http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrFeatures - improving page

[Algis Kabaila]

On Tuesday 29 September 2009 23:25:00 Russel Winder wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-09-29 at 13:53 +0300, Jari Aalto wrote:
> > Ian Clatworthy <ian.clatworthy at canonical.com> writes:
> > > I'd rather not change that. "You/we" makes it more personal...
> >
> > I understand that this may be cultural thing, because in the US this can
> > be seen in frequent use. But I'm not sure that is true elsewhere unless
> > we talk about marketting.
>
> Jari,
>
> I'm afraid you are on weak ground on this point.  It is true that in the
> past every attempt was made to avoid "you", "we", and most especially
> "I" in non-fiction writing.  This was particularly true in academia
> where silly idioms ended up being used, for example "the current author
> has proved that . . .".  This "false modesty" mode has thankfully now
> been blown away except in the most pretentious academic journals.  The
> modern mode of writing is for the author to have an active conversation
> with the reader, so "we" and "you" are very present, along with active
> tense wherever possible.  Even "I" is allowed!
>
Three cheers to that!  Its music to my old ears...

OldAl
> So no matter who the audience is the text is a conversation between the
> writers -- in this case the people documenting Bazaar -- and the readers
> who are newly arrived at the site.  People who have been to site often
> before will not read the text unless they spot a new shape on the page,
> they will go straight to one of the lists of links.
>
> So we need to speak directly and actively to our audience in order to
> welcome them in to the Bazaar community.
>
> [ . . . ]

-- 
Algis Kabaila, MEngSc, PhD(Eng)
http://akabaila.pcug.org.au/StructuralAnalysis.pdf