Anyone have any ideas on what to change the room's description to? "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is getting old. Off the top of my head, how about "Chat room for writers to procrastinate in"?
Disclaimer: I'm not an Native English Speaker.
This is my fifth attempt of writing a short story (the previous ones are set in the same "universe" as this one).
I would like to know if the reader would feel intrigued by this opening. I also wonder if he would feel that it has a "dark" atmosphe...
@JedOliver - That's a good question. I was thinking that we can just make this information available to people and make sure they're aware of the issues. What they do with their text is up to them. The reason we got into such detail about one site's hosting situation is that it's this site.
But that's my opinion as a user, and perhaps we need more input on this.
@LaurenIpsum - Understood.
I've gotten additional feedback on the room's tagline from the disembodied voice narrating my life.
I highly doubt there would be a legalistic issue in any case but I (hesitantly) agree with you. The information on safeguarding your intellectual property is there for all to see and you can ignore the guidelines at your own peril.
But I think the way you handled your blog post from last week is probably the best use of Writers.SE as a forum for critique and, IMHO, should be used as the preeminent example on how to utilize this forum when seeking feedback on a WiP.
@JedOliver - Then maybe we should put in the guidelines that having stuff critiqued on chat is also a real option, and probably a better one for general critique. (I got a ton of good feedback here, too.)
@JedOliver - Maybe so, but you are a user whose opinion I respect.
Have edited some text on chatroom critiques into the guidelines on critiques. Any thoughts on how to make it easier to find it in this wall of text is appreciated. (It's a CW post on meta, anyone can edit it.)
@Standback @justkt - FYI, added more to the guidelines. If we can make those shorter or easier to read, that'd be awesome.
How can one use social proof as an argument without sounding like "just because everybody is doing it so should you"?
I'm writing a whitepaper regarding best-practices and new tools in the industry of software engineering. There are certain controversial topics like DVCS and TDD that do work, bu...
@NeilFein Edited it could be a useful question on argumentative/persuasive writing that uses the peripheral (emotional) route as opposed to the central (logical) route. As it sits, it's too broadly subjective to elicit an effective response.
There's potentially a great question here on the proper use of positive peer pressure in an argumentative setting. But if the OP doesn't edit it to that effect ... it could be a while before it gets a good response
Something along the lines of "What are the advantages/drawbacks of using social proof as part of a convincing argument?" could work
At least I have a general idea where the Duke is coming from now.
So, hold on, OP wants to know how to leverage the behavior of others as an example of good behavior (which is what a social proof is) while not sounding like that's what he's doing?
Sounds like he wants to obfuscate his methods in the writing. Or am I missing the point?
It's hard to help this guy make the question better when I'm not a coder or a tech writer. I worry there's stuff that'll be clear to other coders/techies but that I'm missing.
Indeed! As I said, it's hard for me to judge the question, not being a tech writer or coder myself. I don't want to dumb it down to baby-talk.
So when you say "how to use social proof as an argument without sounding like "just because everybody is doing it so should you"?" can you expand on that here?
Added this to come back to the point: P.S.: Sorry for the wall of text, the main point of all of this question (so it doesn't get lost) is how to try to demonstrate with social proof that trendy tools/techniques are not necessarily cargo cult.
It seems that the advantages of DVCS are self-evident. Why is CVCS the currently accepted norm? What is the advantage of CVCS? Is it just a legacy procedure (that's just the way we do things around here...)?
@dukeofgaming - nice edit. You're right, it is a bit of a wall of text now, but if you knew how to express this concisely and quickly... then you wouldn't be having a problem, would you? This is probably as good as we can get it for now.
Personally, as a technical person I find writers appealing since I'm not expecting to find technical people... we geeks have trouble talking to non-technical people
specially since technical problems/solutions need to be presented to them
this paper I'm writing is also for managers to read
so I can add as much coherent technobabble I could and convince most fellow geeks, but management (who is focus on product, customer and process) can see technological advancement as a nice way to halt business
as you could infer, a DVCS could actually speed up business
and, again, I'd say the evidence is in adoption: "others have done it succesfully, you should too!"
I really didn't want to get into the technical part of my writing problem, if I think about a simpler way to put the main question on my way home I might just leave the wall of text as an annex to my question
Disclaimer: I'm not an Native English Speaker.
This is my fifth attempt of writing a short story (the previous ones are set in the same "universe" as this one).
I would like to know if the reader would feel intrigued by this opening. I also wonder if he would feel that it has a "dark" atmosphe...
The Overlook Hotel
The Overlook Hotel