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Learn Anything White Paper

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Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#42
post #38
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not the parent, but wouldn't contribute on a website that a) gets its content solely from its users and b) locks features away behind a paywall especially if it's for learning. But to each his own and you cannot please everyone. Don't feel discouraged and keep going. The product looks pretty good. ( your simile with wikipedia breaks apart on the b btw, thats why nobody minds it there )

You wouldn't contribute even if the locked features were unrelated to what you'd be contributing to?

Absolutely not. Why would I offer to build someone else's castle without reward?

I'll gladly contribute to something everyone owns and has rights to, but under no circumstances will I do this for complete strangers that seek to capitalize upon my efforts. I only do that in exchange for a salary.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#43

Interesting. I'm solving the same problem but with a different approach![1] I just finished the initial development yesterday so there isn't much in the way of documentation yet, but I'll give a quick overview as a comparison to this (since they have a similar goal but very different approaches): I have one course put together so far and that course is still a little rough[2] (again, just finished development yesterd…

Please take some time to expand the README and a few screenshots, perhaps. :-)

For sure. I wasn't expecting to talk about it anywhere for a few weeks. Keep an eye on that repo; there will definitely be more documentation and stuff coming soon.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#44
post #42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't contribute even if the locked features were unrelated to what you'd be contributing to?

Absolutely not. Why would I offer to build someone else's castle without reward? I'll gladly contribute to something everyone owns and has rights to, but under no circumstances will I do this for complete strangers that seek to capitalize upon my efforts. I only do that in exchange for a salary.

Would you then also not contribute to Reddit? You are also contributing content to their website that they then use to serve other people ads. There is also Reddit Gold that you can buy to unlock some perks.

The idea is the same for this website. Although we don't want to serve other people ads as we think there are better business models than that.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#45
post #42
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't contribute even if the locked features were unrelated to what you'd be contributing to?

Absolutely not. Why would I offer to build someone else's castle without reward? I'll gladly contribute to something everyone owns and has rights to, but under no circumstances will I do this for complete strangers that seek to capitalize upon my efforts. I only do that in exchange for a salary.

I take it you don't use YouTube then. All their content is user generated, you get ads, they capitalize on your "efforts", and you have premium features that you can access only by paying (ie. YouTube Red).

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#46
post #33
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sad you feel that way. Wikipedia also asks for contributions and donations, does that feel like exploitation to you? No it doesn't, cause there's a massive amount of work that goes in projects like these and there's costs too. Costs that donations don't always pay. Would you prefer a huge banner while you're browsing asking you to donate and telling you that if we don't meet a certain quota we're shutting…

Wikipedia is entirely free, and asks for donations to cover its costs. It does not lock any features to paying users only. There is a world of a difference. For this to be the case, on a website made by user contributions no less, is even more upsetting. And yes, I prefer an unreservedly free website with banners reminding you to donate to a website that makes money off locking certain features to paying costumers on…

This is not related to your main point, but arguably Wikipedia is raising millions of dollars under false pretenses (that is, they run scare ads insisting that money is needed to keep the servers running) while the Wikimedia Foundation spends most of it on projects users don't know about and wouldn't want to fund. I think if the fundraising was more transparent more people would never donate to them again. It's been a number of years since my last donation and I won't be giving to them again until I'm sure the money will be used responsibly.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#47
post #45
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. Why would I offer to build someone else's castle without reward? I'll gladly contribute to something everyone owns and has rights to, but under no circumstances will I do this for complete strangers that seek to capitalize upon my efforts. I only do that in exchange for a salary.

I take it you don't use YouTube then. All their content is user generated, you get ads, they capitalize on your "efforts", and you have premium features that you can access only by paying (ie. YouTube Red).

YouTube creators get paid for their content. Further, funds from YouTube Red also in part go directly to creators because you are watching ad-free.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#48
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sad you feel that way. Wikipedia also asks for contributions and donations, does that feel like exploitation to you? No it doesn't, cause there's a massive amount of work that goes in projects like these and there's costs too. Costs that donations don't always pay. Would you prefer a huge banner while you're browsing asking you to donate and telling you that if we don't meet a certain quota we're shutting…

You're talking at your customers and/or unpaid contributors here instead of talking with them. The content you're asking people to create requires a massive amount of work. Pretending it is same social/economic contract as Wikipedia is just going to turn people off if you do add a premium version. You are better off being direct and transparent about your funding model if you want people to help. What features would…

Our goal is to create a completely Open Source website where we share both the code that runs the website and also all the data that was created and curated with it.

In the white paper it mentions that the 'premium' features will in no way block any curated content. The 'premium' features will simply be extra things that we will build like the mentioned `Experts` that you can get direct help from.

Again this is just an idea and in no way final. We wish the project was fully sustained through donations and we currently run no advertisements or anything in which we in some way profit from so in this way we are indeed a non-profit organisation.

However we do want to find a way where we can support maintaining the website by paying for the costs of the servers and the developer time that goes into making this project as amazing as it can be. We are open to ideas on how we can make this better for everyone.

Everything is Open Source and MIT licensed.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#49
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I take it you don't use YouTube then. All their content is user generated, you get ads, they capitalize on your "efforts", and you have premium features that you can access only by paying (ie. YouTube Red).

YouTube creators get paid for their content. Further, funds from YouTube Red also in part go directly to creators because you are watching ad-free.

YouTube creators get paid if there are enough people watching them. People watching videos, discussing on comment threads, and paying for YouTube Red don't get paid for their effort.

Re: Learn Anything White Paper

#50
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking at your customers and/or unpaid contributors here instead of talking with them. The content you're asking people to create requires a massive amount of work. Pretending it is same social/economic contract as Wikipedia is just going to turn people off if you do add a premium version. You are better off being direct and transparent about your funding model if you want people to help. What features would…

Our goal is to create a completely Open Source website where we share both the code that runs the website and also all the data that was created and curated with it. In the white paper it mentions that the 'premium' features will in no way block any curated content. The 'premium' features will simply be extra things that we will build like the mentioned `Experts` that you can get direct help from. Again this is just…

> The 'premium' features will simply be extra things that we will build like the mentioned `Experts` that you can get direct help from.

Sounds like the 'premium' features are completely unrelated to this project. I think it will make life easier for you if you completely removed them and spun them off to a different project. (I anal btw)

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