Re: [RFR] templates://phpbb3/{phpbb3.templates}

[Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk>]

David Prévot wrote:
> Please find attached the current templates (that shouldn't evolved until
> Squeeze is released), and last Jean-Marc thoughts about them:
> 
> 1) There's always small stuff like sometimes we say
> 
>   user "admin"
> 
> then later we say
> 
>   the admin user
> 
> Maybe one should choose one and stay with it.

In principle they're saying two subtly different things.  It's
clearer with passwords rather than usernames - compare:

  I entered the password "standard".

  I entered the standard password.

Users are more likely than passwords to have "transparent" names,
but the analogy still holds.  The name of the phpBB admin user could
easily be "root" or "phpbb" or something; stating it explicitly when
it's first introduced is helpful.  Subsequently you can expect
readers to remember that "the admin user" is indeed the one named
"admin". 

(Except of course that the reader may not have seen the first
question, if it was asked at a lower priority.  What's the easiest
way of checking for that?)
 
> 2) "password and its confirmation do not match" -> "do not" or "did not"?

Unless the strings have somehow changed since the comparison was
performed, either.  They both feel like idiomatic English to me.

In this sort of case, it's a good idea to stick to whatever wording
happens to have been used in similar templates in other packages,
since that way the localisation teams get to recycle their
translations, too.  Last time this sort of template came up on
d-l-e, Christian Perrier suggested copying from debian-installer:

 Type: error
 _Description: Password input error
  The two passwords you entered were not the same. Please try again.

> 3) "Should the phpBB admin password be set or reset now?"
>
> "set or reset" -> maybe there is a shorter formulation for that.

There's "(re)set", but it seems fussy.  How about a complete change:

  _Description: Configure the phpBB admin password?

(This makes it more like some other templates I've seen.)
-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package