xml-dev - Re: Improved writing -- who's going to pay for it?

[tpassin@home.com]

Joseph Kesselman wrote -

>
> >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.
>
Yes, I know, but better writing/editing makes the result stronger and
(potentially, at least) more useful to those same companies.

> 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.
>
Terseness can be fine, and writing for the experienced practitioner is too.
But have you noticed, when you try to refine and improve the communication
of the concepts, it helps you understand or even discover what they really
are?  Or it may help you find assumptions you didn't realize were there.

> 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.
>
Not enough cash :=)))
>
> [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.]
>
Pace, friend.

Regards,

Tom Passin