[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Improved writing -- who's going to pay for it?
>So let's encourage - even demand - the standard writers to improve >their writing Remember, standards committees are made up of resources contributed by member companies. Most companies would rather put manpower/mindpower into developing the standard itself -- because they need to make sure it's something they and their customers can live with henceforward -- than into wordsmithing, and it isn't often that you find both strong technical skills and technical-writing skills in the same individual. I'm sure W3C would _love_ to have someone fund them for some technical writers who could help spec editors improve the readability of these docs, and I'm sure most editors would appreciate the assistance. Nobody writes poorly deliberately. Specs are and always will be written for the "experienced practitioner" -- and will tend to be terse as a result -- but there's certainly room to improve communication with that community, who can then explain the implications to the less-experienced folks. So: I agree with the sentiment, but I don't see anyone putting up the cash needed to fix it. If you're volunteering to do so, contact the W3C. [For what it's worth, the DOM spec has gotten some technical-writer review from time to time, and it's been greatly appreciated. We may not always agree with the details (I absolutely refuse to replace "can not" with "cannot", though I'd settle for "can't"), but it's definitely helped flush out some places where our description was fuzzy or awkward or incomplete.] ______________________________________ Joe Kesselman / IBM Research
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