The One-Click-What? Phenomenon

Nearly a year ago I marveled at the design of Rapidshare, which bills itself as the world's biggest 1-click file hoster or some such rubbish. The same applies to documents.

It's easy for technical writers to get caught up in the marvel of formatting. When you're writing for utter fucking morons (and the canonical presumption of end-user documentation is that they are), you want to break down the information into chunks as small as possible and feed these to your reader individually. So you avoid long sentences and long paragraphs, use plenty of screenshots, all sorts of pretty colored fonts with dropped shadows and plenty of whitespace - to differentiate conceptually separate items.

But if you're not careful, at some point you'll end up with a page that looks like the front page of Rapidshare, and that makes your document unuseable. People have a specific expectation of how information is presented. It may be difficult to find your spot again on a page of uniform text after you've looked away, but it's a skill that anybody who has ever read a book in more than one sitting possesses.

The basic dichotomy of documentation is that of a manual versus a help file. People are meant to read a manual, and look up a help file. Naturally they won't actually sit down with your manual in front of a cozy fire one winter's evening (unless it is to ceremonially convert the printout to kindling), but there's a method to the madness. Manuals are things people look up when they have no other choice, and if they're that stumped, you might as well force them to read through more than half a paragraph and learn something useful. They're sufficiently open to it at that point. Of course, it is possible to make a manual useless by neglecting effective navigation (of which markup is a part), but it's a fine line that you will simply have to find, by talent or skill.

But a page full of needless whitespace, seemingly arbitrary indentation and drop-shadow fonts is a greater crime still. Finding data on a sheet of plain text is difficult enough, but ask the human mind to parse an overly formatted page at a glance, and it will shut down due to insufficient computing resources. This is the One-Click What? Phenomenon, or, if you wish, the WTF effect.

I'm probably over-simplifying, and I know my boss (who reads this blog) will kick my ass for saying this, but if you can't make your page readable using MS Word's default headings 1 through 3 and paragraph breaks, then you're simply not trying hard enough.

Estonica: Presidential

The term of the current President of Estonia is running out soon. They're electing a new one.

There are currently two contenders. The incumbent is a familiar figure who used to run the country in the Soviet days, and was then involved in the liberation movement. The other is an American expat, son of WWII-era refugees, that came back to Estonia after 1991.

The Soviet guy is supported by the party that controls the capital and the biggest single chunk of the popular vote. The American guy is supported by the ruling coalition. The smear campaigns have been in full force for weeks.

Here's the kicker: not only doesn't the President of Estonia have any political power, but he's not even elected directly. The parliament had its chance, but the coalition fell three votes short of the necessarity majority. The opposition simply didn't show up for the vote, afraid of renegades in their own ranks. Now it's up to a caucus made up of representatives from local governments. The opposition carried the capital and gave no delegates to the coalition; the coalition carried the second biggest city and returned the favor. Some local councils were deadlocked and failed to elect any representatives at all.

Estonia is a multiparty parliamentary republic where prime ministers don't make it from one general election to the next. It's small enough that the politicians are kept in check more or less effectively. There isn't really a significant difference in platforms, and a voter's choice comes down simply to who you dislike less.

As a result, politics in Estonia is an inconsequential soap opera, with a familiar cast of fumbling characters. You can observe it with curiosity or incredulity. Or even annoyance.

Estonia's national football team has a specific pattern for home games: they look really good, have a bunch of feasible shots on goal. Ocasionally they'll pull off a nil-nil draw against Croatia or a noble 0-1 loss against Portugal, off an interdimensional fluke in their defense. You always feel like they're about to pull off something awesome, a brilliant flash of competence. And then they inexplicably crash and burn.

Estonia's political scene is much the same.

Paragraph Twelve

Everyone is equal before the law. No one shall be discriminated against on the basis of nationality, race, colour, sex, language, origin, religion, political or other opinion, property or social status, or on other grounds.

The incitement of national, racial, religious or political hatred, violence or discrimination shall, by law, be prohibited and punishable. The incitement of hatred, violence or discrimination between social strata shall, by law, also be prohibited and punishable.

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia

The reason I talk about America so much is because it's fascinating. It's all around us - in culture, commerce, politics... It's put a lot of effort in positioning itself as a beacon, a frontrunner and the pinnacle of Western civilization.

Then you look more closely, and lo: something's wrotten in this fine country. I'm reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, and I see that it's been there for a while. But I wasn't aware of it growing up. All through the Nineties, America had a massively positive image around these parts. USAID, the Clinton government's support for Estonian independence and integration into the First World (OK, they could've been a bit faster to recognize us, but we'll let it slide) - it was easy to become enamoured with the faraway land of possibility. So what if their movies were silly.

I spent a month in South California in 2003; but by that time I was already heavily critical of America. So many things about it seemed infuriatingly, self-evidently backwards - not just different from the way they were at home, but wrong. I've never put much faith in the political leaders of my country, even the ones involved in the restoration of independence - but at least they were doing things right in a general way! But what I knew of America, of how it works on a real-life level, was disturbing and occasionally disgusting. The American dream that was so dear to me, had shattered.

More and more I found myself thinking, "What have you bastards done to my America?"

The reason this happened was that great American invention (by a British scientist in a Swiss research facility) - the World Wide Web. By the late 90s I had a Celeron 300 and a dialup account, and most people I met were Americans.

Because the audience of the Internet was (and remains, in vital terms) predominantly American, so was the content. But content is ubiquitous. Suddenly I, and thousands - then millions - of people like me had access to something which was previously Proprietary and Confidential. By natural means information and opinion had previously been segregated, bound to the western hemisphere. Limited to viewers and participants who took its peculiarities for granted.

But I didn't. The more I absorbed the real America, the more I was astonished, then outraged. This is the City on the Hill? What the fuck?

The Internet had exposed foreign markets to that which the American promotional machine did not want getting out - the American mindset. A mindset represented in - and now, heavily affected by - the Constitution, the prime law of the realm. Here in Estonia we've got a rather shiny new one, from 1992, and we like to show it off. It was written by a bunch of folks who had just liberated themselves from decades of occupation by a foreign agressors (and centuries by various others, before a short stab at independence in the 1920s-1940s). They had to make it work as the basis for the functioning of the entire country.

And the Americans are also quite proud of their Constitution. Oldest democracy in the world and all that, the Bill of Rights, liberty and justice for all. I'd skimmed it, and it seemed a trifle quaint, but essentially passable.

Just recently I had one more encounter (not my first) with that curious artefact of American thinking - the dichotomy between the people and the government. Even though in America elections can go down to the level of dog catcher, the government - and particularly the federal government - is seen as a destructive, evil monster, barely tolerated and certainly distrusted.

Now, this is a strange notion to an Estonian. In 15 years of independence, we've never - not once! - had a government last from one set of elections to another. Kicking the PM out of office is a routine affair, and the President doesn't actually meddle in any business of running the country. Hell, our Constitution starts out by stating, right there in Article 1, that the supreme power in the country belongs to its people. It's an idea that seems fundamentally, indisputably right - the only way it ought to be. Yet the Bill of Rights only has it in the 10th Amendment, which says that any power that the federal and state governments don't fancy for themselves gets handed down to the people.

Oh, fine - it's just political pretty talk, and it's the spirit of the Constitution that counts, not the letter. The Constitution is the ultimate expression of the will of the people, right? They've got freedom of speech and the press, religion, trial by jury, even that ridiculous weapons thing - but alright, freedom and all that.

The encounter I mentioned was a reaction to a newspaper article about a man wearing a T-shirt with Arabic writing on it, being kicked off an airplane. This, I said, was preposterous! Another example of the Bush administration and its lackeys spitting on essential civil liberties! The Constitution protects the man's right to self-expression!

The answer, from people who can in no way be considered Bush fans: "Um, no. The Constitution is just for what the government does. Private businesses can refuse service to anyone, for any reason."

Huh?

OK, leave out the fact that airlines as providers of an essential public service have to play by slightly different rules from your local pub. The Constitution is just for the government?

Silly undereducated American, I thought. And went on Google to check the text of the Bill of Rights and find the right quote.

Except it wasn't there. The 1st Amendment says that Congress can't make a law that legalizes discrimination - but it doesn't mean discrimination is illegal! Hell, I understood why the text didn't mention equality on the basis of skin colour. But actually, if you read the text, the Constitution does not prohibit discrimination!

The main body of the US Constitution deals with checks & balances. They didn't bother thinking of the people until they were done with it, and had to amend it. Even then, there is no fundamental national law equivalent to the quote at the beginning of this article - something that you could not imagine a modern, democratic, free country and society without.

A nation's Constitution is a reflection of its mentality. It's quite obvious that the American mentality could use a major overhaul. Perhaps they should start with a new Consitution, one that lives up to all the hype.

Independence Day

On August 20th, 1991, Estonia declared independence from the Soviet Union.

The Baltic Way was a live chain of people across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, two years earlier. It is a spectacularly inspirational sight, proving that great things can still be accomplished, in our time, without violence.

The ruins of the evil empire, traversed by the people who decided they were not going to stand for it any more.

Joel wants you...

...to want to do the dishes.

It's a reference to the trailer for a movie with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaugh, and it has been receiving its fair share of ridicule and incredulity on forums netwide. Joel, on the other hand, is an owner of a software development company, and something important in the IT blog community. And today's article recycles one of Joel's old points, that is: your employees should want to do a good job.

Now, part of Joel's point I agree with. It's ridiculous to use some sort of metrics to determine performance, because yes, people will either learn to cheat the system, or resent it and leave. Hell, I'm a technical writer, and mine is one of the hardest jobs in IT to measure (cf. old Dilbert comic about Tina the Tech Writer being told her performance review is based on lines of text: "Welcome to Tina's hourly newsletter, where I compare our products to various types of wood...").

However, no less ridiculous is the expectation that your employees will do a good job because they want to do a good job. This is one of those fundamental differences between Americans and Europeans that cannot be breached; it is things like this that make every Brit with enough experience to form an opinion to whole-heartedly declare that they'd be perfectly happy living in Estonia but would never for the life of them move to the States. And damn the language barrier.

The puritan roots of American mentality have grown into a work ethic where labour is its own reward. Joel may be a good employer by US standards - health insurance, benefits, good working conditions, good wages - but he still seems to think in the back of his mind that employment comes down to giving somebody enough money so that they don't get distracted by the vagaries of life from that which forms the essense of their existence: programming.

I'm sorry, but no. You are not defined by your job. Your job is something that you do for eight hours every weekday so that you can spend the rest of your time doing something you like. Now, eight hours every weekday is still a lot of time, so it makes sense to pick something you're good at and don't mind doing. But not more than that.

As a freelance translator and journalist, I have had to develop a fairly strict code of ethics. An employment contract is an agreement by two sides to take certain actions which are useful for the other party. As such, I will honour my commitment and as long as I am treated professionally by the employer, I will behave professionally towards them. (Incidentally, if I am not treated professionally, I feel no obligation whatsoever towards the employer; it's a necessary attitude as translators suffer some of the worst abuse in white-collar industries.) The company I work for is entitled to my professionalism, but not to my loyalty. They don't pay me nearly enough to get my loyalty.

And if I am asked, or volunteer, to go above and beyond that which is required of me by contract, so that the company may benefit, I fully expect to be appreciated. If I've spent a week working nights to get a feature ready for the next release, you're goddamn right I want a bonus.

The one, single, undiluted reason I spend fourty hours a week at the office is so that I can receive enough money to pay my expenses and have enough left over for an extra gig of RAM, a trip to Stockholm and a few pints with my friends. Now, my professionalism allows me to feel satisfaction for doing a good job, but if I were to win the Scandinavian lottery, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat, and I would not write a manual ever again.

Just as Jennifer wants Vince to want to do the dishes, so does Joel want you to want to work hard. Uh-huh, and in that case I want Joel to want to give me a large bag of money and a purple unicorn. Or, to quote Philo Janus commenting on Ms. Aniston's line: "Well, I want you to want to swallow!"