Knowing what offends the audience (was Geoff Lane's "arrogant PC bunch"

[Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

Dan Goldstein had this to say:

> Perhaps everyone on both sides of this debate should briefly lay aside
> their personal and political agendas, and instead focus on a 
> basic rule
> of tech writing: Know your audience. Figure out what offends them and
> what doesn't, and forget about what the rest of us think.
> 
> This rule applies to a lot more important things than thumbs, 
> dogs, and
> ponies. It applies to the use of screen captures, tables of
> abbreviations, white space, numbered lists, CHM file security... Ya
> know, technical writing?

My audience is engineers and technicians and developers around the 
world, at least half of whom have English as their second or third 
language. I've met a small handful who have visited us, over the years. 
For the other 99.9%, I'll never meet them or correspond with them.

I'm not sure quite how I'd go about determining that some of them 
are offended by white space and numbered lists (both of which I 
shamelessly use in my docs).


... badump-bump


Kevin

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