Re: FW: Humor vs. Tech Pubs

[Andrew Plato <aplato -at- EASYSTREET -dot- COM>]

Scott Miller wrote:>>
"What kind of a sicko wrote this?" is what
I ask myself when reading> Unix docs. I mean, really: "Kill the
children." Tchah!

Then Tracy Boyington  wrote:>>
Whether or not you think it's ridiculous, the fact is people *were*offended.
Lisa (I think it was Lisa) said she was bombarded with emailfrom offended
techwhirlers. I'm all in favor of humor as long as it'sfunny and not
offensive
or used inappropriately, but for crying outloud, why would you want to
deliberately offend your audience?


>>>>>

If I may step in.  If there is anything I know with 100% certainly it is
that someone is ALWAYS offended.  I am sure somewhere in the world the
sentence:

"Place the disk into your drive and execute the SETUP.EXE application."

Will offend someone.  In today's ultra-hyper-sanitized politically correct
world, it is a virtual certainty that someone, somewhere will be offended by
anything you say. The world is full of a dizzying array of people all of
whom have different agendas and different ideas on what is "the proper way".
Simply put, there are no rules.  Each solution must adapt to meet the
particular needs of a given situation.  There are no "Laws of Technical
Communication" that Holy Moses handed down from heaven.  The "rules" change
based on many factors.  Humor is merely one of those factors.

Moreover, many writers (myself included) subscribe to the 90/10 or 80/20
rule.  If you can meet the needs of 80 - 90% of your audience, then you have
written a successful document.  The remaining 10 - 20% will take too much
time and too much paper to reach.  In other words, practicality is often
more important than trying to meet the needs of every last human on the
planet.  The harsh, cold reality is that it is impossible to meet the needs
of every possible reader.  The factors and variables involved are simply
beyond the scope of anyone's brain.

With that said, I think this is realm where humor slides in.  Yes, the
swinging cat analogy is a little gross. But the concept it communicates is
very clear.  It is a very visual image.  Most people can easily visualize a
cat being swung around by its tail.  It is not the most pleasant image, but
that is not the point.  It communicated something in such a way that the
recipient was not likely to forget.  Hence, the 90/10 rule.  90% of those
students learned something valuable and won't forget it.

Moreover, this person was not speaking to a group of second graders
incapable of understanding the subtleties of satire.  This was presented to
a reasonably intelligent group of teenagers, who hopefully can grasp the
fact that their teacher is not advocating the twirling of cats.  Those that
can't see that difference are probably already twirling cats and can't be
saved.  Hence, the communicator (in this case the teacher) knew his audience
well enough to know that most of the kids would "get it."

Thus, the point is, humor is a contextual concept as well as having a scale
of magnitude.  In some situations, Humor is not appropriate.  But that does
not mean humor is inappropriate in ALL situations.  Thus, part of using
humor is knowing your audience well enough to know that they will get the
joke and it will communicate the intended message.

The other part is magnitude.  If 90% of the people are sure to get the joke,
then who cares about the other 10%.  They will either get over it or fume
with anger.

Here's a tale to illustrate this:  When I was in college I worked for a time
as a waiter in a coffee shop.  At least once a day, someone would come in
who no matter how hard I tried to please them, they would bitch about the
service and leave a crappy tip.  Nothing will make these people happy.  You
can give them good service, or bad service.  They are just spoiling to
complain about something.  So my attitude was always the same with these
types of people - why waste my time trying to please you when I can please
my other customers and get decent tips.  It isn't worth my effort.  I'll
irritate 20 other customers trying to service the inane needs of one,
troublesome customer.  Thus, I would give the troublesome customer mediocre
service and focus my efforts on the normal customers who would tip me well.

I think the same concept applies to documentation.  There will always be a
segment of your audience that will be confused, offended, and turned-off by
what you write.  If you obsessively try and meet the needs of these people
you will NEVER complete the document.  In the process of trying to please a
few, you will annoy the majority.

Unfortunately, we now live in a world where the needs of the few vocal
irritants outweigh the needs of the majority.  Any good business person
knows that in order to succeed you have to hit the big markets where you can
turn a big margin.  Costly markets with low (or no) profit margin are not
worth servicing.  This is why there are 10,000,000 Windows-based software
companies and 23 UNIX software companies.  The margins are in Windows.

My last point in all this is that English is a wonderfully rich language.
It is also a volatile language that is constantly being reinterpreted.  Like
it or not, anything that was ever written down is interpreted in some
fashion.  There is simply no way to avoid the fact that you cannot read
minds and transfer information via Vulcan mind-melds.  Information is
transmitted though interpretation of ideas.

In my opinion, erring on the side of conservatism in technical documentation
is the same as restricting yourself to 1/2 of the English language.  It is
denying a rich and extensive well of ideas and techniques in favor of trying
to assuage the tender sensibilities of a few.

I ALWAYS find a spot in my documents to slip in a clever phrase or a
innocuous joke. Nothing political, sexual, or religious.  Just a funny
phrase or a bit of satire. (Ducks are great for making fun of, and the Duck
Anti-Defamation League is a pretty easy going gaggle of geeks, haw haw)
Those sentences can be nuggets of pure joy to a reader swimming in a sea of
horribly boring material.