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LibreOffice on social media: stats for June 2016 – April 2017

To help spread the word about LibreOffice and get feedback from users (and contributors), The Document Foundation operates various social media accounts. Some of these have been running since the start of the project – while others are relatively new. We’ve been collecting statistics about our social media accounts for a while, so let’s share them with the world.

 

Twitter

Our Twitter account is used mainly for announcements, links to blog posts and videos, and retweeting interesting messages from LibreOffice users. We sometimes get questions as well, although it’s hard to provide long answers in 140 characters, so we often point users at Ask LibreOffice instead. Here’s our follower count in recent months:

 

Facebook

Meanwhile, our English-language Facebook page is getting busier, and via it we receive lots of messages of support (along with requests for new features). The audience tends to be made up of end-users rather than developers, although we encourage people to get involved with non-coding tasks such as translations, testing and documentation. This graph shows the growth in page likes over the last 11 months:

 

Google+

We also have a Google+ page, which isn’t as busy as Facebook, but our followers there tend to be more technical – so it’s a great place to bring in potential contributors. In terms of followers, the growth here over the last 11 months hasn’t been huge, but there’s steady progress:

 

YouTube

We’ve been tracking the total number of video views on our YouTube channel since November 2016. Due to the new content we’ve been adding, including new features videos, interviews and tutorials in many languages (thanks to our worldwide community), the total view count has shot up:

 

Others

The LibreOffice community on Reddit is quite small, but we’re posting regular updates and encouraging users to help one another with questions. Then there’s our Telegram group which we launched late last year – this has reached almost 400 members.

Finally, if you think LibreOffice and/or The Document Foundation should be active on some other social media that we’ve not covered in this post, join our marketing community and let us know!

Month of LibreOffice, May 2017: First week’s results

On May 1st we started a new Month of LibreOffice campaign, to give credit to contributions all across the project. So, after the first week, how is it looking? Well, here’s how many stickers have been awarded so far…

That’s a great start – 121 members of the LibreOffice community who’ll get a shiny sticker at the end of the month. Click the number to see how the contributions are spread across code, QA, documentation, user support and other areas. Of course, there’s more to come, and if you want to get a sticker for your laptop or other device, read on! Every contribution to LibreOffice can help millions of users across the globe.

How to get a sticker

There are many ways you can help the LibreOffice project and claim a sticker:

  • Help to confirm bugs: go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 10 and LibreOffice 5.3.2”. (Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice.)
  • Contribute code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll send you a sticker!
  • Translate the interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.
  • Write documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
  • Answer questions from users: Over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim a shiny sticker.
  • Spread the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim a sticker. (We have a maximum of 100 stickers for this category, in case the whole internet starts tweeting!)

Stay tuned to this blog for further updates during the month!

The May 2017 Month of LibreOffice begins!

Yes, a new Month of LibreOffice begins today, crediting contributions all across the project. This time we’re giving away real printed stickers for your laptop, desktop PC or other kit! If you help the LibreOffice community in various ways, we’ll add your name to a wiki page and then, at the end of the month, you’ll be able to claim your sticker. It’ll look like this:

How to get a sticker

There are many ways you can help the LibreOffice project and claim a sticker:

  • Help to confirm bugs: go to our Bugzilla page and look for new bugs. If you can recreate one, add a comment like “CONFIRMED on Windows 10 and LibreOffice 5.3.2”. (Make sure you’re using the latest version of LibreOffice.)
  • Contribute code: The codebase is big, but there are lots of places to get involved with small jobs. See our Developers page on the website and this page on the wiki to get started. Once you’ve submitted a patch, if it gets merged we’ll send you a sticker!
  • Translate the interface: LibreOffice is available in a wide range of languages, but its interface translations need to be kept up-to-date. Or maybe you want to translate the suite to a whole new language? Get involved here.
  • Write documentation: Another way to earn a badge is to help the LibreOffice documentation team. Whether you want to update the online help or add chapters to the handbooks, here’s where to start.
  • Answer questions from users: Over on Ask LibreOffice there are many users looking for help with the suite. We’re keeping an eye on that site so if you give someone useful advice, you can claim a shiny sticker.
  • Spread the word: Tell everyone about LibreOffice on Twitter! Just say why you love it or what you’re using it for, add the #libreoffice hashtag, and at the end of the month you can claim a sticker. (We have a maximum of 100 stickers for this category, in case the whole internet starts tweeting!)

So, good luck – we’ll be posting regular updates on this blog and our Twitter account. Get involved, help to make LibreOffice even better, and enjoy your awesome sticker as thanks!

Help keep the Calc guide up to date

The Documentation Team Meeting will

take place in May 10th at 17:00 CET

The Calc module of LibreOffice is one of its most complex and extensive applications and one of the most in-demand for documentation, as our measurements of the documentation website clearly show.

Documentation website daily visits over time, since January 1st, 2017.

The latest published Calc Guide is connected to LibreOffice release 4.1. The gap between this guide and the most recent Calc developments has widen and the current publication is outdated. (more…)

News about the migration to ODF in Taiwan

Plan of National Chi-Nan University to Stop Purchasing Microsoft Office from 2018 Raises Heated Discussions in Taiwan

April 23, 2017, Taiwan – The migration of ODF keeps going in many different fields in Taiwan. Since 2016 the Ministry of Education in Taiwan entrusts the Information Service Association of Chinese Colleges (ISAC) and Software Liberty Association Taiwan (SLAT) with the task of promoting and migrating ODF/LibreOffice in universities in Taiwan. Among all the university, National Chi-Nan University (NCNU) is the earliest one, which started migrating LibreOffice since 2014 and has been working on it for three years.

Then on April 20, 2017, a student from NCNU posted an article on Dcard forum saying that, according to her teacher, NCNU “Will not use Microsoft Office anymore due to the budget issue. LibreOffice will be used to replace Microsoft Office.” The student strongly questioned, “LibreOffice is totally unknown to everyone. I don’t know what the administrative staffs of our school are thinking about. Microsoft’s software is a very basic skill for enterprises to recruit people. This decision will make students lost their core competitiveness.”

This article raised heated discussion on the Internet. Some people questioned the NCNU about the usage of the budget, saying that such a big national university may never lack the budget to buy Microsoft licenses. Also, there were still a number of people questioning about the interoperability between LibreOffice and OOXML. However, more people disagreed with the student’s thoughts about “Microsoft equals core competitiveness.”

Ben Jai, a famous entrepreneur and public opinion leader in Taiwan, said on his Facebook page: “For a student, it should be more important to actively explore new things rather than waiting for someone to teach him. If he just waits for teachers to teach him how to use a tool and plans to use the tool all his life, he will be very easily eliminated.”

Matthew Lien – a.k.a. BlueT in open source communities in Taiwan – who was one of the main promoters of LibreOffice in NCNU, explained the policy on Facebook: “The budget is just one of the reasons but not all. The budget of schools should invest on students and education, but the Microsoft’s license fee is going higher and higher and starts to supplant budgets of other items. Therefore, we’ve worked on promoting ODF and LibreOffice for three years. It’s not an impulsive decision. BTW, we won’t forbid anyone to use Microsoft Office, just that NCNU won’t purchase Microsoft Office anymore.”

Another article on The Inside Media discussed this topic and gave a conclusion by asking this question: “Maybe Microsoft Office has been the basic skill of many enterprises. However, why our education only teaches our students a single tool, instead of training our students to learn and adopt new skills actively?”

Coming up on 1st May: the next Month of LibreOffice

Last year we had two Months of LibreOffice, in May and November. These celebrated contributions all across the project, from development and documentation through to translations and QA. Everyone who got involved was awarded a badge to use on websites and social media.

This year, though, we’re taking it up a notch. For the first Month of LibreOffice, starting on Monday 1st of May, we’re giving out real printed stickers to all contributors! And they look like this (printed versions on the way):

Yes, if you help the LibreOffice project during May, you’ll be able to claim a shiny sticker for your laptop, desktop or other kit at the end of the month. You’ll just need to let us know your address and we’ll pop a sticker in the post. Then you’ll be able to show the world not only that you love LibreOffice, but that you’re a proud contributor as well!

So, how do you get a sticker? Stay tuned to this blog – on Monday we’ll provide all the details and the campaign will get started. See you then…

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