Blast from the past... Now

demonhale — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:49:06 +0000

Blast from the past... Now that is a pretty detailed proof-reading I may say...

Forgot to mention: somebody

mmi — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:23:03 +0000

Forgot to mention: somebody please poke Hensler in the ribs and get him on mmy db Q.

Hey Yer both quite welcome.

mmi — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:20:11 +0000

Hey

Yer both quite welcome.

Greg: I know you were kidding, but let mme say I think people should never feel intimidated about what they're writing. Forum posts are just shared emails, and emails in this context certainly don't require any careful examination before being published. A post containing something useful or funny or supportive — one that makes some sort of positive contribution — should be the focus, imo. Otoh, I'd say a document like About Us deserves to be dusted and polished so it'll be worthy of all the work that went into preparing it — and in this case all the work that went into the efforts it recounts.

Speaking of contributions:

[as always, suggestions only]

content that will help our viewers improve their skills [This is kind of a tough one. I like "audience," but you might wanna go with "its" over "their." Problem is you then imply they're acting collectively. Might try "audience members," but I don't really like that either here. Collective nouns can be difficult.]

some valueable guidance even before you get started [just a thought]

markup methods [generally preferred without the hyphen]

covered extensively by other sites (comma) we probably won't

high (hyphen) end ~~advanced~~ articles [nothing wrong with "advanced" — I'm just looking to avoid doubling up on it later in the sentence.]

[I'd think about adding a line break in front of the headers.]

links to your site(s) [delete space]

begginner and intermediate web designers

in (hyphen) depth knowledge [generally preferred]

When ~~you are~~ composing your article

but less formal than in traditional published writing. [Or something like that — just looking to avoid double "article." The word is gonna appear many times on this page no matter what ya do, so I'd say eliminate it whenever possible.]

We aren't super-strict about this (comma) so don't worry if

Writing Format (colon) [for consistency]

We don't have any hard and fast rules

with a lot of writing problems (comma) we may refer you to

resubmit [delete hyphen]

Articles will be edited ~~by the editor~~ using

standard British English? I know our American Empire is quickly fading into history, but theirs is long gone, isn't it??

This ~~will~~ helps readers to decide whether or not they want to read the whole thing, provides a short description for our front page, and ~~will~~ gives social bookmarkers something to enter as a description. If you don't provide this with your article (comma) the editor will write one for you. [And we know how painful that can be — especially for the author! Btw, nothing wrong with the future tense usage here. I just didn't like the way "provide" might have been connected to "readers." It seemed to be a verb in search of a subject.]

a list of references should be inlcluded ~~at the end of the article~~. [Gets rid of an "article." Hopefully, they'll know where to place it. You might use something like "should be appended." In fact, that would allow you go with, "This could include any works you referenced ..."]

[I'd think about dropping a and b from that list. You've already covered a, and b seems more or less obvious. You could include b (and get rid of the basically superfluous "purpose of this is to" by going with something like, "This will provide support for your arguments, advance the fundamental web paradigm of ..."]

a member of the target audience (comma) as well as an editor [optional, I suppose]

The content expert will check for factual errors.

A member of the target audience ~~(or someone who doesn't already know about topic)~~ can ensure that any explainations

clear and understandable [This is sort of redundant. You might go with "clear and logical.]

style, spelling (comma) and grammar

The editors [You use the singular form elsewhere.]

may be asked to provide ["Requested to" is generally considered proper — I just don't like it!]

Articles may need to be revised by the author [Might go with "Submissions" to drop an "article."]

[Oh great! Right away you start in with "submissions." Authors drive mme nuts! Forget that last idea, I guess.]

At this time (comma) the original thread

[Lots of "article" usage in this paragraph. Calls for a potentially painful rewrite, I'd say.]

to indicate that the article has already been published. Megan and/or Liam will edit the article and prepare it for publication. [This seems confusing. How can it be edited and prepared for publication after it has already been published?]

licence [Two cees in BritSpeak, I'll grant you. Have you Canucks come up a new variant?]

permission

for non-commercial purposes only [I'd try to stick this in the sentence earlier, maybe right after "content."]

We will have a form set up here to handle submissions in the future. [I'd probably use "In the future" to open the sentence. In fact, I'd prefer something like, "A form to facilitate submissions is being developed."]

And speaking of author bios:

for more than ten years {Even better, I'd say, would be something like, "since 19XX."]

In her spare time (comma) she likes

Go warriors!

mmi - long time no see!

Megan — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:47:00 +0000

mmi - long time no see! Thanks for the proofreading. I really need to look at the contribute page too (lots of process differences there in the actual process!)

Wow, great catches! Thank

Greg K — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:58:00 +0000

Wow, great catches! Thank you so much for the message to help us fix things that were missed when first published!

-Greg

PS. Why am I so paranoid about making sure everything is spelled correct and punctuated properly in this message now...