Re: Request for English debconf template review

[Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 10:35:13AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> Mark Brown <broonie@sirena.org.uk> wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 29, 2007 at 11:10:52PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> > > It's not arrogance, it's that anyone who doesn't already know that Pluggable
> > > Authentication Modules == PAM also doesn't /need/ to know that in order to
> > > understand the debconf question.  Actually, for this reason I'm inclined to

> > I'd also expect that most users who do know what's going on will
> > understand the term PAM without knowing what it expands to.

> One of the complaints about debian installs and upgrades that I've
> heard most often at user group meetings is that the debconf questions
> use jargon that people don't understand.  I'd like to reduce those and
> expanding terms like PAM helps to explain them.

I understand and agree with this sentiment, I just don't think that a
critical-priority debconf prompt where space is at a premium is the right
place to take a stand on this.  The importance of keeping debconf questions
down to a single screen cannot be overstated.   I've been a first-hand
witness to a network engineer with years of Linux experience managing to
break a mysql server install on upgrade (in woody days), not because he
didn't /bother/ reading the debconf note explaining the changes to the
default port configuration, but because the dialog interface happened to
break the page at the end of a paragraph and didn't make it obvious enough
that he /needed/ to scroll in order to read the whole thing!

Granted, he has a chronic bad habit of speed reading, but if he can make
this mistake, so can any user.  So yes, I think brevity trumps acronym
expansion in this context.

In things like README.Debian or package long descriptions, though, I'm with
you 100%.

So the good news is that out of 5 translations (covering multiple language
families) I've gotten in now for these debconf templates, all of them fit
within the one-page limit except for German (heh).

> Most of those who understand the term PAM without knowing its
> expansion have only learnt its meaning from seeing it in similar
> contexts several times, a sort of statistical jargon-busting.  We can
> do better at educating our community...

Sure.  OTOH, if the text had said "services that use libpam" instead of
"services that use PAM", would you have had the same objection to the use of
"libpam" as an unexpanded token?

Hmm, now that I think of it, had I used 'libpam' I wouldn't have needed to
repeat it later and the template would've been even shorter... doh :)

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
vorlon@debian.org                                   http://www.debian.org/