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Merge branch 'ds/gender-neutral-doc-guidelines'
A guideline for gender neutral documentation has been added. * ds/gender-neutral-doc-guidelines: CodingGuidelines: recommend gender-neutral description
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@ -551,6 +551,51 @@ Writing Documentation:
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documentation, please see the documentation-related advice in the
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Documentation/SubmittingPatches file).
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In order to ensure the documentation is inclusive, avoid assuming
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that an unspecified example person is male or female, and think
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twice before using "he", "him", "she", or "her". Here are some
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tips to avoid use of gendered pronouns:
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- Prefer succinctness and matter-of-factly describing functionality
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in the abstract. E.g.
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--short:: Emit output in the short-format.
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and avoid something like these overly verbose alternatives:
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--short:: Use this to emit output in the short-format.
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--short:: You can use this to get output in the short-format.
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--short:: A user who prefers shorter output could....
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--short:: Should a person and/or program want shorter output, he
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she/they/it can...
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This practice often eliminates the need to involve human actors in
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your description, but it is a good practice regardless of the
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avoidance of gendered pronouns.
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- When it becomes awkward to stick to this style, prefer "you" when
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addressing the the hypothetical user, and possibly "we" when
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discussing how the program might react to the user. E.g.
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You can use this option instead of --xyz, but we might remove
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support for it in future versions.
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while keeping in mind that you can probably be less verbose, e.g.
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Use this instead of --xyz. This option might be removed in future
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versions.
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- If you still need to refer to an example person that is
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third-person singular, you may resort to "singular they" to avoid
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"he/she/him/her", e.g.
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A contributor asks their upstream to pull from them.
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Note that this sounds ungrammatical and unnatural to those who
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learned that "they" is only used for third-person plural, e.g.
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those who learn English as a second language in some parts of the
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world.
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Every user-visible change should be reflected in the documentation.
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The same general rule as for code applies -- imitate the existing
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conventions.
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