Updating existing documentation

Suggestion

D.M. wrote:

https://www.super-memory.com/archive/help16/faq/begin.htm : There is no point at which an item is memorized "for good" provides a much more useful information than https://help.supermemo.org/wiki/Glossary:Dismiss

Reply

You could help providing a new formulation for "dismiss" in Help. The FAQ you call useful speaks of a slightly different angle. How would you formulate "Dismiss" to include that what you consider valuable? Thank you for your precious time

Customer Comment

This is a good thought. Its expression is does not come across positive and upbeat. Maybe this:

"Thanks for your suggestion/recommendation. SuperMemo values highly suggestions and recommendations for improving our documentation. As non-native speakers of English (our documentation language of record is English to effectively provide the widest possible access) we especially value the input from native English speakers. We would very much like to hear your suggestions for usage of "dismiss" in any context, in SuperMemo documentation. Thank you for contributing. First name."

The other problem is that you announce somewhere that you only update documentation every few years and have a long cut-off period. That basically says: Submit it if you wish and it may be reflected in the next documentation update... .. .

You may want to engage customers by having an "Documentation English User Editorial Board". Get the members of that to streamline English editing of documentation. This increase the number of updates edited with constant resources.

Precious is a word with several meanings (dictionaries almost always neglect to define them all) so it should be avoided in technical documents. Precious can always be used in a - compound noun- like - precious metals. If you need an adjective use valuable. I would not use one. It could be misinterpreted or communicate the wrong completed thought "as opposed to the worthless part of your time".

All the best,

D.M.

Comment on documentation procedures

• documentation wiki is and can be updated at any time. Usually it is open to user editing. Currently user editing is disabled for technical reasons
• half of users of SuperMemo are not-native. This is why that we look for a balance between "natural" and "easy" English. We hope to get edits from both sides
• "Documentation English User Editorial Board" sounds pretty ambitious. Usually we have just a few volunteers ready to contribute. We rather do not revert edits, but may correct minor spelling, grammatical or factual errors
• this sentence seems to express exactly the meaning we want to convey: "Knowledge you store in SuperMemo might belong to your most precious data on your hard disk!". It seems stronger than valuable data. However, we do not mind if users provide corrections like that
• please see if the new glossary entry for Dismiss is better than the previous variant

A user's comment on this discussion

This is an outdated program in a half-legacy state. The language style using to create the documentation isn't a top priority issue that needs to be addressed first. Now it's more important to replace Internet Explorer with something modern, robust and secure, fix tons of old-known bugs and to polish the program well. Just look at one of their know-how ideas - incremental video. My God, it barely works! Or the audio controls? It can freeze SuperMemo easily if you accidentally click on the play button more than once. The really serious problem here is the bad technical state of this program.

Unclear bug notes

• there have been no reports of sound component hanging up (there was an issue in older versions in older Windows with continuous play of short sounds that would cause memory leaks)
• incremental video seems to work ok in SuperMemo 18 in Windows 10. Older scripts might not work due to the change in YouTube API
• Internet Explorer imports are optional, and reliance on mshtml.dll is secure as all scripts or ActiveX use is filter out form code

Apart from the request to remove dependence on Internet Explorer, the suggestions cannot be worked on due to insufficient detail! The program and the documentation are worked on independently and there is not competition for priority. The allocations are proportional to needs and feedback.