Proposed changes for the Reps Call: Feedback Needed!

Reps
#1

Hello all,

As the Community Team is planning to hold a monthly community call, some thought has been given by the Reps Council as to how this can fit in with the Reps call.

What we would like to do is hold an hour-long Community Call once a month (ideally at the beginning of the month, but subject to change). The aim of this call is to bring the whole Mozilla community together with a series of spotlight calls on teams and activities. We have recently had a first call that focussed on the Common Voice community and it is hoped that we can have future Calls focused on different topics, moving between coding contributors, L10n, AMO, MDN, ReMo and SUMO, as well as advocacy news and other community-related news in the future.

The plan is to then move the ReMo call to the fourth Thursday of the month, roughly in line with the Firefox release schedule. This call will be ReMo focused and may have opportunities to follow up on the community call. We would also like for the call to be community-led and to be a welcoming space for communities and Reps to talk about their projects. There is no plan to change the start time of the call, but it may be extended to 45 minutes as we are able to bring together a month’s worth of content.

Please let us know what you think of this plan, and give us some feedback:

  • Do you have any comments on the new format proposed for the Reps Call?
  • Do you have any comments on the format of the Community Call?
  • Is there any topic, in particular, you would like to be discussed in the Community Call?
  • Is there any topic you would like to discuss in the ReMo Call?

Please post your feedback here, and we can discuss it the Next Week ReMo Call!

5 Likes
#2

In my case, for years due to this call schedule and time it has been impossible to assist. If you guys stick to have our Rep calls at the same time majority of us is working/studying/taking care of a family it would be very hard to catch up with your meetings.

I propose we have live calls targeting different regions, Asia, Latam, Europe or try to have the call during the weekend, etc.

For Volunteers that similar to my case have other responsibilities in life, a call that’s happening every labor week at 10 am (my Latam time) is simply impossible and not practical at all.

Let’s try to accommodate all and everyone not just certain communities please.

1 Like
#3

Hello!

I completely agree with mozecu regarding the time of the call. It’s either too early or too late for a lot of countries. Adding several more times could mean more Reps and Volunteers might be able to attend.

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#4

Hi @gaby2300and @mozecu That is certainly a good point, but I am not sure how we could make it work in practice. As it stands the call is late in the evening for those in Taiwan/Indonesia/India, late afternoon in Europe, and morning in Latam countries. if we move it earlier or later it will end up being at night for some of those groups. I can certainly think of possible accommodation:

  1. Since this will be once a month, we can publish the topic well in advance, and add a moderator tool to collect questions so that people can have those answered live even if they are not there

  2. if there are have follow-up questions, we can ask people to post them in the Matrix room and ask those that presented to answer them

  3. we can alternate the call between two times (one month at one time, and one month at another). However, I am not sure what time we could carry it out so that it would be better for those in Latam countries (maybe a couple of hours in advance, so people could check it out before going to work?)

  4. Since we are moving this to be more community-led, we can accommodate the presenter, to say if we have people presenting from Latin America, we will try to accommodate the time they are available

Do you have any other suggestions?

2 Likes
#5

I remember years ago that we tried to do the weekly call in different timezones maybe we can do it a month for europeans late and one in afternoon, so for the other timezone is more practical?

#6

How did that work out?

#7

@fminelli see [Host needed] Reps call pilot for Latin America timezone

As far as I remember, it was simply impractical for us. It’s not possible to get AV support outside of the official office hours. The issue applies to when we want to invite internal guests who are mostly based in the US or Europe. In the end, it’s becoming more like a local community-driven call, which is fine, but that’s probably not the thing that the community expect.

2 Likes
#8

Something that could be done is:

  1. Organize regular, region or timezone based Rep calls. :world_map:
    Yes, it seems harder but this way everyone will have a decent chance to join the conversation.

  2. Also, have a General Reps call every 3 months for all the Reps globally. :earth_americas:

  • Is it really necessary that Reps calls are so frequent?
#9

Well, I agree with making them less frequent (for now we are thinking once a month).

The main issue I see here is that we lately had few people join the Reps call (or watch it later, which is still an excellent way to participate, and questions can always be asked asynchronously). Therefore, I am unsure if splitting the call for different time zones would result in more people watching.

But, as I said, we are trying to move this to a more “community-led” Call. If there are Reps in Latam who have an idea for the topic of a call we can support it at a more accessible time (provided that we can get AV support). Evening in LATAM will probably be difficult to organize, but we could move it earlier, maybe, so that it would be at a time when people are not at work yet. I would also like to hear from other council members on this since we are spread out in different time zones. @yulireyji do you have any feedback?

1 Like
#10

Hi!

I remember that we had sessions for Latam, but I think there was the same problem, no-attendance. We could do the Latam pilot with the new format of the remo calls doing once a month, it find a time that works for all time zones.

#11

We could experiment for sure. But I am wondering if maybe we can start giving more possibilities for people to participate asynchronously (asking questions in advance, having the possibility for follow up afterward), as well as really encouraging people to watch the recording.

#12

Hi Everyone,
I wish to add my thoughts to this important thread!

I think it’s not a bad idea to have a monthly call covering all the topics. As Reps, I am sure we are all concerned and interested in these topics and it will give us all a better synopsis of all topics discussed. Regarding, the time scheduled, I am sure we can’t satisfied everyone due to time difference. As most of the time I miss to attend the weekly call due time constraint, I regularly access the discussion posted on the etherpad.

Best,
Sandraghassen

#13

Hi there

Thanks for the proposal!

I think putting as many public topics into the Community Call instead of the Reps Call is a good step forward. I also think that moving the cadence of the Reps call to monthly will

In regards to the timezone, we won’t find a time slot that works for everyone. We indeed have experimented with multiple calls in the past, but that never really worked out well. I think investing more time to contribute without having to be available for the call itself (both before and after the call) is worth a try here.

Let’s see how this will work out.

Michael

2 Likes
#14

Thank you very much for the feedback, everyone! We have put more details on these changes in these slides. We have also opened another thread where you can put any ideas you have for a topic for a call!