Teaching an older blogger new tricks (or how to train a writer over 60 to make their posts sparkle)

January 16, 2007 7:06 AM

Teaching an older blogger new tricks (or how to train a writer over 60 to make their posts sparkle)

I am the host of a group blog with about 10 different writers. One of the writers comes up with some great material, but his posts aren't very well done. In fact, he mainly just copies and pastes text from the page. I tell him to save the posts as drafts and I combine several together, add pictures, format the hyperlinks, etc...

Unfortunately, this is rather time consuming and I wish he could do this on his own. The problem is that he is fairly old (at least in his late 60s), and not very tech savvy. I really like his contributions, and don't want to scare him off from particating, but I would like to find a way to show him how to do more work on his own.

I'd love to hear some ideas on how I might be able to delicately do this.

posted by BigBrownBear to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Have you reassured them repeatedly that if they use the drafts feature they can freely try things out without any risk? They might be afraid they'll break the internets if they insert the wrong image or screw up a link; someone not familiar with things like weblog admin interfaces is naturally going to worry that potential disaster lurks behind every button.

Once they're OK with editing their drafts then you can tackle one topic at a time (e.g. how to insert links, and what makes good link text), tactfully pointing out how they can refine each post. If they're genuinely interesting in learning and you're patient then they'll get the hang of it eventually.
posted by malevolent at 7:39 AM on January 16, 2007

Is the problem that he's not tech savvy, or just that he's not a good writer? You say that he "just copies and pastes text from the page." Does that mean that he's just taking excerpts from the article he's writing about rather than writing his own posts about the material? Or just that his posts are all text?

If he's a good writer who doesn't know enough HTML to do hyperlinks and insert images, that's a pretty easy problem to fix. I'd try to set him up with a WYSIWYG editor, spend an hour or so teaching him how to use it, and let him go to town.

If, on the other hand, he's both technically behind the curve and not a good writer (or at least, not good at the blog style of writing), that's a different problem. If that's the case, I'd find a few blogs about the topic of your site that use the style you like and encourage him to read them. Spend some time talking with him about what makes a good blog post.

I would say something specific about blogging like, "blogging is a weird medium, different from other writing because [something about the way people read blogs]. Because of that, I've found that ABC is a good technique to distill material down to a reasonable length and that readers appreciate it when I XYZ." Make the conversation about blogging rather than about writing. That way, you're not criticizing his work, you're just talking about this odd new medium that you're working in. And definitely tell him early and often how much you like his contributions.
posted by decathecting at 8:02 AM on January 16, 2007

Use good examples of blogs written by older writers to show what he can do with a little effort. Start with Maya's Granny.
posted by ilsa at 8:08 AM on January 16, 2007

The Simple Dollar has a series about Building a Better Blog.
posted by LadyBonita at 8:25 AM on January 16, 2007

has anyone ever seen any really good tutorials on blogger basics? there was something on lidia but it isn't all available.

the guy isn't a particularly good writer either...more than anything i think it is showing him how to use blogger without it being overwhelming.
posted by BigBrownBear at 8:33 AM on January 16, 2007