On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 11:26 AM, André Pönitz <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 12:15:42PM -0500, Cristian Tibirna wrote: >> (Rethoric: should this go to a more generic qt list?) >> >> Hello >> >> (First a side question, is there a more consequent documentation about >> the use of gerrit?) >> >> Is it only me that finds the "-1" review default message in gerrit >> rather irritating? >> >> "I would prefer that you didn't submit this" >> >> reads to my brain much like "go f*k yourself" without the raw words. > > It's probably not only you, but personally I see no particular reason > to not take this kind of standard text at face value. > > The message is meant to transfer the idea that the reviewer would prefer > that the submitter didn't submit this patch, and expressng that as > "I would prefer that you didn't submit this" seems to hit the mark, > at least for me as a non-native speaker. > > Having said that, I often add just a message without a score in such > cases. The only ugly thing is that these items then still show up > in bold on my review list. > > A negative score should always be accompanied by a reason (and I > even appreciate a short message with a +1, such as "I only looked > at the code", or "Tested, works for me"). > >> "I would prefer that you didn't submit this" >> >> I get all the idea of the automating thing and all, and that machines >> have no emotion, but, if I don't miss something obvious (this happens >> to me though...) and if that message is configurable, how about >> >> "This requires more work" >> >> instead? > > Would proabably work, too. > > But isn't it strange that something that's formulated as a universally > true statement should feel less offensive than something that's > explicitly states as subjective opinion? Strange times... > > Andre'
As a native speaker, I feel that the nuance of "I would prefer if you didn't submit this" comes across as "I'm being unnecessarily polite because what I really want to say would be very rude." Specifically, at least where I'm from "I would prefer" is code for "I can't stop you but I think it's a really bad idea." Meanwhile "This requires more work" comes across as "there's a way to salvage this." -- it doesn't imply that it's a bad idea, only that the implementation is lacking. If you want a good balance, try "I feel that this needs improvement." /s/ Adam _______________________________________________ Qt-creator mailing list [email protected] http://lists.qt-project.org/mailman/listinfo/qt-creator
