[WikiEN-l] One line summaries of WP Guidelines and Policies

Thu Dec 22 12:57:09 UTC 2005

David Gerard wrote:

>Steve ran this past me, I objected at first, he went back and did it
>differently and I said "hmm, you were right and I was wrong, go for it".
>
>Steve Bennett wrote:
>  
>
>> and that users may
>>feel they have grasped a whole policy when they've only read a
>>"powerpoint" bullet point version of it.
>>    
>>
>Any decent policy or guideline needs to be summarisable in a sentence IMO.
>
>This objection falls into the error of assuming that you can solve not
>reading instructions by putting more instructions in.
>
>This is where we get bloated guidelines with every special case outlined
>*right there*.
>
Some years ago the IRS decided that it needed to simplify instructions 
by putting everything at the 10th grade reading level.  One effect was 
to make the tax guide thicker because thaey had to use smaller words.. 
For people who already knew how to read this stuff it meant weading 
through long-winded paraphrases which many or may not have meant the 
same thing that they said before.  Those who could not read it before 
were not exactly encouraged by the prospect of reading an even longer guide.

Another of the US Government wonders was the Paperwork Reduction Act.  
In some instances it involved adding a separate slip to documents 
expressing how much they were commited to reducing paperwork.

Ec