More user-friendly descriptions and/or less abbreviations. #11

Andre601 commented 2023年07月26日 13:51:33 +02:00

Just read the post about the upcoming Technical Contributor Meeting and... my head hurts from it.

Given that the topic is about possible performance improvements, current bottlenecks and deadlocks do I have an interest in perhaps joining.
Especially since I may learn some stuff that helps me reduce possible performance impacts on Codeberg.

However, reading through the description made my head hurt... a lot.
The main reason are sentences like this:

Currently, Codeberg is running a single MariaDB instance in an LXC container on BTRFS (COW disabled for the data folders).

From this sentence did I only understand this:

• It's about Codeberg
• Codeberg uses MariaDB as database manager/software

Everything else, especially the abbreviations, are completely unknown to me and make me feel like I need a degree in english terminology to know them...

So, maybe consider rewriting this event description a bit, so that people with less knowledge of the english language (And especially less knowledge in Databases and such) can understand it and don't have to google every second abbreviation there might be.

Thanks.

Just read the post about the upcoming [Technical Contributor Meeting](https://codeberg.codeberg.page/Events/events/2023/07-13-contributor-meeting/) and... my head hurts from it. Given that the topic is about possible performance improvements, current bottlenecks and deadlocks do I have an interest in perhaps joining. Especially since I may learn some stuff that helps me reduce possible performance impacts on Codeberg. However, reading through the description made my head hurt... a lot. The main reason are sentences like this: > Currently, Codeberg is running a single MariaDB instance in an LXC container on BTRFS (COW disabled for the data folders). From this sentence did I only understand this: - It's about Codeberg - Codeberg uses MariaDB as database manager/software Everything else, **especially** the abbreviations, are completely unknown to me and make me feel like I need a degree in english terminology to know them... So, maybe consider rewriting this event description a bit, so that people with less knowledge of the english language (And especially less knowledge in Databases and such) can understand it and don't have to google every second abbreviation there might be. Thanks.

lhinderberger commented 2023年07月27日 15:11:03 +02:00

Codeberg Meetups are planned to happen every two weeks, alternating between technical and non-technical meetups¹ .

Technical Contributor Meetups are where we dive deeply into technical detail. They are directed mainly towards technical contributors, e.g. developers, engineers and engineering students. Technical Meetups are not necessarily zero-prior-knowledge meetups, but we will of course not send you away if you're not/not yet an expert either.

A sentence as quoted by you is nothing unusual for communication directed towards a technical audience. In fact, I would even argue that an expert audience expects key information to be presented in a short and concise way, which includes abbreviations if they are common in the field. LXC and BTRFS should ring a bell to any sysadmin and DevOps engineer - COW could have been expanded to Copy on Write though.

I agree that it would be problematic if the whole invitation would only consist of abbreviations and jargon. But this is not the case for the linked invitation. There is a single sentence in the invitation that contains technical abbreviations, which is the one you have quoted. The rest of the invitation doesn't have any abbreviations in it, so I don't understand where your criticism of "sentences like this" comes from.

Codeberg Meetups are planned to happen every two weeks, alternating between technical and non-technical meetups[^1]. Technical Contributor Meetups are where we dive deeply into technical detail. They are directed mainly towards technical contributors, e.g. developers, engineers and engineering students. Technical Meetups are not necessarily zero-prior-knowledge meetups, but we will of course not send you away if you're not/not yet an expert either. A sentence as quoted by you is nothing unusual for communication directed towards a technical audience. In fact, I would even argue that an expert audience *expects* key information to be presented in a short and concise way, which includes abbreviations if they are common in the field. LXC and BTRFS should ring a bell to any sysadmin and DevOps engineer - COW could have been expanded to `Copy on Write` though. I agree that it would be problematic if the whole invitation would *only* consist of abbreviations and jargon. But this is not the case for the linked invitation. There is a single sentence in the invitation that contains technical abbreviations, which is the one you have quoted. The rest of the invitation doesn't have any abbreviations in it, so I don't understand where your criticism of "sentences like this" comes from. [^1]: As we are just getting started with those meetups, future events are not yet scheduled in the event calendar