:Reps as mobilizers in the Mozilla Community just refresh our mind :wink:

1.finding and connecting new talent with Mozilla projects
2.growing in their mobilizing and coaching skills
3.supporting their local communities and the rest of the organization to reach their goals and be more effective and
4.creating collaborations with other local communities in an effort to expand Mozilla’s mission and Mozilla’s outreach in the open source ecosystem
The most important definitions are here:

  • trusted: Mozillians will feel good sharing information intended just for internal use and they keep it that way.
  • aligned: We refer as alignment or aligned to the people who have a clear understanding on where Mozilla is right now, what are the current needs/priorities for the organization and as a result they plan their activities to bring value to these high level goals.
  • committed: People with proven past record on their accountability and support to the activities delivered inside the organization.

This mobilized community definitions is very important to know when people review the applications, and when people are applying for the Reps program.

How Onboarding team review ?

We concentrate more in this part of the selection criteria

Application request needs to contain the answers to the following items:, Which are fairly listed in the selection criteria and is open to everyone to read through and think about each point, what would be needed from the application to align in his/her application.

As a volunteer doing the review for the onboarding process, I don’t see Joice having goals related to mobilizing community or any leadership goal, I listed all the points in his bug application. IMHO the person shouldn’t be offended because he/she got rejected. When I put myself in his shoes, yes it feels sad if he is excited about it, but I received fair points why I have been rejected and I would work on those in the next 6 months and apply again.

As other people mentionned this was a good way (not the best and it can be better) to improve the reps program and have qualified leaders. Joice always can apply again, he learned from this time what is expected and millions of people learned from his experience what is expected. When he has a clear goal, as the only goal I can see is he decided to join the community as a Rep because of social situations have been addressed in India, this is not a goal, it’s a reason and we focus on goals and plans of people.

I would mention here that Reps/Reps council are not arrogant, they are volunteer they are providing a good quality of time from their lives to reply to people, follow up their process, make things better, and I think the minimal thing as an outcome from each other is to appreciate this time and the work have been done.

Please let’s be more mature, and see things objectively not with our hearts, Joice is a talented person from what he has done outside of Mozilla organization with other open source community, and it’s clearly his base/primary contribution is localization, maybe he can start from there to think how he can mobilize the community and apply again for Reps program, EVERYONE WILL ALWAYS HAVE THE SUPPORT OF REPS COUNCILS not matter what happens. We just need to be aligned and see things from the same/right angel.

Cheers!
Manel

1 Like
#4

I don’t see any reason why you needed to bring an individual’s reps application into this topic. Please see in my “infinite questions” whether there is something for the reps program to improve. If not, ignore. That is maturity. Not making everything personal.

#5

Since you have mentioned your feedback out in the open, I invite you to share your opinion about making applications and their feedback open. There has been some debate about this here too. Make sure to check out Pranshu’s views about making applications open. I have been unsuccessful in convincing him why implementing open(moderated) practices here would be beneficial. Your insight might help!

#6

@nukeador, @lucyeoh - is the feedback in this thread (except what @mkohler already fixed), being considered? If they’re irrelevant, please let me know so that I can restate the relevance.

#7

I know the onboarding team was going to check and reach out. So probably a question more for the Council and the onboarding team.

@couci do you have updates here? Who is taking ownership here?

#8

There is the work on restructuring the onboarding documented here: https://github.com/mozilla/Reps/issues/391

Anyone can provide feedback and suggestions

#9

The OKR that issue talks about is:

90% of the new onboarded Reps are reporting that are ready to become local leaders in their community due to their onboarding training

The feedback in this thread is about selection criteria and screening process which precedes the process that is currently being discussed in that issue.

Should I still go ahead and make these comments under that issue? @couci

#10

Hi

I am going through this process at the moment and while it does appear a little daunting, I am not finding it too bad.

Please can you keep the webinar “as is”? There is a moment just after mkohler looses his web connection and you hear a voice in the backgound cry “noooooo”. Briliant timing. :laughing:

#11

Hey Akshay,
yes you are right, this github issue is focusing on the second part of the onboarding. If you would like to make suggestions on the first part (the screening part), then a new github issue is encouraged. I know it feels like bouncing from one tool to another but we try to keep issues that we work in, in github for better visibility.

Please keep in mind that there is no time allocation to work on the first part from the Council right now. Which means that since our time is focusing on improving the second part won’t be a priority in 2019.

#12

Not a problem. As long as there is a discussion and not total silence/outright denial that problems exist, I’m happy to help in whichever platform you want me to make suggestions at. I’ve created an issue with detailed suggestions.

I understand that there are improvements needed. I don’t agree with the statement: “inclusive to people from various backgrounds and different cultures” but that’s your opinion and you are entitled to this.
As indicated in discourse please open a new issue. I would encourage you that when you are pointing issues, suggest alternatives on how those can be fixed.

I’m quoting this reply in the former issue and repeating my comment that the application/screening process is not inclusive to people from various backgrounds and different cultures. The reasons are that

  • some of the questions are written in language that doesn’t help the reader understand what exactly the application process is looking for in the applicant. This makes people who do not have connection with fellow reps misunderstand questions and answer them insufficiently.
  • the very form of application (bugzilla + criteria on a wiki page) is difficult for people to follow. This makes it harder for composing a good application.
  • the screening team is relying exclusively on links to “objectively” verify applicant’s activities. This makes it difficult for people from cultures/backgrounds where not everything is converted into blog posts/instagram photos to succeed in reps application.

I’ve made suggestions and provided alternatives for all of these and many other problems in various threads. I’ll keep following up on each points as I do not want to see the reps program continue in this state.

How about Q1 2020 then?