W3C Style Guide

Avoid talking about mechanics

Announcements of internet services have typically been followed by pages for information about how to use FTP, mail servers, etc, to get at the information. The WWW is designed to make all this unnecessary.

The temptation is to strip out these instructions and leave a link like:

        There is now WWW accessto our large FTP archive which was
        previously only available by FTP, NFS and mail.  This
        collection includes much public domain software and text
        whose copyright has expired.
The web is read by people who don't need or, often, want to know about FTP and NFS - or even WWW! So the following is better:
        Our archive includes much public domain software and text
        whose copyright has expired.

Keeping on the subject of discourse rather than the mechanisms and protocols keeps the text shorter, which means people are more likely to read it.

Even when you are working within the web metaphor, use links, don't talk about them. For example

        You can read more about this in the tutorial which is
        linked to the home page
obviously would be be better as
                The tutorial has more about this.
Another common one is
        The tutorial contains sections on mowing, sharpening the mower,
        and buying a mower.
Give the reader a break, and let him or her jump straight there!
        The tutorial contains sections on mowing, sharpening the mower,
        and 
buying a mower.

(up to within each document, back to readable text)
Tim BL