TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Not allowed to change templates? From:"Hutchings, Christa" <cwhutchings -at- HOMEWIRELESS -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 4 May 1998 17:33:03 -0400
Believe it or not, there are plenty of companies out there that operate
this way. I just left such a company, partly because they have extremely
rigid "standards" that took about 6 months and an act of Congress to
change. For instance, the company standards stated that we were to use
two spaces after every period - never mind the fact that the rest of the
publishing world abandoned that practice umpteen years ago! We went
through a major "study" of this issue last year, but despite the urging
of all the writers to change the standard, the "production team leader"
(someone with no writing experience whatsoever) made the decision to
stick with the two spaces.
I can understand a company wanting some consistency in its manuals, but
companies that refuse to change to keep up with the times are eventually
going to get left in the dust.
Chris Welch-Hutchings
Sr. Technical Writer
Home Wireless Networks, Inc.
cwhutchings -at- homewireless -dot- com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Karen Kay [SMTP:karen -at- WORDWRITE -dot- COM]
> Sent: Monday, May 04, 1998 5:08 PM
> To: TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject: Re: Not allowed to change templates?
>
> Tracy Boyington said:
> > I would compare how long it takes to put text in the necessary
> formats
> > using the existing tags to how long it takes using the formats you
> > created, then multiply by the number of times these new formats
> would be
> > used in a document and show how much time (and therefore money!)
> would
> > be saved by using your new tags.
>
> But who would you show this to? There seems to be no editorial review
> board in place to approve changes, or to interpret tags. (Which I
> think is stupid and shows mighty unrealistic planning on someone's
> part: templates always change.)
>
> Karen
> karen -at- wordwrite -dot- com
>
> &^~~~
> Send commands to listserv -at- listserv -dot- okstate -dot- edu (e.g., SIGNOFF
> TECHWR-L)
> Check out topic summaries at
>http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/topics.htm
>
