[FM Discuss] Recruiting more editors for book sprints

[mokurai at earthtreasury.org]

I'm sorry, I am way behind on e-mail. I didn't see an answer to the
specific question here.

On Sat, October 22, 2011 11:04 pm, Jennifer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd love to get involved with FLOSS but am a little unsure about how to go
> about doing so. I'm an academic who teaches various technical writing
> courses and have a couple years experience as a technical writer and
> editor
> in the field of civil engineering. The reason that I'm responding to your
> post is that as an academic, my university will pay my expenses to attend
> a
> conference as long as I'm presenting at it. I know that with Google Summer
> of Code, there was an unconference. Is it typical for a book sprint to
> also
> have a conference or unconference that would allow an academic such as
> myself to have her way paid by her university? And is this an avenue from
> which FLOSS might be interested in cultivating contributors?

We occasionally do book sprints at conferences on many topics. If the
conference is on a topic where we want to do a book, or if the conference
organizers invite us, we are all for it. Watch for announcements.

You should also feel free to talk to conference organizers about doing a
sprint on software related to their topic, or on an educational topic such
as we are doing in booki at Sugar Labs.

http://booki.treehouse.su

> Jennifer Maher
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Andy Oram <andyo at oreilly.com> wrote:
>
>> At the Google Summer of Code sprint this past week I intervened
>> heavily in the writing process of the team I was involved with. They
>> told me at the end that they wouldn't have been able to do the book
>> without my help. From discussions during the full-group meetings I got
>> the sense that Anne Gentle played a similar role for her team, and
>> probably other "floaters" did too. My own suggestions ranged from the
>> macro-level to the micro-level. They included:
>>
>> * Pointing out that certain sections assumed certain background, and
>> that perhaps they're readers needed additional background sections.
>> Similarly, I highlighted confusing passages as symptoms of missing
>> information, and helped the authors decide whether to remove them or
>> to write new chapters to cover them adequately.
>>
>> * Helping to finalize the outline by asking questions while we were
>> writing chapters, such as "what ties all these chapters together?"
>>
>> * Rewriting chapters to move prerequisites before the processes that
>> depend on them, and other such rearrangements.
>>
>> * Adding introductions and transitional passages.
>>
>> Editing proved to be more than a one-time activity. The help I gave
>> could not be encapsulated into a phone call during the initial outline
>> process. Nor could it be imposed at the end during a post-sprint
>> cleanup. IRC is not enough bandwidth to intervene in live discussions.
>> I've done all of those activities and I think they can be moderately
>> helpful, but nothing can substitute from being present while the book
>> grows organically and helping to splice, graft, and prune.
>>
>> I assume Adam has reached the same conclusions, and that's why he
>> invited floaters to the sprint last week. The question is how this
>> could be done at every sprint. The organizers are paying a lot of
>> money already to bring subject-matter experts to the sprint. While
>> these experts do it for love of community and the chance to meet
>> fellow community members, outside editors need extra incentives.
>> Projects may be able to find someone associated with the project who
>> can do light editing and fix style and grammar errors, but they are
>> highly unlikely to find someone with professional skills as a
>> developmental editor.
>>
>> However, I can't believe most funders would be willing to pay for
>> their travel and add in enough money to make it a worthwhile career
>> option for a professional writer or editor. Perhaps if they happen to
>> find a qualified local person where the spring is being held, they
>> could devote some compensation to enlisting participation. That's
>> asking for a lot of luck.
>>
>> So as always I'm pondering the value of professionalism in
>> crowdsourced work like this, and how it can be institutionalized.
>>
>> Andy
>> ______________________________**_________________
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>>
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-- 
Edward Mokurai
(默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر
ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks