Re: What does Bugzilla look like in action?

["Nora Merhar" <nora -at- helloworld -dot- sh>]

You didn't read what I said. I said nothing about "user assistance" being
unimportant. What I said was that if you are included with the developers,
in the same newsgroup or list or whatever, it would seem a GOOD thing,
something that acknowledges you on a level with the developers, not a
cause for more inferiority complex
> Nora Merhar wrote:
>
>> I would think it would be NICE, and a goal for most TWs not to be
>> segregated from the developers, and to have your issues right there and
>> available to be seen by them.
>
> Uh, no, user assistance is an important and integral part of project
> development, not something NICE to have that's tacked on at the end.


>> I don't see how the response marginalizes or trivializes the help
>> developers at all. It seems reasonable enough.
>
> Well, then perhaps we don't need, say, TECHWR-L. We can create one big
> mailing list that deals with all areas and issues of product
> development, and tech writers can post their questions and issues there.

Well, I certainly wouldn't go to a group of TWs to get information about a
product I was documenting. I'd want to be on that list with the
developers, posting my questions and issues with the possibility that
people who knew the answers would see them! And I'd start a new thread so
I could find it later.
>
> Sooooo....paging through hundreds and hundreds of non-tech writing posts
> to find the ones relevant to my work isn't a waste of time? A technical
> writer's time is just as valuable as a programmers, or QA, etc.

> Oh, and you want to know where it came from? Well, I have a project plan
> in-hand at this very moment for a project that's underway. Amazingly,
> three are line items for documentation. Also amazingly, there are work
> estimates for those line items. Amazing because I was never asked to
> scope out my part of the project. The numbers were pulled from thin air.
> (From what I know of the project, the numbers are low as well, a
> reflection of how project managers often regard the work we do as "just"
> writing.)

Hm. Can't relate. I've scoped my own jobs for the last two projects (and
had more than enough time/budget for the ones prior to it), my project
manager is excellent, we hve plenty of user input, and the documentation
has lots of visibility. It rocks.

Nora
-- 
Nora
nora -at- helloworld -dot- sh
and the rescue Shelties U-ACH Cary, CGC, OA, OAJ, EAC-V, EJC-V, OGC-V,
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U-ACH Secondhand Charlie, CGC, MX, MXJ, EAC, EJC, OGC, RS-N, MAD, RM, JM,
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