# Introduction

### 👥 📕 Mozilla Common Voice Community Playbook V1.2

* Thank you to our authors, reviewers and maintainers of the community playbook without your support this playbook wouldn’t be possible!&#x20;
* Learn more about how we [maintain the playbook](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/maintenance.html) and [the Playbook's License](https://github.com/Heyhillary/community-playbook/tree/aa84c0bf479002d6f4b07760dad5b83b1e810eca/LICENSE.md)&#x20;
* Content coordination: [Hillary Juma, Common Voice Community Manager](https://discourse.mozilla.org/u/heyhillary/activity)

## Welcome to Common Voice Community  🥳

Mozilla Common Voice is an initiative to help teach machines how real people talk.

Everyone can take part in Common Voice! You don't need technical experience, though if you do, that's great too!

### Playbook Chapters:

* [Localization](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/Localization.html): Translating project tools and material to be understood by contributors in their language&#x20;
* [Text Corpus](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/text.html): Gathering, validating and processing public domain sentences&#x20;
* [Voice Corpus](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/voice.html): Recording and validating voice clips to create a public domain dataset
* [Language Communities](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/communities.html): Learn more about the Communities of Common Voice and how to start your own  &#x20;

#### What is Common Voice?

Voice is natural, voice is human. That’s why we’re excited about creating usable voice technology for our machines. But to create voice systems, developers need an extremely large amount of voice data.

Most of the data used by large companies isn’t available to the majority of people. We think that stifles innovation. So we’ve launched Common Voice, a project to help make voice recognition open and accessible to everyone.

Language communities advance a language from not having a presence in [Common Voice](https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/) at all to being able to generate a functional Speech to text (STT) model which is able to understand how people speak. Once the Common Voice website is localized by a language community, the process involves the 5 following steps.

![Voice journey quantities](https://2610499979-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-legacy-files/o/assets%2F-Me_93jMbUNcsGd63g-z%2Fsync%2F97ef1c2d9b48908390be7464fc8eae28fbbf2423.png?generation=1626269317682819\&alt=media)

1. Collecting and validating public domain sentences
2. Recording and validating the recordings of the sentences
3. Repeating this process to grow the size of the data
4. Generating a dataset
5. and using machine learning to train speech-to-text models using this dataset

## Navigating the playbook

### Goals

Our community playbook is a living document of our communities history and knowledge. After reading the playbook chapters, you will understand:

* The goals and ethos of the Common Voice project
* The journey of language onto Common Voice&#x20;
* How to set up and maintain a language community as part of Common Voice&#x20;

#### TLDR: Too Long Don't Read

To help you quickly navigate the playbook, this list provides you with possible information you would like to have and the associated content.

**I would like to....**

* [Add my language to Common Voice](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/readme-how-to-see-my-language-on-common-voice/31530)
* [Contribute text to help build the Common Voice dataset](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/text.html)
* [Learn more about recording and validating voices on Common voice](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/voice.html)&#x20;
* [Build a language community and access engagement materials](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/mobilization.html)
* [Connect with language communities across Common Voice](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/communities.html)
* [Localize the playbook for my language community](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/maintaince.html)&#x20;

*As you read the playbook....*

🔨 Make sure you check the *required skills* for each section and look for people who can fit.

💬 Check the channels section to learn how to set up your local forums and chat to communicate with other people in your language.

Each chapter covers; Purpose - Who we are - Success - How to join - What we do - Roles - Channels

## Common Voice Ecosystem

### Participation Guidelines

Common Voice communities are governed by Mozilla's code of conduct and etiquette guidelines, we take this very seriously and no violations are tolerated.

We encourage you to please read [Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines](https://www.mozilla.org/about/governance/policies/participation/) before contributing to this project.

For more information on how to report violations of the Community Participation Guidelines, please read our '[How to Report](https://www.mozilla.org/about/governance/policies/participation/reporting/)' page.

### Governance

Mozilla Foundation stewards the overall Common Voice project and is the ultimate decision-maker for its direction and goals. It also oversees the development of some tools and channels described here to support our communities.

Common Voice language communities are self-organized, and you don’t need to ask for permission to participate or mobilize any of these communities in your language. All the data generated by communities is published under open licences.

Some community roles exist formally and informally, and they all should follow the [Mozilla leadership shared agreements](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/what-s-next-for-volunteer-leadership-in-2018-shared-agreements/25091).

The Common Voice Team at Mozilla Foundation, [share weekly updates](https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/weekly-update-thread-2021/84411) to the community on discourse.

### Common Voice Communities 🗺

Common Voice has a variety of communities that support the project in different important areas, they are usually grouped by language.

#### Language Communities

👥 A language's journey onto Common Voice is made possible with communities of multidisciplinary teams of committed people. Roles vary from no coding needed to organizing roles. Our [community mobilization resource](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/mobilization.html) and [Community page](https://common-voice.github.io/community-playbook/sub_pages/communities.html) can connect you to resources and existing language communities that can support you.

ℹ️ Note: Mozilla welcomes small and minority language communities, and we understand some of these goals may seem out of reach. In that case, feel free to share with us how they are different for you, and we will try to help. Connect with the Common Voice Team on [discourse](https://discourse.mozilla.org/c/voice/239) or [github issues](https://github.com/common-voice/common-voice/issues).
