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Discussion on: Is Dev.to victim of its own success?

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seangwright profile image
Sean G. Wright

I like what Kathryn had to say about providing resources to teach authors how to write better content

dev.to/kathryngrayson/comment/1g423

Here's the first technical blog post I ever wrote, way back in 2012
seangwright.me/blog/development/ob...

It's not very good at all!

There were two problems with that post:

  1. I was a junior developer and didn't understand what I was writing about.
  2. I was an inexperienced author and didn't understand how to write an informative blog post.

However, I'm still glad I wrote something because it set me down the path to where I am now, writing dozens of blog posts a year, speaking at conferences, and representing a developer community.

We definitely do not want to institute any gatekeeping here!

For many developers writing on DEV, English might be their second or third language. They are, as has been noted, junior developers, and maybe just don't know how to author a well written post about software development.

Instead, if we want to improve the quality of the content, let's do something foster writing talents!

Maybe those in the community with more writing experience could create some videos that walk others through the writing and editing process. They could explain what types of contributions bring value to the community.

I've noticed a lot of posts that have trouble formatting their content with code fencing, structuring paragraphs, and really just telling a coherent story.

These are things that can be taught and I feel many would be receptive to this type of content.

I'd love anyone's thoughts or feedback on these ideas.