GitHub did publish it, but they didn't write it! I (the author) don't work at GitHub, and they don't tell me what to write. The brief they give me is basically "write something a developer would like" and off I go. Not sure if that changes your mind, but at least now you know how it worked behind the scenes!
I'd say it does influence my opinion to be more positive knowing that you're not necessarily in the palm of Githubs hands, though my underlying cynicism still remains - I think part of that is that I've grown significantly more cynical of written pieces over the years having watched online content succumb more and more fervently to the game of monetization and opinion influence.
Additionally, I think this article strikes a bit at my person as I struggle immensely with finishing anything I start, to the point where I've began projects (plural!) meant to act as tooling to create project boilerplates, and I still haven't finished even those. Regardless, I do feel the message shared is a positive one that does come from a place of benevolence.
Tangentially, I'm curious if you could speak to what it's like creating content as a third party author? Are you given prompts regarding the tone or content of your work? Have you ever had work you've produced be rejected by a publisher? I'm not at all familiar with this aspect of online content (despite being stuck to a screen reading it all day), so I'd appreciate some insight on the matter if you're willing and able to share any.
> Tangentially, I'm curious if you could speak to what it's like creating content as a third party author? Are you given prompts regarding the tone or content of your work?
Happy to share! The first piece I wrote for GitHub's ReadME Project was called "Publishing your work increases your luck" (https://github.com/readme/guides/publishing-your-work) and I was able to write it as a result of an interview I did with them previously.
Before I wrote that first piece, I reached out to the ReadME Project and told them that I had wanted to tell the story of my past year of overcoming fear and embracing putting myself out there. They agreed that that fit in their "developer stories" section and did an interview of me, which they published here: https://github.com/readme/stories/aaron-francis.
After that they reached out and said "sometimes we have our developer stories have a corresponding guide, do you want to write one" and so that's where the Publishing guide came from. I wrote it all for them and then they have a full on team of editors, proofreaders, illustrators, etc to help push it over the finish line. Before I wrote it I gave them an idea / outline of what I was gonna say, to get the green light. Their editing has been very light, more flow than content. Like... move this sentence up; you repeated yourself there. That kinda thing.
The only time I had a piece really torn apart was this one https://handsontable.com/blog/modularizing-to-improve-the-de... and it was because my voice just didn't fit their blog at all. What you see on the site there is about 35% of what I originally wrote before it was completely toned down. It happens though! It's their blog, so it's gotta fit their voice. (Coincidentally that was the last piece I wrote for them. Ha!)
