4 ms·

If you have professional writers why not just teach them markdown and git? Instead of spending engineering $$$ building, maintaining and operating a complicate

by jopsen 9y ago

If you have professional writers why not just teach them markdown and git? Instead of spending engineering $$$ building, maintaining and operating a complicated editor?

ktpsns 9y ago
Because professional writers are not professional coders. Markdown covers the basic text markups but does not define how to format all these embedded media a modern newspaper has. Just to give an example: Inspect the syntax of wikipedia, which is the MediaWiki wikitext (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikitext https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikitext) language. It is simple and therefore Wikipedia pages are rather simple. I expect the NYtimes to have higher aims in markup.
- combatentropy 9y ago
  >> why not just teach them markdown and git? I myself am surprised they don't just use markdown. Git is another story. > writers are not professional coders. But I have heard of writers clinging to old versions of WordPerfect, which were not WYSIWYG. They preferred the keyboard shortcuts to clicking around with the mouse. Furthermore if you're just writing the text of the article, you don't even need markdown, just a textarea. They used to do these on typewriters after all. Newspaper articles traditionally lacked anything but plain text. No bold, italics, or subheadings. > Markdown covers the basic text markups > but does not define how to format all these embedded media > a modern newspaper has Traditionally the jobs were separate --- and I assume they still are. There are the reporters, who research and write the text of the article. Then there is the layout team who lay it out, decorate it, etc. I can see how markdown would be no good for them. They would want a graphical user interface.
  - acdha 9y ago
    > Traditionally the jobs were separate --- and I assume they still are. Is this really a good assumption? Journalists are making complex documents with central interactive features and lots of data visualization. It seems a lot like classic waterfall thinking to assume that reporters could perfectly envision that and toss it over the wall for a separate team.
    - combatentropy 9y ago
      Well yes, I think so, for these reasons: 1. Most articles have simple layouts, like this one, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-pacific-partnership.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-p... 2. Most reporters were journalism majors, which teaches research, interviewing, and writing. Graphic design is a separate discipline. It is possible for one person to be good at both, but rare. 3. Companies tend to cut up work, especially big companies, like the New York Times. 4. Complex articles like this one, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/entertainment/video-game-movies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/entertainment/v..., aren't tossed over the wall. But that doesn't mean that one person did it all either. I'm sure there was back and forth between the writer and designers, and likely an editor oversaw it all.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
1wheel 9y ago
git isn't great for quickly writing and editing text. In response to breaking news, it isn't unusual to have two people making changes to the same paragraph at the same time. That's a recipe for messy merge conflict in git. On the graphics desk we know how to use git— we use it for js/css—but still write words in google docs.

by jopsen 9y ago

If you have professional writers why not just teach them markdown and git? Instead of spending engineering $$$ building, maintaining and operating a complicated editor?

ktpsns 9y ago

Because professional writers are not professional coders. Markdown covers the basic text markups but does not define how to format all these embedded media a modern newspaper has. Just to give an example: Inspect the syntax of wikipedia, which is the MediaWiki wikitext (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikitext https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikitext) language. It is simple and therefore Wikipedia pages are rather simple. I expect the NYtimes to have higher aims in markup.

combatentropy 9y ago
>> why not just teach them markdown and git? I myself am surprised they don't just use markdown. Git is another story. > writers are not professional coders. But I have heard of writers clinging to old versions of WordPerfect, which were not WYSIWYG. They preferred the keyboard shortcuts to clicking around with the mouse. Furthermore if you're just writing the text of the article, you don't even need markdown, just a textarea. They used to do these on typewriters after all. Newspaper articles traditionally lacked anything but plain text. No bold, italics, or subheadings. > Markdown covers the basic text markups > but does not define how to format all these embedded media > a modern newspaper has Traditionally the jobs were separate --- and I assume they still are. There are the reporters, who research and write the text of the article. Then there is the layout team who lay it out, decorate it, etc. I can see how markdown would be no good for them. They would want a graphical user interface.
- acdha 9y ago
  > Traditionally the jobs were separate --- and I assume they still are. Is this really a good assumption? Journalists are making complex documents with central interactive features and lots of data visualization. It seems a lot like classic waterfall thinking to assume that reporters could perfectly envision that and toss it over the wall for a separate team.
  - combatentropy 9y ago
    Well yes, I think so, for these reasons: 1. Most articles have simple layouts, like this one, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-pacific-partnership.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/us/politics/trump-trans-p... 2. Most reporters were journalism majors, which teaches research, interviewing, and writing. Graphic design is a separate discipline. It is possible for one person to be good at both, but rare. 3. Companies tend to cut up work, especially big companies, like the New York Times. 4. Complex articles like this one, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/entertainment/video-game-movies/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/entertainment/v..., aren't tossed over the wall. But that doesn't mean that one person did it all either. I'm sure there was back and forth between the writer and designers, and likely an editor oversaw it all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

1wheel 9y ago

git isn't great for quickly writing and editing text. In response to breaking news, it isn't unusual to have two people making changes to the same paragraph at the same time. That's a recipe for messy merge conflict in git. On the graphics desk we know how to use git— we use it for js/css—but still write words in google docs.