Planning issue: messaging

[ebarry]

Please describe the idea

What problem could this idea solve?

Over the years, people arriving at Public Lab to contribute to environmental health projects have found that there are actually intermediary steps needed such as filing bugs to improve the collaboration platform itself. I'm mentioning this because the moment when non-software-community contributors encounter bugs on the website when they are trying to do something else is a moment where we've repeatedly seen some of the greatest un-friendliness occur on Public Lab website. Because of this, I think we have an opportunity to improve some messaging.

While i'm never a fan of aggravated tones, I can sympathize with someone having the intention to do one type of work being derailed into doing a different type of (what is for them) intermediary work. I think this has been a missed opportunity to cultivate awareness and to conceptualize what it means to be active in Public Lab, and i think we can try to take this opportunity.

• I'd say that anyone who knows Public Lab people personally or for a long time has gained the awareness that there's a "meta" project going on underneath all the environmental health science and technology, but they might not be taking seriously that there's a corresponding meta community collaborating and constantly improving.

• And if someone is a newcomer, we do not make it clear that not only the content is user-generated, but so is the platform itself. That it's "people all the way down." I am starting to think that we have an opportunity to communicate this sooner and more clearly.

What did you expect to see that you didn't?

I'm not exactly sure, but I would like to brainstorm how we can better and sooner communicate to people arriving at Public Lab something like:

Not only is our website welcoming you into contributing to environmental health projects, but that this very website you are reading this content on is actually itself a collaborative project with its own set of contributors and first-timers.
Help make our collaboration work better by sharing your feedback in a kind tone. Thank you :)

Please show us where to look

• https://publiclab.org -- potentially on the front page as it is such a major part of what we do
• On the footer, where currently we have a rather plainly phrased Report a bug or issue link that leads to https://publiclab.org/issues -- this page does not (yet) mention that "this issue will go to a learning community of people of all ages collaborating on improving our collaboration platform -- please be kind"
• On the authoring pages, where people are actually contributing most intensely and may be most sensitive
• As a banner showed to people who are not logged in, who we might assume might be the least familiar with "the project under the project of Public Lab."
• On the dashboard, as a great place to reach people

Thanks for reading!

[cesswairimu]

Hi @ebarry I really love your explanation and would like to contribute in a way I have learnt from @jywarren by breaking up this issue to subsections with checklist. This is my first time doing this and please correct me and feel free to mention if it doesn't make sense 😄 Will be updating this as I also brainstorm. Thanks

• Mention at https://publiclab.org/issues that the issue will go to a learning community of people of all ages collaborating on improving our collaboration platform

• Change the phrase "Report a bug or issue" to a phrase that a person who is not a developer can understand maybe add the link https://publiclab.org/issues to the 404 page?

• Add a banner on the dashboard for people not logged explaining how that PublicLab platform is built by people collaboratively and that is always improving and inform them that feedback is always welcomed

[digitaldina]

Breaking this up now!