1:59 p.m.
On 5/19/20 1:28 PM, Shaun McCance wrote:
One thing we discussed in our last standup was what to do about
consistent voice, whether people should write in the first person,
whether we need bylines on chapters if they do, and whether that turns
the guide into an anthology instead of something with a consistent
narrative. I had an idea I'd like to run by folks.
What if we put personal stories into some sort of sidebars? An author
(or authors) could write a chapter with general guidance, all written
in a neutral voice. Then, when they want to write a supporting story,
that could be in a sidebar, and the sidebar could have a byline. It
looks good in my head, but I might be failing to convey the idea
without a mockup.
I really like this idea, Shaun. Writing and editing my own (co-authored)
chapter, I ran across similar considerations viz. voice, tone, pronouns,
etc. But luckily, in this case I was just able to say "Meh. Shaun can
tell us what to do."
Incidentally, all AsciiDoc source files list chapter contributors in
chapter metadata, so we may be able to use some kind of automated
razzmatazz to collect a running list of all contributors, and reproduce
it in, e.g., an appendix or something similar in the HTML version. This
way, contributors achieve credit "outside" GitHub, but author names
needn't appear atop individual chapters.