RE: Request to take survey

[<mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com>]

The "we" is those who practice or are concerned with technical communication. I am saying that those of us who care about and practice technical communication should not limit ourselves to those media where content hygiene is not practiced to as high a standard as in the media we have traditionally worked in. Our business is to make sure that the customer gets an answer that allows them to be successful, not to make sure that all communication practices good hygiene.

It is the job of editors, on the other hand to ensure that all communication in their purview has good hygiene.

This is not to say that we should not practice good content hygiene ourselves, or that we should not employ editors to help us. It is simply to say that we cannot ignore media where it is not practiced. Nor can we ignore the hierarchy of virtues in each of the media in which we communicate with our users. Where immediacy is valued above hygiene, we should not delay a response for the sake of ensuring perfect hygiene  (though we should certainly practice as much hygiene as we can within the time that immediacy permits).

A policy of publish first, polish afterwards was not possible on paper; it is increasingly the norm of the Web, where immediacy is highly valued. 

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Slager Timothy J [mailto:Timothy -dot- Slager -at- dematic -dot- com] 
Sent: Thursday, August 11, 2016 10:11 AM
To: mbaker -at- analecta -dot- com
Cc: 'Helen OBoyle' <hoboyle -at- gmail -dot- com>; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: Request to take survey

Mark,

In your final two sentences, who is the "we" you are referring to, and why wouldn't it include editors?

tims


>>...And in the end, we are in the technical communication business, not the content hygiene business. That is the editor's turf.

>>Mark


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Visit TechWhirl for the latest on content technology, content strategy and content development | http://techwhirl.com

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- 

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-leave -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com


Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications?  Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions?  Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives