Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 22:19:36 -0400 From: Tom Rhodes <trhodes@FreeBSD.org> To: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@FreeBSD.org> Cc: FreeBSD-doc@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Plea to the doc team Message-ID: <20021004221936.5b91d9b2.trhodes@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20021005020608.GE83766@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <20021004212757.2a7e3227.trhodes@FreeBSD.org> <20021005020608.GE83766@wantadilla.lemis.com>
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On Sat, 5 Oct 2002 11:36:08 +0930
"Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote:
> On Friday, 4 October 2002 at 21:27:57 -0400, Tom Rhodes wrote:
> > Fellow Doc committers and contributers,
> >
> > Its been said over and over the use of 'you' in technical docs looks
> > bad.
>
> Many things have been said over and over. One should not believe all
> statements. Overly terse and obfuscatory language is also
> undesirable.
Heavily undesirable.
>
> > While I'm going to be at working cleaning up the doc tree of bad
> > gammar (run-ons, incorrect use of semicolons, to many useless words
> > and fragments) I'll try to kill the use of 'you'.
>
> You should check spelling and other punctuation too.
I'm doin this, trust me. ;)
>
> > My request is, if you remove the 'you' from documents you can cut
> > down extremly on the amount you type, the amount a reader will read,
> > and documentation size in general. This IMO is a good thing and
> > will also cut down on grammar bogons.
>
> Style is more than verbosity or lack of same.
>
> I'm not heavily involved in the doc project, but I'm seeing too many
> rule-based modifications. Yes, overuse of the second person can be
> annoying, but it must bee seen in context. I'd rather see people
> write documentation which is intelligible and useful rather than
> documentation which merely adheres to certain rules.
To be honest, we have several areas where its easier to read having
less of:
'you must do this. now you must do that. after this has been
done you can do this'
could be reworded to:
'do this, then this, then
this, and its finished'
The other day I read an area in our handbook which had alot of
useless words and it was so long and dull. Much of our docs should
be correct and on the mark. Not filled with 'padding' if you will.
;)
>
> Greg
> --
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--
Tom (Darklogik) Rhodes
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