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The Guardian has moved to a voluntary-subscription model for revenue - a gentle nagware if you like. No adblocker-blocking and (relatively) few actual adverts o

The Guardian has moved to a voluntary-subscription model for revenue - a gentle nagware if you like. No adblocker-blocking and (relatively) few actual adverts on the pages. I don't always agree with their opinions or editorials, but I do respect the quality of the journalism and the fact that they are a non-profit [0] I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/the-scott-trust/2015/jul/26/the-scott-trust https://www.theguardian.com/the-scott-trust/2015/jul/26/the-...

matt4077 8y ago
> I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy. https://github.com/nytimes https://github.com/BostonGlobe https://github.com/npr & https://github.com/nprapps https://github.com/theatlantic https://github.com/wsj ... I really wish people wouldn't always assume the worst of the media. Especially when it takes about two seconds to verify (disprove) one's prejudice. I know one such post isn't going to have much of an effect. But considering every tangential mention of "mainstream media" brings out a thousand cynics, being an underpaid journalist trying to keep our society's discourse somewhat together must be endlessly frustrating. Plus, of course, it's just impossible to make informed decisions in a democracy when all trust in the media has been eroded by this hysteria.
- botverse 8y ago
  I would recommend to double check those links to the github orgs, I’m sorry to say they are small projects. Can’t compare with publishing the whole frontend, their image managing library and their text editor.
  - matt4077 8y ago
    The NYT has 65 projects, most of which have a few hundred stars, and many in the thousands. It's lower for some of the others. But it still seems to me that these publishers default to publishing their code. BUT: most publishers probably do not run an entirely home-grown system. Indeed, you will find many Wordpress plugins or rails gems among those published projects. And for the homespun solutions, it's likely that they are too specific to a publisher to be usefully open-sourced without a major investment of resources, like the Guardian's undertaking.
onion2k 8y ago
I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy. There's very little cost to opening it up, and a huge benefit (recruitment as you say, openness, community engagement, maybe even bug fixes..). Why not open up the code?
- thecatspaw 8y ago
  opening up publishes all your vulnerabilities, bugs, hacks and swearwords in the code as well. Thats plenty of reasons to not go open source
  - Operyl 8y ago
    Security by obscurity really isn’t a great place to stay on long term. There is also an entire backend to this. I can only see great positives long term here, even if it means someone nefarious finds a bug in the short term.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    Those are reasons to open the code up. You'll be motivated to improve it.
maze-le 8y ago
>> I don't always agree with their opinions or editorials I really don't know why this always has to be pointed out when it comes to classic mass media. I would say: "Good thing" because if you'd always agree, they would be doing a lousy job. Newspapers shouldn't be worldview-repeaters, especially in the op-eds. Lots of people look for validation of their already existing worldviews instead of critically reflecting other opinions.
- toyg 8y ago
  It's not about the newspaper quality, it's about signaling that the speaker is not a card-carrying supporter of the political faction the newspaper is traditionally associated with. So for the Guardian it translates to "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian". With the Telegraph it would be Tories/UKIP; and with The Independent (or whatever it's called now) it would be Russian Oligarchs Living In London.
  - maze-le 8y ago
    >> "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian" So, its essentially an apology for being an open minded conservative... Sounds pretty much like a premature capitulation to the bigots. But at least I know where its coming from. I've been questioned: "What? you are reading FAZ?!?!?"[0] (with undertones of "how dare you" and "what kind of leftist are you?"). Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read. I think it is very important for everyone to be confronted with opinions that don't fit into ones already established narratives. And nobody should ever issue an apology for that. The alternative would be to renounce your intellectual curiosity and feed of a self-reinforcing feedback loop... [0]: The leading conservative newspaper in Germany.
    - toyg 8y ago
      > Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read. I think it's a natural state: sources inevitably influence your view of the world, and most people only consume one source for any given media, so it's not illogical to desume that you will be influenced primarily by that one source. I completely agree that consuming a multiplicity of sources is a Good Thing.
52-6F-62 8y ago
Having worked in publishing, their effort and the NYT (particularly Bostock) to open up the code to the community is notable and admirable. I’ve tried to push for open source projects at similar business scales to no avail. Deaf ears. It’s a shame that it’s viewed largely as a means to an end. Yet the very same companies used to work with printers to produce innovations. Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity to many in the industry, unfortunately—in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium for mass communication since the television, radio, or platen press.
- toyg 8y ago
  > Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity [...] in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium Or rather because: digital media is now so easy to produce and distribute, that its intrinsic value has now dropped to zero.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I’m not sure that’s it. I think that might be the perception, but users often speak out about the desire for higher quality content. Particularly content that is more interactive and engaging. But many media groups see it as a means to an end, like I’ve noted. Throw up WordPress with a CDN for images and host every brand you own on one to five instances and that’s it. They understand those words: WordPress, CMS, CDN, enterprise-grade. They don’t know anything else about them, and don’t care. They, probably out of sincere financial need, prioritize analytics over all else in the tech space. I think the split off from what you’ve noted is this: Where they might have paid attention to improvements in colour mixing in print tech, etc, for the effects it would have on published photography they cannot see the benefits to investing in a more refined digital publishing platform or output. Just put a skin on whatever’s free and out there already—then have your engineers spend countless hours just putting out fires and patching holes with proverbial PHP bubblegum. Don’t get me started on data hygiene... To wit: I’ve always worked outside of those teams looking in. Except for the data side—nightmare-inducing stuff.
    - 8y ago
e12e 8y ago
Well, there's : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)#Histo...

matt4077 8y ago

> I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy. https://github.com/nytimes https://github.com/BostonGlobe https://github.com/npr & https://github.com/nprapps https://github.com/theatlantic https://github.com/wsj ... I really wish people wouldn't always assume the worst of the media. Especially when it takes about two seconds to verify (disprove) one's prejudice. I know one such post isn't going to have much of an effect. But considering every tangential mention of "mainstream media" brings out a thousand cynics, being an underpaid journalist trying to keep our society's discourse somewhat together must be endlessly frustrating. Plus, of course, it's just impossible to make informed decisions in a democracy when all trust in the media has been eroded by this hysteria.

botverse 8y ago
I would recommend to double check those links to the github orgs, I’m sorry to say they are small projects. Can’t compare with publishing the whole frontend, their image managing library and their text editor.
- matt4077 8y ago
  The NYT has 65 projects, most of which have a few hundred stars, and many in the thousands. It's lower for some of the others. But it still seems to me that these publishers default to publishing their code. BUT: most publishers probably do not run an entirely home-grown system. Indeed, you will find many Wordpress plugins or rails gems among those published projects. And for the homespun solutions, it's likely that they are too specific to a publisher to be usefully open-sourced without a major investment of resources, like the Guardian's undertaking.

onion2k 8y ago

I can't see more commercially-oriented paper/website open-sourcing any of their code, even if it's a (good imho) recruitment ploy. There's very little cost to opening it up, and a huge benefit (recruitment as you say, openness, community engagement, maybe even bug fixes..). Why not open up the code?

thecatspaw 8y ago
opening up publishes all your vulnerabilities, bugs, hacks and swearwords in the code as well. Thats plenty of reasons to not go open source
- Operyl 8y ago
  Security by obscurity really isn’t a great place to stay on long term. There is also an entire backend to this. I can only see great positives long term here, even if it means someone nefarious finds a bug in the short term.
- onion2k 8y ago
  Those are reasons to open the code up. You'll be motivated to improve it.

maze-le 8y ago

>> I don't always agree with their opinions or editorials I really don't know why this always has to be pointed out when it comes to classic mass media. I would say: "Good thing" because if you'd always agree, they would be doing a lousy job. Newspapers shouldn't be worldview-repeaters, especially in the op-eds. Lots of people look for validation of their already existing worldviews instead of critically reflecting other opinions.

toyg 8y ago
It's not about the newspaper quality, it's about signaling that the speaker is not a card-carrying supporter of the political faction the newspaper is traditionally associated with. So for the Guardian it translates to "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian". With the Telegraph it would be Tories/UKIP; and with The Independent (or whatever it's called now) it would be Russian Oligarchs Living In London.
- maze-le 8y ago
  >> "please don't assume I'm a Labour/Green supporter just because I read the Guardian" So, its essentially an apology for being an open minded conservative... Sounds pretty much like a premature capitulation to the bigots. But at least I know where its coming from. I've been questioned: "What? you are reading FAZ?!?!?"[0] (with undertones of "how dare you" and "what kind of leftist are you?"). Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read. I think it is very important for everyone to be confronted with opinions that don't fit into ones already established narratives. And nobody should ever issue an apology for that. The alternative would be to renounce your intellectual curiosity and feed of a self-reinforcing feedback loop... [0]: The leading conservative newspaper in Germany.
  - toyg 8y ago
    > Its a shitty state of affairs, when you are judged based on the sources you read. I think it's a natural state: sources inevitably influence your view of the world, and most people only consume one source for any given media, so it's not illogical to desume that you will be influenced primarily by that one source. I completely agree that consuming a multiplicity of sources is a Good Thing.

52-6F-62 8y ago

Having worked in publishing, their effort and the NYT (particularly Bostock) to open up the code to the community is notable and admirable. I’ve tried to push for open source projects at similar business scales to no avail. Deaf ears. It’s a shame that it’s viewed largely as a means to an end. Yet the very same companies used to work with printers to produce innovations. Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity to many in the industry, unfortunately—in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium for mass communication since the television, radio, or platen press.

toyg 8y ago
> Digital media seems to be viewed much more as a commodity [...] in spite of it being the most effective and paradigm-shifting medium Or rather because: digital media is now so easy to produce and distribute, that its intrinsic value has now dropped to zero.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I’m not sure that’s it. I think that might be the perception, but users often speak out about the desire for higher quality content. Particularly content that is more interactive and engaging. But many media groups see it as a means to an end, like I’ve noted. Throw up WordPress with a CDN for images and host every brand you own on one to five instances and that’s it. They understand those words: WordPress, CMS, CDN, enterprise-grade. They don’t know anything else about them, and don’t care. They, probably out of sincere financial need, prioritize analytics over all else in the tech space. I think the split off from what you’ve noted is this: Where they might have paid attention to improvements in colour mixing in print tech, etc, for the effects it would have on published photography they cannot see the benefits to investing in a more refined digital publishing platform or output. Just put a skin on whatever’s free and out there already—then have your engineers spend countless hours just putting out fires and patching holes with proverbial PHP bubblegum. Don’t get me started on data hygiene... To wit: I’ve always worked outside of those teams looking in. Except for the data side—nightmare-inducing stuff.
  - 8y ago

e12e 8y ago

Well, there's : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)#History https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_(web_framework)#Histo...