RFE from @sheeceb

It would be great if we could also look at a few examples of patents filed in the information area. Also, if the organization does not have an IPMS, what are the other options to privately file for a patent? What about costs? Are there private entities like we have investors who will fund you to file a patent? You could also provide the example of http://witworks.com/. They are an interesting Indian startup who help bring your idea to life. Of course, read the fine print : )

1. The text for Twitter - could it be made more attractive - because if I just wanted to find the origins of these words, I just need to check an Etymology dictionary online? What is the additional perspective that this article promises to give me? "On the origin of certain words like manuals and content strategy @anindita_basu"
2. "Managers manage contents strategy." This is rather abrupt. And we don't really "manage" it, do we? Maybe we drive it?
3. The quotes are humorous, in an article that otherwise is very factual - the transition is a bit abrupt. Or is the entire article meant to be humorous? If yes, we could keep a smiley somewhere? I am a bit confused about the tone of the article, what it is meant to be.
4. "So it is evident that many many years ago, writing including sketching and drawing and, maybe, making videos - just like it is today." (And "maybe making videos"? Doesn't fit very well. This is not a conclusion that can be derived from the definition of the old English word.)
5. "Technical writers write manuals. Manuals share the same origin as managers. Managers manage content. Content is that which is written. Full circle." A bit weak as a conclusion? What is that one thing I should walk away with after reading this article? Maybe defining that may help wind this up better?

• Also, use a link shortner for the URLs.
• Because of space issues, no need to use the #STCIA2015 hashtag.
• If an author mentions a Twitter ID as the online profile, use that ID in the tweet as well.

The article details are in this file in the Master branch root folder: articles.md

A work item to track the status of the text part of the articles.

Podcasts for all articles is yet to be done.

Emoji code

‼️ cause for concern
✨ ⭐ 🌟 ready for recording
👣 🔜 work-in-progress. no major concerns

Status

1. Udaan home page. Work in progress. Not a major concern 👣 🔜
2. Alka Acharya and Samartha Vashishtha: You too can patent. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
3. Anagha Chandratrey: Commonly confused words. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
4. Anindita Basu: Of managers and manuals. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
5. Asha Mokashi: No passengers on the battleship. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
6. Basreena Basheer: It's a L10N thing. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
7. Meghashri Dalvi: Internalising a research mindset. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
8. Rohit Nair: A day in the life of a technical editor. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
9. Prajakta Pradhan: Who is the user Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
10. Sheece Baghdadi: To be or not to be Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
11. Shivi Sivasubramanian: Awaken the innovator in you. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed, edits incorporated.
12. Surbhi Chattkara: Management lessons that children teach us Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
13. Suyog Ketkar: Information design. Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
14. Vinish Garg: Be your own story. Ready ✨ ⭐ 🌟 Reviewed.
15. Quiz Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
16. Conference team. Work in progress. 👣 🔜
17. Contest winners. Work in progress. Not a major concern 👣 🔜
18. Admin council. No one has told them anything yet. 👣 🔜

Hi @AninditaBasu - I loved the way you've used the flipping animation in the article! A few concerns, though:

• The text boxes appear a little too big for the font size used in the article. Should we consider minimizing them a bit [possible at all?]?
• The placement of the boxes might have a slight impact on the reader's experience [they seem to interrupt the flow]. Could something like "Wrap text around" kinda thing be done, if it is not too much of an effort?

I can help you implement these changes, if you agree, too!

Thanks,

• Shivi

@thomasnibu

1. Do we need a battleship image?
2. Do we need to educate people the WHY of "no passengers on a battleship", maybe through an obscure popup?

To be decided after articles are all in. Also, a page needs to be reserved for the Competent Authority.

Love the words and the flip cards. Can we make those flip cards more appealing by including images in them along with examples. For example, a picture of one person offering another a basket of apples, and the person accepting the gift says, "I accept all these apples except for this one."

It's easier to remember the pictures, and that's why the examples. What say? Doable?

PS: Am I logging this issue properly? I am not necessarily tying it with the right html file. Is that okay?

The words accept and except are emphasized in this sentence.

To accept is to agree. The word except excludes something from a list.

Instead, can we emphasize the a in both accept and agree, and the exc in the except and exclude?

In this sentence, can we emphasize the initials of affect, cause, and effect.
To affect a change is to cause it. And cause comes before effect, just like A and C
come before E.

Migrate/upgrade: the explanation has an extra punctuation (") at the end.
On the panel on the back, do we need a period after Move Up? Does Up need a capital U?

Some of the definitions are from OED/dictionary.com. Do we need to mention that?

Here are a few comments for my entry at: http://udaanstc.github.io/GutsAndGlory/html/vinish.html.

[A] Headings: The writing style is conversational, as if I am speaking to live audience. While reading, I feel as if I am reading a small chapter from a story, a narrative, and so I do not feel the need for internal headings (Who stops you, Talk about your work). I want users to read it without a pause, without rest, as if they are also reading a sub plot from a story.

And when we remove these two headings:
Let 'Who stops you' stay here as a new paragraph and combine it with the following paragraph that begins with 'If you are..".
Likewise, let 'Talk about your work', stay here as a new paragraph and combine it with the following paragraph that begins with "Taxonomy. MadCap Flare. Acrolinx...."

[B] "LIke the smell of chlorine in bleach." Can you change it to "Like the smell of chlorine."

[B] "Or, a difference in opinion?" Can you move it to the next line, as if in a new paragraph?

[C] "That's it." Can you please make it in italics?

[D] "To hand out some pearls of wisdom if your mind...". Please rewrite to "Help yourself if your mind is still stuck at 'Who stops you':"

I can't see the TOC menu when I navigate to Suyog's article

Hi,

I couldn't figure out how to update my bio in the gh-pages node. Could we update it to the following text?:

Samartha Vashishtha works as a Senior Content and Community Lead with Adobe Systems, where he’s primarily responsible for planning and delivering Help content for Photoshop, Lightroom, and Creative Cloud services. Samartha has previously spoken at international conferences on topics such as web communities, visual communication, and globalized content.

Beyond work, Samartha is a published creative writer.

1. Quotes are good but I feel they are overused.
2. The section Why Innovate At All does not quite fit the flow. Intro says that the article is for a person who wants to innovate. In that case, the person is convinced about why to innovate.
3. How do you become a prolific innovator? Prolific does not seem to be the right word. Prolific means plentiful. So, prolific reader makes sense because that implies one reads a lot. Prolific innovater does not ring the bell. One is either an innovator or not one. Innovation is not measured in quantity.
4. When ideas fail you, what can you do to keep yourself motivated? Needs more clarity on what this means. Do we want to say when your ideas fail? Or do we want to say when you do not get an idea (ideas fail you would mean that).
5. If you are the one who is seeking answers to these questions.... Change to if you are seeking answers to these questions…
6. No human is perfect, nor so is a technical system or a piece of software. 'Delete so'.
7. The more problematic the system is, the larger the scope for innovation there is. Delete 'there is'.
8. Here are some of the reasons for your idea failing. Comment - reasons for failure of your idea?
9. And yes, and be bold and willing to face failures. Remove the second and... And yes, be bold...

RFE from @thomasnibu

The "title" attribute of all HREFs that link to articles within the magazine should be the same as the tweetable sentence of that article.
Reason: The "title" attribute shows up on mouseover on an XREF

• Also ensure that the ToC entries match the article titles
• Do this around 30 Sep after when no new entries will be accepted

1. Until it reaches this point, it is in first person singular: "We went into an eternal mode of research, and when my manager thought ...". It suddenly becomes first person plural in this para and that, I kinda feel, breaks the flow a bit. The author could rather say something like "I, along with my manager, went into an eternal mode of ... "
2. "I might not done enough justice to the problems but " - needs fixing
3. "One problem that I was of being taken care of was that I would get enough information " - needs correction/rephrasing
4. "So, if you are have legacy content, the first crucial task would ..." - needs rephrasing
5. "An accurate estimate of time and people requires is very important as ..." - needs fixing
6. "deal with multiple projects, which maybe planned or adhoc, ..." - two words?
7. "One way of tackling this problem would be to watch closely, constantly scrutinising ..." - doesn't read very well. Rephrase?
8. "Give them a basic training on what the ...." - isn't "training" an uncountable noun?
9. " The translation rules include guidelines on what is to be translated, transliterated, and not translated or transliterated." - Should it rather be something like "The translation rules include guidelines on what is to be translated and transliterated, and what not to be translated or transliterated." ?
10. Acknowledgements - "lion" > "L10N" or "l10n?

A generic comment: I like the content that the author has added in the beginning of the article to keep the interest of the reader, but I think it is a bit overdose and goes against the whole purpose - she/he might want to cut it a lil short!

You can thus use the same card for two examples. Both from everyday life of a tech writer.

This is priority 5. (1 being the top-most priority.)

1. The title of the article is very cryptic. I could not understand what it meant “Internalising”.
2. The tweetable handle is also not really useful or does not give any idea about the topic.
3. “I requested him to talk about various skills a technical communicator must have.” I would prefer “I requested him to talk about various skills that a technical communicator must have.”
4. We should use “research mindset” with an article “a research mindset”.
5. When I read through the cases, objectives, and methodology, I read through the boxes at the first go and skipped the information in between. It probably is a good idea to have it all in a table and provide the information that’s provided in between the line of boxes all at one go in a paragraph.
6. “For example, some of the important attributes of a new tool will be price, learning curve, and compatibility with the existing system.” This seems out of the place. The cases are examples themselves.
7. “The methodology varies from case to case.” This is completely redundant. It’s easily understood from the use cases.
8. “Methodology” is such a jargon. Why can’t we just use “Analysis”? Or may be “Exploring”.
9. “With clear measurables in hand, the next phase is collecting and analysing data.” I think this is the “Methodology”?
10. “Any mistake at this stage can result in wrong conclusion, forcing the you to do it all over again.” Remove “the”.
11. “To what extent good documentation saves support costs?” Suggest changing to “To what extent does good documentation save support costs?”
12. “The scope of such topics cover the analysing statistical data of large samples to deduce quantitative results, which can also be supplemented with some insights from a qualitative research.” I totally didn’t understand this...just too many noun strings, long sentence, and overall too complex to understand the quantitative, qualitative part.
13. “Some activities like user testing may...” If we are technical writers, we ought to follow our rules. Why are we using “like” here. We ought to use “such as”.
14. “Data collection for big projects will be spread across a longer timeframe” “Time frame” Should be two words.
15. “STC also undertakes...” paragraph comes in suddenly out of the blue. It needs to be placed after the next paragraph.

No passengers on the battleship - review

1. Sincere sharing of the author's observations and suggestions. I like that. Also appreciate the thought direction of recognizing tech comm's value and highlighting it.
2. The title is not self-explanatory. Web search does not give any background. I deduced that it may mean "all must participate". But the article seems to be on leadership. Also noted that the fine example of the Support VP's quote is not of battleship, but of the racing car. Why not change the title to some reference to a racing car? Who cares if Asha coins it first? :)
3. “He facilitates them to be leaders, every single one of them.” --> “He facilitates them to be achievers, every single one of them.” Suggested, because honestly, everyone cannot be the leader. No team will work like that. Also, a race winner (or winning team) is an achiever, performing better than others in one specific case. That does not make him the leader. The leader, like the Support VP, enables the team to perform better - often more than sum of its parts.
4. Too many smileys - do they convey "informality"?
5. "We" refers to tech communicators? The article uses "you", "they", "we" at many places and there is no consistent sense of whether the reader is included in the conversation or not. "We" can mean "I and others with you included" as well as "I and others with you excluded". Not clear which one the author intends.
6. If the intro can indicate that the article is about "leading a tech comm group" or “asserting the tech comm group’s place in the organization,” it can narrow the scope and set the reader expectations correctly.

RFE from @sheeceb
should contain all of the interactivity, preferably

Up on the site for review.
@sheeceb
We need a few things:

• The SparkNotes page screenshot
• Your profile, in about 50-75 words
• A link to an online presence
• Your mugshot, 75px x 75px (but even 100px x 100px would do)
• A teaser, no longer than 110 characters, that captures the essence of the piece

A work item to track the article podcasts.

The status is updated to incorporate comments to this Issue.

1. Alka Acharya and Samartha Vashishtha: You too can patent Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
2. Anagha Chandratrey: Commonly confused words Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
3. Anindita Basu: Of managers and manuals Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
4. Asha Mokashi: No passengers on the battleship Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
5. Basreena Basheer: It's a L10N thing Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
6. Meghashri Dalvi: Internalising a research mindset Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
7. Prajakta Pradhan: Who is the user Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
8. Rajib Borkataki: Ascend, naturally Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
9. Rohit Nair: Editing. A day in the life of a technical editor Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
10. Sheece Baghdadi: To be or not to be Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
11. Shivi Sivasubramanian: Awaken the innovator in you Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
12. Surbhi Chattkara: Management lessons that children teach us Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
13. Suyog Ketkar: This side up Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟
14. Vinish Garg: Be your own story Ready. ✨ ⭐ 🌟

@sisivasu
Hi Shivi,

Your article is up for review at http://udaanstc.github.io/GutsAndGlory/html/shivi.html. You'll notice I made two major changes to your article:

• I left out your "acknowledgements" text completely. Reason: you've already acknowledged those people at the beginning of the article. Doing so again at the end would be slightly embarrassing for them, I am sure :)
• I did not use the James Bertrand quote (“Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking, we can get on with creating the future." - James Bertrand") Even though the quote is present all over the internet, I could find no person called James Bertrand - nothing about who, what, where etc. so I thought it best that we do not add to the internet copy-paste clutter.

Let me know if you disagree with either edit. Also let me know if you don't like any of the other small edits.

Also, one item is pending from your side: a tweetable sentence (about 110 characters or so) that captures the essence of your article, and that we can use in teasers and to auto-populate Twitter popup boxes. Do write in the tweetable.

Before eGA, run a broken-link checker. Xenu, e.g.

Feedback from Nibu:
Readers might completely miss the hamburger menu icon at the top of the articles. Consider using a more commonplace icon, text plus icon, or maybe just text.

My problem is that the Draft version of my article is up on the site, not the final one. Will be much easier for you to identify the changes tracked in a Word doc, so will mail it to your id. Hope that's okay. Thanks!
Asha

I am finding it hard to change the column width and conserve niceness on github.

I have to move my head from left to right when reading the content and not enjoying it.

Will it be alright if I try experimenting with wordpress? I know you were saying that javascript doesn't work there. What's the most difficult piece or pieces content and presentation wise? I will see if it can be achieved.

These are just experiments for now.

Ani's reply

Problem is, even CSS doesn't work in Wordpress. Last time I checked, free Wordpress did not allow you to use CSS. That means, our entire presentation style goes for a toss.

If you just want the content to be confined to the middle one-thir of the screen, that can be achieved even in GitHub. Can you show me (a quick sketch) of whjat exactly you want?

Waise, the wisdom at N&N group is that content "above the fold" is what's read, and if we leave space on both sides of the screen, it just means we decrease the content "above the fold".