"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
> On 03/17/2016 01:36 PM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>> +1 what? Are you saying this patch is good? I don't think it is: the
>> previous sentence is written in third person, and the following ones are
>> currently in third person, but the patch changes the following sentences
>> to first person without changing the first one to match. If he or she
>> (or they) want this updated, I think we should at least make an effort
>> of keeping it as consistent as it is today.
> The wording was Meh to begin with. If you would like me to spend some
> time cleaning up the paragraph as a whole, I will do that.
I think it's important that we fix these issues in a way that doesn't
degrade the readability of the prose, and that doesn't call attention
to itself as "hey, we're being so politically correct!". We're trying
to convey technical information in a way that does not distract the
reader from the technical content. Sexist language is a distraction
for some, in-your-face non-sexism (such as made-up pronouns) is a
distraction for others, bad or awkward grammar is a distraction for yet
others. It's not that easy to write prose that manages not to call
attention to itself in any of these ways. But that's what we need to
do, and s/xxx/yyy/g editing that's only thinking about one of these
concerns is unlikely to get us there.
I also concur with Alvaro that fixing these issues one para at a time
is pretty inefficient.
regards, tom lane
