David Prévot wrote:
> Philip Hands a écrit :
>> In the sentence:
>>
>> The mailing lists have been created to promote the use and development of
>> Debian.
>>
>> the "have been created" seems a little clumsy to me and should probably
>> be replaced with "were created", although I'd actually instead use
>> "exist" because that emphasises that the purpose continues rather than
>> being only an initial intention. I'm not sure if that would be clear to
>> a non-native reader though:
>>
>> The mailing lists exist to promote the use and development of Debian.
Agreed.
>> I'm a little suspicious of the "the use and development of" bit as well,
>> since it seems that promote's subject is a little complicated. How
>> about:
>>
>> The mailing lists exist to promote Debian's development and use.
I'd prefer "of Debian" here, but this seems the more logical order to
put them in (that is, "the development and use of Debian").
>> or alternatively:
>>
>> The mailing lists exist to encourage both the use and the development
>> of Debian.
I don't think we need the added "both the X and the Y" bit.
Do we mean "promote/encourage" in a sort of PR sense (the lists
exist as a place for morale-building and good publicity) or are we
talking about more direct benefits (coordinating work, etc)? If the
latter we might prefer "advance", or "foster", or "further".
>> these should be looked at by some non-natives English readers to see
>> which they find clearest.
>>
>> Cheers, Phil.
>
> Your proposals seems fine in my non-native PoV, but I believe that the
> initial wording and the following ones miss the goal of the bug title
> (at least for the third requirement: “helpful”).
"Constructive" and "helpful" seem almost synonymous in this context
(at least alongside something as clearly different as "on-topic").
The only way I can see that you'd be able to accuse a posting of being
"unhelpful" without it already being "non-constructive" is if its
usefulness was spoiled by a typo or some such, and that's not
something we're trying to outlaw here anyway. You could yoke the two
words together - something like "off-topic messages, unhelpful,
non-constructive behaviour, and other abuses" - but it mostly just
complicates things.
(The third requirement I might have expected to see in this line-up is
"polite", but you'd have to water it down to something like
"non-sociopathic" in this case, and besides, changing the content
is outside d-l-e jurisdiction.)
> Could someone please help us and propose a simple wording to promote
> “on-topic, constructive and helpful” requirements for mailing lists usage?
Looking at the whole line:
<li>The mailing lists have been created to
promote the use and development of Debian.
Non-constructive or off-topic messages,
along with other abuses are not welcome.</li>
there's also a comma missing after "abuses"... so my best effort is:
<li>The mailing lists exist to
foster the development and use of Debian.
Non-constructive or off-topic messages,
along with other abuses, are not welcome.</li>
--
JBR
PS: debian-curiosa exists as a place to send off-topic stuff; is
there a debian-demotivational? Wait, if there is, don't tell me.
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