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List:       kde-pim
Subject:    Re: [Kde-pim] jargon is bad! :)
From:       "David Jarvie" <djarvie () kde ! org>
Date:       2010-03-23 9:21:42
Message-ID: f3ed0798837933b6f9029a0a4413f31b.squirrel () www ! sensical ! net
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On Mon, March 22, 2010 5:58 pm, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Monday 22 March 2010 12:26:57 David Jarvie wrote:
>> On Mon, March 22, 2010 11:44 am, Mike Arthur wrote:
>> > On 22 Mar 2010, at 11:35, Dr. Robert Marmorstein wrote:
>> >> I disagree completely.  If the problem is sufficiently serious to
>> merit
>> >> attention almost any user is going to turn first to Google.  And the
>> >> more
>> >> unusual the term is, the easier it is to sift relevant data out of
>> those
>> >> millions of hits it inevitably finds.
>> >
>> > You should watch my parents use their computer. I don't think they've
>> > ever looked up an error message on Google. They'll have a problem, try
>> > and play around with it for a few minutes by themselves and then they
>> > will call me and ask me to fix it. Anecdotal but still relevant, I
>> feel.
>>
>> That's my experience too with family members, although I find that they
>> often don't understand even plain English messages. For people like
>> that,
>> computer terms just don't form part of their vocabulary or world view,
>> so
>> things like "Akonadi" would be just gobbledegook, to be glossed over. If
>> they actually did look up "Akonadi" and tried to read a description,
>> they still wouldn't have a clue as to what it meant.
>
> But then most of us agree that they wouldn't understand a 'plain English'
> message either, so maybe it really is better to give something google-able
> for those that want to look for it.

The point I'm trying to make (badly) is that on *some* occasions they
would read a message and if it is in plain English, they would stand a
chance of understanding it. But if it includes terms like Akonadi, there's
no way they'd understand it even if they Googled it (which they wouldn't
anyway).

-- 
David Jarvie.
KDE developer.
KAlarm author - http://www.astrojar.org.uk/kalarm

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