Faxes, communication, and the kitchen sink

[Greg Kushmerek <gkushmer -at- JADE -dot- TUFTS -dot- EDU>]

Hi John,

You raised some excellent posts in your reply, and I wanted to say
that I agree with the thrust of what you're saying:  issues of
communication related to the profession are relevant to the list.

I think that the gentleman to whom you were responding had something
else in mind though:  I was under the impression that he didn't want
to see the list degenerate into discussions of equipment only.  When he
says "I'd rather be reading about points directly bearing on
tech writing than about fax machines," he seems to be saying what I
was saying:  the discussion has to have some bearing on the list's
purpose.

I certainly agree that a discussion about fax machines and technical
writing has direct bearing -- if properly put.  Bits I read in the posts
covered things like OCR readers and scanners.   That sounds wonderful
to the list's purpose; however it was only incidental that the discussion
turned to that since the question was asking about hardware.

I hope I'm translating my point.  If I saw a discussion on, say, interactive
video conferencing and multimedia applications in teaching a computer
skill, then I would say "That has relevance and looks neato to boot!"  But
if someone asked "My company is buying a satellite for video conferencing
and I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations about what to
get for a satellite?"  then I'd say "Wrong audience."  Then again, a
question on the software used to communicate through the satellite could
have relevance to this audience.

It's tricky stuff, and ultimately it's up to each and every individual
on the list to decide if their message has merit.

Cheers,

--gk

Note to the list:  It's probably time for this thread to die.  Send me
personal e-mail if you have comments on what I've said.


Greg Kushmerek                          "They [Australians] don't spell 'beer'
Sr. Researcher/Development              with four X's out of ignorance. . .And
Tufts University                        light beer is a creation of the Prince
Medford, MA                             of Darkness."
gkushmer -at- jade -dot- tufts -dot- edu                         -Morse, Thames Valley C.I.D.-