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doc: relax prohibition on personal pronouns
Our personal pronoun prohibition is contrary to most current technical documentation style guides. The prohibition on personal pronouns comes from academic style guides. It results in an unnecessary formal tone. It encourages wordiness and the overuse of passive voice. This change to our style guide more closely aligns us with the style guides of companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft. Google's style guide suggests avoiding first-person pronouns and suggests: "Use the second-person pronoun (_you_) whenever possible." Refs: https://developers.google.com/style/pronouns#personal-pronouns IBM's style guide also recommends second-person voice ("Use second person ('you')"). Refs: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/styleguidelines/index.html Similarly, Microsoft's style guide recommends using first person sparingly and avoiding first-person plural. "In general, use second person". Refs: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/style-guide/grammar/person#in-general-use-second-person PR-URL: #34353 Reviewed-By: Ben Noordhuis <info@bnoordhuis.nl> Reviewed-By: Michaël Zasso <targos@protonmail.com> Reviewed-By: Anna Henningsen <anna@addaleax.net> Reviewed-By: Richard Lau <riclau@uk.ibm.com> Reviewed-By: Mary Marchini <oss@mmarchini.me> Reviewed-By: Denys Otrishko <shishugi@gmail.com> Reviewed-By: Trivikram Kamat <trivikr.dev@gmail.com>
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doc/guides/doc-style-guide.md

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@@ -19,11 +19,11 @@ this guide.
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* Check changes to documentation with `make lint-md`.
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* [Use US spelling][].
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* [Use serial commas][].
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* Avoid personal pronouns (_I_, _you_, _we_) in reference documentation.
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* Personal pronouns are acceptable in colloquial documentation such as guides.
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* Use gender-neutral pronouns and gender-neutral plural nouns.
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* OK: _they_, _their_, _them_, _folks_, _people_, _developers_
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* NOT OK: _his_, _hers_, _him_, _her_, _guys_, _dudes_
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* Avoid first-person pronouns (_I_, _we_).
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* Exception: _we recommend foo_ is preferable to _foo is recommended_.
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* Use gender-neutral pronouns and gender-neutral plural nouns.
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* OK: _they_, _their_, _them_, _folks_, _people_, _developers_
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* NOT OK: _his_, _hers_, _him_, _her_, _guys_, _dudes_
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* When combining wrapping elements (parentheses and quotes), place terminal
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punctuation:
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* Inside the wrapping element if the wrapping element contains a complete

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