Yeah I would just retract my contribution right there.
The bots comment wasnt even directed at the PR author. Its just a misconfigured bot, not really that big of an issue.
So I looked at the thing and it looked kinda reasonable.
- It was a bot and noone is making a scene.
- The bot was not telling that to the committer, but to the commenter, who is part of the company owning the repo
- The comment in question was, “Good to merge? Test suite passes locally?”, which might trip someone as “Test suite passes locally” seems like an affirmative, but the ‘?’ doesn’t say the same, so the reader would have to determine whether the commenter typo-ed a ‘?’ or actually meant to put a question, while using the wrong matching sentence form (which I know we are all guilty of, but tends to be fine while speaking, because our tone tells the listener)
Funny how three comments that follow, by other people, do not get such a comment by the bot.
It also seems like the comment addresses a commenter, not the PR creator, so saying “you may resubmit after fixing” makes no sense. Post the comment again?
The guideline (as applied) contains a contradiction, so the principle of explosion applies.
Specifically, there is a contradiction between “native-sounding English” and “no grammatical errors”, when the latter phrase is interpreted in the manner seen here. Native speakers quite often use sentence fragments and in other ways do not follow schoolbook “proper grammar”. In fact, second-language learners often use schoolbook grammar where a native speaker would use a more relaxed register.
Since the guideline contains a contradiction, it is either impossible to follow (i.e. forbids all communication whatsoever) or impossible to violate (i.e. forbids no communication).
I struggle to find something more obnoxious than incorrectly employed formal logic.
There is no contradiction. The intersection of “native-sounding English” and “(English with) no grammatical errors” is not empty. So it’s actually perfectly possible to meet both criteria.
It also wouldn’t be a logical contradiction even if it wasn’t possible, since contradictions are conflicts of arguments that rely on different propositions being true, not the valuation of the actual propositions.
Okay, let’s skip the formal logic talk then and go straight to linguistics.
The question “Good to merge?” does not contain a grammatical error. It is perfectly well-formed by the grammar that native English speakers actually follow in everyday communication. A grammar that fails to parse “Good to merge?” in context cannot parse native English speakers’ actual output.
Schoolbook English is not native English, because it’s not how native English speakers actually speak. Schoolbook English contains rules that directly contradict native English speakers’ everyday usage.
(Standard examples include the rule against split infinitives and the rule against ending a sentence with a preposition. These are not grammatical rules of English as it is spoken by native speakers. To boldly assert them is silliness up with which I will not put.)
So, if I said “I’d like a burger, but not too much ketchup or mustard,” would you put a little mustard on it, or no mustard at all? When I see “no excessive capitalization or grammatical errors”, I assume they don’t want excessive amounts of either, while you’re saying they don’t want excessive capitalization and no grammatical errors at all. Seems an odd interpretation, linguistically.
In situations like this, the answer isn’t to argue over the interpretation of the words: it’s to fix the words.
If the writers intended “no excessive capitalization or excessive grammatical errors”, then it should be changed to that.
If the writers intended “no excessive capitalization and no grammatical errors”, then it should be changed to that.
Both situations remove the ambiguity and prevent pedantic internet arguments about language interpretation.
