RE: Death knell for quality content?

[hls_ut -at- comcast -dot- net]

All this makes me think of annual equipment reviews and
comparisons published in Ski Magazine, Skiing, etc.

In a subsequent issue, a letter to the editor is invariablly 
published wherein a reader complains that none of the 
reviewers is "regular" person.  "How can a regular Joe 
like me relate to reviews written by insiders?"  

(Regular Joe skis only a handful of weekends a season 
and seldom ventures off intermediate groomed trials.  
He buys used equipment for his kids and his wife still 
uses equipment from 1990.) 

The magazines' answers are always--correctly--that a "regular" 
person has not developed the ability to perceive and effectively 
communicate about the meaningful characteristics of ski 
equipment.  A "regular" person has much less understanding 
of why various performance categories matter and cannot 
effectively rate equipment using those catagories to provide a 
means of comparsion. 

If you want clearly articulated, objective (hopefully) and useful 
information, you need to involve people who know what 
they're doing.  You need SMEs and writers and editors with 
appropriate knowledge, vocabulary, grammar, style etc.  Anything 
else is merely an opinion, which should be viewed with appropriate 
skepticism.  

--
---------------hls_ut -at- comcast -dot- net

 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Lauren" <lauren -at- writeco -dot- net>
> > From: john -at- garisons -dot- com
> 
> > Is this really what we are going to start getting? Content is 
> > king ... but
> > if people really believe that crappy content is just as good 
> > as quality
> > content, we are in a heap of trouble.
> 
> I think that what is happening is that people want to see articles written
> by people like themselves and not articles that seem like they were written
> by an expert or an outsider looking in.  The average person has average
> writing ability and will make grammatical and other writing errors.  So,
> content that is less than perfect is more palatable and approachable than
> content that is polished.  
> 
> It isn't a looming "heap of trouble"; it is a change audience's perception
> of documentation.  Writers will need to adjust their writing styles to
> appeal to the audience that wants informal, familiar documentation.  This
> does not mean that the quality of the content must change, but that the tone
> of the documentation should change.  
> 
> Users may accept poor quality now because of its approachability, but when
> users become educated in the weaknesses of such documentation, they will
> want quality.  The compromise between writers and audiences may be that
> quality documentation should be approachable to a broad audience, so it
> should possess some familiarity for that audience.
> 
> Lauren
> 
> 
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