Re: [Tails-project] #8948: Reconsider the terminology around…

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Public mailing list about the Tails project
Subject: Re: [Tails-project] #8948: Reconsider the terminology around "persistence"
sajolida:
> sajolida:
>> moire:
>>
>> I also considered dropping the article sometimes to simplify things and
>> I think that it's definitely worth exploring. I'm very curious to hear
>> Cody's opinion about it and we'll discuss it during our next meeting.
>> We really need a native speaker to get these details right I think.
>
> We had our team meeting with Cody today. Before that, he also discussed
> and tested some sentences with people who didn't know Tails :)
>
> It seems like we agree on the general idea ("Persistence") but we still
> have to fine-tune some examples. His position on articles and using
> "Persistence" only all the time is in between moire's and mine.
>
> We'll continue working on this on
> https://tails.boum.org/contribute/how/documentation/style_guide/persistence/
> and #8948 until we reached a conclusion. In the meantime, feel free to
> continue commenting here as well.


Cody reviewed these examples and I pushed his proposal to the website:

https://tails.boum.org/contribute/how/documentation/style_guide/persistence/

The examples are his but the "Guidelines" are what I could induce from
the examples.

If I got Cody's idea right, we're somehow trying to use "Persistence" as
people otherwise use "DropBox" or "Nextcloud". Sometimes as some kind of
proper noun or tool name, some other times with an article, especially
when saying "your Persistence", and more like an object.

I like it and I also like the fact that we can always readjust our usage
of the different articles over time if needed. It won't be as
complicated or possibly confusing as going back and forth with "volume"
or "storage".

Note that it's easier to skip articles in English than in other
languages, for example Latin languages. From muri's email it seems like
German would have a good solution with Persistenzspeicher. Translators
in Latin language might have to always use an article, at least that
what I often with people in Spanish. They would always "la Persistencia"
or "una Persistencia" even where in English we might say "Persistence"
only. Different languages might have to adjust to their specificity.

I have only 1 question for Cody, on this example:

- Cannot delete the Persistence on %s while in use. (from Persistence
setup)

It's the only example where you left the "the" article. Is it on purpose?

For the record, Cody discussed these changes with native English
speakers, I already tested the draft of the About page with non-native
English speaker who were learning about Tails for the first time, and
I'll test it again in January when working on the final version.

--
sajolida
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