As the launch of Firefox 3 draws close, it is time to reflect on how revolutionary open source has been and how it still has so much to grow into. Being part of the Firefox support team has provided a brand new perspective that brings the open source way of doing things into a non-software arena – namely, providing customer support. The Firefox Support Knowledge Base is a collaborative work of dozens of contributors, the Support Forum is bustling with people answering questions, and Live Chat is manned by dedicated team of community members.
The Firefox Support Knowledge Base that is implemented using TikiWiki has unique features that encourage contribution and at the same time ensure the quality and accurary of the articles. David Tenser, Firefox Support Manager, said this in a recent interview, “Since the Knowledge Base is a wiki, anyone can sign up and make improvements …… we have a pretty neat review system in place to ensure that the accuracy of the articles are maintained. Although anyone can sign up to the wiki and start editing articles, a reviewer must read the changes made and approve them before they’re visible to our users. If a contributor proves to be a good writer whose edits are mostly approved without comments, he or she can become a reviewer as well.”
The Knowledge Base is also a platform for translation of articles, using features in TikiWiki derived from the Cross-Lingual Wiki Engine project of the National Research Council of Canada. The open nature of the wiki provides a lower barrier of entry to begin translating an article. “If an article is not yet available in your language, it’s easy to just get started and translate it yourself, which immediately helps your fellow local Firefox users,” David Tenser remarks.
The most remarkable thing I realized working with Mozilla is its unequivocal support for open source. They are absolutely committed to making sure that any improvements made to the source code of TikiWiki as a result of the Firefox Support project makes it back to that community. One of my main priorities for the next 6 months is to make this process smoother, by encouraging even closer collaboration between members of both communities.
Nelson — you and the TikiWiki community have done an amazing job with SUMO. I’m really glad to have you as a part of the SUMO team and I’m excited about the closer collaboration between the Mozilla and TikiWiki communities.