RE: Re[2]: Release Notes

["Murrell, Thomas" <TMurrell -at- alldata -dot- net>]

> From: 	John Posada[SMTP:jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com]
> 
> Hi guys...I was accused of being a little harsh in my
> response. I knew I was being a little harsh...I knew I
> was being alot more harsh than that...we'll call it
> tough love, and I hesitated quite a long time before
> hitting the send button.
> 
I am going to stick up for John's original post.  First, I believe he was
right that too many people are using the expertise of this list in lieu of
doing their own basic work.  (The rest of John's second post explains how to
bring questions to the list far better than I could.)

Second, John's original reply also offered the original poster value for the
effort of reading the post.  John DID point the poster to someplace where
they could get an answer to their questions about Release Notes.  So even as
John was suggesting that a technical writer is also someone who can do some
independent work, John was also helping the writer along with the question
being asked.

Third, I, too, am losing patience with posters who write something like
this: "Hi!  I'm new to this list.  It's great to have access to so many
people who do technical documentation.  I have to write a User Guide.  How
do I start?  What's a template, and can you send me a gross?"  I mean, if
you have to ask such basic questions as that, are you in the right
profession?

I would argue that TECHWR-L is a valuable resource that should be treated as
such.  (Oh, and I do exercise my DELETE key, but thanks for the suggestion
anyway.)

Tom Murrell
Surly Curmudgeon At Large