A couple of issues ago, I told a story here about how my friend John had failed to find
some song lyrics on the Web before I managed to locate them by old-fashioned,
real-world means. A few of you wrote to say how easily you found those same lyrics on
the Web. Maybe they were posted after the incident I related , or maybe John just
didn't look in the right place, but my point was a general one: the Web is not the
world.
At first I thought that editorial would be controversial, but before it was published I
noticed similar remarks starting to appear elsewhere, along the lines of the Internet
and the Web being overrated. Since then I've seen even more critical articles on the
subject -- the inevitable backlash, I suppose. Now that such kvetching has become
socially acceptable, I should probably turn to another subject, but alas...
My main complaint is with the quality of a lot of what's posted online. I don' t mind so
much if someone's personal home page is a bit rough, but lar ge corporations that
should do better seem not to be doing even minimal copyediting and fact checking on
what they post to the Web. It's gotten to the point where, to some people, being
published on the Internet is becoming synonymous with being low quality. I even came
across this sentiment in a review of a book (not related to computers) in the New
York Times: after criticizing the book for sloppy editing, the reviewer wrote, "If this
is the way books are going to be published, we may as well just shove the typing onto
the Internet and for get about bound volumes altogether."
Why is it that the highest-quality online publications are those that are also published
in print? It's as if "committing" something to print makes it seem more respectable,
more enduring. As a provider of not only develop content but also a newsletter of my
own on the Web, I find this ironic. Ever since my publications have been made so
easily available online, reader feedback indicates that many more people have been
referring to back issues; they treat all the content -- past and present -- as a single,
timeless body of information. This timelessness argues for the same attention to
quality online as in the print medium, or at least for more efforts in that direction.
I think one problem may be the confusion about where to put Web publishing in an
organization. Most Web-related job descriptions I've seen ask for a content provider,
formatter/designer, and HTML expert all rolled into one. That's like having authors of
develop articles design the page layout and produce the printed product. Ask one person
to do it all and what do you expect?
You may not care about minor errors, but inattention to quality will extend, web-like,
beyond punctuation and grammar into the more critical realms of coherency and
accuracy. So please, take a second look at your Web pages and other online content with
this in mind. The world will thank you.
CAROLINE ROSE (crose@apple.com, AppleLink CROSE) finds her most difficult editing
job to be rephrasing her work history for her bio in develop. There are only so many
ways to say she's been working in the computer industry for a very long time, in
various writing, editing, and programming capacities. The good news is that, having
edited develop for five years, she finally qualifies for a sabbatical, which she'll be
taking by the time you read this. She's sorry to miss Apple's Worldwide Developers
Conference but decided that springtime in Tuscany was a fair tradeoff. *