TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:WIKI to produce customer documentation? From:"Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 27 Oct 2003 08:49:58 -0500
Cheryl Webber reports: <<Been put to us that WIKI might serve both the
internal docs and user docs as a 'repository' since it allows edits by
everyone. When i mean user docs, mgt wants ALL customer documentation to be
in WIKI to allow support
to view/edit customer documentation if necessary. Bit leery of :>>
You're right to be leery. The problem with a democratic approach to
documentation is the same as the fundamental problem underlying democracy*:
it assumes that you really want everyone to vote on a change, rather than
insisting that someone actually understand what they're doing before they
provide an opinion. For any kind of important documentation, you want it to
be the pros responsible for making the changes. The profession of editing
exists specifically because quality control requires expertise, not a
popular vote.
* "The worst of all possible systems, were it not for the alternatives."
Please, let's not get into an on-list discussion of politics. Nobody ever
convinces anybody else, and it's really not related to techwriting.
That being said, a wiki might be a great way to obtain _comments and
feedback_ on documentation. If someone (an editor, tech writer, or SME) is
assigned the task of collating this feedback and subjecting it to a reality
check, you now have a powerful tool for iterative improvement of your
documentation. Try that approach and you'll get better results.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
"Wisdom is one of the few things that look bigger the further away it
is."--Terry Pratchett
RoboHelp for FrameMaker is a NEW online publishing tool for FrameMaker that
lets you easily single-source content to online Help, intranet, and Web.
The interface is designed for FrameMaker users, so there is little or no
learning curve and no macro language required! Call 800-718-4407 for
competitive pricing or download a trial at: http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l4
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as:
archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot- Visit http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.
