Re: What's on topic (was: Re: Do X-Rays Damage Disks?)

["Race, Paul D" <racepa -at- WHQPOS4B -dot- DAYTONOH -dot- ATTGIS -dot- COM>]

This is Paul Race, for those of you whose headers don't sort out
MS-Mail-originated e-mails properly.

Eric, Michael, I won't argue the fact that a lot of what we do on the job
has nothing to do with techwriting.  (I will, however, point out that,
unlike IBM paperwork drills, data integrity is an issue that affects us
all).

But what really confuses me is Michael's first comment, that


> 1) If someone sends you private e-mail, it is impolite to repost it to the
> list  (even when the e-mail is as innocuous as Eric's)


Eric sent a message to the Techwriter group.  I quoted part of it in my
response, which I posted to the Techwriter group.

Since Michael's e-mail seems to be a follow-up to my response, is he
implying I did something unethical by quoting a message everyone else had
already seen?  If that's the case we're all in trouble, and neither Eric nor
I should have quoted Michael's message either.

Help me, here, Michael, I'm cornfused.

As for the bigger issues, I think that most of us can figure out which parts
or our job are idiosyncratic to our organizations and which parts reflect
universal techwriting issues.  If you can't sort that out, you probably
don't think Dilbert is funny most of the time, since, obviously, he's just
describing what goes on at one corporation.  Right.

Better we discuss serious issues that affect most or all techwriters than
waste time on the history of the @ sign.

Disclaimer:  I have not quoted anything in this message that has not already
been sent to the list.  My employer is in no way responsible for my
opinions.  And since I've only had one cup of coffee this morning, I'm only
possibly responsible myself.

Please feel free to quote any part of this message.  :-)