There is so much knowledge right here in our SitePoint community that it really does seem criminal to waste it. For that reason, we’ve been working on an idea to harness some of that knowledge and put it to good use. And eureka - we’ve decided to try and write a collaborative book. (I must admit, the idea wasn’t mine - we have Alex Dawson to thank for it).
A team of keen staff have had their heads together for a while now drafting up a bit of a process that we think might make this project work. So here it is in a nutshell.
How will it be structured?
We’re looking for article length pieces on your subject of choice – which when collaborated will hopefully result in a patchwork of fun and interesting ‘stuff’. Any subject is welcome within the web design / development field whether theoretical or practical. We’ve compiled a list of subjects (below) to give you some ideas, but feel free to stray if you feel that you have something else to say that is relevant and of interest.
How you structure your contribution is entirely up to you. You might want to write a tutorial, a tips and tricks style article or a thought provoking piece. The main requirement is that it be unique, interesting and fresh (not just remixing existing material).
Who can take part?
Anyone can have a shot provided they have a good handle on the English language and they know their subject well.
Where can I sign up?
If you would like to take part, put your name down in this thread, along with a rough title for your piece and a brief explanation (so that we don’t get duplicates). The subjects are broad so several submissions may fall under one category.
We are allowing one month for signing up and three for submitting your work. That means that you must sign up by Friday 9 July and submit your draft by Friday 8 October.
Once you’re happy with your draft you can email it to communitybook@sitepoint.com.
At this stage we are planning on producing the book in PDF format with the option to print on demand.
Contributors will get a free PDF of the book and will be allowed to write a very brief self-promotional bio. They’ll also be able to claim to be a published SitePoint author.
It is important to note that while this is a community project, the book will be published under the SitePoint brand so we ultimately have the right to veto contributions and to edit accepted contributions in any way deemed necessary.
If we have too many submissions in one section we reserve the right to reject some drafts after submission. The material will be returned to you to use as you see fit.
So here is that list:
General Internet:
- Online Communities/Social Networks
- TCP/IP / WWW
- Protocols / Pseudos
- Web Browsers
- Dev Software
Planning Website:
- General Questions
- Web Branding
- Business Start-up
- Business Management
- Careers / Education
- Business Inspiration
- Competitive Research
- Idea Development
- Information Architecture
- Website Structure
Getting Online:
- Website hosting
- Domain names
- Self-hosting
- Apache/IIS config
- Security / Privacy
Content creation:
- Blogging
- General Writing
- Copywriting
- Graphics (make/edit)
- Photography
- Audio + Video
- Information Design
- Legalities of Media
- Business Documents
- Legal Documents
- CMS systems
- Social Media
General Design:
- Mobile Design
- Design Sociology
- Accessibility
- Usability
- UI Design (Webapps)
- Interaction Design
- User-experience Design
- Psychology of Design
Web coding:
- Web Standards (W3C, Etc)
- Debugging Code (Browser Bugs)
- Frameworks (CSS, JS, RIA)
- Markup Languages (HTML, XML, RSS, Atom, Microformats, Sitemap)
- MetaData Languages (DCMI, OWL, RDF, PAD, Robots.txt)
- Stylesheet Languages (CSS)
- Postscript Languages (FlashPaper, PDF, XPS)
- Multimedia Languages (Flash/ActionScript, Silverlight, Java, Shockwave)
- Vector Languages (3DML, Canvas, GML, KML, SVG, UML, VML, X3D)
- Database (MS-SQL, mySQL, Postgre, SQLite, Oracle, MongoDB, etc)
- Client-side (JavaScript, AJAX, DOM, ECMAScript, JScript, VBScript)
- Server-side (ColdFusion, Java, JSP, Lasso, ASP, .NET, Perl, PHP, SMX, .NET, Python, Ruby, Smalltalk)
- RIA’s (HTA, Air, Cappuccino, Curl, Gears, Flex, Prism, WPF, Titanium)
Marketing:
- Online/Offline Advertising
- Online/Offline Marketing
- SEO / SEM (Searches)
- SMM / Social Networks
- eCommerce (Buy/Sell)