SUMMARY: Stats/Statistics

["Mark L. Levinson" <markl -at- gilian -dot- com>]

Thanks to all who replied on the question of "Stats" versus 
"Statistics" for the name of a command button on a website.  
I should have made it clearer that though we are located in a 
non-English-speaking country, for our first sales we are targeting 
an American customer base.  And the reason it occurs to me that 
"stats" could stand not only for "statistics" but alternatively for
"photostats" is not that English is a foreign language to me.  
It's that I'm over fifty.

So anyway.  We had five responses strongly in favor of the full 
word, but largely touched by the assumption that the audience may 
not know English well.  We had three more along the lines of 
"people like us would understand but your audience might not;" 
we had two certain that "stats" is no problem; from Tom Murrell 
we had the suggestion of an alternative such as "data;" and Maaike 
Groenewege wrote:  "when I don't understand the meaning of a link, 
I just click it to find out what's behind it."  

Thanks once again.  I've passed your judgements along within the 
organization and I'll report on what eventuates.

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    Mark L. Levinson - markl -at- gilian -dot- com - Herzlia, Israel
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