Are there any non-technical jobs...

volvoguy volvoguy at gmail.com
Tue Oct 19 08:49:39 UTC 2004


On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 16:13:54 +0800, John <dingo at coco2.arach.net.au> wrote:

> I think most countries do not follow American practice. I've noticed
> more likelihood of writings in Debian adopting British spelling.

I didn't notice that - probably because I'm American. :-) I can see
how different terminology could be a problem, but I can't imagine the
spelling differences between British and American would confuse a lot
of people. Quite often I pass right by those differences without even
noticing.

> A couple of things crossed my mind. I don't want to distress anyone, but
> technical writing is a specialist skill in itself.

Definitely, and as a former technical writer I can vouch for the fact
that it's a job that isn't much fun. The job from hell actually. :-)


> Probably, suspected inaccuracies should be run by a comittee (ie an
> appropriate list) and/or annotated. Otherwise I can see two techos, each
> thinking they're right, making changes one way then the other with a
> fair chance of the result being wrong:-)
> 
> Less techo people proofread for clarity, and similarly complain about
> what's wrong and/or correct the text. This is also a good way to learn:
> _test_ the info.

Maybe I've just been lucky so far, but I haven't run into that problem
much on the wiki (what's the plural of wiki?) that I run. In the one
instance there was a problem - someone who simply wouldn't follow the
formatting rules that I laid out - I had to pull rank and explain that
by not following the rules, he was actually creating more work than if
he wasn't on the project at all. I'm sure Canonical would/should do
something similar in that situation.

Yes, actually testing the info that you're writing is very important.
Not only to make sure that the info is correct, but to make sure it's
understandable by the largest audience possible. While I don't think
many people who are computer illiterate would be installing Linux,
it's good to put yourself in their shoes - what's a sudo? what's
Synaptic? what's a command prompt? what's a runlevel? etc...


> People with a good grasp of English edit for clarity and use of English.
> If Canonical has preferred styles, try to follow them:-)
> 
> At some stage, I hope that the Canonical folk will pick it up, order it
> into user and techo docs.

I absolutely agree. With the first big release mere hours away, they
probably won't have time to address this soon, but eventually a "wiki
rules" page would be helpful for newbie wiki-ers... umm... wiki-ites?
wiks? What do you call someone who works on a wiki? :-)

> I recall curtain tracks are rather fun too:-)

You know about curtain tracks?! I need to mail you off-list. Hehe. Just kidding!


> Don't throw them all out; some are worth keeping:-)

Reminds me of a friend, who when presented with the statement, "I
didn't catch your name" always replies, "I didn't throw it.". :-)


-- 
Aaron

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