[documentation] the documentation site is too broken and lacks formatting and writing style

puregin puregin at puregin.org
Fri Jan 13 05:09:34 UTC 2006


>>
>>
> I am sorry but I still disagree. My experience comes from a  
> newspaper journalist view and having had to to help with editing.  
> Typographic, layout, headers and print structure are the most  
> important thing from a readers point of view. Many a newspaper have  
> gone under and many text books fail because of the lack of proper  
> structure. this is one of the problems with online reading. Many  
> times the time proven methods for making reading a document easy  
> and interesting are overlooked in favor of software workflows and  
> the capability of shortening a work routine. As proof of the point  
> you could ask yourself how all this information would look if you  
> had to put it in paperback form. How would you structure a PDF  
> book? You could not very well set seperate  sections for every  
> paragraph. Logically the only way would be to find a basic  
> structure that work and stick to it. Sticking to the basics is more  
> important and will get less complaints form the readership than  
> trying to make things easy. As someone mentioned, this is hard  
> work. It is lengthy, painstaking and monotnous but the job just  
> seems to get bigger when you try and circumvent the tasks by  
> changing proven ground rules.


      Actually, I don't think that we disagree about the
need for structure, and the importance of headings
and layout as visual clues for structure.

structure is currently presented, and I agree
with you here, too - it's unnatural, awkward,
and unkind to the reader.

       But let's fix the real problem (the
user interface) rather than resorting to
proven poor practices as hacks and
work arounds.

      Djun




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