Re: [DotGNU]Re: Developers digest, Vol 1 #33 - 7 msgs

[John]

address@hidden wrote:
> 
> >  I couldn't agree more.  While I appreciate the work that everyone put into
> >  the original, if we had gone and gotten some people whos talent is doing
> >  exactly this, our press release would have been of a much higher quality.
> 
> Let's not try to exclude people so fast. The press release was great. It
> doesn't have to be perfect.
> 
> You forget that by including people, we help them learn how to do it and
> become experts, if they want. This is what free software is also about. If
> some expert wants to help mentor others that would be great. But lets not let
> the experts just do it for us. That will get us back to a proprietary mindset
> very fast.

Indeed, and I wouldn't argue with that assertion - the more, the
merrier. How does one learn to write? By writing. How does one learn to
edit? By writing and submitting work to an editor and responding to the
critique by rewriting. Group writing has its place, but even in group
writing one senior writer with experience guides the group editing
process. 

I think we all could  improve our writing skills, and since press
releases are the *primary* interface to the larger non-Geek world, our
words are our public face. Would you leave the house unbathed and with
your hair askew? Some might, and society might spurn them, as
unacceptable to us as that might be; DotGNU's public face cannot afford
to be underestimated.

We're not talking a "proprietary mindset", nor are we speaking of
"excluding bad writers"; we're discussing an inclusive policy of
document management that will produce the best work possible. With your
skills as an editor, perhaps you'd like to join us. The surest way of
affirming that the process will remain open is to become a part of it.

Sadly, we're stuck in the developers list, because there's no [doc-dev]
or [doc-press] lists yet.

> You don't train leaders by making them spectators. You train them by letting
> them do, make mistakes, learn and do it better in the future. Free software
> needs a lot of leaders. This is an easy way to create them. This is more
> important than having a "more perfect" anything.

However, specific to writing, some leaders are born; most are created -
just as some are naturally skilled at writing, others can't carry a
metaphor without Crazy Glue. There are many in the community who are
already excellent writers and they've proved this in the world outside
the "here". Why not avail ourselves of that, especially since our
competition is undoubtedly doing the same?

Let's presume the existence of a DotGNU editorial group? Someone wants
to rise to leadership in the editorial group? He does so by writing, and
submitting his work. At first his work may be heavily edited, even
thrown out, then as he gains skill in his craft he will rise to
prominence and have more work accepted. Eventually he may be asked to
take over for a retiring editor.

Does that sound familiar? It should. This is the king-of-the-hill
approach used by most Open Source coding projects. The code is modified.
Changes are accepted into the build. Some changes do not survive. People
who continually contribute quality work may eventually be asked to join
upper echelon. This isn't exclusion - it's evolutionary competition,
only the best and most adaptable writers survive.

Let's treat our written output as we would our coding output?


> > The sublists don't need to be perfect, but they do need to be
> > there...
> 
> Dan Baumann is working on a slashdot clone communications system that all the
> lists can use for proposing/feedback loops. He said it would be ready within
> a week.

To quote my daughter, "Kewl."

John Le'Brecage