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Well, but if several of you are saying that its a convention that is so old,
nobody really knows why it started, then I'd say its absolutely valid to
re-consider whether it needs to be perpetutated any more by the original
poster.
People keep writing that yeah...it was a long-accepted practice (often, it
appears, linked to older print technologies)... so why is everyone so
adamant in saying you can't make a case for deleting it... when no one has
been able to make a clear case for this person to KEEP it, other than that's
the way its always been?
Seems an odd attitude coming from people who work in an industry where
technology changes so fast that we often need to modify how we do things.
Why cling to this tradition without questioning it? Even if there are issues
about being able to check thumbnails to make sure nothing has shifted or
whatever... again, why insist that the poster blindly submit without
verifying whether its definitely an issue in his case? And if its a question
of making things match old word processing documents, that's also backwards
thinking. Outdated material should be brought up to modern standards, not
vice versa.
And regarding possible confusion... if readers are likely to get completely
mind-boggled by the spectacle of a blank page, maybe they aren't qualified
to read the document in the first place. Even if your audience is laypeople,
we're all accustomed to reading novels and hitting blank pages at the end of
chapters.
And ok, it may make sense in classified documents, but that doesn't mean its
relevant in the poster's case.
I'm just being a pickle on this, because I've had to fight long and hard
against that type of "Thus it was done by the elders long ago... and so thus
it shall remain forever..." attitude where I work... People who essentially
had no idea what they were doing would just insist that we not change things
that were really quite stupid and silly, because they didn't want to have to
learn something new. Any time I would say: "But WHY do we do things this
way, when this way seems easier and better?" they'd look at me like I should
be immediately burned at the stake for my heresies.
I'm just all for questioning things that don't have an obvious validity.
Lynne Wright
Technical Communications
Positron Inc.
5101 Buchan St. H4P 2R9
(514) 345-2200
fax: 345-2272
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