Post History

> Should we remove such fluff? ... If we should remove fluff, should we remove all kinds of fluff? Or are there exceptions? (e.g. "emoticons are fine"). ... Does (or should) the policy depend on which community (i.e. which subsite of codidact.com) the post belongs to?

In principle, I think that - in line with the Codidact community-oriented model - this sort of decision ought to be made at the per-community level. Personally, I would *hope* that *every* community decides to take a quite hard-line stance in favour of removing fluff. In my mind, the question is not whether there are "exceptions", but *what the community deems* to be fluff. To label something that way is, I think, a tacit acknowledgement that it does not add value to the post, wastes the reader's time, and therefore should be removed.

> Is an edit that only removes fluff a good, non-trivial, desired edit? ... If we should remove fluff, should we remove all the fluff?

I think this is somewhat the wrong question, because I personally [endorse making trivial edits as long as they're in the right direction](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/q/420349/_/420357#420357) (previous meta.SO discussion). But yes, assuming there is consensus to remove fluff, edits that remove fluff are desirable.

> I mean e.g. if the fluff is because the author wanted to be polite, maybe we should leave one piece of fluff to honor his or her willingness to explicitly sound polite.

This comes back to the definition question again IMO.

> ... At the same time I can imagine that *maybe* humanistic communities want to appear more humane and *maybe* fluff like greetings is acceptable there.

There are *many* other ways to do this. Even very technical communities can come across more humane than they typically do, I think. My personal preference is:

* Use hypotheticals explicitly in order to frame the question, and use reader-inclusive language (i.e. "Suppose we have...") in questions.

* Depersonalize the language in answers and scrupulously avoid the second-person pronoun (*especially* don't write things like "your problem is"; even "the issue in your code is" is not great); *but* write answers that either explicitly address the reader with imperatives ("To solve the problem, do X") or mirror the reader-inclusive language ("We can avoid this issue by...").

* Make sure to keep in mind the likely level of expertise of someone who would need the question answered, and tailor answers to that level (without sacrificing technical correctness more than needed to simplify, and without misusing jargon).

* Use analogies in answers; avoid unmarked metaphors if possible (some readers have difficulty processing them).

In text media, conversation is not inherently eusocial - respecting the reader is. That can mean respecting the reader's time (hence removing fluff); it can also mean respecting the reader's feelings. However, if I'm reading a question and answer on the Internet to try to get information, I would not feel slighted because the person asking the question omitted salutations and "thanks in advance" directed at future answerers, or if the answers failed to offer praise for asking a good question. If anything, it's the opposite: *I'm excluded from that conversation*, as the reader, while I'm nominally "right there" - so it is disrespecting me.

> If we should remove fluff, is 'nothing personal, just maintenance; please see this question' a good response in case someone gets offended by fluff removal and/or insists on keeping his or her fluff?

I'm not convinced that this question will become the best possible reference for such comments in the long run; but I think the general form of this is good. Depending on How Bad Things Get (TM) I can imagine the need to write something firmer, and have it available for copy-paste or some other automatic use.