[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/DOCS/xml/en faq.xml,1.66,1.67

[The Wanderer]

Guillaume Poirier wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 05:23:47 -0500, The Wanderer
> <inverseparadox at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
>>Guillaume Poirier CVS wrote:
>>
>>> +I cannot pinpoint the cause of some strange playback problem.
>>> +</para></question>
>>> +<answer><para>
>>> +Do you have a stray <filename>codecs.conf</filename> file in
>>> +<filename>~/.mplayer/</filename>, <filename>/etc/</filename>,
>>> +<filename>/usr/local/etc/</filename> or a similar location? Remove it,
>>> +outdated <filename>codecs.conf</filename> files can cause obscure problems
>>> +and is intended for use only by developers.
>> 
>> Juxtaposing the old and new forms like this (specifically though
>> not exclusively, joining the sentences with a comma) is ugly
>> English. (A slight exaggeration, but that's the term that came to
>> mind.) I'd phrase the answer like:
> 
> I'm really sorry that it sounds so bad, please just consider that I'm
> not a native, and had more experience on spoken English than written
> English.

Yeah, I do understand all of that, and I apologize for the terminology;
as I said, it was an exaggeration, and sounded rather worse than I
intended it to. I used the term I did because it had come to mind, and I
knew from experience that if I tried to come up with some less
harsh-sounding way to express my immediate reaction I'd sit dithering
over the keyboard for an unreasonably long time before coming up with
something that was even less adequate. I tried to soften it a bit, but
perhaps not as hard as I should have...

> I'm just trying my best to share my experience and problems with
> MPlayer so other users don't fight against the same problems. I'm
> grateful that you and others are taking care of the reviewing task. I
> wish the reviewing could be one on the list on patches I sent rather
> than on CVS commit (I have no excuse here, as I didn't send a patch
> beforehand. I'm referring to my contribution to mencoder.xml for 
> which I'd really appreciate if someone could enlighten me regarding
> my phrasing).

...well, let me see. You're referring to the "improving encoding guide"
patch thread on -docs, right? (I split -docs CVS messages off into a
separate folder, so they look like different lists to me.) I didn't
respond to that because I a) don't know much about encoding in practical
terms, b) what time I have available has lately been being spent on
other (albeit not necessarily very practical) things, and c) ... I'm
sure there was a c), but it's not coming to mind. I may have time to
have a look at it later in the day, if you like, although from a very
quick glance I don't see anything objectionable except for my usual
no-one-else-agrees hyphenation issues...

> Anyway, Thanks a lot for your suggestions, they are indeed very good
> and I appreciate them.

Not at all; glad to be acceptable. ^_^

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

A government exists to serve its citizens, not to control them.