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MDN Plus

developer.mozilla.org

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71–80 of 222 posts

Re: MDN Plus

#71

Post by elliekelly »

airstrike wrote: post #11
chris_engel wrote: post #7

I strongly dislike the idea. It reduces deep knowledge to people who can pay for it. The web should be open for anyone. (yeah, Its already not like this, I know)

> Nothing is changing with the existing MDN Web Docs content — this content will continue to be free and available to everyone. We want to provide extra value through premium content and features to help make MDN self-sustaining, on a completely opt-in basis. Again, nothing is changing with the existing MDN Web Docs!

Are there any studies about how long the corporate “nothing is changing” line actually holds true? My gut says maybe 18-24 months? Perhaps I’m cynical but I see “nothing is changing” and I can’t help but assume a change is all but inevitable and they’re just going to slow walk me to it.

Re: MDN Plus

#72

Post by [deleted] »

kojoru wrote: post #39
terminalserver wrote: post #6

With all the uncountable billions of dollars in the banks of Apple, Microsoft, Google etc, none of them can manage to come up with documentation to compete with MDN which has to go freemium to be viable. Presumably that’s because they can’t link your identity to it or something, making it nit worthwhile doing. Apple: “we’re a hardware company, it’s not our job to document the web” Microsoft: “Internet Explorer failed…

It was a concious decision in 2017 to close Google's and Microsoft's web documentation portals so that MDN can be a unified source of truth: https://www.zdnet.com/article/developers-rejoice-microsoft-g...

[deleted]

Re: MDN Plus

#73

Post by oefrha »

feanaro wrote: post #67
oefrha wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly abundant donations are misallocated is a completely orthogonal issue. Note that I’m not saying we are entitled to anything; but slapping the MDN brand on a premium subscription service does tarnish the original brand a little.

But as far as I understand the source article, MDN Plus is not a paywall to the type of content that is already on MDN. What's going to be behind a paywall are a kind of technical essays which are not currently on MDN and some convenience features. Is my understanding incorrect?

That’s why I’m mainly taking issue with slapping the MDN brand over the seemingly not terribly related information service.

Re: MDN Plus

#74

Post by [deleted] »

feanaro wrote: post #67
oefrha wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly abundant donations are misallocated is a completely orthogonal issue. Note that I’m not saying we are entitled to anything; but slapping the MDN brand on a premium subscription service does tarnish the original brand a little.

But as far as I understand the source article, MDN Plus is not a paywall to the type of content that is already on MDN. What's going to be behind a paywall are a kind of technical essays which are not currently on MDN and some convenience features. Is my understanding incorrect?

[deleted]

Re: MDN Plus

#75

Post by [deleted] »

oefrha wrote: post #58
Zababa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how offering better content against money is worse than asking for money regularly like Wikipedia does (especially when they seem to just consume more and more money).

A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly abundant donations are misallocated is a completely orthogonal issue. Note that I’m not saying we are entitled to anything; but slapping the MDN brand on a premium subscription service does tarnish the original brand a little.

[deleted]

Re: MDN Plus

#77

Post by Zababa »

DonHopkins wrote: post #63
Zababa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's to pay technical writers I don't see the problem. Wikipedia on the other hand ask for donations that seems absorbed by some kind of administrative black hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/f/f7/Wikim...

Self Wiking Ice Cweam Cone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-licking_ice_cream_cone

Thanks, I didn't know the phenomenon had a name.

Re: MDN Plus

#78

Post by FriedrichN »

I wasn't totally against this until I discovered the A/B testing thing with the subscription costs. Something about that stinks. Just name your price and I'll think about it, don't be shady about it.

Re: MDN Plus

#79

Post by xixixao »

debacle wrote: post #60
Hamuko wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple: “we’re a hardware company, it’s not our job to document the web” Or, as everyone who's ever had to look at Apple's developer documentation knows, to document their own operating system APIs.

I was using a WebRTC feature just yesterday that is listed as supported by Safari in modern versions of iOS all over the web. I can tell you for certain that it is 100% not.

Yes, there are bugs in it that I don’t think are documented anywhere. We do have working video calling on mSafari, but we’re actively trying to kill that dependency.

Re: MDN Plus

#80

Post by Zababa »

oefrha wrote: post #58
Zababa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how offering better content against money is worse than asking for money regularly like Wikipedia does (especially when they seem to just consume more and more money).

A paywall shuts out financially disadvantaged groups and limits the circulation of knowledge. Donations don’t, however annoying the banners are. Whether overly abundant donations are misallocated is a completely orthogonal issue. Note that I’m not saying we are entitled to anything; but slapping the MDN brand on a premium subscription service does tarnish the original brand a little.

On the other hand a paywall may mean that people writing content are the one that gets the money, which creates an healthier ecosystem that doesn't depend on donation of money or time (as opposed to wikipedia).

Wikipedia misallocating funds does tarnish the original brand a lot, especially when most people that contribute content are doing it for free.

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