John Kaufmann wrote:
In a message dated 2009.11.15 16:49 -0500, Barbara Duprey wrote:
I'm attaching a draft of a response for comments.
Barbara, my comments, FWIW, are simply what I wrote earlier in this
thread (post# 203513), attached here as a revision to your draft; all
I did was put your paragraphs in a left-hand column, mine in the
right-hand column.* I don't see any substantial difference between
them except for the fact that the right-hand column is shorter.
Sometimes brevity is beneficial. But it is your solution, so the
wording is your call.
[*BTW, when I formatted to two columns, I just took Writer's default,
which was two columns of equal width with no space between. When I saw
the result, I tried to go back and reformat the columns to add a
little space - and found it perversely difficult to do. Even with the
two-column block highlighted, Writer did not recognize them, and
attempts to specify two columns with a space just resulted in creating
a /new/ two-column block below the original. So I gave it up,
recognizing that there's yet another thing I need to learn about OO:
how to edit a column format in Writer. Foiled again.]
John
John, in no way do I "own" the wording of this response -- I'm just one
of the more involved participants, as are you. And I agree that brevity
here is desirable. But there are some differences I see as substantial,
so let's discuss them.
* The fact that the responses come from volunteers, not a paid
support staff, I think is significant -- most of these people will
be unaware of that, and many may have been directed to the list as
paid support from one of the rogue sites that sell OOo. I think
this knowledge will color all their further dealings with the list.
* They need to be aware that a single users-thread message will
probably not be sufficient. If that isn't explicitly stated, they
may well think that they will continue to get new copies of the
digest whenever a new message is posted (and I really wish that
were so!).
* The terminology of "digest," "thread," "post" is very likely to be
unfamiliar. Hence my description of what to expect.
* Reading each message from its attached file is more cumbersome
than reading the inline messages, and there may well be no need
for them ever to open an attachment. If they get their answer with
no need to follow up, why complicate things for them?
* As we've seen elsewhere on this thread, depending on the person's
mail client and the environment from which they are posting, the
attachments may not be passed on, and even the digest message may
be blocked. They need to have information about what to do in that
case, hence my reference to a linked article.
* The most natural action for most people is Reply; that will work
from an attachment, as I described, as will Reply All. But I think
they need to be warned not to reply (either way) to the digest
message -- that would just go to users-help.
I'll work on the draft some more to trim it down, though.
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