

Mozilla is looking for help for its browser-agnostic Web documentation - lillycat
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/03/helping-with-the-mdn-what-about-linking-to-us/

======
asadotzler
If you think w3schools is crap and the Open Web can do better, please join MDN
and help build the best free and open Web documentation repository in the
world. Already using MDN? Consider giving back by linking your standards
articles to MDN or contributing docs or doc improvements. It's a big project,
but so is the Open Web.

------
hirenj
I'm hoping that all that link love will push MDN up over w3schools in google
search results. I always have to append MDN to my query terms to get the
documentation I'm after. I'm never logged in to google, so I can't block all
results from w3schools. It's a pity there aren't any per-browser (rather than
per user) settings for to weigh search results differently. edit: Fiddling a
bit, it seems like blocking w3schools is a moving target.. I have to block
www.w3sch.. wwww.w3scho.. wap.w3scho... etc.

~~~
masklinn
An other option would be to use DDG as your browser's (default) search engine
and using bang-searches (`!mdn Array` in DDG will automatically redirect to
MDN's search), or adding some sort of prefix for mdn (e.g. `j foo` to look for
"foo" in JavaScript ~ MDN)

------
halo
I think MDN is a noble project but a horrible website.

I find the site an absolute pain to use and every major change Mozilla has
made over the past few years has made it worse.

To me, the site is badly structured, badly laid out and as slow as hell. I
constantly feel like I'm fighting against it.

Much of the blame lies with the wiki software, which is confusing, cluttered
and likely prevents any community from springing up around the site.

If I were Mozilla, I would rename it something like 'Web Doc Wiki' and move it
over to stock MediaWiki installation. It might not be flashy but people are
familiar with MediaWiki and people more likely to contribute to a site that
looks like a wiki.

~~~
switz
I agree. <http://dochub.io> is a pretty solid implementation of MDN.

~~~
Wilduck
This website has been a great tool for someone like me who only does
occasional work on the web. I would love if all documentation looked this
good.

------
lzm
It's a shame their site is so slow. It often takes 10+ seconds to open a
single MDN page, so sometimes I just click the w3schools link if I don't feel
like waiting.

If only they used plain HTTP instead of HTTPS...

~~~
andos
Indeed. Here's some statistically ignorant experiment I just did. Loading the
_Function_ [1] document (not the whole page, just the document) takes around
1.6 s here:

    
    
      Connecting:  0.837 s
             SSL:  0.258 s
         Sending:  0     s
         Waiting:  0.767 s
       Receiving:  0.001 s
    
       Xfer Size: 14.26  KB (gzip)
          onload:  3.37  s  (primed cache)
                  12.78  s  (empty cache)
    

The SSL overhead is really a big deal, but waiting 0.8 s for what is basically
static content just makes no sense. Meanwhile, in w3schools world, it takes
around 0.2 s to get the “same” content [2]:

    
    
       Blocking:  0     s
        Sending:  0     s
        Waiting:  0.204 s
      Receiving:  0.037 s
    
      Xfer Size: 23.94  KB (plain)
         onload:  1.09  s  (primed cache)
                  1.82  s  (empty cache)
    

I don't know if I can compare the networking numbers here, but I definitely
can compare the _onload_ result — MDC is annoyingly slow. Their content is
excellent, they just need to improve the website performance to become the top
Google result.

[1]
[https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function)

[2] <http://www.w3schools.com/js/js_functions.asp>

------
kapowaz
I'll volunteer to write something about vendor prefixes.

------
moondowner
In my opinion, they should've applied to GSoC for this too.

~~~
ubernostrum
Speaking in my capacity as someone involved with Django (which accepts Summer
of Code proposals each year)... that doesn't fly. GSoC has an explicit ban on
documentation projects.

------
javascriptlol
The fact that you can't document the web standards in a few pages demonstrates
how badly designed it is. Instead of shaping humans to fit the system, the
system should be simple enough that anyone can understand it. The limit is
then just how creative and clever they can be with that understanding.

Remember when anyone could do some calculations in Basic and assembler? Now
you have to absorb loads of "expert" knowledge to do anything interesting.

~~~
lmorchard
Computing is hard; let's go shopping.

~~~
javascriptlol
The "computing is hard" excuse is a pathetic cop-out by people who can't see
past their own self interest.

