Re: feature/eglot-texi-manual 4725c123f3 2/5: ; eglot.texi: Fix typos and minor inconsistenciesfeature/eglot-texi-manual 4725c123f3 2/5: ; eglot.texi: Fix typos and minor inconsistencies

[Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> That manual was written by yours truly.  I welcome any improvements to
> it and corrections of any mistakes I might have made.  But replacing
> my style preferences by someone else's is not going to improve the
> manual.

(For the record, I have no desire to make gratuitous changes, or impose
my stylistic preferences on anyone.)

We are discussing some changes I made after proofreading the manual.
You have claimed that these changes were merely "personal preferences".
That description is not just imprecise, but wrong, and can only serve to
muddy the waters.  In particular, it does not help us think about the
changes concretely.

But even if a wrong or imperfect edit goes in, it is not a big deal.
We review it, improve upon it, and move on.  For example, I note that
your so-called "undo" of my commit actually kept several of my fixes,
and improved further on others.[1]  This is expected, and IME exactly
how collaborative editing must work.

The other thing is the idea to only change things that are "clearly
wrong".  As this thread demonstrates, it is not trivial to ascertain
what is "clearly wrong", not least because, in several cases, opinions
abound.  The discussion about "that"/"which" is one example.

I must also ask whether the many changes you have made to our
documentation recently really qualifies as fixing things that are
"clearly wrong".  I think they do _not_.  For example:

    -Shuts down an the current connection to the language server
    +This command shuts down the current connection to the language
    +server

You fix such stylistic issues routinely.  And not just you.  It is
actually a good thing.  If we disagree about something, we revert, fix,
discuss, and improve.  In all cases, we are making progress.

So what's the problem?  Overall, the documentation is slowly getting
better over time.  AFAICT, it got better from my proofreading too, as
much as you don't like to admit it.  The proof is all there in the git
diff.  So this thread is a storm in a tea cup, as far as I'm concerned.

Proofreading is thankless enough as it is.  We should do everything in
our power to encourage and facilitate such work, and not be quick to
shoot it down.  I can only hope that this thread has not served to
discourage anyone from proofreading our manuals in the future.

Footnotes:
[1] Unfortunately, you also threw away some improvements, for some
     inexplicable reason.  So be it.