Lord_Blacksteel
Adventurer
And that's baloney. Particularly since you just read one thing it means: the difference between being able to print it out and slip it into the book it's issuing errata on, and not.
You may not find that to be a meaningful difference, but others do. And it's a clearly measurable, objective difference. Either you can do it without damaging the spine of the book, or you cannot.
In this same thread you yourself acknowledged that 3E and 4E both had errata and both presented it differently and stated that you preferred 3E's format. The format is a big reason that 4E's errata takes up more pages! If 4E had been handled in the same way as 3E then the page count might have been far closer than it was. That's the point I'm trying to make.
No ultimately it had 6 pages. And that's meaningful, because it said a lot for ability to transport your PHB with the errata included, or a separate document.
That's fine - portability is good. Putting it all on an iPad makes it even more portable, if that's your ultimate goal. I'm not really trying to start a fire here but I think if the errata netted out at 6 pages in WOTC's eyes, they wouldn't have published a 3.5.
It was not three years, and I don't think that's what anyone is asking for. I for one mentioned they should put it up for free in the two different formats. Nobody is telling you that you have to go buy it again.
3.0: 2000
3.5: 2003
It was 3 years. You may have continued carrying your 3.0 books around long after that - I did - but that's when the rules changed. This seems like an odd thing to argue about. Again, my point was that I like errata better than I like a "half-edition" a few years down the road due to a perceived need to clean things up. I still have my 3.0 book errata folded in half and tucked into my 3 core books so I know exactly what you're talking about.
There's a huge amount of straw-manning and exaggeration and snark in this thread. Can we please cut it out and just talk? We're talking about about 3-4 preferences here, nobody's preference is inherently superior to anyone else's, and I am looking for a compromise that would satisfy most people. And in return, I've repeatedly got intentional twisting of what I've said, sarcasm, snark, edition warring claims, and dismissal (which is what you just did with your "don't mean anything" because it didn't mean anything TO YOU even though you knew it meant something to many others).
I'm not trying to be snarky, did you miss the smiley? The errata documents for 3E and 4E are different enough that a simple "one has more pages" comparison doesn't have much value and I'm surprised you went that way. If you just want them to meet some arbitrary page count limit they can adjust the formatting and do so regardless of the number or errors in a given book. Heck you can do it yourself if it's a PDF or a simple text file and you need to fit it into a certain finite space.
We're talking about a philosophy of errata. Full repeat of paragraphs vs. summary. Small enough to slip in a book versus large with lots of white space for ease of reading. Delivery methods. Etc.. It's all relevant no matter what they come out with, since I think nobody expects zero errata.
I don't think your request is wrong. I think it's less likely to happen now though, and here's why: They can make errata for any book a nicely formatted PDF and distribute it electronically for free. There's no real incentive for them to do it in a more bare bones way. I see why you would want one, but I'm not sure they are going to see the reason to do "extra work" to make a less-pretty version, plus then they would have two documents to maintain.
Also, as more players use laptops, tablets, and even their phones at the table, I see it only becoming less likely, not more. With options like DDI and the d20PFSRD I'm not sure updating the books in future printings will continue to be a high priority.
How about Option C: For any errata just make a replacement of the full page available. Download, print, rubber cement/tape and you're good to go. If it's electronic it's not any more wasteful than any other approach, those who want context would have it, those who want to keep a book a book and not a book + binder would have that option too. Some of 3E's wholesale rewrites might not fit as easily but 4E's stuff generally wasn't too wordy. Some other game did this but I cannot remember which one ... I'll have to do some digging. Anyway, there's one other thought.