New Forum does the splits

[John H]

How ugly (and less easy to understand) is the following instruction on the Modify Profile page of this Forum:

Leave blank to not change your password.

... and how I hate the greeting at the top:

Hey John H, you have ...

Still, at least we can have the date in the DD/Month/YYYY format!

Why do all the Boards have to be UK imports?

[Paul Doherty]

> Leave blank to not change your password. <

What would you make it, John?

[John H]

May 3, 2008 0:39:54 GMT Paul Doherty said:

> Leave blank to not change your password. <

What would you make it, John?

"To keep the same password, leave blank"

I think the "to not change" is the ugly bit. Quite apart from the S/I the negative word "not" feels awkward placed within the verb.

[Paul Doherty]

The problem is that you're explaining what should go in a box labelled "Password". The logic with notes on entry fields is that is that you should start with what should go in the box

- Enter your date of birth here
- Type your new password here

So by extension, the explanation has to start "leave blank ...".

But I see your point. You can't really have an action to "not do" something.

[Tone]

You can't really have an action to "not do" something.

Disagree. If you believe in free will then the action to "not do something" is to exercise the aforesaid free will!

Tone

[Paul Doherty]

But it's not an action, it's an absence of action.

My Carmelite educators would have called it a sin of omission, no doubt.

[Tone]

No it's not.
The exercise of the free will (assuming that you have it) is a positive action, ergo, it must be the doing of something!

Tone

[Paul Doherty]

Tone, I suggest you're confusing two things: the exercise of free will is one thing, the act of omission or commission that follows is another.

[Dave M]

Mmmm ... I think it's somewhere in between. Language someitmes tends to have the one structure, but reality has another - and language should surely map reality (in its meaning, even if not neatly in its grammar). We have a choice of two things to do: we can fill in the blank, or we can NOT fill in the blank.

As Tone says, we're choosing the latter, and consciously NOT filling in the blank.

[Paul Doherty]

> consciously NOT filling in the blank <

Actually, the thing we are not doing is "change your password". What we are doing is a positive action "leave blank". Maybe that's why John feels it's odd -- it's an instruction to do a positive thing (leave blank) to achieve a negative thing (not change).

[Paul Doherty]

So "Make blank to leave your password unchanged" would make everyone happy? (Not that I can change it!)

[Gabriel-Ernest]

Lao Tzu (in the Tao Te Ching) uses the phrase: “Action within in-action”.

What does that mean? (No doubt philosophers have used much ink to answer that question!)
I used the phrase previously on the APS board in reference to a rather annoying poster to suggest that if people didn’t reply to his posts he would wither on the vine. So by an absence of action you influence the outcome, or gain a result.

‘Though I don’t think that helps the question of the password wording much. If I were you, Paul, I’d leave it as is.

G-E.

[Paul Doherty]

> If I were you, Paul, I’d leave it as is. <

In fact, it's not under my control anyway! This discussion is entirely theoretical ...

[John H]

May 5, 2008 12:03:41 GMT Paul Doherty said:

> consciously NOT filling in the blank <

Actually, the thing we are not doing is "change your password". What we are doing is a positive action "leave blank". Maybe that's why John feels it's odd -- it's an instruction to do a positive thing (leave blank) to achieve a negative thing (not change).

Perfectly put, Paul!