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I don't know. Moving from a Wiki model to a GitHub PR model actually sounds worse for users. They talk about, "building a relationship with contributors". This
by moron4hire 6y ago
I don't know. Moving from a Wiki model to a GitHub PR model actually sounds worse for users. They talk about, "building a relationship with contributors". This could also be called, "building a lot of friction for contributors".
With a Wiki, even non-technical users can contribute, because the editing tools are all built in.
But with the PR model, now contributors need to understand HTML, CSS, Git, and GitHub PRs. I've been on GitHub for something like 10 years and I still have trouble figuring out PR workflows.
Making simple edits like grammar or punctuation fixes become significantly more effort in performing the submission than in performing the edit itself.
Wanting to have control over the submission process to prevent drive-by vandalism is certainly important. But that should be managed with role-based authentication and new users needing to have their edits approved by a moderator or by votes from long-term users in good standing. Once again, this sounds like the same old Mozilla line of "doing the right thing for the current user experience is too hard for our developers, so we're going to move the goalpost instead."
Compared to MSDN, MDN isn't as broad, but goes a lot deeper on topics, and has much better examples. Does Microsoft wring its hands over how much running MSDN costs, to the point of considering giving it up entirely? I don't think they do. I think they know that it's important to keep developers on-platform, in-ecosystem, and they do that by offering a comprehensive learning resource.
MDN is the best online resource for learning about Web technologies. I think a large part of that is because of the relatively low friction to edit. It not making Mozilla any money is completely their own fault. They could have taken that a step further and started offering training services and events. It stretches belief that you could have such a popular resource and can't figure out some sort of monetization strategy related to it. But, I guess, that's another of the same, old Mozilla lines.
- afiori 6y ago> Does Microsoft wring its hands over how much running MSDN costs Microsoft revenue stream is slightly more reliable than Mozilla's reliance on Google.