[Pkg-samba-maint] Bug#171177: Back on debconf templates wording

[Christian Perrier]

Quoting Steve Langasek (vorlon at debian.org):

> I agree that avoiding use of first and second person forms is normative for
> English *in the sciences*.  Computer use isn't part of "the sciences", and I
> think a significant majority of Debian users don't have a background in the
> sciences - to everyone else, this style of language is artificial, and there
> are cases where avoiding the use of personal pronouns loses us relevant
> information.
> 
> FWIW, I just fired up a Windows Server 2003 VM to find examples of personal
> pronouns in the system messages.  It didn't take long at all - as soon as

Keep it for samba package development..:-)

> the VM finished booting, it immediately gave me a pop-up using *first*
> person, saying that "*We* have created a problem report".  Finding
> second-person usage was similarly trivial; the first option I chose from the
> "Administrative Tools" menu tells me that:
> 
>   Certain features, such as Remote Control and Connect, work only when
>   _you_ run this tool from a Terminal Services client session.

I think there is a strong difference between the use of "you" to
address the user....which is something I'm OK with (otherwise, one has
to use passive voice, which is something unnatural)....and the
possessive pronoums (ahem....) which I find inappropriate.

> And System properties shows:
> 
>   Windows uses the following information to identify your computer on the
>   network.
> 
> You may of course dispute whether Windows 2003 is a "professional" OS, but
> the long and short of it is that there's not really any precedent for saying
> that this is a characteristic of professional OSes.

Sigh. I was sincerely convinced that one wouldn't have found this in a
Windows install.....so, you're defeating my arguments, I have to
admit.

I still think that such occurrences should remain rare and wording
should make it clear that computers/servers are very often not the
interacting user's ones. So a balance has to be found between such
possessive forms and more neutral wording.

In the example you're using, I don't see any reason for "Windows uses
the following information to identify THIS computer on the network" to
be worse.....and one should note they still took care to not use
"YOUR" network...

I think we can settle on avoiding such possessive form without it to
be ruled out entirely, particularly when avoiding it would make things
less clear.

In the case of the Windows registry used in our debconf templates, I
think that "your" is not very well suited, indeed: most of the time,
the involved Windows machine is not "my" machine but rather some
random user's one....but, again, I won't fight on this.




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