I think this is a really interesting idea; however, I don't think it's a very good method to build it as 'Github for Writers' since coding and writing are two very different processes. For instance, writers often create their work on their own instead of with multiple contributions. Contributors is more of a code project attribute, for anyone who knows how to program well can add/modify code while not anyone who knows write well can add/modify to a story.
It is true that writers need editors but editors are certainly not writers. If there was a system where all of the contributors acted more like 'editors' rather than writers than I personally think it would be an awesome version control program.
I think this may be true for fiction (. . .writen often create their work on their own. . .not anyone. . .can add/modify a story), but I think it's a great idea for non-fiction, such as the textbook and research paper examples that the OP cited. Other examples include user or technical manuals, requirements documentation. . .The team members are often more akin to contributors (code or otherwise) than to editors. Individual but interlinked units have to come together to form a whole.
Absolutely. My wife's job as a professional editor involved editing hundred-page documents, often with more than one author. A tool which made version control simple, yet writing easy, would be a godsend.
The down side is, many such organizations (e.g., military) have standardized on Word, which is terrible for collaborative review, editing, and version control of long documents. (Of any documents?) She would have been extremely happy had her employer allowed them to use LaTeX or similar.
> Absolutely. My wife's job as a professional editor involved editing hundred-page documents, often with more than one author. A tool which made version control simple, yet writing easy, would be a godsend.
I hope you signed up - I want to that editing process easier!
One question is, do writers create their own work because of the nature of writing, or because they lacked the tools for collaboration. I have seen several examples of collaborative writing.
The first example that comes to my mind is the SCP Foundation [1].
As someone who writes software and fiction (heck, even software-fiction in the form of visual novels), I actually keep finding more and more parallels between the craft.
I like to explain the fiction creation process as "writing code that targets the Human BIOS."
It is true that writers need editors but editors are certainly not writers. If there was a system where all of the contributors acted more like 'editors' rather than writers than I personally think it would be an awesome version control program.