[drupal-devel] [task] Consistent return 'passive voice' in form_set_error() and drupal_set_message()

Mon Apr 25 01:49:31 UTC 2005

Issue status update for http://drupal.org/node/15595

 Project:      Drupal
 Version:      cvs
 Component:    base system
 Category:     tasks
 Priority:     normal
 Assigned to:  stefan nagtegaal
 Reported by:  bertboerland at www.drop.org
 Updated by:   puregin
 Status:       patch
 Attachment:   http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_set_message_new.patch (50.98 KB)

The attached patch updates Stefan's earlier patch with a few corrections
and tweaks to messages.
The bulk of these are minor typos, corrections to noun/verb number
agreement, consistent use of
'could not' vs. 'can not', etc.  

In includes/locale.inc, I have made the tone of messages slightly more
formal by replacing
'... file is broken, because...' in messages with '... file contains an
error: ...'.  

While visiting the affected files, I also made minor fixes or
improvements to other messages.  I have re-written portions of the help
text for locale.module.

Please review and comment! :)

puregin

Previous comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 14, 2005 - 05:59 : bertboerland at www.drop.org

*My* drupal not *Yours*!

I think that when one addresses the user or the administrator of a
site, it is best to do this outside in instead of inside out. So when
in the documentation the coder is referring to the site of the
administrator, this site should be called "your site" (/inside out/)
but "my site" (/outside in/). There are numours examples where the text
in referring to "your"where "my"would be apopriate [1]

There used to be some "your" in the userinterface for the enduser as
well, but that has been solved in 4.5. Before that you had "my
account", but "track your postings". This has now all beens replaced by
"my"and "mine". If everybody agrees, lets also corect this for the
administrator as well; my administrator, not yours ;-)

[1] examples:
admin/logs/referrers "...that point to your web site."
admin/settings "General configuration options for your site"

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 19, 2005 - 08:36 : stefan nagtegaal

We should consistently use the 'passive voice', when returning messages
using form_set_error() and drupal_set_message().

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 22, 2005 - 04:05 : stefan nagtegaal

Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/drupal_set_message consistency part 1 of 2 (51.16 KB)

first patch of 2 to make the drupal_set_message(), form_set_error() and
watchdog() messages more consistent.

please review/comment and apply..

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 22, 2005 - 04:05 : stefan nagtegaal

Setting status to Patch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 23, 2005 - 00:49 : puregin

A big -1 from me on replacing "you" with "me" :)

Regarding the use of the first person - I find it extremely awkward and
confusing to see
usage such as 'My Account',  "Here are my recent posts", etc.   From my
perspective
as a native speaker of English, I find that this kind of usage violates
conventional
"conversational context".    

To clarify,  if I am communicating with another person *via* the medium
of a
program then I expect that person to follow the normal conventions of
conversation,
in particular, to say "me, my, I" when referring to him/herself, and
"you, your, etc."
when referring to me.  

If I am communicating with a program, I *also* expect it to follow
conversational
conventions.  Particularly obsequious programs may always refer to
themselves
in an indirect second person: "This unworthy program was unable to
execute your
most excellent command, and will henceforth terminate itself"   I have
to say
I really don't like this kind of interaction.   I like a program
that tells me straight up "I can't find my configuration files!  Sorry,
I'm giving up!"
People like, understand, and are extremely good at direct
conversational interaction.
It's intuitively clear who is speaking and what the relation to the
listener is.

I might tolerate a page with title "My Account", but really, a message
such as

   'This page shows my site-wide referrer statistics. I can optionally
view just the
    "external referrers" or the "internal  referrers". Referrers are
web pages, both
    local and on other sites, that point to your my site.'

is just plain confusing and unclear.  To quote Sendmail:  "I refuse to
talk to myself"

Please don't inflict this gratuitous use of first person on us!

Djun

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 23, 2005 - 05:28 : rivena

Have to agree with Djun.  You're going to run into a lot of problems
changing all the you's to me's.  It'd be creepy if my drupal install
started talking about itself.

Anisa.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 24, 2005 - 04:57 : Dries

I checked a couple other sites like Amazon.com, Apple.com, NYT and they
all use 'your'.  I suggest we use 'your' and that we document this
guideline.  The exception is Yahoo!, who seems to use 'My Yahoo!'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

April 24, 2005 - 10:30 : Bèr Kessels

AFAIK its as follows:
A site that offers services, will use " yours". Community sites will
therefore use " your Profile".
A site that is used by a single user, should use "my". Its My site, if
I own that blog. But if I am but a part from a large community, they
offer "your blog". 

Ber