MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform • Hacker News Board

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#141

Post by pavon » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #30

pianoben wrote: post #25

Reading between the lines, it seems obvious that Mozilla wishes to stop funding localization. Translations aren't even that expensive, especially relative to the cost of producing the docs in the first place. It hurts me to see MDN so starved of resources that they can't pay for even that small piece. MDN has been key to so many people's technical education. High-quality web documentation is an essential resource for…

We shouldn't discount volunteer translations. Won't the new platform support that?

I think that storing the localized content in separate flat HTML files makes it very difficult to maintain translations, as the article points out.

Ideally, you would have a master document in which some parts are shared across all translations (like the layout, the actual terms in the spec, browser compatibility information, etc), while other parts were localizable (like the field descriptions). Then when content was added/changed, it would be clear which parts of the translations needed updating, and you could either flag them as such for volunteers, or use machine translation as a stop-gap, or both.

With the architecture they described, however, your options are either to make the translations completely independent or to make translations completely machine translated, neither of which is a good solution.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#142

Post by Kaze404 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

blitblitblit wrote: post #113

tomcam wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be inflammatory here. What does it matter if Microsoft has a proprietary front end for Github when all the docs are in markdown?

One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers. If it were open source we could perhaps see what WebComponent feature they think is missing and implement it in the browser engine, as it is they do not have any desire to collaborate and the black box makes it all the more difficult to debug. Github's response: "... further degrad…

> One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers

Not that I think this is the right move by Github, but you can create PRs from external tools. I do that from Magit+Forge all the time.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#143

Post by cxr » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:14 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #132

cxr wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> baselessly insult people who discuss things about Mozilla...? It's neither baseless nor is it an attitude that is not "helpful"—I laid out exactly what the basis for the comment is, which comes almost directly from Frank Hecker's post a couple months ago after the most recent layoffs: > Incidentally, doing a Twitter search on ”Mozilla” gives a good feel for public perception of Mozilla among technologists, but unfo…

> I don't really know what your first two sentences about human organizations and context are supposed to mean. They're mean that you have completely misinterpreted the conversation, and apparently continue to do so. The discussion started about moral responsibility. You're the only one confusing it with legal responsibility. And that's pretty much that.

You're right, it did start that way. And then the matter of legal responsibility was brought up; one person even posed the question, "Does the project owe its contributors anything?", and gave a direct and unequivocal response: "Legally, no." (Side note: that person was you.) And to say that is to say something that is simply not true—as untrue as any statement now about my being confused about whether legal responsibility was being discussed.

You can't rewrite history. (And we shouldn't have to replay all this. It's still all there to see...)

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#144

Post by thesimon » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

kardos wrote: post #104

blitblitblit wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now users have to learn GitHub and author raw HTML! Ignoring the fact Microsoft's Github has recently had DMCA insanity, a proprietary frontend, and recently enforced Webcomponents (effectively removing UXP devs who were forced to self-host Gitea just to continue working)... this seems like Mozilla is trying to outsource as much as possible from their own hosting. They also shutdown Firefox Send. Perhaps Mozilla is…

> They also shutdown Firefox Send. IIRC it was being abused and there was no way to combat that

Although I have a hard time believing they completely overlooked it when they were designing the service.

If I think of serving user-generated/uploaded content, malware and copyright violations come directly to my mind.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#145

Post by wldcordeiro » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

hombre_fatal wrote: post #136

ronnier wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The friction is higher. Now you have to deal with github and accounts and permissions and so on. Before it was a simple web form.

Well, now balance that against the rest of the upsides they present, like the new UX not being to merely revert the changes that you spent the weekend writing. Let's stop acting like just because we can think of one downside that we can ignore the rest of the trade-offs. Btw this is a trade-off they already mentioned in TFA rehashed by an HN comment for some reason.

Because HN commenters always feel like they know better and like to talk down on any changes even when they have no context for why the decision was made.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#146

Post by wldcordeiro » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

JeremyBanks wrote: post #137

blitblitblit wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers. If it were open source we could perhaps see what WebComponent feature they think is missing and implement it in the browser engine, as it is they do not have any desire to collaborate and the black box makes it all the more difficult to debug. Github's response: "... further degrad…

If you've chosen to use a web browser that's forked from an old version of Firefox and isn't aiming for compatibility with modern Web Platform Tests, you're going to encounter a lot of obstacles. The fact that you can't see the server-side code generating the failing client-side code, which you can see, seems like the least of them.

Yeah pointing to what is essentially an issue only in a mostly unmaintained version of Firefox is really disingenuous and sounds like someone complaining about something not working on IE6.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#147

Post by trynewideas » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

preommr wrote: post #20

DC-3 wrote: post #12

So they're hoping that they can replace the people they fired with open source contributors working for free.

I read it more as they cleaned up the contribution process so that it's easier for people to participate. But if what you said does happen, then RIP. It's not going to be the same - everyone is too busy writing medium articles to sell their course on udemy to make real contributions for free. There were a lot of useful guides showing practical applications of features beyond just listing the api spec. But I guess it'…

Nevermind that work on Yari started at least a year prior to the layoffs in question. https://github.com/mdn/yari

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#148

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:48 PM UTC

blitblitblit wrote: post #113

tomcam wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not trying to be inflammatory here. What does it matter if Microsoft has a proprietary front end for Github when all the docs are in markdown?

One example would be it is not possible to even make a PR request on Github as half the GUI no longer works in non-WebComponents browers. If it were open source we could perhaps see what WebComponent feature they think is missing and implement it in the browser engine, as it is they do not have any desire to collaborate and the black box makes it all the more difficult to debug. Github's response: "... further degrad…

[deleted]

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#149

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #61

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the problem is that each time the software changes, attributions are lost. I used to be active contributor to MDN with thousands of contributions. Countless hours of volunteer work. When the platform changed and my attributions were lost, I stopped contributing. I had no street cred anymore. I was angry. The switch to GitHub means the same problem once again. Nice way to alienate your community, MDN. Good luck wi…

It should be possible to migrate to GitHub without losing attribution. I've seen scripts in the past that build up a Git repository from scratch, back-dating contributions and crediting them to the author. No idea if MDN are planning to do that though.

They never did that in the past. Why start now? Entire articles I wrote from scratch... the attributed author is not me, it’s some bot.

Re: MDN Web Docs evolves: Lowdown on the upcoming new platform

#150

Post by TedDoesntTalk » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #87

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean for this to come off rude, but at some point you have to learn that spending time in life on things you don't control can have extremely negative costs. How can you be angry? MDN isn't yours. Do they owe you something? It's volunteer work. You're not owed anything. You should consider attribution a privilege.

I don't mean for this to come off rude, but how can you be so cold? How can you lack so much empathy? At some point you have to learn that things matter to people. Volunteer projects rely on an unspoken contract that symbolic recognition, awarded fairly, is a real motivation. And if a project wants to succeed, it needs to take that seriously. Does the project owe its contributors anything? Legally, no. But if it want…

This is how Wikipedia attracts and retains volunteers.