[FM Discuss] Recruiting more editors for book sprints

[Jennifer]

Hi Adam,

I'm pretty much game for anything, though my technical abilities are
basically those of the average non-technical end user. My research involves
the rhetoric of FLOSS, intellectual property, and composing processes in
technical communication.

Jennifer




On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 12:21 AM, adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:

> 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
>>    ______________________________**___________________
>>    Discuss mailing list
>>    Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net <mailto:Discuss at lists.**
>> flossmanuals.net <Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net>>
>>    http://lists.flossmanuals.net/**__listinfo.cgi/discuss-__**
>> flossmanuals.net<http://lists.flossmanuals.net/__listinfo.cgi/discuss-__flossmanuals.net>
>>    <http://lists.flossmanuals.**net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-**
>> flossmanuals.net<http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net>
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ______________________________**_________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/**listinfo.cgi/discuss-**flossmanuals.net<http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net>
>>
> ______________________________**_________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/**listinfo.cgi/discuss-**flossmanuals.net<http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.flossmanuals.net/pipermail/discuss-flossmanuals.net/attachments/20111023/c1b26979/attachment.htm>