atw: Re: ASTC AGM - post mortem - TOO LONG FOR THE FAINT HEARTED
- From: "Christine Hackforth" <hackers@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 23:16:28 +1100
Why on Earth would a technical writer professional have anything to do with
this
Forum?
That is what I want to know?
At the end of the day we should be discussing how to utilise and share the
expertise we have collectively to improve the impact on our customers' bottom
line:
A qualified and experienced technical procedural, analyst/writer researches and
finds out what the results of none, some and should be - with or without
intervention. (costs) I.e. What will happen if we do nothing, bottom line -
what will happen if we do a little - costs, bottom line? i.e.: New financial
laws, new computer system. Analyse before - upfront, and document the costs of
non-intervention - cost to business of errors where there is no intervention
from us as technical writers/training developers.
Business changes required are frequently not documented. We must find out what
they are as professional writers. What is the financial cost of errors?
Document it.
At the end of the day we are asked to write rubbish to give a tick to the
business. We must create, as technical writers, an improved at the least model
of the business or the part of the business we are involved in. We MUST
understand the business we are supporting. We must identify and agree with our
customers business changes required. We must have a clearly defined GOAL and
foundation from which we can make a start.
Where there are issues within the company that seem too great, and we have
hazy, ill-defined or contradictory gaols, we may need to refuse to proceed.
Where we have issues with a different writer refer back to what we are trying
to achieve for the client .
We may:
Do user and reference documentation for computer systems
Write hardware manuals and technical descriptions
Write policy and procedure documents
Edit and formats documents
Write technical and functional specification documents.
At the end of the day, we are supposed to be professionals. These petty
arguments and email exchanges are ridiculous. I want nothing more to do with
this forum unless things change, which is a shame.
-----Original Message-----
From:
austechwriter-bounce@freelists.orailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of jjw@xxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, December 1, 2016 12:14 PM
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: atw: Re: ASTC AGM - post mortem - TOO LONG FOR THE FAINT HEARTED
Quoting Christine Kent <cmkentau@xxxxxxxxx>:
To see what mean about the behaviour of technical writers, take a look
at this blog post by Swapnil,
https://icreatedocs.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/the-astc-is-failing-us/
. A communicative article. But then look at the comment. “Maybe we
should just all get together and argue about 9/11 and climate change –
works for some tech writing communities :b”. The technical writer
personality in a nutshell. Bitchy. Point scoring. Spiteful.
The comment you object to is mine.
To provide context, I joined this list some years ago. Sometime last year (?)
there was a long discussion of climate change. A number of people questioned
whether it was an appropriate topic for the group, and considered
unsubscribing. I did unsubscribe.
To be clear, I don’t object to off-topic threads in general, but partisan
political discussions can quickly become rancorous and I don’t feel that they
help to create a welcoming, collaborative atmosphere. It is certainly
legitimate to raise contentious on-topic issues here (as Ana has done
recently), but there are many, many other venues for off-topic political
discussions, so suggesting that those be taken to a different list is not
unreasonable in my opinion.
Perhaps a useful guideline might be to restrict discussion to topics that you
would be comfortable raising in your workplace.
Recently I re-subscribed, and soon the topic of the truth (or
otherwise) of 9/11 was raised. This seemed to me to be another very political
topic that would generate hostility (and it did), so to forestall this I –
pleasantly I think – suggested that the conversation could be taken to another
list. Some people publicly agreed with me, including Swapnil.
Your response to my suggestion was this patronising (and blatantly
passive-aggressive) put-down:
"Your response is petulant. As Petra has responded, take responsibility
yourself, and block her if you find her contributions unwelcome. Block me while
you are at it, and Peter Martin, and anyone else who dares to treat this list
as a friendship as well as a professional group."
For this reason, feeling a little exasperated, I posted this joking comment at
the end of my (longer) post on Swapnil’s blog. It was intended to be a wry
acknowledgement of our mutual opinion that the topics of conversation on this
list are not always appropriately targeted, but that it is clearly not
acceptable to say so.
You can call my closing comment "Bitchy. Point scoring. Spiteful" if you
choose. I don’t think it was, but to tar the “technical writer personality” in
general with the same brush is silly. I’m sorry that you have encountered
people who you found unpleasant, but that can hardly be construed as a
reflection on technical writers in general. I find the technical writing
community to be amazingly diverse, but in twenty years I have never worked with
a technical writer who I would describe as "bitchy" or "spiteful". I would
certainly think twice before applying that description to someone I have never
met and know nothing about.
You say that we need to attract “naturally, instinctively, collaborative
people”. I suggest that insulting "the technical writer personality" on a
technical writing mailing list might not be the way to do this.
J
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