Re: [libreoffice-website] Please ask developers et al not to use negative questions

On Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 5:46 PM, Donald <donr2648@clear.net.nz> wrote:
> In the website project I came across this string:
>
> "Not the version you wanted?"
> ...
> Please change the question to:
>
> "Is this the version you wanted?"

"Not the X you wanted?" and "Is this the X you wanted?" have different meanings.

The former implies that you are about to offer the person an
alternative to X (or tell them that they have no choice because there
isn't another dinner/plane flight/taxi cab driver), while the later
implies that you are going to give them X, and then perhaps later give
them an Else-clause for some other alternative.

I don't know where you saw this particular text, but one place it
appears is on the download page:
https://www.libreoffice.org/download

---
Download LibreOffice

LibreOffice Linux - deb (x86), version 4.0.4, English (US). Not the
version you wanted? Change System, Version or Language
---

I'm a native English speaker, so the text scans just fine to me. If
someone asked me to re-write that text to avoid the "Not"-y part, I'd
suggest:

"Need a different build of LibreOffice? Change System, Version or Language"

(I don't like the double-use of the word 'version', but changing the
first one to 'build' might be too esoteric for many of our users)

Cheers,
--R

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