A patch for the 'geom' chapter

[Tom Rhodes]

On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:57:14 +0100
"Rene Ladan" <r.c.ladan at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2008/11/24 Manolis Kiagias <sonic2000gr at gmail.com>:
> > Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> >> On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:51:07 -0500, Tom Rhodes <trhodes at FreeBSD.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:36:07 +0200
> >>> Manolis Kiagias <sonic2000gr at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> http://people.freebsd.org/~manolis/geom.txt
> >>>>
> >>
> >>
> >>> This looks pretty good actually.  I would probably change the
> >>> following:
> >>>
> >>> +      <example>
> >>> +    <title>Labeling Your Boot Disk's Partitions</title>
> >>>
> >>> to:
> >>>
> >>> <title>Labeling Partitions on the Boot Disk</title>
> >>>
> >>> And there are a lot of "You" references.  I've tried to write this
> >>> without invoking the user as much as possible and may make reading the
> >>> entire chapter difficult.  I would prefer we not talk to the user
> >>> though.
> >>>
> >>
> >> I am not sure if I will have the time to read the full patch tonight,
> >> but Tom is quite right about avoiding "you" when possible.
> >>
> >>
> > Thanks. I will try to rephrase most parts into passive voice where
> > possible.  I guess I am somewhat influenced by the Greek translations,
> > where  sometimes passive voice sounds unnatural ;)
> >
> I think the same is true for the Dutch language.  Using passive voice
> sometimes sounds too formal/distant IMHO (it makes me think of legal
> texts).  Active voice also involves the reader more.  It also makes it
> possible to refer to e.g. 'their computer' instead of 'a computer', which
> can be useful in examples.

While true, it does have a few flaws, including it can make
incorrect assumptions about the reader's sex, environment,
etc. and adds a little less professionalism.

So I try to write all my documentation carefully to avoid
addressing the reader.  Sometimes it would be easier, but that
doesn't really make it right.

In translations, though, I think it should be up to the initial
teams.  It could be very different for languages which I
do not speak, whether passive voice is incorrect.  :)

-- 
Tom Rhodes