Mastodawn

Edit: Update: y'all are amazing and I'm talking to several people now! So while I appreciate more emails, as y'all are lovely, I'm probably good!

Hi internet friends. I have a bit of a weird request.

I am looking for a German technical writer/translator who knows their Web Development basics and would be able to translate @bw 's excellent https://htmlforpeople.com into German (casual edition). Here are some of the facts:

All the markdown files are ~31k words in total.
I will pay for your time, I don't expect free labor. However, that also means you need to be able to send me an actual invoice ("me" being a German legal entity with a business license who just so happened to get frequently audited by the tax office).
The contents will be available publicly to everyone under the same original license. My goal is just to make that content available to German speakers. I'm not entirely sure if getting paid for a translation is a violation of the CC's Non-Commercial clause, so I checked with Blake before posting this and he's fine with me doing this (thanks again!)
I will host the contents, you don't need to worry about any of that.

If that's something you can help out with, please say hi via email to [email protected]. And if you know someone who you think would be a great fit, feel free to forward this post!

Oh, and also: This post is only applicable to you if you are a human and you will use human translation skills and your human brain to translate the text with the love and attention it deserves. If you want to pitch me using an LLM for the translation, I will block you. Sadly, this also means I can only consider working with you if you have a public website or profile or anything that demonstrates me you actually do technical writing stuff, because I really don't want to pay someone just to throw the text into an LLM. If you think you could scam me into paying you to then just use an LLM, you will learn that I have a less-friendly personality, too. Don't be a jerk, please.

HTML for People

HTML isn't only for people working in the tech field. It's for everyone. Learn how to make a website from scratch in this beginner friendly web book.

Sky Schubert Jun 14

Update: y'all are amazing and I'm talking to several people now! So while I appreciate more emails, please don't be disappointed if I have to say no!

@sky @bw paying someone for work doesn't violate @creativecommons licenses, as you are not paywalling access and/or distribution of it.

- In fact it's good to see you being willing to pay for that.

Sky Schubert Jun 14

@kkarhan @bw That is my reading, too, but licenses are complicated and there's way too much nuance there. I'd rather spend the money on translations and not on lawyers. :)

Felix Frank Jun 14

@sky Hi, I am a consultant these days so the tech writing is not center stage anymore, but it's still part of the job, and I do have a history of writing.

In all other respects, I feel that I fit the bill very closely. In fact I just recently added my "No LLMs" guarantee to https://felix-frank.net.

Feel free to look around and give me a shout if you'd like to talk.

Felix Frank Digital Solutions - systems and code

Backend systems / Open Source commissions

Felix Frank Digital Solutions - systems and code

@sky @bw @juliainfinland
Hi Julia, maybe you would be interested in this or would know someone else?

Julia in Fin(n)land 🟨⬜🟪⬛Jun 17

@nighttw Thank you for remembering me! But even if I'd been able to react before they'd already found several candidates, I'm not exactly suited... I don't have a portfolio (online or otherwise); I've never done translation work on that scale; and after years of fighting, I'm finally on disability, and I most certainly won't do anything that even remotely resembles "working" lest KELA decide that I am, after all, not sufficiently disabled.

@juliainfinland
I understand, nothing like that to KELA's direction. Congratulations, if I can use that word, on getting a disability pension. I hope you are doing as well as can be otherwise.

Julia in Fin(n)land 🟨⬜🟪⬛Jun 17

@nighttw @nighttw Every sodding year since 2021 or so:

Me+my doctor: [lausunto about how much my already pretty poor health has deteriorated within the last 12 months]
KELA: "ai se Julia on NIIN IHANASTI toipumassa"
Me+my doctor: *facepalm*

Since the process was long and arduous, I... well, let's say I certainly won't *complain* about any congratulations. 🙂 Thank you.

Also, yay, official diagnoses! Which directly translates to getting specific help for specific problems.

@juliainfinland
Sounds like fun...
But yes, official diagnoses usually help.

@sky @bw That reminds me that way back in the days, I learnt with the excellent SelfHTML, which was top notch and written in... German

@sky
Tired: Cloud Service Payment

oldmanyellsatcloud

💸
Wired: Invoice Sky Entity 🌄

Sky Schubert Jun 14

@flaki it's money over the air

@sky @bw You lost me at "Download Microsoft Visual Studio Code", sorry. Good luck.

(yes, I understand why it's in there, I teach HTML since the 1990ties. Still ...)

@leyrer @sky lol, in my defense when I originally wrote it they weren't calling it an "AI editor."

Out of curiosity, what editors would you recommend to beginners? My requirement would be that it's easily downloadable from the web.

@bw @sky Again, I understand where you come/came from with Microsoft ̶V̶i̶s̶u̶a̶l̶ ̶S̶t̶u̶d̶i̶o̶ ̶C̶o̶d̶e̶ Copilot :D

As a vim user, I am opinionated. ;)
But gvim/vim/vi or Emacs are not the right options :D

Sublime, Atom or VSCodium come to mind.

@leyrer @sky yeah, I was thinking maybe VSCodeium, although I just downloaded it and found it to be pretty laggy. Could just be an issue on my machine. Atom has been sunsetted. Sublime is pretty great, but I think beginners would probably struggle a bit since the sidebar isn't very interactive.

For now I can't really think of anything better. I do have limits though. If VS Code gets to the point where it's pushing AI chat interfaces in a way that makes it hard to get to a regular code editor, then I probably will change my recommendation.

Remco Wessels Jun 15

@bw @leyrer @sky I recently went from VS Code to VSCodium and works like a charm.

That said, I can imagine that VS Code, CSCodium...but also vim or Sublime are a bit overwhelming if you have no develop history.

Maybe something like Notepad++ with 1 or 2 plugins might have a less steep learning curve?

Love the site btw, might gonna tip some people as I got (as a front-end dev) a lot of I-try-it-myself conversations.

@remcow @bw @sky remco, vim is DEFINITELY not an option here :D
And the requirement is Win/Mac/Linux. So Notepad++ is unfortunately also out.

Personally, I would go with "use the text editor that comes with your OS", but that would handicap windows users quite heavily. :D

Remco Wessels Jun 15

@leyrer @bw @sky A well, every sane Windows user knows not to use a less as possible what comes with the OS.

So adjust it to "use the text editor that comes with your OS or Notepad++"

As a gamer I always stayed with Windows. That and to lazy to make a dual boot. 😏

@remcow @bw @sky your nerd perspective is not helping the users, this guide wants to address.

Remco Wessels Jun 15

@leyrer @bw @sky Euh, it's my not-nerd talking right now, haha.

Thinking from a fresh non dev perspective, reacting to your 'You lost me at "Download Microsoft Visual Studio Code", sorry. Good luck.'

In the mean time I started reading the book and see it already start with just a simple text editor.

So I limit my 2 cent to chose VSCodium rather then VS Code.

Kevin Russell Jun 14

Needs #FediHired #getFediHired #linux #markdown #translation

Raj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 15

@sky Please check your platform configuration - I am getting 5 consecutive notifications for each of your edits. That's not right... (and it's annoying).

Sky Schubert Jun 15

@realcainmosni I'm not sure how you imagine Mastodon works, but I can assure you that my node has zero authority over the amounts and kinds of notifications you're receiving. That's something you have to bring up with the person running your node.

Raj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 15

@sky Yours is the only account doing it, and as you are using your own independent node at least initially that implies it is something unique to your end. That could be wrong, of course, but it seems to be the logical place to start.

Raj 🇬🇧🇪🇺💻🖥(🌻🇺🇦;🇵🇸)Jun 15

@sky And it is only on your edits, not your initial postings. Weird behaviour.