Activity for Mark Bakerâ€
| Type | On... | Excerpt | Status | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edit | Post #285295 | Initial revision | — | almost 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: block-quotation narrative with dialogue This is a problem that needs no solution. People know how to skip over quotations and recaps. Indeed, people usually skip over quotations and recaps and only go back to look at them if they find themselves lost in the following text. Skipping and scanning is fundamental reader behavior. We all do... (more) |
— | almost 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #284362 | Initial revision | — | about 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Need basic tools and ways to practice and polish my writing skills Grammar is to writing as driving a nail is to architecture. Yes, you need the nails to be driven in straight, but it is not what architecture is about. A good writer is, first of all, a good observer. They have a full picture of the thing or event they are trying to describe. Secondly, they h... (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #283626 | Initial revision | — | about 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: HTML tags versus CSS classes: is one preferred over the other for the same styling? In my book, Structured Writing: Rhetoric and Process, I make a distinction between three domains of markup, the subject, document, and presentation domain. CSS is a presentation domain language. HTML was originally a mess of document and presentation domain with a the odd bit of subject domain thrown... (more) |
— | about 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #35152 |
Post edited: |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #282634 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can we integrate a lightweight public ticketing system into our documentation feedback form? Have you considered a simple comment system, something like Disqus. There is a certain amount of spam protection built into those systems, you can choose to moderate posts, and people can subscribe to comments on individual pages. You could state your intention to remove comments once they have b... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Comment | Post #282596 |
My problem with any form of question about the current page is that it assumes that the search system worked perfectly and any fault lies in the page. But that is often not the problem. The reader is on the wrong page or the page they want does not exist. I recommend the question "Did you find what y... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #282037 |
Post edited: |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #282037 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: For starting a blog, is a niche blog or general/misc content better? What do you want a blog for? If you just want to share your day to day life with the world, that's what Facebook and Instagram are for now. People who blog these days are either selling something or trying to build a profile in order to sell something, or are specialists with a lot of information to ... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #281535 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Do readers primarily identify with or judge heroes in a novel? I wrote a blog post a little while back about what it means for a reader to identify with a protagonist: https://gmbaker.net/avatar-friend-and-shrink-three-modes-of-reader-intimacy/ I identified three modes of engagement: Avatar -- the reader lives vicariously through the character (looking o... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #281471 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: In 2021, which publishers distribute novellas? So having said all that, it turns out that my publisher publishes novellas. https://chrismpress.com/books/magdalen-montague/ This may perhaps be something that small presses, particularly those that seek to serve a particular purpose, are willing to do. (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #281363 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: In 2021, which publishers distribute novellas? My information is all of the negative variety, but in all the research I have done over the years on publishers and agents I have never seen one that wanted novellas. The novella always was, I believe, an artefact of long magazine fiction, which was enormously popular before the advent of TV and radi... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #280960 | Initial revision | — | over 3 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: When else ought you introduce new material in a final paragraph? Well, your teachers were talking rot, as they often do. Though, to be fair, the aim of their teaching was probably not give your the full art of writing, but simply to introduce a little elementary structure into the chaotic way many people communicate. But in the passage you cite, the author does... (more) |
— | over 3 years ago |
| Edit | Post #280712 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #280712 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: What are some ways to encourage team members to contribute and maintain a centralized wiki? I wish I knew. But I can at least outline where, based on long and bitter experience, I think the challenges lie. Finding a way to surmount them I must leave to others. The first problem is one of visibility. Documenting things publicly benefits other people. You benefit from the documents they c... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #280519 |
Post edited: |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #280519 | Initial revision | — | almost 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Technical Writer Skill Set Monica covers the main points excellently. Beyond that, if there is one specific thing I would suggest that you do to improve and remain relevant as a technical writer, it is learning to code. This is not about reading source code (though that is a useful skill in some jobs) nor about writing cod... (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #279891 |
Why here and not any of the other places that were specifically designed and programmed for this function? It is not like these facilities don't already exist. What would be new or different or useful about doing it here? (more) |
— | almost 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
Some thought should probably go into the content of the 404 page for the questions section, though, in case we do get any search hits on the content that is removed. (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
Not so much opposed as acknowledging that the import play a part in attracting some of the old contributors over here, including me. But they are here now, if we haven't lost them all again. And the arguments against keeping the imported content seem compelling to me. A staged approach makes sense. P... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
Plus, what Olin Lathrop said about the message the copied content sends when people do find it. I'll admit I came here because I felt like I got my content back. But as writers we have to learn to see it from the public's POV. Why trust this place when it is so obviously a copy of the other place. We... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
Subject to correction, I believe that people come here two ways. 1. They come here directly to ask a new question, without searching for an old one. 2. They Google a question and are directed here by the search results. But the search results are not likely to point to the content copied here from th... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
I think so. It's a mausoleum here. And the old imported content is getting few votes (I just checked mine). But its the SEO issue with copied content that concerns me most. https://www.hobo-web.co.uk/duplicate-content-problems/ "Do NOT expect to rank high in Google with content found on other, more t... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
A new place, without all the stale old answers of a decade past might actually be a more attractive proposition than a branch of the old thing. Everyone love the next great app, right? If we can find a way to make it new. (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
Really, what it represents is a body of work for the people who created it. Which is bully for us, but beyond that, I don't see the value. I have my archive of my post on the other place and will rework some of them into blogpost maybe someday. To thrive, this place needs to be a better place to ask ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278987 |
It won't help with Google seeing it as duplicate content, which won't help with our SEO. Also, it isn't really an archive of this site. It was not created here, but elsewhere. Its an archive of that other site, and says so on every item. And its not an up to date archive of that other site. So what i... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278912 |
All that said, though, the ability to import the content was one of the inducements for people (like me) who had created a lot of content at the other place to come over here. Catch-22? (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278912 |
Technically speaking, answering a question that the original asker won't see is still of value, since the point is (supposed to be) to create a permanent collection of answers that answer questions of value to many people. Whether that model actually works, or inspires people to write, is, of course ... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Comment | Post #278891 |
At a certain point one simply runs out of available characters and typographic alternatives, at which point formal notation like BNF is all that is left. Which is why BNF exists. And even then, BNF can become cumbersome for some syntaxes in which BNF's own syntax overlaps, which is why we have severa... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #278891 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Syntax summaries use brackets for optional elements; how do I represent literal brackets in a way readers will understand? The most obvious approach, depending one where the help is to be displayed, is to use italics for optional items. That is a well established convention in command-line documentation. ARRAY[data-type , count ] One problem with italics is that the italic form of the comma is indistinguishable fr... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #278880 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How can we revitalize our community? The imported content may be a problem in that Google will see it as duplicate content, and Google does not like duplicate content. I'm not sure if the whole site gets actively penalized for the duplicate content, but I'm pretty sure that searches that match that content don't go here but to the other... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #278054 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Is there any benefit when writing out instructions to split it up into lots of little paragraphs, or is it better to leave it in one paragraph? In addition to what has been said about the ability to follow steps, the same thing would apply to a bunch of individual tips that don't have to be followed in order: Make each one a separate paragraph. In fact, it is even more important for tips than for steps, since readers know they are supposed t... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277444 |
Post edited: |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277495 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: Which parts of a character's plan should be revealed beforehand? You are absolutely right that we only want to see the plan once. Either we follow the planning in detail or we follow the execution in detail. We do not need to read it twice. Unless, of course, it all goes horribly wrong from the start so the what happens in the attempted execution is completely... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |
| Edit | Post #277457 | Initial revision | — | about 4 years ago |
| Answer | — |
A: How to determine relative success of different, similar books published by different means? A big part of the marketing advantage that publishers have is that they have access to this kind of information. This is a problem even for authors going the traditional route, because they are expected to provide comparable titles that have sold well as part of their query package, and it is hard to... (more) |
— | about 4 years ago |