#writethedocs — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #writethedocs, aggregated by home.social.
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Folks, still a few weeks left to propose a talk to Write the Docs Berlin, Sep 6-8, 2026. https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/news/cfp-reminder/
Would love to see all your ideas about documentation and adjacent topics while I'm still buzzing from the Portland conference. #writethedocs
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Folks, still a few weeks left to propose a talk to Write the Docs Berlin, Sep 6-8, 2026. https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/news/cfp-reminder/
Would love to see all your ideas about documentation and adjacent topics while I'm still buzzing from the Portland conference. #writethedocs
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Folks, still a few weeks left to propose a talk to Write the Docs Berlin, Sep 6-8, 2026. https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/news/cfp-reminder/
Would love to see all your ideas about documentation and adjacent topics while I'm still buzzing from the Portland conference. #writethedocs
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Folks, still a few weeks left to propose a talk to Write the Docs Berlin, Sep 6-8, 2026. https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/news/cfp-reminder/
Would love to see all your ideas about documentation and adjacent topics while I'm still buzzing from the Portland conference. #writethedocs
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Folks, still a few weeks left to propose a talk to Write the Docs Berlin, Sep 6-8, 2026. https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/berlin/2026/news/cfp-reminder/
Would love to see all your ideas about documentation and adjacent topics while I'm still buzzing from the Portland conference. #writethedocs
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#WriteTheDocs just released a bunch of new videos from their most recent conference and unfortunately some of them shill AI, but one video caught my attention and is definitely worth watching: The Most Human Documentation.
It talks about the things to avoid in order to not be mistaken by machine generation, and what it means for your #TechnicalWriting and #Documentation to feel human. The talk comments on this from a cultural perspective and it matches what I've been thinking about recently.
With the rise of LLMs and their gross effect on online text now there's humans that work on humanizing machine content, be it with deterministic tools or with humans. In the end humans prefer content that feels human, and human content continues to provide more value.
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#WriteTheDocs just released a bunch of new videos from their most recent conference and unfortunately some of them shill AI, but one video caught my attention and is definitely worth watching: The Most Human Documentation.
It talks about the things to avoid in order to not be mistaken by machine generation, and what it means for your #TechnicalWriting and #Documentation to feel human. The talk comments on this from a cultural perspective and it matches what I've been thinking about recently.
With the rise of LLMs and their gross effect on online text now there's humans that work on humanizing machine content, be it with deterministic tools or with humans. In the end humans prefer content that feels human, and human content continues to provide more value.
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#WriteTheDocs just released a bunch of new videos from their most recent conference and unfortunately some of them shill AI, but one video caught my attention and is definitely worth watching: The Most Human Documentation.
It talks about the things to avoid in order to not be mistaken by machine generation, and what it means for your #TechnicalWriting and #Documentation to feel human. The talk comments on this from a cultural perspective and it matches what I've been thinking about recently.
With the rise of LLMs and their gross effect on online text now there's humans that work on humanizing machine content, be it with deterministic tools or with humans. In the end humans prefer content that feels human, and human content continues to provide more value.
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#WriteTheDocs just released a bunch of new videos from their most recent conference and unfortunately some of them shill AI, but one video caught my attention and is definitely worth watching: The Most Human Documentation.
It talks about the things to avoid in order to not be mistaken by machine generation, and what it means for your #TechnicalWriting and #Documentation to feel human. The talk comments on this from a cultural perspective and it matches what I've been thinking about recently.
With the rise of LLMs and their gross effect on online text now there's humans that work on humanizing machine content, be it with deterministic tools or with humans. In the end humans prefer content that feels human, and human content continues to provide more value.
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Starting to make my way towards #writethedocs , nice and slow.
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Starting to make my way towards #writethedocs , nice and slow.
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Starting to make my way towards #writethedocs , nice and slow.
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Starting to make my way towards #writethedocs , nice and slow.
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Starting to make my way towards #writethedocs , nice and slow.
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Avoiding the docs slide into staleness takes some proactive effort. But a lot of that can be automated these days.
I talk about some suggestions in a blog post here: https://djw.fyi/portfolio/preventing-drift/
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Avoiding the docs slide into staleness takes some proactive effort. But a lot of that can be automated these days.
I talk about some suggestions in a blog post here: https://djw.fyi/portfolio/preventing-drift/
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Avoiding the docs slide into staleness takes some proactive effort. But a lot of that can be automated these days.
I talk about some suggestions in a blog post here: https://djw.fyi/portfolio/preventing-drift/
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Avoiding the docs slide into staleness takes some proactive effort. But a lot of that can be automated these days.
I talk about some suggestions in a blog post here: https://djw.fyi/portfolio/preventing-drift/
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Avoiding the docs slide into staleness takes some proactive effort. But a lot of that can be automated these days.
I talk about some suggestions in a blog post here: https://djw.fyi/portfolio/preventing-drift/
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As it turns out, I have Thoughts and Opinions about docs. Who knew?
Amazing what years and years of doing something and building a skill (no, not the Clause kind) does
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Our Write The Docs booth was a hit yesterday at the DDD Melbourne conference. Even during sessions we had lots of people coming to our booth.
Our BrickDocs Challenge was great. Even after a 3 minute quick exercise we had a few young developers have a light bulb moment when they realised the consequences of bad documentation for tired support staff managing an incident. Hopefully they will take additional care with writing their documentation after this.
We were talking non-stop all day while we were manning the booth. There was a lot of noise in our area as people were having conversations at other booths too. Even with having shifts on/off I have come away with quite a strained voice.
I really need to do vocal warm-up exercises before conducting workshops and manning conference booths like this. Feel free to share any tips you may have.
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#dddmelb Had a great start to DDD helping to man the Write The Docs booth. Lots of people came to chat and try the Brick Docs Challenge. Loads of fun.
If you are at DDD drop by our booth and say hi.
#WriteTheDocs #TechWriting -
If you are going to the DDD conference in Melbourne tomorrow, head over to the Write The Docs booth and say hi. See if you can solve our 3 minute BrickDocs Challenge or join in some Docs Bingo.
#dddmelb #WriteTheDocs #TechWriting #TechnicalWriting #KnowledgeManagementDDD Melbourne | 21st February 2026
https://www.dddmelbourne.com/ -
I have had a hard week but done very good work. I have found myself a delightful cafe in a working class suburb that has BOOKS!
I am reading Don Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words over breakfast. It was sitting in a small bookcase amongst the usual fantasy books and books about sporting greats.
I am loving the intro. After talking about the manipulation of language by totalitarian states and how the subdued masses adopt that language, Watson says:
"The same mimicry can be expected wherever the official language is a kind of code that we must at least appear to understand, or be excluded. It happens in democracies, and in business and government departments."
How often have you found when starting a new job that you ate desperately trying to use the acronyms, the phrases and names that are bandied around the office to show that you fit in, that you are a 'valuable team member'?
#jargon #acronyms #Management #TechnicalWriting #TechWriting #WriteTheDocs
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Writing is often the smallest part of a tech writer's day. Consider our work as a kind of super QA team and alpha tester that goes beyond making sure the software works as the ticket describes, for example.
Read more:
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Tell me you haven't talked to a real live tech writer on a time scale of decades without telling me.
https://kibbler.dev/blog/turn-your-codebase-into-a-knowledge-base
#TechnicalWriting #docs #documentation #writeTheDocs #techWriter
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The pushback against AI slop is making employers recognise the importance of skilled writing by humans so they are now hiring "storytellers":
"It’s so much more than a copywriter,” says one hirer: https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-are-desperately-seeking-storytellers-7b79f54eHopefully this will see a move beyond hiring copywriters to keyword stuff for SEO and AI, a move beyond judging skill by simplistic metrics such as number of boosts, likes etc. I hope that organisations will want professional writers who can identify target audiences and deliver meaningful material that will be valued by those audiences. This is true success, but may mean that the post or article might not get many clicks.
I hope that over time "storyteller" will not simply become a synonym for "copywriter".
Technical writers already provide this kind of skill when writing about technology, or health, or science, or digital humanities
#WriteTheDocs #TechWriting #TechnicalWriting #TechnicalWriters #DigitalHumanities
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Just a couple of tickets left now for my Writing design systems documentation session at 10am-1pm next Thursday, 29 May.
If you're available and want to learn how to create docs people can find, understand and use, I'd love to have you.
Tell your friends!
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Ever wondered how beforeEach works in unit test frameworks? Check out our new lifecycle diagram!
https://qunitjs.com/lifecycle/
People generally guess right when it comes to ordering, so why a diagram?
We want to show that the order is guaranteed, and showcase what's possible when you depend on it.
Thanks to FND, Jan, and NullVoxPopuli for improving and promoting this work! H/T @FND @simulo @nullvoxpopuli
#qunit #WriteTheDocs #TechnicalWriting #SoftwareDocumentation #documentation #TDD
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A pic I took on the streets of #Portland
# 363 days ago, area within walking distance of #Revolution Hall.I've remained publicly silent on my #WriteTheDocs conference attendance last year because it was .... a shitty conference.
And today I'll tell you why it was a shitty conference.
There was a self-proclaimed "extrovert" who got up on stage and vomited bullshit about how she was representing #Nginx.
I did not plan to give a talk, but when I woke up the last day of the conference, I really had this pressing intuition that I should speak up for the talent that was maybe intimidated ... that NO, you don't need a fucking Macbook to be a technical writer... not all technical writing is about computer-related things.
But then did I find out ... what that Nginx "extrovert" was really there to do was be the shithead #censoring the indigenous voice that wanted to get on stage and tell everybody that not all #TechnicalWriting has to be about #technology.
But that snooty white supremacist bitch rejected this talk.
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Another day in the life of a documentarian. #writethedocs #techcomm
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I'm drafting a diagram to explain how before/after hooks work in unit tests.
They tend to work the same way across test frameworks, so it's not unique to QUnit. But, new devs will learn this for the first time, so I think it's worth explaining.
Page:
https://qunitjs.com/api/QUnit/module/#hooksIssue tracker:
https://github.com/qunitjs/qunit/issues/1358#issuecomment-2614663327What do you think?
#qunit #WriteTheDocs #TechnicalWriting #SoftwareDocumentation #documentation #devex #TDD
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Only a couple of weeks left to get your documentation related talk proposal in for the next Write the Docs conference, held May 4-6 Portland.
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We have been busy this year developing the idea of a Brick Docs Workshop designed to help IT engineers develop technical writing skills. This fun workshop uses Lego to identify writing and formatting techniques that help make instructions clearer.
We are running this workshop at the national technical writing conference in Melbourne next week. DM me if you want to attend - I can see if I can wangle some tickets.
#TechnicalWriters #WriteTheDocs #Melbourne -
Fantastic talk on crossover from DevOps and documentation by @lornajane at #writethedocs
I’m still out here trying to make #DocOps a thing
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@remoquete THIS ☝️.
I am fortunate that my manager recognises this critical juncture in technical writing and has given me substantial time to reimagine my job.
I spoke about the benefits of working in the space between professional silos in my Linux Conference talk a few years ago: When STEM Becomes STEAM We All Benefit https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oEX-F5SxwrU
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This is your reminder that we're just over two weeks out from the talk proposal deadline for Write the Docs Atlantic, an online conference about documentation.
All the details are here https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/atlantic/2024/cfp/
#techcomm #writethedocs #documentation #cfp #conference
Retweets appreciated.
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The goal of this short and sweet style guide is to be "just enough" guidance for technical documentation contributors who aren't regular writers. Thank you Lorna Jane! https://github.com/lornajane/developer-style-guide #opensource #techwriting #writethedocs #techcomm
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🏹 I'll gift my #WriteTheDocs conference ticket to an indigenous woman who is aspiring to become a paid technical writer in her field of choice. .... "If I get that ONE job I'd really like." 🏹
🏹 I'll promise to not turn my attendance at the #TechnicalWriter conference into a recruitment for uncompensated "volunteer" writers as long as I don't have to do a fundraiser for anything. I'll be the advocate for YOU. .... "If I get that OTHER job I really want."
I had a peek of what retired life might be like... and I don't want it yet. My brain, heart, health all suffer when I'm isolated from statisticians and their interesting data streams.
Was at a postal service mailing place the other day, and they measure in "ounces" and it just baffled me. I thought my "forever" stamps would be fine and dandy for the letters. Nope. I'm like... wtf is an ounce? I thought that was for liquids... Didn't I write some "TO METRIC SYSTEM" Conversion CODE for this? (And I did, will share it soon)
I had to tell the lady that I didn't get it in the only way I knew how: "I studied science. I don't understand modern American measuring systems."
In other interesting news THOUSANDS of people marched yesterday in Minnesota for #MMIP #MMIW #MMIWG. My Internet was down so I missed the live stream (was so sad)
NDN Collective has some vids on the Public Interent of Paid Reporters (YouTube).
I have not looked who else is reporting, but I sure hope they are getting paid well.
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I’ve seen an uptick in comments about needing to reduce the length of design system docs and thought it was a good time to reshare this post I co-wrote with @Cjforms on why the length of content is not a problem. The real issue is irrelevant information.
#DesignSystems #UXDesign #UXWriting #WriteTheDocs
https://amyhupe.co.uk/articles/dont-be-afraid-of-the-big-long-page/
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There's this awesome talk by Ed Cormany given to #WriteTheDocs this year that I absolutely would recommend to anyone remotely interested in #Linguistics and #TechnicalWriting. It is very easy to understand the presented concepts.
It's called "The Descriptivist Manifesto" (Youtube link / Invidious link).
He talks about how we should approach rules and patterns in our writing from a #descriptivism point of view, demonstrating how this data-driven approach can be useful. Even the Q&A at the end is just as worth watching.
Probably the biggest takeaway being that we should write about tech the way we talk about tech.
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If you're a #documentarian or #techwriter or otherwise interested in #documentation , check out #WriteTheDocs ! The Portland 2023 conference has an Opportunity grant for those who would otherwise have difficulty attending: https://www.writethedocs.org/conf/portland/2023/opportunity-grants/
#noxp -
Priority of Knowledge Transfer =
Importance of Knowledge + Availability of Knowledge + Frequency of Knowledge
#KnowledgeTransfer #Documentation #Docs #WriteTheDocs #TechnicalDocumentation
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I'm obsessed with good #documentation and the Routinator user manual on #ReadTheDocs is my pride and joy.
We worked very hard to seamlessly integrate the manual page into it as well, allowing us to automatically link command line options, but we also wanted it to be the canonical source for building the the manpage with rst2man. This saves us from keeping content in sync and messing with troff(1).
https://github.com/NLnetLabs/routinator/blob/main/doc/manual/source/manual-page.rst
#WriteTheDocs #TechnicalWriting #TechnicalDocumentation #OpenSource
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In an effort to help us all find each other, I've been building a list of #techWriters and others connected to #WriteTheDocs. So my #followFriday submission this week (and probably for a few weeks) are all tech writers or adjacent:
- @ericholscher (founded Write the Docs and Read the Docs)
- @plaindocs
- @jaredmorgs (also follow for #pinball content)
- @straygoat
- @rekiwi
- @ellispratt
- @alanpringle
- @chrischinchilla
- @josh
- @swapnilogale (WTD #Australia!)
- @ddbeckMore next week!