1. MDN is easy!
A guide to contributing to the Mozilla Developer Network!
Chris Mills, Senior Tech Writer, MDN
Monday, 14 October 13

2. By the end, you will have
1. An MDN account
2. An edit to an MDN page in your name.
MDN icebreaker!
Monday, 14 October 13

3. Why would anyone
contribute to MDN?
Monday, 14 October 13

4. For everyone!
• Yourself
• Your project
• Mozillians
• The whole world
Monday, 14 October 13

5. You can
• Shine
• Get sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll
• Get stickers, t-shirts and recognition
• Help the community get the docs they need
Monday, 14 October 13

6. Your project can
• Get internal and external visibility
• Get promotion (in combination with Hacks blog,
evangelist talks, etc.)
• Get more users and contributors
Monday, 14 October 13

7. Mozillians, the whole world
• Gets awesome docs to help them do their work
• Is able to contribute back
• Will get to know you and love you
Monday, 14 October 13

8. It’s a great platform
• Kuma — based on Django and Node.js
• It’s a Wiki, on steroids
• Our development team are *actually*
ninjas.
Monday, 14 October 13

9. How to contribute?
What do you want to get out of this session?
Monday, 14 October 13

10. You just have to log in...
• This is mainly just to cut down on some spam
• And to share recognition, and blame!
• We use Persona
Monday, 14 October 13

11. Once logged in
• You can edit pages
• Create new pages
Monday, 14 October 13

12. You should also
• Report bugs at bugzilla.mozilla.org (project: Mozilla
Developer Network :: General)
• Get help on lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-mdc
• Get help on IRC (wiki.mozilla.org/IRC, room #devmo)
Monday, 14 October 13

13. Editing
Monday, 14 October 13

14. Don’t be afraid
• Hit that edit button
• And kick some ass
• At the very worst, we can revert changes
• But we’d rather you edit stuff than send us bugs!
Monday, 14 October 13

15. Edit toolbar
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Project:MDN/
Contributing/Editor_guide
Monday, 14 October 13

16. Edit bar
Monday, 14 October 13

17. Footer controls
Monday, 14 October 13

18. Macros
• Written in KumaScript, which is pretty much just JS
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/
Project:MDN/Contributing/Custom_macros
• For example, {{HTMLElement("div")}} is found at
developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/
Template:HTMLElement
Monday, 14 October 13

19. How to contribute
Monday, 14 October 13

20. Big or small
• It’s all really useful!
• Some MDN contributors literally just make a handful
of small fixes each day, or week
• But it improves the site quality enormously
Monday, 14 October 13

21. Small contributions
• Typos
• Correction of technical errors
• Title fixes
• Adding tags
• Code consistency fixes
• Code snippets
Monday, 14 October 13

22. Small contributions
• Improving descriptions and examples
• Proof reading, tech review
• Macro fixes
• Other minutiae
• Feedback!
Monday, 14 October 13

23. Large contributions
• Writing new articles
• Tech editing/copy editing
• Translations
• Writing demos
• Kuma development
• Writing tools
Monday, 14 October 13

24. Create a new article
Monday, 14 October 13

25. Write it...
• Then request an edit
• You can also ask on the mailing list or in IRC
Monday, 14 October 13

26. Shout about it!
• Spread the word on Twitter, Google+, etc.
• Get developers interested in using the feature/tool/
whatever it is, and contributing to the docs
Monday, 14 October 13

27. Tech/copy editing
• Can be a big task, depending on the quality or length
of writing
• Make most fixes yourself
• For uncertainties, contact the main contributor
• Ask on IRC/mail
• File a bug
Monday, 14 October 13

28. Translations
• Really useful contribution
• Keep MDN internationalized!
Monday, 14 October 13

29. Find a page to translate
Monday, 14 October 13

30. Choose a language
Monday, 14 October 13

31. Enter your translation
Monday, 14 October 13

32. Collaborate!
• Start a localization group
• Or join an existing one
• developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Project:MDN/
Localizing/Localization_projects
Monday, 14 October 13

33. Write demos
• Some people don’t like writing prose
• But excel at writing code
• Good demos are a major plus
Monday, 14 October 13

34. How to add demos
• Put them on Github
• Directly, or via JSBin, Codepen.io, etc.
• Link to them!
Monday, 14 October 13

35. Live samples
• Smaller samples can be put directly on the Wiki page
• Then assembled into a running demo
• developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Project:MDN/
Contributing/Editor_guide/
#Using_the_live_sample_system
Monday, 14 October 13

36. Write tools
• Why not write a demo that does something useful?
• For example, the box-shadow generator
• developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Tools/
Box-shadow_generator
Monday, 14 October 13

37. Write macros
• A macro is basically just a special kind of page
• developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/
Template:HTMLElement
• In this page you enter KumaScript, which is basically
JS with some extra APIs
Monday, 14 October 13

38. Write macros
• This JS is executed server-side
• So you can’t do client-side type stuff with it
• But you can automate a lot of work!
• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/
Project:MDN/Contributing/Custom_macros
Monday, 14 October 13

39. Kuma development
• If you are a ninja (or at least a samurai, or pirate)
• You might want to help develop the system
• It’s on github
• github.com/mozilla/kuma
• developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Project:MDN/
Kuma/Contributing
Monday, 14 October 13

40. It’s a big community
out there
Monday, 14 October 13

41. CommUNITY
• Don’t feel you have to do it alone
• Find others who share your immediate interests
• And collaborate
• Ask for help on IRC, mail
Monday, 14 October 13

42. Repurposing content
Monday, 14 October 13

43. Reuse!
• Why not repurpose that blog post?
• Article?
• Code example?
• Quick-fire tip?
• Or Hacks post?
Monday, 14 October 13

44. Thanks for listening!
cmills@mozilla.com || @chrisdavidmills
Chris Mills, Senior Tech Writer, MDN
Monday, 14 October 13

45. Notes for session presenters
When running a workshop on MDN editing:
• Start with a presentation, including what you need to
know to become an MDN contributor (slides 9-35?)
• Make sure everyone can sign in, and find a page for
them to edit.
Monday, 14 October 13

46. Notes for session presenters
When running a workshop on MDN editing:
• Bookmark several pages containing simple-to-fix
problems.
• Let people choose one of these to fix (unless they
want to find something of their own).
Monday, 14 October 13