Subject: Re: bug#61325: 30.0.50; Jokes in GNUS manual

From: Jean Louis <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2023 09:32:56 +0300

* Ihor Radchenko <[email-masked]> [2023-02-06 19:03]:
> 3.15 Exiting Gnus has
> 
>    Note:
> 
>      Miss Lisa Cannifax, while sitting in English class, felt her feet
>      go numbly heavy and herself fall into a hazy trance as the boy
>      sitting behind her drew repeated lines with his pencil across the
>      back of her plastic chair.

😆

Come on! It is good we have Info manuals of this type!

A joke need not be joke for person A, can be for person B, can be
dedicated to person C, can be hidden, there are millions of
variations.

Nobody is expected to be literate, or to have sense of humour. 

No joke is for everybody to be accepted or understandable.

> I am not sure if it is a joke. I only feel confused about what
> information this note is trying to convey. Also, at least one other
> user find this section insulting.

Haven thanks manual is not robotic!

Though even robots would find it insulting!

> Further, the last sentence in
> 
> ‘z’
>      Suspend Gnus (‘gnus-group-suspend’).  This doesn’t really exit
>      Gnus, but it kills all buffers except the Group buffer.  I’m not
>      sure why this is a gain, but then who am I to judge?
> 
> is implying what? Is it just a joke? Or is it saying that the function
> is useless? Discouraged? I am confused.

It is fine to ask about it. It makes the whole system personal and
ex(c)iting. 

When I read books of Edgar Allan Poe I also do not understand every
word and meanings of the author, and I have to research a bit and
dwell and go in the past, that is the point of writing, as many
writings are a look into history and environment of the author.

Removing such writing to "comply" to today's expectancy, removes
personality of the author and diminishes the culture and art of it.

Instead, to help the today's reader, one only has to add maybe few
footnotes or hyperlinks for reader to understand what was meant at the
time.

> 3.16 Group Topics
> 
>     If you read lots and lots of groups, it might be convenient to group
>     them hierarchically according to topics.  You put your Emacs groups over
>     here, your sex groups over there, and the rest (what, two groups or so?)
>     you put in some misc section that you never bother with anyway.  You can
>     even group the Emacs sex groups as a sub-topic to either the Emacs
>     groups or the sex groups—or both!  Go wild!

😆 In my age I get the feeling fully! This even makes me subscribe to
newsgroups. That is exactly what people do. Why not make fun out of
what people actually do? No, I would never remove this part of joy
from manual.

> Forgetting about trying to joke around the word sex (the topic,
> often negatively received by, at least, some Muslim users)

There is world on this planet, and that world is not self-centric. No
matter of religion, there is always more beyond that. That is for the
user to understand and grow up out of it. Or not.

> I simply feel disoriented while trying to read this paragraph.

He he he, why not subscribe to newsgroups and try it out.

> I can understand the first sentence. Is the rest of the paragraph a
> joke?  Or are there useful pieces of information coded inside?

Why be robotic and have it all strict, straight, and explicitly
useful.

Is that not bringing you a bit out o balance and habits of reading
technical documentation? Isn't it good that author talks to you in
funny way?

It is similar to a child being approached by rather unknown adult
person, some children will accept it and get along, some will start
crying. It is a process of growing up, at some point, same child will
be able to confront the unknown (not only people) and feel confident.

> 8 Scoring has
> 
>     Other people use “kill files”, but we here at Gnus Towers like scoring
>     better than killing, so we’d rather switch than fight.  They do
>     something completely different as well, so sit up straight and pay
>     attention!

Keep the culture, only understand it, and add footnotes for people
though I don't think is necessary.

All your questions will be answered by understanding why Lars wrote
Gnus. Hahahahahha.

--
Jean

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