Friday, October 12, 2007

Snapshots from my Worklife

We're working with a new software program here, and I'm reading through the technical how-to material that was sent to us by the software creator.

There are typos, certainly, which I find even more annoying now that I do this for a living, but what stopped me in my tracks was this:

"Help - Takes you to frequently asked questions, an instructive knowledge base, and other tools to aid you."

I'm sorry... WHAT THE FUCK IS "an instructive knowledge base"?

Instructive Knowledge Base.

Dear lord.

3 comments so far. What are your thoughts?

Unknown said...

... it's a knowledge base for instructional purposes, rather than for reference purposes. "Knowledge base" refers to a type of software tool. It may be an awkward phrasing, but in my experience it's a standard industry phrasing, and not a particularly knew one. (We were writing a reference knowledge base for helpdesk workers back when I worked in instructional computing, like eight years ago.)

Unknown said...

"new". not "knew". not enough coffee yet this morning.

Kameron Hurley said...

And this just seems like the stupidest, most clunky phrasing for this. It just doesn't... it doesn't MEAN anything.

The impression I got from the documents is that "instructional knowledge base" meant that it had how-to instructions.

There's a better, simpliar way of saying that... maybe I'm just annoyed because much of what I do here is make things as simple and easy to understand as possible. ha