[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/DOCS/xml/en encoding-guide.xml, 1.36, 1.37

[The Wanderer]

On 12/28/2005 04:27 AM, Guillaume Poirier wrote:

> The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> On 12/27/2005 01:34 PM, Diego Biurrun wrote:

>>> Yes, that's even better.
>> 
>> I'll commit the change, along with any others which come from this
>> subthread, if no one beats me to them.
> 
> Yes, please do. I'm no longer feeling competent to decide among the
> different suggested fixes.

Acknowledged. I don't have a lot of time just now, but I should be able
to get to these this evening.

>>> Not necessarily.  I guess this is a matter of personal taste.
>>> Guillaume can commit whatever feels better to him.
>> 
>> Agreed.
> 
> I think it somewhat depends on the length of the sentence, and if the
> sentence is a full sentence with a subject and a verb, I don't mind
> having it capitalized. In your example, I would not capitalize it
> since it's too short, and there's no subject (that I can see).

I don't particularly agree with that, but I'll go with the will of the
majority (if there happens to be any such) in this instance.

>>> I thought about this when I reviewed Guillaume's commit.
>>> 
>>> AFAIU it is considered good style to avoid short forms in written
>>> text, but on the other hand it is used as a stylistic device to
>>> make texts a little less dry and more conversational.
>>> 
>>> So yes, I assume the "no short forms" rule could or maybe should
>>> be revisited.  What do you think?
>> 
>> For the man page, which is intended to be dry and technical, I
>> support avoiding short forms in pretty much all cases. For the
>> various other guides, however - especially the ones which are
>> intended to be a way to gently introduce the less experienced users
>> to the ins and outs of advanced encoding and playback - it can
>> sometimes be valuable to be less rigid, and I think it could be
>> worth relaxing the rules there. (I've used the same basic
>> guidelines in refraining from commenting on some aspects of
>> previous commits to a few such guides, which were definitely more
>> conversational than I'd have wanted to let by in the man page.)
> 
> I don't care too much about leaving the rule as it is or not. Just
> don't expect me to conform with it in my initial proposed patches as
> I just can't help using the contracted form. I usually remove them
> each time Diego reminds that rule to me.

Oh, not a problem, there are reasons doc patches get submitted for
review and catching things like this is one of them. ^_^

>>> In a way, yes.  I used to be the only and nowadays I guess I'm
>>> still the main documentation maintainer.  But MPlayer is largely
>>> a meritocracy, so whoever does the work and/or is competent in a
>>> particular area gets to make the decisions.
>>> 
>>> For example Guillaume has taken over the MEncoder parts of the
>>> documentation and I'm quite happy with the work he is doing.  I
>>> won't interfere with what he does there content-wise, since I
>>> don't believe in "You do the work, I get to decide and boss you
>>> around.".
>> 
>> Oh, agreed, across the board. I'm quite good (or at least I'd like
>> to think so) when it comes to reviewing, for grammar and spelling
>> (and even meaning) and the like, but I'd have a devil of a time
>> trying to write a good explanation of something to begin with even
>> if I understood it in detail; Guillaume has done a very good basic
>> job of doing almost exactly that on a number of occasions,
>> including at least a few where I suspect he does *not* know the
>> subject matter all that intimately.
> 
> I've built pretty much all my understanding of the technical details
> involved in MPlayer and MEncoder myself by googling around, reading
> articles and following ML threads. That means that I don't pretend
> that I'm holding the truth. I'm just trying to share the information
> I got here and there. I try as much as possible to double check the
> informations by checking different sources, when available.
> 
> What I'm trying to get at is that I consider myself a mere Joe Six
> Pack user who's just willing to help the community out.
> So, you're quite all right, I don't know intimately most of the
> subjects I talk about in the docs ;-P.

Which makes it all the more impressive that you've managed to write the
documentation sections you have on some of those subjects. As I said, I
would have a devil of a time trying to write a good explanation even of
something I understood in detail; you've managed to produce mostly
creditable or better explanations of things you *don't*, and that's
quite an achievement from my perspective.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.