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On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 6:10 AM, Stroller |
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<stroller@××××××××××××××××××.uk> wrote: |
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> |
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> On 19 Jan 2009, at 20:36, Grant Edwards wrote: |
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> |
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>> On 2009-01-19, Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb@×××.edu> wrote: |
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>> |
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>>> I would favor the original (with Alan McKinnon's change). It is |
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>>> somewhat wordy but this issue has caused several users grief and the |
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>>> (admittedly repetitive) original wording makes it very clear what must |
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>>> be done and gives some idea of what caused the change. |
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>> |
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>> Being somewhat repetitive was was intentional. It's sort of |
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>> like the redundant information in an error-correction code. It |
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>> reduces the liklyhood of being misunderstood - |
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> |
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> It's also more likely to get skipped over & to cause busy administrators' |
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> eyes to glaze over. |
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> |
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> I'm all for being explicit, but verbosity for its own sake is not beneficial |
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> - with excessively long messages I often tend to find that I have to read |
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> them over several times to make sure I'm understanding it properly. "WTF?!?! |
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> Are you REALLY telling me the same thing three times?" |
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> |
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> A short concise note is more likely to make sense and get the point across. |
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> Assuming it is written in English - which the original, of course, was not - |
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> a short note will feel logical to the reader and he or she will know |
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> immediately how to respond to it. |
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> |
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> But, hey! It's your bug. File it. The longer it's left unfiled the less |
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> relevant this discussion becomes. You asked for opinions - just make sure |
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> the subject line of your bug report explains the problem clearly ;). "ewarn |
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> message is poor English, doesn't make sense" is my best suggestion. |
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> |
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> Stroller. |
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|
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Maybe a compromise would be a short "you should do the following steps |
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now" message suffixed with a "for more information, follow this link |
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(to a bug/forum post) that explains why". |