Submit your own drumbeat

Do you have the next great idea for a better web? Submit it to be part of Mozilla drumbeat and we'll help connect you to community and support resources that can turn that idea into reality.

• Your Project Headline
  • Understanding the Net: documentation (site/wiki/book) to explain to parents how to behave on the Net, so they can teach their kids.

• Short Description
  • The issue is that we're building the Internet — which is becoming more and more central to our lives —, but very few people understand the "rules" of the Net. We do teach our kids how to behave in the street (don't accept cookies from strangers, look right and left before crossing, etc.) and we should do the same for the Internet, except that parents don't know what the good habits (or best practices) should be taught. Giving parents some guidance from experts on how to protect their privacy, how to have a secure PC (antivirus, up to date browsers and plug-ins), so that they can teach their kids. We could imagine a version for kids too.
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• How will your idea make the web better?
  • The Web will be safer once the users understand better how things work. "Explain how your idea will make the web more open, participatory, safe, or more innovative.
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)
      • FAQ: For something to be a part of Drumbeat, one of its outcomes has to be that it makes the web better. That's a pretty broad bit of criteria to fit into. What we're looking for are ideas that keep the web open, make it easier for people to participate online, help people be safe and respects their rights. If your idea helps make the web more like that, then tell us how

• Tags
  • "A couple of keywords that describe your project."
    • (Text Box: space separated tags)
      • FAQ: Keep it simple and use general terms. For example: privacy, education, standards

Optional:

• Image or Logo
  • "Associate an image or logo with your project to help others recognize it."
    • FAQ: Already have your own logo or image? Start building your project's brand and add it to your submission. delineate pixel limit, format type here.
      • (Upload from computer form)

• Video or Presentation Slides
  • "Bring your project pitch to life with a short video describing your project. This a great way to let people know who you are and what your project is about."
    • FAQ: Have a video or slide presentation about your idea? Share a link to it here. delineate time limit here.
      • (Link to presentation form)

Success! Your project page has been created.
Now tell us a little more about your project below.
(Or come back and do it later.)

Your Project Details

• Participation. What do you need help with right now?
  • "One sentence requests that a community member help you with right now. These can evolve or change over the course of the project as your needs change.
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)
      • FAQ: Keep it simple and clear. eg: "I need help designing a logo", "I need help with legal issues" or "I need help with Javascript"

• What kinds of helpers or volunteers do you need?
  • e.g., "Graphic designers," "developers," "legal experts," "engineers," "artists?"
    • FAQ: This list of volunteers can change over the course of your project, so you can add new types of volunteers as you go along.)
      • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Goals, metrics and milestones. What is the outcome you're seeking?
  • "It's important to be able to measure your project's success. Please provide goals, metrics and milestones to support your project.
    • FAQ: As with any goal setting exercise, use your metrics to support your goals. For example if your goal is to reduce Internet Explorer 6 use around the world, your metric could be reducing use by 1%. Add in a milestones to help you chart the progress of your program as well as set a course for how to impliment it. This will help you see if you need to adapt or change your program along the way so that you can reach your goals. )
      • (Text Box: ~1000 characters max)

• Current challenges and questions
  • "If it were easy, it would have been done already. What are the obstacles in the way of making your project a success?"
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Audience
  • "Who is the audience for this project? Who are you trying to mobilize, to help, to engage?"
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Geography
  • What, if any, specific area or geography are you targeting?
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Partners and collaborators
  • List possible partners and collaborators for your project
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Background
  • "Why do you or the project team care about this issue or problem? Why are you passionate about driving this project forward?"
    • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

• Tools and Platforms
  • What collaborative tools are you already using?
    • (Drop down menu with some common tools -- google docs, github, youtube, basecamp)
      • (Opportunity to add items not in the drop down menu -- also would be nice if they could be hyperlinked so someone can jump straight to the tool).

• Budget & Fundraising
  • How much do you think it will cost to make your project work?
    • FAQ: Fundraising support is available for some drumbeat projects. If your project is a good candidate for fundraising, we will help you work on a full budget, but in this case, a general funding estimate will do.
      • (Text Box: ~500 characters max)

Your Project Tools & Content

 Should we prompt people to include or create tools & content types to flesh out their project page? e.g.,:
 * their existing project web site or blog
 * a project wiki or discussion forum 
 * flickr image galleries
 * and all the other Project Tools we've talked about?
 It might make sense to prompt for those things now -- some project creators may be keen to just "do it all" here and now, while others may prefer to do the minimum and flesh out later.

Notes, questions & feedback on copy

Rewrite from Chelsea:

Here's my turn at this text. I think it would be great if there were a way for people to get more info on each field so that we can keep the form text short, but have space for further explaination if needed. Also, I am stripping the form of colloquial speak to make it easier for non-native english speakers.

Feedback from Ken:

"Short Description"

• Should the word "Short" be dropped and the character max be bumped up a bit considering the amount of details that will need to be provided in order to pitch a project?
• Clearly stating that there is a character max and providing a real time (Twitter like) count wouldn't be a bad idea either.
• I just used 571 characters (unless the calculator I used is off).

"How will your idea make the web better?"

• Perhaps the character max is too high

Tags

• I think that tags are good but I'm not a fan of Tag Clouds. They can sometimes minimize the significance of tags/content that may be as equally as good as others if not better, and clouds can provide an unfair advantage and more exposure to certain content too just by having larger text.

Questions from Matt:

Fundraising field -- or lack thereof

• How do we handle the online donations issue at this stage in the process?
  • How do we treat this in Phase One? Do we ask them straight off if they're interested in eventually trying to raise money for their project?