A note on "assertions documents," Cunningham's Law, and a skill development pattern in tech writing

No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.

If you regularly get a Knowledge Management bee in your bonnet, as I do, then look at this piece (and @emckean.bsky.social 's talk). It's absolutely packed with useful concepts and tips from people who've been there, done that, and compressed it all into tiny shiny diamonds.

A brief note on alt text and John Lee Clark's essay, "Against Access"

Today's my first workday of the year and some things are slightly unfamiliar again. The new year great time to document something undocumented with a README, while it's still "new"

There's a very nice writeup of my talk at OSS Tokyo in LWN! lwn.net/SubscriberLi... (gift link) Thanks again to the wonderful @kissane.myatproto.social and @ddbeck.com who created the Docs Advisor and Docs Archetypes (github.com/google/opendocs)!

It's so satisfying to get a tiny typo fix merged into a project that I like. I'm doing my part—even if it's just a couple bytes.

At #WriteTheDocs Berlin in October, a few people told me, unprompted, that my README checklist helped them document something. Maybe it can help you document something too!

10000 Bowls of Oatmeal But One Of Them Killed My Father, is an ongoing murder investigation and I need your help to solve it? Read the progress here and submit your own descriptions of oatmeal to help me get my revenge. verbante.itch.io/10000-bowls

📹 We've published videos and photos of Write the Docs Berlin, and this is your last chance to get a conference t-shirt. Thanks to all participants of the conference, in-person and online! Read more in our recap:

Brief notes on my highlights from Write the Docs Berlin 2025 ddbeck.com/notes/wtdber...

It's the first Monday of the month, which is a great time to document the under- or never- documented software or process in your life

babe wake up, new example.com just dropped It changed around October 9. The text is new after being the same for over 10 years. Can anyone tell me why? (And if someone wants to introduce me to whomever at IANA maintains example.com that would be rad because I have so many more questions.)

Also, I curate my own typos.

Heard at #WriteTheDocs: "I make typos at scale"

After writing about using GitHub Actions for docs automation, I learned about three more static analysis tools worth trying

babe wake up, new example.com just dropped It changed around October 9. The text is new after being the same for over 10 years. Can anyone tell me why? (And if someone wants to introduce me to whomever at IANA maintains example.com that would be rad because I have so many more questions.)

I took some notes on how I think about moderating the Write the Docs Slack chat

What a wild year to be trying to think about networks and what they do to our brains. Thank you for coming along with me. www.wrecka.ge/a-year-into-...

I took some notes on why and how you should use browser bookmarks more, instead of web searches for navigation

If you're thinking about automating your docs workflow with GitHub Actions, I've got five things you should know before you begin.

It's the first day of the month, which is a great time to document something undocumented by making a new README file with my checklist.

We're happy to share that @sovereign.tech invests in Web Security and Privacy Documentation! Over the coming year, Open Web Docs will be working on creating and updating Security and Privacy docs for web developers on @developer.mozilla.org. Full announcement: openwebdocs.org/content/post...

The recording of the talk @emckean.bsky.social and I presented at Open Source Summit Europe is now available. Go here for video, highlights, links, and acknowledgments: ddbeck.com/osseu2025/

The WebDX CG's mission is to improve YOUR experience developing on the web platform. We're behind familiar research and interop efforts like the State of... surveys and Baseline. Let's chat! We're hosting an AMA on r/webdev September 18, but you can post your Qs now web.dev/blog/baselin...

Discount documentation? No thanks! I wrote some suggestions for thinking about "discounts" when a client doesn’t have a lot of cash, but might have other things you value.

Two quick tips (mostly for my future self) on preparing slides for a conference talk ddbeck.com/notes/no-spe...

Hey docs friends! Come hear my talk at Write The Docs: Berlin. It’s going to be a vulnerable, and hopefully helpful, talk about transitioning into a leadership position.

The recording of the talk @emckean.bsky.social and I presented at Open Source Summit Europe is now available. Go here for video, highlights, links, and acknowledgments: ddbeck.com/osseu2025/

happy labor day

It's the first of the month, which is as great time as any to document something undocumented with a README file. Do it! I promise it'll be satisfying.

Was playing around with live coding on Strudel (strudel.cc) and ended up having so much fun making my first track!! File was too big for bsky so youtube it is... youtu.be/ruvd3MhvSCk

Oh, you asked ChatGPT? Well I asked Zombo.com

Discount documentation? No thanks! I wrote some suggestions for thinking about "discounts" when a client doesn’t have a lot of cash, but might have other things you value.

If you saw the talk that @emckean.bsky.social and I presented at Open Source Summit Europe, thank you for coming! I'll have more links and highlights to share later, but you can find the docs advisor and archetypes here.

On August 27, @emckean.bsky.social and I are presenting at Open Source Summit Europe about resources that can help open source maintainers create and maintain docs. I'm looking forward to it (or at least I will be, when I've practiced my outline a few more times). sched.co/25Vub

Last week I shared this silly writing trick. In response, I've been told about other writers publishing in this style (most often FILM CRIT HULK but several others too). Is this what it's like to be part of a literary tradition?

i have compiled a list of free image resources inspired by our conversation about this last week. livelaugh.blog/posts/non-ai...

When inaccurate technical writing has negative value because you bit off more than you can chew, you’re better off deleting it, and figuring out what you can afford to maintain. And when you make trade offs, think twice before sacrificing accuracy.

I wrote about a silly but effective trick I use to get past style issues when editing existing documentation or writing from a specification

Replanting

Today @shockandaudrey.bsky.social acquainted me with the existence of some totally normal universities en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_...

I wrote a little about the benefits of having source code comments with consequences, the build-breaking TODO: ddbeck.com/notes/build-...

I wrote about how to resolve differences between your docs' visual style and what your markup says it is: ddbeck.com/markup-confl...

You should use mktemp more ddbeck.com/notes/you-sh...

As is annual tradition, I am the adopter of none other than "documentation" on @wordnik.com: www.wordnik.com/words/docume...

Here's an underappreciated thing that some of the best technical writers I know do and something I've tried to learn from: If you're trying to solve a big diffuse problem, start by making a spreadsheet.

Skin Deep is really fun and funny. When you're finished, check out the behind-the-scenes deleted level and modding demos. I'm not someone who makes games, but I learned a lot about how a game like this is made (which in turn has made me appreciate more things about games I'm playing recently).

I took some notes on how I got a real (non-VoIP) phone number for the US while abroad because SMS 2FA is still an annoying thing that banks and others continue to insist on ddbeck.com/notes/real-u...

Does your organization rely on MDN for reference docs? Do you often check browser compat on MDN or caniuse.com? Do you use tools like browser DevTools or VSCode in your work? If so, you rely directly on the work that Open Web Docs does and should consider sponsoring. To convince your boss.