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Any publicity efforts for this site need to explain two things: What Stack Exchange Q&A is, and why Writers is a good site. We faced this issue a while back on Bicycles. I've taken some of the text there and adapted it for this site. Please feel free to edit and tweak!

Note that this is designed to be modular: You can use the first paragraph on its own, or the entire thing. Useful when you have limited space on a flyer!

(Of course, this is just a starting point!)

Writers.stackexchange.com is the no-nonsense Writers' enthusiast Q&A built by users. Instead of wading through a lot of random discussion to get to the good stuff, the best answers are always voted to the top!

Writers is one of many sites on the Stack Exchange network that synthesizes the best aspects of wikis, blogs, and forums, in a way that results in almost all questions getting great answers, often stunningly quickly. You don’t have to register, but if you do, you collect reputation points for your great answers and establish yourself as a top writing expert! The site covers fiction, non-fiction, editing, style issues, and more. Writers, editors, agents, and other writing professionals will find the site a great resource.

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I really like the description of SE as "no-nonsense." That encapsulates our ethos remarkably well, possibly better (and more succinctly!) than I've seen anywhere else.

I like the description, until the last line, describing our scope - there I've got some reservations.

  • "writing critiques" is a bit touchy for me now, since we're still very uncertain what critiques' role on the site is. I certainly wouldn't advertise critiques carte blanche right at the moment.
  • I'm missing references to other writing and publishing professions. Editors, agents, bloggers, journalists, those pesky tech writers... Some reference to "the publishing industry" might cover some of those.
  • These are all good points. I've done a little editing, feel free to edit further. (There already are references to editing and blogging.) – Neil Fein Apr 26 '12 at 22:08
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    "No-nonsense": A nice way of saying "We will kick your ass if you use 'impactful' in a non-ironic context." :) – Lauren-Reinstate-Monica-Ipsum Apr 27 '12 at 20:10
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This seems way too dry for a non technical person to get excited over, in my opinion. Here is my take:

Writers.stackexchange.com is the no-nonsense Writers' enthusiast Q&A built by users. Instead of wading through a lot of random discussion to get to the good stuff, the best answers are always voted to the top!

The network of sites is designed with Gamification in mind. Gamification is the new buzzword to describe the process of making our every day activities more like a game, from adding points and tokens to forum sites, to keeping track of your mileage when you ride your bicycle each day and posting them as experience points on your blog. Our on-site metagame is so compelling that the founders of the biggest 3rd party gamification API provider on the net cite our humble little network of Q&A sites as one of the most paradigm shifting, game changing concepts of the past decade, and created an entire business around trying to provide to other sites what Stack Exchange already has!

If you have questions about characterization, plot elements, dialog or even want to ask advice on how to get published, we have people that can help. If you're a non-fiction writer and you need assistance with understanding and implementing your companies style guide consistently across your text, or you just aren't sure of the proper way to express certain technical concepts, we have people that can help. If you're a seasoned professional and just want to amass points and badges and point out that you've generated 10x the points of your nearest competitor this month and you have 5 gold badges already, you don't need our people to help, but we got that for you.

That's right, we have the technology. Get over here, it's fun, it's insightful and hopefully we can all learn a little from each other.

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    Not sure what I think about the gamification paragraph, but the rest of this is really good! – Neil Fein Apr 29 '12 at 14:05
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    @NeilFein Edited to make what we do here more clear. – Nathan C. Tresch Apr 29 '12 at 14:20
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Well, I think you buried the lede. I floated the who and what to the top and then awesomeized the rest. Here's my version:

Writers.stackexchange.com is a no-nonsense Q&A site for both professional and amateur writers as well as editors and reviewers. Writers, an online community built by users for users, covers poetry and prose, fiction and non-fiction, editing and style and a whole lot more.

Why Writers? Unlike other question-and-answer sites, users don’t waste time wading through random discussions to get to what matters; the best answers are always voted to the top!

One of many sites on the Stack Exchange network, Writers synthesizes the best aspects of wikis, blogs, and forums. Almost all questions get quality answers, often quickly -- sometimes stunningly so. Users don’t have to register, but when you do, you collect reputation points for good questions and great answers. Eventually, you can establish yourself as a top writing expert!

Feedback: it's appreciated.

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