This has happened a few times recently including one case where
there was no sarcasm/humour at all but what I wrote was completely
misunderstood.
Assuming that I what I wrote was not complete gibberish (it does
sometimes happen), is the medium of email open to miscommunication
any more than other media?
BTW, just to fully explain, my comment below was intended to mean
that the information on the Web ranges in accuracy from 100% to some
rather large negative number (i.e. it's just plain wrong). My
immediate reaction to Jan's email was that the date had not been
updated - i.e. an error. This happens quite a lot, especially with
the primitive state of Web page maintenance software currently in
use.
I also think that it is a little unfair to link the quality of
policy decisions with the administrivia of a large government
department.
And yes, I have read Jan's subsequent message at Tue, 27 Oct 1998
13:00:48 -0700 (MST)
Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
> BRD asked:
> Do you mean you cannot trust everything you read on the Web???? I'm
> shattered, disillusioned and stunned.
>
> =-=-
>
> No, that's not what I meant at all. I wondered if the department
> 'adjustment' was done before the election since the name is on that page
> of the website and the date is pre-election. Wishful thinking perhaps?
> Plans in the works already? Power grabs from ministers? I dunno what to
> think. Probably an error in not updating the change date, but since it is
> an error on a government website, it shows that there are some aspects of
> web info delivery that need to be more carefully attended to before I
> trust an agency to make policy decisions without lots of scrutiny if they
> can't get their website in sync on a topic for which they are responsible
> [*information*]. ;)
>
> Come on, DOCITA folks, what's the true story?
>
> Jan
-- Many participants prefer the quality of writing on the Net to book writing, because Net writing is of a conversational, peer-to-peer style, frank and communicative, rather than precise and self-consciously literary.Instead of the rigid canonical thinking cultivated by the book, the net stimulates another way of thinking: telegraphic, modular, nonlinear, malleable, cooperative. -- Kevin Kelly.
Regards brd
Bernard Robertson-Dunn Canberra Australia brd@dynamite.com.au