atw: Re: Should we give the users what they want?

Hi Tony,
At first I thought your article was tongue in cheek. I now suspect it is somewhere else. You haven't got it, yet, have you?
Have you thought of wit, exaggeration or any other form of fantasy as your forte? 

Brian.

"Anthony Self" opined:
Are you suggesting that we should abandon the "reader is king" principle, and write not for the reader, but for an idealised persona of how we would prefer our reader to be? Too bad if our readers can't maintain concentration for 10 minutes... suck it in, cut your hair, get a job, and grow up!
And when none of these "new readers" read our manuals (because they've been written in an alien language), and turn instead to a peer-generated document written/presented in a familiar form, how are we going to find work?
Our job isn't to maintain English standards! (Leave that to Hyacinth Bucket!) Ours is to communicate to our readers in a language our readers understand. 

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