RE: Tech writers, comments about.

[Mailing List <mlist -at- ca -dot- safenet-inc -dot- com>]

Downing, David [mailto:DavidDowning -at- Users -dot- com]
> <<You're asking the members of this list to be responsible 
> for _someone
> else's_ feelings, which we have no control over and which may 
> or may not
> be _appropriate_. And you're giving that someone -- anyone -- 
> veto power
> over our communications.>>
 
> Well, granted, you can't be responsible for each individual's
> idiosyncratic reaction to everything you say, but what you 
> can do -- and
> what we as technical communicators are SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW to do, as
> part of our training -- is to become aware that certain types of
> messages and ways of delivering them, affect certain groups 
> of people in
> certain predictable ways.  For example, jokes about certain
> racial/ethnic groups will likely offend members of those 
> groups.  Jokes
> about wheelchairs or unusually think glasses will likely offend
> handicapped people who need to use these devices.
 
> The sticky issue, of course, is where do you draw the line?

That's not sticky, unless you want it to be... or somebody 
else does.

If there are specific rules in a given venue, then you 
abide by them, or not at your peril, but they are the 
relevant guidance.

As a general rule, outside of specific venues, the dividing 
line is between chosen behaviours and things that people 
can't help because of biology or accident or whatever.

That is, people should not be held accountable or ridiculed 
or otherwise be subjected to arbitrary inconvenience for 
the way they were born or for the result of some accident 
or event that was not their fault. They can be held to 
account (including ridicule.... in venues where that is 
not forbidden), for choices and the results of choices 
(such as actions taken) that they have made.

So, no matter how foolish you (generic) act in (say) this venue, 
we need to be really subtle and circumspect if we 
want to ridicule you for it, and we must never 
(even discreetly) ridicule you for something that you 
really can't help.   :-)

/kevin

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