How should we collect questions and answers for the haggadah?

Question

We want to be able to crowd-source the editing of questions and answers for the haggadah supplement. We can't just take questions "as-is"; among things, links won't work on paper, there may be answers that are somewhat repetitive, and we probably don't want to bring in comments. But we don't want the task to be too onerous either or it'll never get done.

In an answer I will offer a template that, if followed, should allow fairly straightforward transformation from Stack Exchange posts to publishable PDF. Just because I got here first doesn't mean mine is the best way, of course, so please propose other approaches in new answers. Vote up any answers whose instructions you would be willing to follow to submit material for the project. If it's too complicated, vote it down -- just because the poster thinks something is easy doesn't mean it is for everyone else! We have different levels of geekly comfort here. :-)

(Assume that there will be some other place to collect links that aren't yet developed into questions; this is just about the actual editing for publication.)

This question is about the mechanics of assembling the content. Once we have consensus on this, we'll open questions for each part of the haggadah where people can propose questions and answers following the process we decide on in this question. Then later, b"n, the editor of the final document will collect those posts into a single document and make a PDF.

Update: I can't accept the answer until tomorrow, but the answer below has up-votes and no down-votes and it has also been blessed by Jin, who is going to help us with assembly, so I'm calling that "good enough".

Answer 1

Template:

Question title?

Ploni Asker asked: Question body goes here. Be sure to remove hyperlinks; you can turn them into footnotes or parenthetical comments, or remove them if they're not important enough for a print haggadah. Use the regular markdown formatting. (Hint: if you use the edit link on a question or answer you can cut/paste the original markdown. Don't save your edit, though -- cancel!)

For both questions and answers, feel free to edit for clarity, grammar, tangents, etc.

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Reuven Answerer said: include the answer best (in your judgment) for a haggadah/supplement. Keep it focused; if there is tangential information that, while great online, seems like too much for a seder, edit it down. Identify sources but don't include URLs (here).

If other answers cover the same territory but add something small, you can incorporate them with: Shimon Answerer added ... .

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Yitzchak Answerer said: if there's a second answer that brings a different perspective, include it here. Try to keep it down to one or two answers; the result should not exceed a page in the PDF (in a reasonable font size). We want these to be short enough that people will use them, but long enough to be worth doing so.

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Sources:

• Citation that didn't work inline, e.g. a long URL
• Another one
• ...

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Original question: URL of source question
Contributors:
URLs of contributers

Use your judgment about what links should be called out. I would propose that well-known sources (e.g. Shulchan Aruch, Bavli, etc) can just be named "inline" in the answers; this is for things that don't fit that way.

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Here's a cheat sheet to cut/paste from:

## Heading ##

__XXX asked:__ ... 

----------

__XXX said:__ ...

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Sources:

*

----------

Original question:    
Contributors:   

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Example 1

Example 2

Answer 2

Production notes

This post is a place to collect notes by/for Jin (and anyone else working on production).

The table of contents contains section names (Hebrew and English) and links to the questions/answers for reach. Each linked meta post is one entry, ready for cut/paste into the final formatting tool. Note: please do include the URL for the question (as footnotes or similar), but skip the individual contributors -- they've been collected into the final post. All posts have been locked to prevent changes while production is under way.

It would be nice if the domain name in question URLs could be mi.yodeya.com.

We assume that the cover art will be based on the gorgeous site logo. Title suggestion (title plus subtitle):

Hagada - Mi Yodeya?
Real questions and answers that spring from the Passover Seder

Should it be dated? Where?

Copyright notice/CC license?

The supplement should contain the permanent URL for the landing page somewhere. (This is a "pretty name" for the meta post where the PDF will be available for download.) How about https://judaism.stackexchange.com/publications? (Jin/SE doesn't want a haggadah-specific link, looking ahead to other projects in the future.)

Answer 3

I think it's worth considering Libreoffice in addition to or in place of Microsoft Word. Libreoffice is freely available for many platforms, uses open and documented file formats, and has an API for user code.

If only one person (rather than several) does the formatting mentioned in Monica's question, and if that person has Microsoft Word 2010 and prefers using it, then Libreoffice is irrelevant. Otherwise, finding out if it can do the job, and how many persons can or will use it, are relevant concerns.

The balance of this answer provides some feedback on how Isaac Moses's documents look on my system. (Most of the screen captures shown below appeared about 4" high on my screen.)

The above pictures show the appearances of Isaac Moses's link and its PDF document (129034874-Kiddush-Sample.pdf). [I regard the lightweight sans serif font with oversized capitals as not suitable, although the Hebrew script in that document looks better than the Libreoffice font, below.]

The next picture shows the appearance of the source question on my screen.

The two pictures below show the source question cut-and-pasted (with no editing to remove links) into Libreoffice writer, and the result of clicking the PDF button, ie about 3 seconds of work to cut, paste, and click the PDF button.