Improving how we communicate about Baseline

[captainbrosset]

This is an offshoot of #2758 to discuss about developer perception of Baseline and what we can do to improve it. The following is a summary/light interpretation of what was said in the referenced issue as well as our most recent WebDX CG call:

How developers perceive Baseline

We don't really have data here, but with Baseline having been around for some time, we're starting to hear some feedback:

• Frustration that Baseline doesn't give you browser versions, whishing for Baseline to be enough and not have to refer to BCD.
• Thinking that Baseline is a YES/NO answer to "is this feature allowed in production".

Whether you can use a feature is a complex question and the answer depends on many factors. Baseline provides a simple answer that's likely very attractive to developers who don't want to deal with the complexity. There is therefore a real risk of cutting off a large portion of the web platform that's not Widely Available (WA). This risk can further be exacerbated by more third-party tools and services adopting Baseline with less rigor with respect to how to communicate the limitations of Baseline.

Expert developers who are fully aware of the complexity also tend to be uncomfortable with the binary nature of Baseline.

What the group thinks Baseline is

• Baseline does not create the full story of a feature. It's a simplification that's made on purpose.
• Browser compat is only one small piece of the puzzle when considering to use a feature.
• The point of Baseline is to say that if a feature is WA, you don't need to use any fallbacks, transpiler, or include any polyfills. It's just gonna work.
• Baseline does not mean that you can't use a feature in any way at all unless it's WA.
• Features that are not WA are features where additional cross-browser testing is important.

Things that have been proposed

• Showing the progress from Newly Available to Widely Available.
• Linking to more contextual information, such as progressive enhancement tradeoffs, existing polyfills, etc.
• Improving the description for what Baseline is (and isn't) on this repository and on relevant webpages about Baseline.