Re: Linking to online help topic

["T.W. Smith" <techwordsmith -at- gmail -dot- com>]

What I was suggesting ...

On 9/23/05, Suzette Leeming <suzette -dot- leeming -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> What is the purpose of this list, if a question from a fellow
> poster can elicit the response "If you don't know these things, get
> some training"?

was not that if you ask a specific question, one ought answer "get
some training."

If you re-read what I wrote I think you'll find that what I was
suggesting was that if you didn't know much about your domain as a
help author you should work to improve that domain knowledge.

For example, if you pop on the list and ask, "I'm an out of work
programmer and have contracted to do a 2,000 topic online help system
for XYZ company, but I've never authored online help, where do I start
and how do I do it," then you should work on things because the list
is not here to answer that. Similarly, if you are an online help
author and you don't know there's more than one kind of online help,
and even though you didn't ask a question about it on-list, you should
know that there's more than one kind of online help, that's your job,
go learn.

I appreciate that you might disagree on those points, but I think a
professional has an obligation to work at what they do and learn, and
I also believe that a list is really not for wholesale online
training, the topic is too big.

What should help authors know? Good question. I have no quick answer.
But, I do expect they know that there's more than one kind of online
help.


======
T.

Remember, this is online. Take everything with a mine of salt and a grin.