Re: Confusing instructions for voting

[Vincent Untz <vincent vuntz net>]

Richard,

Le Mon, 02 Dec 2002 10:47:54 -0500, Richard Stallman a ecrit :

>     Simply replying to this e-mail and choosing up to 11 candidates
>     should be enough to vote. This means that you should delete all
>     other candidates from your reply.
>
> "Simply replying" means I start with an empty message body and enter
> the response I want to send.  However, the words "delete all other
> candidates" seem to suggest I am starting from something that is not
> empty.

I guess the problem here is the use of "reply". I thought (and I still
think, but I may be mistaken) that "replying" usually means answering an
e-mail and quoting the e-mail which is being answered. I agree that, if
we can, we should cover more than the "usually" case.

> I think it would be useful to make this explicit in the instructions.

Could you give us an example of making this explicit ? I can't find a
better way to formulate this. Maybe "reply with the quote of this
e-mail". Improving the instructions for future elections is a good thing
to do.

Thanks

Vincent

-- 
Les gens heureux ne sont pas presses.