duckbill media

Editorial Values


In every piece we publish, we strive for six qualities that represent the core values of Duckbill Media.

Clear, high-quality writing 

The quality of our writing is always top-notch. We go to great lengths to ensure our content is easy to read and understand, has a tight and discernable structure, and is free from grammar and spelling mistakes.

Depth & Knowledge

We strive to exude a feeling of “we’re practitioners who know what’s up with this stuff” vibe. Our authors are experienced AWS practitioners. We do not publish “thin” content or blogspam. All of our articles strive to be the best article on the topic that can be found. We prefer to publish 200-level (or higher) content rather than 100-level.

Humor

We believe the world of cloud takes itself too seriously and we aim to change that. We strive for our content to have some level of humor in every piece. We use humor as appropriate and never force a joke or use humor just to be funny, but rather to make an otherwise-dry topic more accessible. Our humor is not crass or low-brow. While some authors (eg, Corey) use snark as their first tool in the humor toolbox, there is a wide variety of humor.

Personality

We’re not the New York Times here–we don’t want every article to sound like the next. We want all of our authors to have their own unique voice and personality that shines through in every piece they publish.

Best Take, Not the First Take

We don’t break news. We prefer to have the best take, which may mean we publish a piece well after the media storm has passed. In general, we prefer to publish definitive pieces.

We punch up, never down

If your use of humor calls for a target, remember to punch up, not down. Trillion dollar companies are acceptable to snark on, but the people who work there are not. That said, think long and hard about whether you actually need to make a joke that’s at another company’s expense at all–it’s exceedingly hard to do well and shockingly easy to do poorly. If in doubt, build them up instead. And you never, ever punch down at individual people.