Plain Words

At 21:45 on Saturday a count finished across 389 files in seven places where a person reads what the studio writes. It found 645 words from our private vocabulary and 49 bare work numbers standing in sentences as the names of things. The task to run it had been filed eleven minutes earlier.

The rule came first, written that day. Write so a smart person who has never seen our system understands it on the first read and could find the thing without asking. Drop the house words. Never name a piece of work or a decision by its number. Say which app and which screen a thing lives on, and say why it was decided. The reason Wayne gave was simple. A number means nothing to a reader without the lookup, and a nickname means nothing without the history.

What the count found

The most used word was “the slot”, 95 times. On the studio’s own admin site it means two different things on neighbouring screens: a seat for a product being built, and a time for a post to go out. “The shelf” had the same problem, parked ideas in one place and ready-made posts in another. The studio’s Mac app still titles its decisions screen with the old nickname.

• Admin site: 219 old words
• Mac app: 255 old words, 1 bare number
• Content engine: 38 old words, 22 bare numbers
• This site’s templates: 1 old word

This site is not exempt. The post that went out on this site at 22:42 on Saturday was written the night before the rule, and it uses a decision number and a nickname for the decisions screen four times. It went out as written. The next one is this one.

“The floor” turned up once. It is going quietly.

A check that reports before it blocks

By 21:42 there was a check that reads a file and lists every old word and bare number in text meant for a person, with the line and the sentence. It ships as a report. It can be told to fail any published piece that doesn’t pass, and that switch is off.

The reason is in the first reading. Saturday’s morning note to Wayne had 217 hits, most of them decision numbers in the sections a machine writes below the summary. Turned on that night, the block would have failed every morning note until its writer was fixed. By 22:05 the first fix had landed: a new writer for that note, a decision template with six plain sections, and the plain words carried into the prompt every writer reads.

Shorthand is fast for the two people who share it. Plain words are slower to write and longer to read, and they let anyone else in. The plan for the week keeps both in view. Each screen changes beside its old wording, the admin site changes only when Wayne says so, and the work is due on Saturday the 31st.

A number means nothing without the lookup.