Some local, state and federal legislative and regulatory bodies are stumbling over alligators as they begin slogging down the muddy information roadways. One such amphibian is that marking systems for proposed changes to ordinances, regulations and statutes do not translate well into electronic form.
When printed, italics or underscoring customarily indicates text proposed to be added and strikethru indicates text proposed for deletion. Sometimes crucial modifications involve nothing more than adding or deleting punctuation, or changing a single character (e.g., from singular to plural, or changing a single word, such as "may" to "shall.")
But standard ASCII text codes don't allow for italics or underscoring, and many word-processors and computer printers can't handle strikethru. Thus, conventions must be adopted to "dumb down" illustrative printed text to shoehorn it into the real world of online communications. Unfortunately, some of the designers of such conversions don't seem to be experienced with the diversity of global online conventions.
Three kinds of text are involved: (1) current text to remain unchanged, (2) new text proposed to be inserted and (3) old text proposed to be deleted.
BAD SOLUTIONS
When everyone uses the same system (e.g., legislators using an internal legislative system or customers using a commercial information service) then almost any standard can be adopted. However, adjusting to national diversity is a tad more difficult.
Keep in mind that much of the value of making proposed changes available on the public nets is to allow public discussion about them. Recipients need to be able to add their own comments to the proposals during net-based public debate. Some commercial, legislative and agency systems are considering - or have adopted - standards that don't fit well with the nets' established conventions. For example:
- Current text to be added or deleted is sometimes delimited by square brackets (e.g., "the text after this point [is to be deleted] while this later text remains.")
Bad idea. It's meaning is not self-evident and requires explanation. Worse still, people on the nets conventionally interject their own comments into the text of a discussion by surrounding them with square brackets. They also indicate that short summaries are replacing lengthy text by enclosing them in square brackets - just like indirect quotes in newspaper articles.
- Angle brackets are sometimes used to delimit text that is to be added or deleted (e.g., " this little piggy stayed home.")
Doubly bad. Online, a right angle-bracket is typically used at line-starts to indicate lines that are being quoted from someone else's message that is under discussion. This is so standard that it is automated in the "reply" command in many e-mail programs. Furthermore, angle brackets are often used to insert informal comments or "digital body language" in the midst of text - such as "" or "
- Some agencies indicate text to be added by entirely capitalizing it.
Awful! It's hard to read. It can be ambiguous (e.g., "SUBSECTION (B)(2)" might mean to add "subsection (B)(2)" or "subsection (b)(2)" and it's unclear whether "subsection" should be capitalized. And all caps is considered "shouting" on the net; very amateurish.
Adopting conventions such as these illustrate that the adopting agency either doesn't know how to communicate on the net or doesn't care - neither are good messages to broadcast to citizens.
ONE SOLUTION AMONG MANY
There are numerous alternatives. The key is to use some ASCII characters that, unlike the above examples, are not already in widespread use for other purposes. Here is a solution using curly brackets that is both self-evident and does not conflict with established net conventions:
"In this sentence, {+ this text is being added; +} this text is unchanged {- and this text is being deleted -}."
Pass this along to your agency's MIS director and to your state and federal legislative and regulatory leaders. We will all be glad you did.
Jim Warren received the James Madison Freedom of Information award, the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in its first year. He founded the Computers, Freedom & Privacy conferences and InfoWorld magazine. Warren lives near Woodside, Calif. e-mail/jwarren@well.com.
