Finally, my site is back up after the corruption. Fixed my archives, but my search is still broken. Dang bucket a’ bolts… it’s just not fair. Anyway, please have patience as I’ll try to fix things throughout the week.
Never saw my other article, but my FStyleFormat Part 1 of 3 is up at Community MX. I only charged like $0.25 cents, but I think they had to have a minimum markup. Basically, I guess I have no control over the pricing it seems, but at least I’m starting to see my articles up there!
<a href=”http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=EB197537D3098BAF”>FStyleFormat – Part 1 of 3</a>
I’m little surprised you a part of that communityMX thing Jesse… it really goes against what “community” should mean.
So I’ve heard. It seems a lot of people consider charging for Macromedia community knowledge an affront. Naive idealists? I don’t think so. When I look at it from other’s point of view, I see what they mean. It’s tough, and I’m still dealing with it myself. Read here to see what I mean:
<a href=”http://www.galaxygoo.org/blogs/archives/000267.html”>Galaxy Goo Discussion I had</a>
http://www.galaxygoo.org/blogs/archives/000267.html
I’m really interested in your thoughts about it as I want to use this to be able to judge the future of our industry so I can be better in it. If I can’t gauge the pulse, I don’t know where I can be of most help… see what I mean?
…I’ll tell you one thing, though. If a girl who has no financial diffuculties in the year 2001 can bitch on the net how she wants a corvette, and gets 22k in donations via PayPal, then consider yourself smart. If someone is stupid enough to give their money away, then I’ll take it. I don’t feel bad in the least cause I work my arse off to learn and help people.
Yep, I was surprised too. To be honest, I’d like to see it work, but I think it needs a new marketing skin and a few other things…
“If someone is stupid enough to give their money away, then I’ll take it.”
True dat. However, this is not really in the spirit of community.
I think it could work done properly with the right (grassroots) intentions. Not this shiney package wherein we are lucky enough to pay to speak to so called gurus. It really insults my intelligence as a developer– most if not all of us work have worked for marketing teams in the past. We know the deal. CommunityMX might be fooling some ppl but the REAL community out there isn’t buying it. Literally.
If you want real developers with real issues (not how do I tween, etc) and real money to start buying in then cut the BS marketing. Be straight up about wanting some coin for your time (we all do afterall) and provide super high quality stuff. I paid for devnet for these reasons. I might even pay CommunityMX if they let the quality of the work contained within speak for itself not the names of the ppl behind the work.
Not trying to rant off like a bitch here. I appreciate your efforts / you’ve helped me personally with stuff in the past. I think everyone deserves compensation for their efforts and I do believe by investing time in developer communities you are investing into yourself however indirectly. Asking ppl to pay for this kills the spirit and cheapens what community is all about. Ask us to pay for quality work; thats a different story.
I think maybe its just the name that bugs me… I don’t know.
Accepting money for my time does not cheapen my attitude. As I told Kristin, I do this for the craft, not the money. My last comment was really a side effect of figuring things out. Until I do, I’ll just take dough as it comes and continue doing what I do.
There is a trial on the site and I urge you to utilize it to view the content and forumns for awhile and see what you think. Starting anything is a risky endeavor, and I’m all about risks, but I hate marketing bs too. I do, however, believe in what they are doing, so I don’t think they … I don’t think WE are trying to fool anyone at all. I truly believe the articles I write and the replies in the forumns really are helping people and the community. Anyway, please go there and judge for yourself. I’d like to have a personal account from you which is more valuable.
As far as ranting goes, that’s why I have this blog. I like to chat wif peeps in the community, so speak away.
To me, a community in the developer sense is about preventing duplicated effort. As someone finds something, they share the knowledge so I don’t have to waste my time re-inventing the wheel or making the same mistake. The sharing of ideas freely is great.
I don’t think that’s what Community MX is about. You pay for articles that show you how to technically accomplish something, and if you have a question, you can post in the forum. The key difference here is your not expected to give anything back. Your not expected in the Flash community either, but if you do, your helping make it better. There really isn’t much of a way to help in Community MX other than help monitor the forumns.
If you don’t want to help contribute to the community and would rather just drain my brain, I really see no reason why you shouldn’t pay for that. If, however, you do wish to give back, and/or be a part of the community, then I don’t see really how Community MX would appeal to you. That says a lot about the type of person you are. Granted, I’ve seen some comments from people on Community MX, and they really are appreciative of the help, and I think they are good people. I don’t think, however, they wish to spend the time doing what I’m doing, hence they just want to get in, get the info, and get out.
It… I guess, is a clear division of your level of involvement. Granted, there are still people who don’t give back, but I do the work of 3 people, so that makes up for 2. You also do the work of 3 people, so that makes 2 more. Hence, you and I could run a community, and we could support up to 4 people who do nothing but just leech. Thankfully, there are a lot of people giving back and being suppportive of the community (just look at the were-here fandom), and I think that’s what makes it so great, even beyond those who are lazy or don’t give back anything.
However, giving is not usually planned, or expected, but if you pay for something, there is an understanding it is, so maybe that’s CMX’ niche?
I don’t know dude… it’s complex. You make good points, hence my deep thought on them. This is tough.
I agree on both points here. I too hate the fact that I would have to pay for something that I could probably learn somewhere else or on my own. It isn’t a community spirit when you charge people for your work. At that point it’s business. Like writing a book. You write a book for maybe three reasons. One, you really want the money… but to be real, writing books will not make you a millionaire. Unless of course your name is Stephen King or something. The second thing would be fame. You want to get out to the world that you’re good. You can do this and that and are hoping to let a lot of people know this. Which is cool. Advertising and you get paid for it. This will lead to other opportunites and options. The last is just the fact that you want to help others by writing an informative book. You’re looking to share your knowledge, mistakes, and tips with the community to reduce their frustration and design/develop time. This is the community person. And it REALLY comes out in the author’s writing. I’ve seen quite a few books out there on flash and it’s very easy to tell when the author is thinking of themselves or the people who are reading. But anyways, that’s getting off topic and in a sense what Community MX is about is business. It is not a community site. Like Jesse said there, it’s for people that just want to take and not give back, for that they will pay money. That is the one reason why for community guys it rings a very discordant note inside, and almost seems foul that somebody would be trying to pawn off their knowledge.. let alone for a measly 2 bucks.
I don’t know, it’s cool in a way. I went there once, realized I had to pay cash for the stuff, didn’t bookmark it and went away. Never been back except when I saw that Jesse had written something. With all the stuff on here I too never expected to see you get into that but hey, it’s business. And if I had the option to sell parts of my knowledge I would consider it, but I’m more of the community guy I think (take a look at half of flashcomstudio’s tutes, and my whole site) and kinda wish that the only thing that I would have to really pay for would be books maybe.
Just as a last note, I too think MM is a bit cheap that they have to go and sell components to their loyal developers.. but hey that’s the way it goes :)