[FM Discuss] Recruiting more editors for book sprints

[adam hyde]

hey Jennifer,

What kind of topics are you interested in? There are some sprints coming 
up soon that you might be interested in.

adam

On 23/10/11 06:04, 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?
>
> Jennifer Maher
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 11:25 PM, Andy Oram <andyo at oreilly.com
> <mailto: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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