Package: pmailq
Version: 0.5-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
The package description for pmailq has generally good content, but is
written in obviously non-native-speaker English.
> Description: postfix mail queue manager
Here and below: the binary and the packagename may both be "postfix",
but the canonical upstream form of the name of this MTA is "Postfix".
> pmailq parses the output of command from postfix (postqueue -p). It permits
This first sentence has a missing article or something; but it's not
clear why readers would want to know the exact Postfix-specific form
of the command anyway. Why not stick to the standard sendmail command
that this package is named after? After all, it's easier to invoke it
as (/usr/bin/)mailq than as /usr/sbin/postqueue -p.
> to perform some actions on a group of entries in queue (like removing or
"Permits to perform" is ungrammatical: "permit" requires a Noun Phrase
object. You could say "it permits admins to perform", but it's
simpler just to throw out the inappropriate reference to permission
(performing these actions was never forbidden). Why not just carry on
from the first line where pmailq "parses" input by saying that it "can
perform" these actions?
"Some actions" is unidiomatic; just drop the "some". On the other
hand, "in queue" should be "in the queue". (While I'm here, I'd
better apologise on behalf of the native English-speaking world for
the spelling of the word "queue".)
"Like" is idiomatic but informal (unless you literally mean "similar
to but not actually including"); use "such as".
"Removing or displaying them in a machine readable format" is a
malformed elision - it implies you're removing them in a
machine-readable format as well as displaying them that way. The fix
is to put back the elided "them" after "removing".
Pedantically, there should probably be a hyphen in "machine-readable"
when it occurs as an attributive modifier.
> displaying them in a machine readable format). They are selected by applying
> filters (wildcards are allowed) on criterias like email address, error
> message
There's a factual problem here: wildcards are only allowed for the
pattern-matches, not when filtering by size or queue status (I can't
list all messages where the size matches "*666*"). I've tried to
reshuffle things in my version to make that clear.
Going back to language problems: "criterias" is a malformed plural.
Criteria is already the plural of criterion. If the word is obscure
enough for people to get this wrong, we should probably try to avoid
using it.
Next we get another inappropriate use of "like"; here it's worse, in
that the list given appears in fact to be exhaustive.
"Email address" is unclear. In fact it filters only on (remaining)
recipient email addresses, not the sender address.
> from SMTP server, message size, mail status in queue.
It's a bit redundant to specify that the server that Postfix is
receiving error messages from about email is an SMTP server.
Missing conjunction at the end of the list (filtering by X, Y, or Z).
And my most pedantic nitpick of all: there's a surplus trailing blank
line.
My suggested replacement text:
| Description: Postfix mail queue manager
| pmailq parses the output of the Postfix mailq command, and can perform
| actions on a group of entries in the queue (such as removing them, or
| listing them in a machine-readable format). They can be selected by
| size, by queue status, and by pattern matching (with wildcards) on
| recipient addresses and server error messages.
Wait... what kind of action can you perform via pmailq *besides*
removing or listing messages? Okay, so there are two different kinds
of "listing", but wouldn't it be quicker just to catalogue all three?
So on second thoughts I recommend:
| Description: Postfix mail queue manager
| pmailq processes the output of the Postfix mailq command, and can list,
| parse (machine-readably), or delete queued messages in batches. They can
| be selected by size, by queue status, and by pattern matching (with
| wildcards) on recipient addresses and server error messages.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
diff -ru pmailq-0.5.pristine/debian/control pmailq-0.5/debian/control
--- pmailq-0.5.pristine/debian/control 2011-01-05 14:22:17.000000000 +0000
+++ pmailq-0.5/debian/control 2013-09-26 10:31:06.043861374 +0100
@@ -11,10 +11,8 @@
Package: pmailq
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}, python (>= 2.3), postfix
-Description: postfix mail queue manager
- pmailq parses the output of command from postfix (postqueue -p). It permits
- to perform some actions on a group of entries in queue (like removing or
- displaying them in a machine readable format). They are selected by applying
- filters (wildcards are allowed) on criterias like email address, error message
- from SMTP server, message size, mail status in queue.
-
+Description: Postfix mail queue manager
+ pmailq processes the output of the Postfix mailq command, and can list,
+ parse (machine-readably), or delete queued messages in batches. They can
+ be selected by size, by queue status, and by pattern matching (with
+ wildcards) on recipient addresses and server error messages.
