From owner-freebsd-doc Tue Oct 29 10:29:36 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9CDF37B401 for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 10:29:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.comcast.net (smtp.comcast.net [24.153.64.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D8CB43E6E for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 10:29:35 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from zettel@acm.org) Received: from acm.org (bgp966828bgs.derbrn01.mi.comcast.net [68.41.109.203]) by mtaout02.icomcast.net (iPlanet Messaging Server 5.1 HotFix 1.4 (built Aug 5 2002)) with ESMTP id <0H4R005SKA12MX@mtaout02.icomcast.net> for doc@FreeBSD.org; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:29:29 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 13:29:16 -0500 From: Len Zettel Subject: Don't do that! To: doc@FreeBSD.org Message-id: <3DBED37C.8060101@acm.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-Accept-Language: en-us, en User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020530 Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org There are a number of places in the Handbook that admonish "don't do 'x'". While this is no doubt intended to be helpful it really doesn't furnish much information and talks down to the reader in what strikes me as a very demeaning manner. I suggest the following alternative: "[WARNING:] Doing "x" {will | could | or | might} make "y" happen. This demonstrates confidence that the reader is an adult capable of assimilating information, asessing risks, and behaving in a way that will best meet her needs and wants (which the manual writer can never, by the nature of the situation, know). -LenZ- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message