[flame] Re: Authorship

[Martin WHEELER <mwheeler@startext.co.uk>]

On Thu, 1 Jun 2000, Gary Preckshot preened his own feathers -- 
mightily; and ruffled everyone else's just as mightily by writing at
enormous length about what a wonderful little chappie *he* is; what a
glorious OS Windows is; how clever *he* is at using it; how *he* is so
pleased at himself with having sussed out how SGML works
(apparently without reading a single text on the subject) that he feels
he now simply *must* tell the whole world everything about what he has
just learned; how the LDP was a miasma of useless old farts before *he*
arrived on the scene in his shining white armour and with his vast
experience to save us all from the perils of ignorance, bad writing and
SGMLystification -- and much more in the same vein.

Oh dear.
Tolerance has its limits.

(Personal vainglory apart -- Gary: for your next HOWTO, will you
please write and tell us how you hot-key from one virtual console to
another under Windows?  Interested folks would love to know -- indeed,
your readers are breathless in anticipation.  But make it a little less
verbose this time, will you?)


Meanwhile -- mundane facts.
"incontravertable" is more commonly spelled: "incontrovertible".
Thought you might like to know that.  (As a writer with vast
professional experience and all that.)
Or maybe that degree of detail is unimportant to someone who describes
filename case-sensitivity under Linux as 'a glitch'.
 [ "one of my graphics files isn't showing" ]
Well -- under those circumstances, it wouldn't, would it?


"isn't my feedback the biggest and best effort you've ever gotten?"
<ROFL>  Nice try, sunshine.  NO.  (BTW -- your psychology's showing.)
It's added little; and alienated many.
I have to admit the entertainment value has been quite high though.


Before we go any further in slagging off authors who have contributed
considerably to the LDP effort, would you mind terribly much giving us
the benefit of your thinking on what you consider to be the scope of the
HOWTO-HOWTO, which you have now so shamelessly appropriated?  Before you
turn it into the: "How I learned to write SGML and suss out the DocBook
DTD and why Linux newbies should actually do everything under Windows, 
and lots of other things I'm working out for myself in my own mind these
days, being new to all this stuff - HOWTO", that is?

And in what respect it differs from, or adds to, the SGML HOWTO; or any 
of the other helpful documents which exist to help people mark up text
using SGML?  In particular, the DocBook DTD?
(You *did* do your research before beginning to write, didn't you?)

In other words, state -- succinctly -- exactly what the purpose of the
document is, and its intended readership?  As you see it?

It might just help the rest of us figure out in what direction *you*
intend taking the HOWTO, before it gets totally out of control, and
becomes a rambling incohesive mess reflecting the idiosyncratic
attitudes of an argumentative individual with strong personal opinions,
rather than the considered reflections of a concerned and mature
community.


[For those who are following this thread in pop-eyed amazement / utter 
boredom: natural writers are also usually natural bitches.  Ignore
us.  It doesn't improve any; and we won't go away.  If it's really
that bad, learn to set up a kill-list.  And if that works, remember
to write up how you did it, so others may benefit.  There.  Do you feel 
any better now?]


Whose HOWTO is next in line for the Preckshot treatment, I wonder?

Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.


Disgusted of Glastonbury
-- 
Martin Wheeler         -         StarTEXT - Glastonbury - BA6 9PH - England
[1] mwheeler@startext.co.uk                      http://www.startext.co.uk/


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