Re: [tdf-discuss] Re: RfD: Non-corporate user representation?

On 21/12/2014 13:18, Charles-H. Schulz wrote:
> > >Would a different attitude/culture, something like
> > >"Users 1st", help to mitigate that?
> Users do not dictate what developers do. That's not how Free and Open
> Source Software works, as "the culture change" entails that users would
> tell developers and contributors what to do. What would be the
> incentive for anyone to do that? I have a day job. Many others do. Why
> would I receive directives from random people?:-)
>
> > >At the same time it would be good
> > >to define the user's implicit responsibilities resulting from their
> > >choice to use the product. To make the difference clearer, it's not a
> > >case that the user needs to 'Join us!' as on the Help > Send
> > >Feedback...    page, rather it would be an accepted fact that all
> > >users are automatically a member of the community simply by virtue of
> > >being users.
> Users are users. They get rights from the software freedom conveyed by
> the licenses we use. They do not get anything else, unless they want to
> become contributors. Anything else is toxic for the community and
> profoundly demotivational (btw: we have ten years of experience on that
> inside OpenOffice.org)
>
> > >
> > >To make this change of emphasis visible I'm thinking of an extension
> > >to the    Help > Send Feedback...    page, also ideally putting that
> > >content into the main help file so users can see it without going
> > >online.
> > >
> > >Below is a very rough draft, based in part on Thorsten's excellent
> > >summary above. I'd be happy to put more effort into a better version
> > >if gets support. Keeping this kind of text simple and inviting is
> > >always very difficult.
> > >==============================================================================
> > >   Welcome to the LibreOffice Community
> > >
> > >The LibreOffice community includes all users. Everyone is welcome,
> > >whether as a user or if you are able to become more involved.
> How about: "Everyone is welcome: see how you can become involved today!"
> Otherwise  you keep on having this distinction where users are not
> encouraged to become contributors.
OK, I can spend some time on this now and will work though the design 
group as suggested.

I'm still keen on a 'users first' approach and an acceptance that users 
are 'in' the community by virtue of being users. It's semantic I 
suppose, since in some sense users are clearly part of the wider LO 
community. The idea actually comes from my local hospital, which has the 
byline 'patients first' on all its correspondence and documentation. The 
patient is considered to be part of the team rather than someone to whom 
things are done. In my personal experience it makes a huge difference to 
how 'users' feel. It doesn't though make much difference to medical 
processes and treatment. So, by a similar analogy, I don't see why you 
would expect a 'users first' approach to change current processes 
significantly. BUT, in my view there is a considerable potential upside 
because it will make the user feel more valued, it will make the step to 
deeper involvement seem smaller even though in practice it's just the 
same, and it will probably make it slightly more likely that users will 
take that step, which is what we all want. I understand that it might 
seem threatening having thought about the relationship in a different 
way for 10 years. I expect hospital staff felt the same when the idea 
was first floated there, and their history is much longer than that. So, 
I plan to draft stuff along 'user first' lines and see how it looks. If 
it still seems too awful, it will no doubt get changed before 
implementation.

--
Mike Hall
www.onepoyle.net


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