How to tell explain something in a useful manner.
What's the difference between the following two statements, both describing a command/program/script/function/whatever on my school's computer network?
blanche: manage your mail-lists
blanche: add yourself to an [link to relevant topic]e-mail list[/link]. specific commands, which are specified by putting a dash followed by a lowercase letter, allow you to do a number of things, including adding yourself to or removing yourself from a list, seeing current members, changing adminship, etc..
(I'm not sure about the changing adminships, but the others all work, plus a lot more.)
The difference is kinda obvious. When the first one appeared in a beginner's guide to our computing network, it gave me a bare idea of some functionality linked to the name 'blanche'. I had no idea what 'blanche' was (a command prompt command? an executable file I could download? a text file I had to modify? what?), though, and for the longest time, didn't. It would require EITHER a (assumed) knowledge of Linux, to some degree, OR a lot of enthusiasm to find out. I had neither, of course, and it took a while to find a kinder soul to explain it to me halfway and have me figure out the rest.
The second version is what I would write if I were to introduce the command to a newbie, now that I know what it does. Computer geeks reading it would probably claim that I were an asshole for insulting their intelligence/experience, but they only make up about 30% of the student body (more than California does in the US Electoral College, lol). There're all those whole bunches of chemE, biology, architecture, polisci, chem, maybe even mechE, math, aero-astro........students who most likely haven't even encountered a UNIX/Linux system before in entire life--I'd be one such student. What about us? Why shouldn't we get nicer and more useful explanation as to how the system works? Sure, it's succinct, but brevity (or saving printer/copier ink) should not be a higher priority than effective communication.
Sure, everyone can type in 1337-speak these days, but 1337-ness isn't dead. It's arrogance. To a newbie (or "n00b"), it speaks "I'm a geek; I know computers; you don't and wouldn't anyways, because you're an outsider." That's actually not the case most of the time; from talking to people at the Student Information Processing Board (which manages many aspects of our school's computing system), I know that they're rather nice and quite willing to help their peers out of computer-based functionality jams. Sadly, that's the implied message I get though.
Maybe we need an informal seminar on technician-to-layperson communication. Or maybe we just need to make an effort to make sense to our listeners.
blanche: manage your mail-lists
blanche: add yourself to an [link to relevant topic]e-mail list[/link]. specific commands, which are specified by putting a dash followed by a lowercase letter, allow you to do a number of things, including adding yourself to or removing yourself from a list, seeing current members, changing adminship, etc..
(I'm not sure about the changing adminships, but the others all work, plus a lot more.)
The difference is kinda obvious. When the first one appeared in a beginner's guide to our computing network, it gave me a bare idea of some functionality linked to the name 'blanche'. I had no idea what 'blanche' was (a command prompt command? an executable file I could download? a text file I had to modify? what?), though, and for the longest time, didn't. It would require EITHER a (assumed) knowledge of Linux, to some degree, OR a lot of enthusiasm to find out. I had neither, of course, and it took a while to find a kinder soul to explain it to me halfway and have me figure out the rest.
The second version is what I would write if I were to introduce the command to a newbie, now that I know what it does. Computer geeks reading it would probably claim that I were an asshole for insulting their intelligence/experience, but they only make up about 30% of the student body (more than California does in the US Electoral College, lol). There're all those whole bunches of chemE, biology, architecture, polisci, chem, maybe even mechE, math, aero-astro........students who most likely haven't even encountered a UNIX/Linux system before in entire life--I'd be one such student. What about us? Why shouldn't we get nicer and more useful explanation as to how the system works? Sure, it's succinct, but brevity (or saving printer/copier ink) should not be a higher priority than effective communication.
Sure, everyone can type in 1337-speak these days, but 1337-ness isn't dead. It's arrogance. To a newbie (or "n00b"), it speaks "I'm a geek; I know computers; you don't and wouldn't anyways, because you're an outsider." That's actually not the case most of the time; from talking to people at the Student Information Processing Board (which manages many aspects of our school's computing system), I know that they're rather nice and quite willing to help their peers out of computer-based functionality jams. Sadly, that's the implied message I get though.
Maybe we need an informal seminar on technician-to-layperson communication. Or maybe we just need to make an effort to make sense to our listeners.