Re: New XML mailing list

[Michael Smith <smith -at- io -dot- com>]

On Friday, June 30, 2000, Jessica N. Lange wrote:

> Maybe because it's (almost) a 4-day holiday weekend (in USA)
> & it's hard to concentrate on work, but ..... am I wrong in 
> thinking that TechWR-L *is* an appropriate forum for 
> discussing XML for technical documentation?

More than appropriate -- TECHWR-L is truly unique in that no other
resource, now or probably ever, will provide us, as documentation
professionals, with the same level of access to communication
with so many of our peers.

Personally, I can say that when I need to reach the largest
possible number of fellow documentation professionals with a
question about XML as it relates to documentation -- or anything
else as it relates to documentation, for that matter -- I'm going
to post the question to TECHWR-L.

My hope for XML-DOC, on the other hand, is that because of its
specific focus, it will offer us greater access to and dialog with
people in the XML community who are completely outside of the
field of documentation: XML developers and others for whom
documentation is a secondary concern at best (or at worst,
currently a non-concern) and who may not have much of an idea
today about the kind of work we do, and what we require to do it.

So I'm hoping that we can use it not just to communicate with one
another about XML, but also as a way of raising the level of
awareness in the greater XML world about our specific needs and
concerns as documentation professionals.

I plan to be fairly persistent in promoting XML-DOC in the
non-documentation XML mailing lists and newsgroups I read, which
are made up mostly of XML developers. And I think I can get a good
number of them to understand why they owe it to themselves to be
more aware of what we need from XML.

Of course, I also think we can use it as a forum for focused
discussions with each other about XML and all its related
technologies.

I guess the way I'll think of the lists myself is this: When I
want to reach the greatest number of people with a question or
announcement related to XML and documentation, I'll post it to
TECHWR-L. And when I want to reach a much smaller group of people
with more of a specific focus on XML, along with XML developers,
I'll send it to XML-DOC.

   -- Mike Smith

-- 
Michael Smith         ...  xml-doc-owner -at- egroups -dot- com
Moderator,
XML-DOC mailing list  ...  http://www.egroups.com/group/xml-doc/