I have to agree, and I think this was a really good, insightful writeup. I've found myself less engaged with this community over time, and I think a lot of it has been because I'm finding less and less genuinely useful / informative articles on here. The solution is, unfortunately, far less easy to define than the problem.
I wonder if there could be benefit in some kind of "Blog Writing 101" type resource that dev.to could offer? I know when I was just starting out, I wanted to write, but a lot of what I was seeing were those kinds of low-effort listicle type articles. Many people learn by emulating what's around them, and I definitely wrote a lot of that kind of stuff, too, just trying to figure out how this whole "blog writing" thing worked. It took me some time to move past that stage and into finding my own voice and style. I wonder if there's some guidance we could offer folks who fall into that "junior fullstack javascript developer fresh out of bootcamp" category that could help them identify good opportunities for content and generally level up their writing. I think a lot of them are genuinely trying to create good content, but simply don't have the knowledge / resources and are just imitating the other articles that they're seeing here – and reinforcing that kind of loop even more.
In writing circles, there's a strong community of "beta readers" who work with authors to help offer feedback and review their writing before a story gets shared. Maybe dev.to could offer some kind of author / beta reader pairing system for new folks looking to get another set of eyes on their work before it's posted? Like being able to open a PR on your blog article, haha :)
Lead Product Evangelist @Kentico, Founding partner @craftbrewingbiz. love to learn / teach web dev & software engineering, collecting vinyl records, mowing my lawn, craft 🍺
Great ideas, Kathryn. A "Blog Writing 101" post (or many posts) would be great for the community, especially if the DEV team promoted them to new accounts.
The DEV team would love to have content like this to share with new accounts and/or people who contact us asking why their content isn't gaining traction. If you write or run across any articles like this, please bring them to our attention by @-mentioning me, @michaeltharrington
, or @itscasey
, or forwarding the link to yo@dev.to 🙌
In writing circles, there's a strong community of "beta readers" who work with authors to help offer feedback and review their writing before a story gets shared. Maybe dev.to could offer some kind of author / beta reader pairing system for new folks looking to get another set of eyes on their work before it's posted? Like being able to open a PR on your blog article, haha :)
I’ve often thought that a beta reader feature would be great or having the opportunity to have your content ‘edited’ or proof read would be awesome. I think this could be an opportunity for some level of mentorship as well.
I would love to write more but I don’t have a ton of time to do so right now. However, it would be great to be able to contribute by offering feedback and suggesting edits to other’s content.
I think prepublish review and editing is something sadly lacking from a lot of ‘user generated content’ platforms. Having features to enable this would be a big plus for Dev and Forem in my mind.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
I have to agree, and I think this was a really good, insightful writeup. I've found myself less engaged with this community over time, and I think a lot of it has been because I'm finding less and less genuinely useful / informative articles on here. The solution is, unfortunately, far less easy to define than the problem.
I wonder if there could be benefit in some kind of "Blog Writing 101" type resource that dev.to could offer? I know when I was just starting out, I wanted to write, but a lot of what I was seeing were those kinds of low-effort listicle type articles. Many people learn by emulating what's around them, and I definitely wrote a lot of that kind of stuff, too, just trying to figure out how this whole "blog writing" thing worked. It took me some time to move past that stage and into finding my own voice and style. I wonder if there's some guidance we could offer folks who fall into that "junior fullstack javascript developer fresh out of bootcamp" category that could help them identify good opportunities for content and generally level up their writing. I think a lot of them are genuinely trying to create good content, but simply don't have the knowledge / resources and are just imitating the other articles that they're seeing here – and reinforcing that kind of loop even more.
In writing circles, there's a strong community of "beta readers" who work with authors to help offer feedback and review their writing before a story gets shared. Maybe dev.to could offer some kind of author / beta reader pairing system for new folks looking to get another set of eyes on their work before it's posted? Like being able to open a PR on your blog article, haha :)
👍👍
Great ideas, Kathryn. A "Blog Writing 101" post (or many posts) would be great for the community, especially if the DEV team promoted them to new accounts.
I had some thoughts inspired by your comment dev.to/seangwright/comment/1g4bm
The DEV team would love to have content like this to share with new accounts and/or people who contact us asking why their content isn't gaining traction. If you write or run across any articles like this, please bring them to our attention by @-mentioning me, @michaeltharrington , or @itscasey , or forwarding the link to yo@dev.to 🙌
I’ve often thought that a beta reader feature would be great or having the opportunity to have your content ‘edited’ or proof read would be awesome. I think this could be an opportunity for some level of mentorship as well.
I would love to write more but I don’t have a ton of time to do so right now. However, it would be great to be able to contribute by offering feedback and suggesting edits to other’s content.
I think prepublish review and editing is something sadly lacking from a lot of ‘user generated content’ platforms. Having features to enable this would be a big plus for Dev and Forem in my mind.