Re: Microsoft Manual of Style vs. github.com/MicrosoftDocs/microsoft-style-guide

[Tony Chung <tonyc -at- tonychung -dot- ca>]

What they say and what Github enables are totally different things. If MS
is not open to external pull requests against their documentation, there's
nothing stopping us from forking the MSWSG to, say the TechWhirlers Style
Guide and rewriting everything to fit our image. But then that begs the
question, why start with something so MS-centric? Apple has its own Human
Interface Style Guide that describes things almost exactly the opposite of
MS. And as Robert mentioned, and that I am inclined to agree, why Markdown?

-T

On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 11:34 AM, Lauren <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net> wrote:

> They say they have always used GitHub but now they are using it for
> feedback and issues. You can't just go in to GitHub and write or edit for
> Microsoft. Whether comments are posted on Git or sent through email, all
> the public can do is comment. They are trying to attract millennials.
>
> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/teamblog/a-new-feedback-sys
> tem-is-coming-to-docs
>
>
> On 8/16/2018 11:12 AM, Tony Chung wrote:
>
>> I think what we need to take away is that this manual is a public project
>> on github, which opens up all opportunities for branching, pull requests,
>> and even forking of the same documentation project. I don't know if MS
>> intended for such decentralization, but that's what they've opened
>> themselves up to. They might have purchased github as a way to centralize
>> their source, but git as a source control lends itself to
>> decentralization.
>>
>> The fact MicrosoftDocs is the project owner of multiple repositories shows
>> that there is some attempt for developers to add documentation at the same
>> time as they are building features. And they are probably looking for
>> git-savvy tech writers to submit pull requests to improve their docs. If I
>> were a techcom student, between contracts, or passionate about some of the
>> technology I might check with the project owners if they would accept pull
>> requests from the outside.
>>
>> To date, the most successful attempt at documentation-by-community that
>> I've heard about is FlossManuals: http://en.flossmanuals.net/
>>
>> Seeing that the Microsoft Writing Style Guide is in need of editorial
>> support, if you've got the interest and/or time, it couldn't hurt to take
>> up git.
>>
>
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