Finding out if anyone reads your stuff

[Matt Hicks <matt -at- UNIDATA -dot- UCAR -dot- EDU>]

On Tue, 19 Jul 1994, Michael Cooperman wrote:

> Does anybody know whether their users read their books?  And, for those who
> do, how do you find out?

> Curious to read replies.

Well, not too long ago, when I was writing my first manual, many times I
heard, "Well, nobody's going to read it anyway." My supervisor was inclined
to say this with a tone of resignation rather than cynism, generally after we
had taken a lesser-of-two-evils approach on some sticky little problem. So
all the time I was hard at work on this doc, the futility of the effort was
in the back of my mind. The manual was going out to a very small user
community (80-100 sites, with maybe a couple of users per site), and just as
a test, I wanted to put at the end of one of the more important procedures:
"If you read this, send me some email and I'll send you a dollar." In the
end, I decided that, although I doubted I would ever have to pay up,
it would be "unprofessional." I may yet do it someday; I think it would
be an interesting test--perhaps enlightening, perhaps depressing.

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