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docs: remove condescending/scary language #1394

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jorgeorpinel opened this issue Jun 4, 2020 · 10 comments
Closed

docs: remove condescending/scary language #1394

jorgeorpinel opened this issue Jun 4, 2020 · 10 comments
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A: docs Area: user documentation (gatsby-theme-iterative) help wanted Contributors especially welcome type: enhancement Something is not clear, small updates, improvement suggestions

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@jorgeorpinel
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jorgeorpinel commented Jun 4, 2020

Continuation of #608

Here's a good article about this: https://dev.to/meeshkan/how-to-remove-condescending-language-from-documentation-4a5p#what

TL;DR: Presenting something as "extremely simple" (with the intention of selling a benefit) may result in the reader feeling intimidated, esp. if they don't find the topic simple.

Examples

simply
easy
basically
clearly
everyone knows
just
obviously
of course

As you/we can see, ...
It's well known

Some of these have legitimate uses like "just" as a quantifier e.g. just one thing vs. as a qualifier e.g. you can just xyz.

To fix: simply removing it works in most cases. If the intention was to emphasize something, be more descriptive e.g. now this can be easily done -> this feature aims to makes the process easier.

@jorgeorpinel jorgeorpinel added type: enhancement Something is not clear, small updates, improvement suggestions help wanted Contributors especially welcome A: docs Area: user documentation (gatsby-theme-iterative) labels Jun 4, 2020
@kurianbenoy

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@me-heer
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me-heer commented Jun 7, 2020

After running alex, I've quite a lot of occurrences of condescending language, there are too many files to change at once.

Some examples of files that contain condescending language are:
checkout.md
commit.md
config.md
destroy.md
(and many more)

Committing changes to too many files at once might be hard to review. Should I list all the files here and then start fixing one by one, or should I propose multiple changes over a single PR, @jorgeorpinel ?

@jorgeorpinel
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jorgeorpinel commented Jun 7, 2020

Nice tool @mformihir! Let's give #1396 some time first, since it's already trying to address this issue, and come back to your report after that. You may want to find something else to work on in the context of GSoD for now.

@me-heer
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me-heer commented Jun 28, 2020

Should I go for this now, @jorgeorpinel ?

@jorgeorpinel

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@jorgeorpinel
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jorgeorpinel commented Jul 2, 2020

@mformihir actually! Yes, please take on this issue as it has been dropped by the previous person attempting to address it. You can probably start by copying some of the changes in https://github.com/iterative/dvc.org/pull/1396/files (but please review all the comments in that PR because some changes weren't correct).

And again, no need for a huge contribution. A small PR would be best, even if it only addresses this issue partially. Thanks

@me-heer
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me-heer commented Jul 3, 2020

@jorgeorpinel Alright! I'll start out with small ones.

@jorgeorpinel jorgeorpinel added p2-nice-to-have Less of a priority at the moment. We don't usually deal with this immediately. and removed hacktoberfest labels Sep 27, 2021
@jorgeorpinel jorgeorpinel changed the title docs: review and remove condescending language if any docs: review and remove condescending/scary language if any May 18, 2022
@iesahin
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iesahin commented May 18, 2022

We have some simply in docs:
Screen Shot 2022-05-18 at 19 42 12

But not many "of course"s

@iterative iterative deleted a comment from iesahin May 18, 2022
@jorgeorpinel
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jorgeorpinel commented May 18, 2022

No need to include blogs. Ideally DevRel should also adhere to this but they should decide whether to revisit old posts for this (cc @jendefig). Also, some instances of potentially "condescending" words are legitimate i.e. when descriptive (instead of qualitative) e.g. "... done just once" is OK, "just do that" not so much.

But yes we never finished reviewing the docs for this, only the cmd ref was done for now. However in recent content we review (at least myself) we've kept these kinds of phrases out so there shouldn't be too many newer instances.

Want to take the user guide @iesahin ?

Cc @tapadipti @daavoo for Studio/ DVCLive, respectively: up to you whether it's worth it reviewing existing content of just keep in mind for the future.

@jorgeorpinel jorgeorpinel changed the title docs: review and remove condescending/scary language if any docs: remove condescending/scary language May 18, 2022
@jorgeorpinel jorgeorpinel removed the p2-nice-to-have Less of a priority at the moment. We don't usually deal with this immediately. label May 18, 2022
jorgeorpinel added a commit that referenced this issue May 18, 2022
@casperdcl
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idk about the examples listed in the OP as being "scary" but they are definitely too verbose/distracting for docs IMO. Make things sound like an informal blog rather than a concise user-oriented give-me-a-solution-to-my-problem-now style.

@dberenbaum dberenbaum closed this as not planned Won't fix, can't repro, duplicate, stale Oct 17, 2023
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A: docs Area: user documentation (gatsby-theme-iterative) help wanted Contributors especially welcome type: enhancement Something is not clear, small updates, improvement suggestions
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