AEDOK Help (pt 1 of 2)

To Help Or Not To Help Level 3

There was a time when clerks would say, "How may I help you?" And the question was posed with respect. They were paid to help you, to fulfill your requirements and to satisfy your needs. By so doing, they might be able to sell you something, gratefully receive you money, and hope that you return ... so that their employer could continue to employ them.

There were help desks. Help windows. Personell employed who's only job was to help you.

But now, help is issued with arrogance and condescention. With the perspective that, "You can't possibly figure this out on your own, so we'll help you. And for those of you who are more advanced, we have more advanced helpers."

Though the above it is not always true, of course, all too often one does gets the sense of arrogance and condescension. Possibly manipulation thru the .

For these reasons, at AEDOK we pondered at great length whether we should have a section labeled help. We considered an info section, but most of AEDOK is of the information variety already, so that would be a little ambiguous. In the end we realized that the fault was not in the name, but rather, in it's perversion.

So at AEDOK we have help links, and a help section. But that is as far as it goes. We do not provide help, we provide, as best we can, information, which we attempt to both classify and .

After all, if one picks up a technical manual on the operation of a piece of equipment, it will most likely be labeled, Specifications, Instructions, and Usage of The Widget, not Help.

With regard at least to computers (and subsequently the Internet), the origin and progress of this dummy-trend is discussed in depth, - ^{part 2 of 2}.