vaporware ecommit

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

Kragen Sitaker wrote:
> phrases in all caps inside running text,

Shouting is wrong, always?

>   strings of exclamation marks and question marks,

On friendly mailing lists, this is sometimes common but innocuous.

> profanity,

Why the fuck is that a fucking problem that you don't fucking want to read
it?

:) * .5

I have met many intelligent people who simply communicate that way because
it's the way they were raised.

> and similar trespasses against readability indicate that the sender of the
> message doesn't care to spend a few extra seconds to make the message more
> readable.

I agree that this is a problem, but you really want to filter these people
out?  Why not score them low?

> - use of "...", "etc.",

I don't see these as inherently problematic.


> or "and such",

like "bagels and such"?  :)


> use of mindless verbiage ("the fact that", "at this time", "continues to",
> "may wish to", "be viewed", "as well as", "in support of", "make this
> work"),

Again, I don't see how these phrases can be viewed as inherently
problematic.                                 :)

You may wish to reconsider their inclusion.
     :)

> poor choices of words ("proceed", "implementation", "initiate", "desired",
> "positive", "provided", "producing", "substantial", "basis"),

I don't think these make sense either.

So, if you posted a message indicating saying:

"At this time, since I have received a substantial amount of positive
 feedback, I wish to proceed with producing an implementation of ecommit.  A
 CVS tree will be provided."

You have committed the ultimate sin and should be filtered out?  C'mon,
Kragen, I think this a bit silly.

> lying weasel phrases ("will continue to", "is committed to", "challenge",
> "address . . . issues", "new direction", "making great strides") would all
> lower the intelligence rating of the sender.

What about: 

"This will continue to cause the program to crash, regardless.  We have to
 address this issue."

"The FSF is committed to advancing the cause of free software."

"The Debian team is making great strides to take the distribution in a new
 direction."


Are these all made by stupid posters?


 
> It would be possible to be stupid and inconsiderate without triggering
> these rules, but it is likely that most stupidity and inconsiderateness
> (of the particular variety these filters are designed to catch) would be
> caught.

IMHO, You have made some broad generalizations about many common phrases
that are innocuous.

I think I count as very stupid by these rules.  But, perhaps I am.  :)


Personally, I think a good rule in this area is to reject all mailing list
posted email that isn't spell-checked.  It's a very rude thing to post
misspelled email, considering that spell checkers are readily available to
all email users.

-- 
         -  bkuhn@ebb.org  -  Bradley M. Kuhn  -  bkuhn@gnu.org  -
                          http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn