GNU bug report logs - #32578
Remove "joke" from drag events documentation

unarchive 32578

From: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org
Subject: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 13:29:33 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Hello,

This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the drag events
documentation. Documentation should be informative and inclusive.

Thanks,

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[0001-Remove-unnecessary-language.patch (application/octet-stream, attachment)]
From: Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 09:20:03 +0200

On 2018-08-29, at 19:29, Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the drag events
> documentation. Documentation should be informative and inclusive.

I'm a bit on the fence about this.  On the one hand, I remember seeing
the joke some time ago and finding it hilarious.  On the other hand,
I remember feeling good about removing other jokes from Emacs sources,
which were _really_ offensive.  This one seems to be far, far from
offensive anyway, and if anyone feels offended by this, they probably
well deserve it.  Disclosure: I know (and often tell myself) jokes about
groups of people _I_ belong to which are probably much more "offensive"
than this one (though obviously I may be biased).  I can provide
a sample on request.

I don't see how the relevant portion can be seen as not informative.

BTW, I am now coauthoring a book on pretty advanced mathematics
(nonlinear analysis), and we try to put quite a lot of jokes into it.
Well-placed jokes do not make a book/documentation less informative, but
more pleasant to read.  (Unfortunately, there is nothing about "drag
events" in the book.)

If I were to made a decision, I would probably (a bit reluctantly, but
still) leave it, so that Emacs does not succumb to the idiocy called
"political correctness".

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

From: Colin Baxter <m43cap <at> yandex.com>
To: Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl>
Cc: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>, , 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 08:49:57 +0100

>>>>> Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl> writes:

    > On 2018-08-29, at 19:29, Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com> wrote:

    >> Hello,
    >> 
    >> This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the
    >> drag events documentation. Documentation should be informative
    >> and inclusive.

    > I'm a bit on the fence about this.  On the one hand, I remember
    > seeing the joke some time ago and finding it hilarious.  On the
    > other hand, I remember feeling good about removing other jokes
    > from Emacs sources, which were _really_ offensive.  This one seems
    > to be far, far from offensive anyway, and if anyone feels offended
    > by this, they probably well deserve it.  Disclosure: I know (and
    > often tell myself) jokes about groups of people _I_ belong to
    > which are probably much more "offensive" than this one (though
    > obviously I may be biased).  I can provide a sample on request.

    > I don't see how the relevant portion can be seen as not
    > informative.

    > BTW, I am now coauthoring a book on pretty advanced mathematics
    > (nonlinear analysis), and we try to put quite a lot of jokes into
    > it.  Well-placed jokes do not make a book/documentation less
    > informative, but more pleasant to read.  (Unfortunately, there is
    > nothing about "drag events" in the book.)

    > If I were to made a decision, I would probably (a bit reluctantly,
    > but still) leave it, so that Emacs does not succumb to the idiocy
    > called "political correctness".

    > Best,

    > -- Marcin Borkowski http://mbork.pl

I agree with Marcin's comments and would add that a joke is hardly a
bug. Perhaps the original poster should place the suggestion elsewhere,
maybe emacs.devel?

Best wishes

From: Phil Sainty <psainty <at> orcon.net.nz>
To: Colin Baxter <m43cap <at> yandex.com>
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 21:13:46 +1200

On 2018-08-30 19:49, Colin Baxter wrote:
> a joke is hardly a bug.

Suggestions for improving the documentation absolutely belong here.

"This list is for bug reports, feature requests, and suggestions for
improving GNU Emacs."

-- https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gnu-emacs

From: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
To: m43cap <at> yandex.com
Cc: mbork <at> mbork.pl, 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 09:51:17 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 3:50 AM Colin Baxter <m43cap <at> yandex.com> wrote:

> >>>>> Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl> writes:
>
>     > On 2018-08-29, at 19:29, Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     >> Hello,
>     >>
>     >> This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the
>     >> drag events documentation. Documentation should be informative
>     >> and inclusive.
>
>     > I'm a bit on the fence about this.  On the one hand, I remember
>     > seeing the joke some time ago and finding it hilarious.  On the
>     > other hand, I remember feeling good about removing other jokes
>     > from Emacs sources, which were _really_ offensive.  This one seems
>     > to be far, far from offensive anyway, and if anyone feels offended
>     > by this, they probably well deserve it.  Disclosure: I know (and
>     > often tell myself) jokes about groups of people _I_ belong to
>     > which are probably much more "offensive" than this one (though
>     > obviously I may be biased).  I can provide a sample on request.
>
>     > I don't see how the relevant portion can be seen as not
>     > informative.
>
>     > BTW, I am now coauthoring a book on pretty advanced mathematics
>     > (nonlinear analysis), and we try to put quite a lot of jokes into
>     > it.  Well-placed jokes do not make a book/documentation less
>     > informative, but more pleasant to read.  (Unfortunately, there is
>     > nothing about "drag events" in the book.)
>
>     > If I were to made a decision, I would probably (a bit reluctantly,
>     > but still) leave it, so that Emacs does not succumb to the idiocy
>     > called "political correctness".
>
>     > Best,
>
>     > -- Marcin Borkowski http://mbork.pl
>
> I agree with Marcin's comments and would add that a joke is hardly a
> bug. Perhaps the original poster should place the suggestion elsewhere,
> maybe emacs.devel?
>
> Best wishes
>

To Marcin's points, I didn't bring up offensiveness, and what kinds of
jokes you tell among your friends doesn't seem relevant. Would your
reasoning be the same if the diff was the other way? Would you be arguing
to add this joke in because you deem it inoffensive? That it adds
information to the documentation? That the documentation for a text editor
is the appropriate place to make the effort to add a joke (a joke which
operates merely on the level of "this one word looks like this other word")
as a bulwark against "political correctness"?

To Colin, I sent this patch to bug-gnu-emacs <at> gnu.org because I read the
Sending-Patches entry of the Emacs manual as saying that all patches should
be sent to that address. I may follow up with emacs-devel later.

Yours,

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]
From: Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin <at> fastmail.fm>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 23:08:14 +0300

On 29/08/2018 13:29 -0400, Chris Shea wrote:

> Hello,
>
> This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the drag events
> documentation. Documentation should be informative and inclusive.
>
> Thanks,

If jokes in manuals bother you, then you better not open Gnus manual :-)

Why be so strict and not let people put jokes into manuals?  We all know
what manuals are for, and still very few complain about such things.

Filipp

From: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
To: fgunbin <at> fastmail.fm
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 16:54:11 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 4:08 PM Filipp Gunbin <fgunbin <at> fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On 29/08/2018 13:29 -0400, Chris Shea wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the drag
> events
> > documentation. Documentation should be informative and inclusive.
> >
> > Thanks,
>
> If jokes in manuals bother you, then you better not open Gnus manual :-)
>
> Why be so strict and not let people put jokes into manuals?  We all know
> what manuals are for, and still very few complain about such things.
>
> Filipp
>

Jokes in manuals do not bother me. Not generally.

Good gracious, this isn't even a good joke. What if this patch changed the
joke to something better? "A @dfn{drag event} happens every time the user
presses a mouse button and then moves the mouse to a different character
position before releasing the button. While that should never happen in
practice, you may find it necessary to react to such events to remind the
user that no true Emacs operator even owns a mouse."

All the best,

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]
From: Juri Linkov <juri <at> linkov.net>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 01:57:01 +0300

> Good gracious, this isn't even a good joke. What if this patch changed the
> joke to something better? "A @dfn{drag event} happens every time the user
> presses a mouse button and then moves the mouse to a different character
> position before releasing the button. While that should never happen in
> practice, you may find it necessary to react to such events to remind the
> user that no true Emacs operator even owns a mouse."

Reminds me an illustration in an old book depicting a terminal with
an attached mouse and titled "workstation of a mouse operator"
where a mouse operator implied a profession  :-)

From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 21:23:24 -0400

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

We will keep that joke, because there is nothing wrong with it.  The
joke is not unwelcoming to anyone, and does not exclude anyone.  In
the GNU Project, we appreciate the occasional joke, and we do not aim
for Victorian prudery.

Happy hacking.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

From: Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: m43cap <at> yandex.com, 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 08:08:24 +0200

On 2018-08-30, at 15:51, Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2018 at 3:50 AM Colin Baxter <m43cap <at> yandex.com> wrote:
>
>> >>>>> Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl> writes:
>>
>>     > On 2018-08-29, at 19:29, Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>     >> Hello,
>>     >>
>>     >> This patch removes an unnecessary and unwelcoming joke from the
>>     >> drag events documentation. Documentation should be informative
>>     >> and inclusive.
>>
>>     > I'm a bit on the fence about this.  On the one hand, I remember
>>     > seeing the joke some time ago and finding it hilarious.  On the
>>     > other hand, I remember feeling good about removing other jokes
>>     > from Emacs sources, which were _really_ offensive.  This one seems
>>     > to be far, far from offensive anyway, and if anyone feels offended
>>     > by this, they probably well deserve it.  Disclosure: I know (and
>>     > often tell myself) jokes about groups of people _I_ belong to
>>     > which are probably much more "offensive" than this one (though
>>     > obviously I may be biased).  I can provide a sample on request.
>>
>>     > I don't see how the relevant portion can be seen as not
>>     > informative.
>>
>>     > BTW, I am now coauthoring a book on pretty advanced mathematics
>>     > (nonlinear analysis), and we try to put quite a lot of jokes into
>>     > it.  Well-placed jokes do not make a book/documentation less
>>     > informative, but more pleasant to read.  (Unfortunately, there is
>>     > nothing about "drag events" in the book.)
>>
>>     > If I were to made a decision, I would probably (a bit reluctantly,
>>     > but still) leave it, so that Emacs does not succumb to the idiocy
>>     > called "political correctness".
>>
>>     > Best,
>>
>>     > -- Marcin Borkowski http://mbork.pl
>>
>> I agree with Marcin's comments and would add that a joke is hardly a
>> bug. Perhaps the original poster should place the suggestion elsewhere,
>> maybe emacs.devel?
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>
> To Marcin's points, I didn't bring up offensiveness, and what kinds of

"Unwelcoming" seemed to me a softer version of "offensive".  Sorry if
I'm mistaken, I'm not a native English speaker.

> jokes you tell among your friends doesn't seem relevant. Would your

Quite the opposite: if I'm not bothered by this joke, and I'm bothered
by similarly offensive/unwelcoming jokes about me and/or groups of
people I belong to, someone could argue that I have double standards.
Such an argument need not be correct in general, but it might make
people ignore my email.

> reasoning be the same if the diff was the other way? Would you be arguing
> to add this joke in because you deem it inoffensive? That it adds
> information to the documentation? That the documentation for a text editor
> is the appropriate place to make the effort to add a joke (a joke which
> operates merely on the level of "this one word looks like this other word")
> as a bulwark against "political correctness"?

As I mentioned, I'm coauthoring a "serious" book on "serious"
mathematics.  Many a commit exists for the purpose of adding jokes
(though not ones about drag events), pop culture references etc.  Though
it does not add _information_, it adds _value_.  And I don't see how
docs for a text editor might be inappropriate place for jokes/puns
(unless they make the docs difficult to understand for a non-native
ENglish speaker, but this is another story).

Even if the reason was not "as a bulwark against 'political
correctness'" (which would strengthen the argument in my book), I still
think the effort would be worth it.

Best,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: rms <at> gnu.org
Cc: cmshea <at> gmail.com, 32578-done <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2018 16:56:57 +0300

tags 32578 wontfix
thanks

> From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2018 21:23:24 -0400
> Cc: 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
> 
> We will keep that joke, because there is nothing wrong with it.  The
> joke is not unwelcoming to anyone, and does not exclude anyone.  In
> the GNU Project, we appreciate the occasional joke, and we do not aim
> for Victorian prudery.
> 
> Happy hacking.

By popular demand, I'm closing this bug as "wontfix".

Thanks.

From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl>
Cc: cmshea <at> gmail.com, m43cap <at> yandex.com, 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Sat, 01 Sep 2018 23:13:51 -0400

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

It is pertinent that the "drag events" joke does not speak negatively
about any group of people.  Rationally speaking, it is not offensive
to anyone.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

From: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
To: rms <at> gnu.org
Cc: m43cap <at> yandex.com, Marcin Borkowski <mbork <at> mbork.pl>, 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2018 23:49:45 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
On Sat, Sep 1, 2018, 11:14 PM Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
> [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
> [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
>
> It is pertinent that the "drag events" joke does not speak negatively
> about any group of people.  Rationally speaking, it is not offensive
> to anyone.
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>

Oh boy. I never said anything about the joke being offensive.

But I blame myself for not foreseeing this reaction, since this is the
unwelcome I was talking about. This joke's presence in the official
documentation communicates (accurately, as this whole exchange has
demonstrated) that Emacs is created by people who think that a reference to
drag is politically incorrect (and somehow rightfully so) and risqué (else
why bring up Victorian prudishness). And that suggests a certain kind of
attitude that not everyone has the patience to deal with.

I can see that the line is doing what it intends, so I accept the wontfix.

With the bond that unites all living things,

>

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]
From: Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
To: Chris Shea <cmshea <at> gmail.com>
Cc: m43cap <at> yandex.com, mbork <at> mbork.pl, 32578 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#32578: Remove "joke" from drag events documentation
Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2018 02:26:55 -0400

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > demonstrated) that Emacs is created by people who think that a reference to  > drag is politically incorrect (and somehow rightfully so) and risqué (else
  > why bring up Victorian prudishness). And that suggests a certain kind of
  > attitude that not everyone has the patience to deal with.

I think you've extrapolated; I think that attributes to me some ideas
that I do not agree with.  I can't be sure, because can't tell clearly
what ideas it does attribute to me.

I can't even tell which sort of attitude you are attributing to us,
only that it is one that you disapprove of.

If you would like to explain to me what you attributed to me,
I would like to understand.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (https://gnu.org, https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

GNU bug report logs - #32578 Remove "joke" from drag events documentation

GNU bug report logs - #32578
Remove "joke" from drag events documentation