Collaborators Wanted!

[briandominick]

This is going to be a big project.

It must have a broad base of participants, or it will be too small or narrow to fulfill the mission of providing a true alternative to this particularly corporate-dominated space.

I don't even want to be in charge of this endeavor, if someone else would like to head it up. I will make sure the tooling is worthy of the content via the sibling Open Styles Project. I will stay involved, but I can think of many people who would be better at leading this one than I would.

PLEASE do not hesitate to leave a message below or come talk in Write the Docs Slack (#style-guides) where I'm about to go post.

[AninditaBasu]

🙋🏽I'd like to be involved, if I may? I was a technical editor for several years at a big corp (though I transitioned back to technical writing), and Style guides are something that are very close to my heart.

[briandominick]

You're quite welcome, @AninditaBasu. I'll post here when there's something concrete like a conference call to schedule, and I'll be adding topics for discussion here in the Issues. Feel free to start any conversations you wish.

[redweezul]

I could help out as well. I've worked as a tech writer, copywriter, editor, and content manager for various clients. Some employed style guides; others didn't, even though it would have helped. Shaping an objective, close-to-universal-as-possible style guide is a good endeavor.

[qua-1]

Hi, I'd like to offer my help to the editorial committee. I could join as a full committee member to start with and then if required at a later date, wind the workload down (or up!). While I'm fairly new to technical writing (two years in September), I moved into it after 14+ years of traditional publishing in the academic, corporate, and B2B sectors. My experience comes from roles including technical editor, project editor, managing editor, copyeditor, copywriter, academic writer, and proofreader. In some of those roles, I participated in style guide development at enterprise level, and I've written modest guides for B2B magazines. I've also delivered training on editing academic journals, and been a copyeditor and proofreader for academic journals, which required me to learn a few different style guides. I'm currently a tech writer (team of one) at a software company in the SaaS sector. I've been developing content ops there from the ground up - including their first product style guide, writing product docs for various audiences, and writing marketing materials (case studies and research blogs). Before all the above I was a graduate front-end coder for about four years. That was just before Web 2.0 (i.e., I was coding HTML 4.1 and CSS 2.0).

[briandominick]

Attn: @qua-1 @redweezul @AninditaBasu

I am so excited to have a handful of people already involved! It sounds like there's some great experience in the group, and I'm honored that you want to give this a shot together. I think if we have a small founding circle to kick things off, it may actually appeal to many more soon.

I've added a Creative Commons license to the repo just to be clear that every bit of work that goes into this from here on out can be forked, so nobody will lose the rights to their contributions (or others') under any circumstance. If there are significant differences in how we proceed, parties are welcome to go their separate ways.

That said, I would like to have a meeting to make sure folks are generally on the same page with our approach. I don't want to add tons of process or structure up front, but maybe we can agree on a general mission statement, a contributors' agreement, and a code of conduct. I'd be happy to adopt some of the excellent boilerplate language that's come out in the last several years. No need to reinvent the wheel. If folks have experience with these things, organizing advice/help could be a great contribution up front.

Do folks already here have availability next week? My schedule is pretty flexible and I am at my desk early and late hours (US Eastern time zone).

[redweezul]

I'm in Pacific time, but am fairly flexible as well. I could meet Tuesday morning (9-7), Wednesday afternoon (9-8), or Friday afternoon (9-10).

[itsdeannat]

I'm also interested! I work in a docs-as-code workflow at my job and manage our content/source-code style guide at my job. I'm in the EST time zone.

[AninditaBasu]

I am in the IST time zone (UTC+5:30) but I can get up as early (or stay up as late as midnight) as needed.

[briandominick]

Wow, we are going to span a lot of time zones. I love it!

I can do any of @redweezul 's time slots. How do they work for others? Say...

7 Sept - btw 4pm - 7pm UTC
8 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC
10 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC

cc: @AninditaBasu @deanna-cs @qua-1

(I think I'll start assuming people are getting notices if they're on this thread.)

[AninditaBasu]

7 Sept - btw 4pm - 7pm UTC

4 PM - 6 PM UTC works for me

8 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC

no 😴

10 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC

no 😴

(I think I'll start assuming people are getting notices if they're on this thread.)

👍🏽 I did

[qua-1]

Hi all, Excited that we'll be meeting so soon. I'm in Scotland, UTC+1 at the moment (will be UTC +0 from 31 October, when we switch into daylight savings time). 7 Sept - btw 4pm - 7pm UTC: Yes, this works for me and is the best option for me. 8 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC: Yes, but would have to finish before 10pm UTC. 10 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC: As above (finish before 10pm UTC). Simone Hutchinson *Editor* Professional Member of the Chartered Institute for Editing and Proofreading LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simone-hutchinson/

…

On Fri, 3 Sept 2021 at 05:41, Anindita Basu ***@***.***> wrote: 7 Sept - btw 4pm - 7pm UTC 4 PM - 6 PM UTC works for me 8 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC no 😴 10 Sept - btw 8pm - 12am UTC no 😴 (I think I'll start assuming people are getting notices if they're on this thread.) 👍🏽 I did — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AULFMJAFGEGFQIH4QNGN4XDUABGYZANCNFSM5DCMY36Q> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>.

[CollierCZ]

I'd be happy to help with putting things together and reviews and such, though I'm not sure I'd be the most help in the initial organization phrase.

[briandominick]

I'm going to go ahead and proposed we meet 7 September at 4pm UTC (so noon EDT, 9:30 (?) for Anandita, and 9am PDT).

Does anyone have a Zoom we can use? I default to Jitsi for meetings otherwise, which is pretty good for small groups.

[redweezul]

Sounds workable to me. I don't have a Zoom though.

[camerons]

Hey Brian, have you noticed that the Microsoft Style Guide is shared under a Creative Commons Share Alike license? https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/microsoft-style-guide/
Have considered just forking it?
I suspect if we ask nicely (and wait a year for processes to move) that the Google Style guide could be released under CC-By as well.
Also, I notice that are are proposing CC-By-NA. This would put legal barriers in place for a future integration of Microsoft/Google/Your style guides, which I think would be a good thing. I suggest using a CC-By instead.