GNOME Documentation Style Guide
Karsten Wade
kwade at redhat.com
Mon Aug 23 11:36:33 UTC 2004
Bravo!
On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 12:24, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> I am one of the writer/editors working on the Fedora Documentation
> Project <http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs>, and we are preparing a
> set of Style Guidelines for aspiring writers and editors. In doing a
> short survey of related sites, I came across the captioned guide
> ("GDSG"). Since all our documentation will be licensed under the GNU
> FDL, as is the GDSG, we are very interested in using portions of your
> Guide as source material. Your use of the GNU FDL makes this effort
> possible.
>
> As the individual who will likely take the lead on preparing the Fedora
> Documentation Style Guidelines, I'm writing partly out of a sense of
> courtesy, but also to commend you on an exceptionally concise and
> readable guide. We hope that our use of the GDSG will make the process
> of creating useful, contemporary Fedora documentation a more pleasant
> experience for all our contributors. We also hope that we may be able to
> build upon the exceptional work you've done in preparing the GDSG.
>
> Please feel free to contact me back, or visit our list archives at
> <http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/>.
>
> (cc: fedora-docs-list)
The debian-docs list had a similar result recently, someone recommending
the GDSG as a baseline for a Debian style guide.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2004/08/msg00026.html
This came about because of a heated discussion about sexist language. I
heard about this from someone saying, "Look at these idiots on this
mailing list arguing such dumb stuff!"
http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2004/08/msg00006.html (start 1)
http://lists.debian.org/debian-doc/2004/08/msg00015.html (next
continuation)
I think the GDSG guideline stands, and it is the one I have always
used. Avoid sexist language, mainly by avoiding the third-person
pronoun. We should specify that all of our docs refer to the
second-person pronoun 'you.'
Happy reading,
Karsten
--
Karsten Wade, RHCE, Tech Writer
a lemon is just a melon in disguise
http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint: 2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115 5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41
More information about the docs
mailing list