Behind the CSScenes, November 2022

I really like how DigitalOcean’s tutorials are described as “give-first” content that “has a smell of value all over it.” It speaks volumes about the team’s work ethic, which I can personally attest is top-notch. It’s really the reason DigitalOcean and CSS-Tricks make a great match.

Turns out many of you like the ads, according to the survey. They’re sort of like product recommendations baked into the site, and I think that’s a testament to Chris’s effort to make sure ads are (1) promoting good stuff and (2) are relevant to the front-end work we do. Case in point: we recently swapped out a bunch of DigitalOcean ads to promote Cloudways hosting after DigitalOcean acquired it. Those ads didn’t do so well, so we swapped the DigitalOcean ones back in, which were already doing quite well.

The work to move CSS-Tricks from WordPress to the same CMS the DigitalOcean Community uses for its content is still in progress. A lot of the work is still mapping WordPress content fields to the new CMS. That’s no trivial task when we’re talking about a website with 7,000-odd articles over a 15-year span. That’s going well, as is the initial site architecture. Next up, we need to figure out how we’re handling WordPress blocks, replicating their features, and creating an inventory of all that we need to carry over. Phew!

I asked Mojtaba a few questions about his work and he graciously responded with these answers…

I used to be very passionate about the Sublime Text editor and its plugins. I could always find a plugin to ease the pain whenever I was tired of doing repetitive tasks. I would show my co-workers how interesting whatever plugin I was using was and encourage them to use it.

One of my New Year’s resolutions back then — in 2017 — was to publish an article on CSS-Tricks. I always thought the idea had been highly technical. It never occurred to me I could simply create a list of Sublime Text plugins that I happened to find useful for development! Nowadays, I can see how the high bar I had set was preventing me from writing about something that I loved.

There was a brief moment when I considered giving up on that first article. I had psyched myself out thinking that there were tons of other posts already covering the exact same thing. But out of curiosity, I Googled some of the top Sublime Text plugin posts, and surprisingly, I didn’t see any of the plugins I was writing about. So, that’s how I submitted my first article on this website!

There’s also the joy of completeness. Documentation allows me to get deep into details that might not make it in a typical article. I get satisfaction when I’m able to grasp a property or selector and explain it in my own words. The CSS-Tricks Alamanc gives me that opportunity.

First, enjoy a clean and easy process. The CSS-Tricks editorial team will help you improve it and make it better than you can on your own.

Also, be sure to edit your draft first. Always edit the article yourself before submitting it. The more ready your writing is, the more time it gives the editor to help you improve your work. If the editor needs to spend a lot of time fixing basic grammar and spelling, that’s time that could have been spent pushing the idea further with feedback and other considerations.

Do not overthink the idea. Your article doesn’t have to be rocket science. Anything you know well enough to write about can be helpful to others.

Another big deal is to not worry about repeating others. Your idea doesn’t have to be unique. You can write about something others have written about in a new and different way. Your point of view and perspective matter! Your approach to solving a problem and how you explain it might be different in a super helpful way.

I’m sure there is a blog post or article about this same topic somewhere on the web. But I would like to write about it here on CSS-Tricks. See? I want to share my own perspective with you and I want to explain it in my own way.

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