Comment Micro-language¶

Rational¶

What’s the point in yet another auto comments?

I frequently forget to install the auto comments script, leaving me without any auto comments.
There is no way to merge comments with the auto comments script. This means that we either need to write greetings anyway or have two or more versions of each script for greetings alone. This means greetings will just be dropped as typing goes against the point of having auto comments.

Now if we take into account that there can be multiple problems with a single question, then making a mixture of auto comments becomes unmaintainable.
Personally I find some of the current auto comments to be very specific. Whilst this is great when we have to deal with that one solution, it makes the auto comments somewhat nonsensical in other situations.

Say we had an auto comment that had a greeting prepend to it, would it make sense to use that with a 10k user? Would you edit it out?

All of these made me drop auto comments for long periods of time. And I feel I’m posting more helpful content because it’s keeping things to the problem(s) at hand. Not hiding any and not adding unneeded information.

However this has a couple of major problems.

I am lazy. Whilst I know there’s a page that will really help the user and I should add it to my comment, I don’t. This means at times I am outputting unhelpful comments.
I make mistakes. Sometimes I miss a crucial part of a comment. Contrast “please don’t post many similar questions” vs “please don’t post many similar questions in short time periods”. This can cause there to be confusion and is again unhelpful.

Whilst this is good for me there are some problems with my approach.

You may not have Python installed, or have the Python-foo to install this project.
You may not like a CLI only program, I have to open a terminal? No thanks.
You may not like my comment choices, and you don’t know how to change them.
You want simple auto comments, you don’t want to have to type short hand for your comments.
You don’t know the short hand or names I have used.

Syntax¶

The syntax is really basic, and looks a lot like a list literal from Python or JavaScript. However the outermost ‘list’ doesn’t have the square brackets. However it does not build lists it builds a dictionary, the keys are on the left hand side of the brackets and the keys of the child mapping are on the inside of the brackets. All keys surrounding whitespace stripped.

Welcome[John Doe],
VTC[
    Broken[
        Quote[this does not work],
        Asking[to fix this],
    ],
    Inline,
],
Scope[Title]

Contrast to if we were to use JSON:

{
    "Welcome": {"John Doe": {}},
    "VTC": {
        "Broken": {
            "Quote": {"this does not work": {}},
            "Asking": {"to fix this": {}}
        },
        "Inline": {}
    },
    "Scope": {"Title": {}}
}

There are only 4 characters that are recognized:

Opening brackets, [. These denote the start of a mapping.
Closing brackets, ]. These denote the end of a mapping.
A comma, ,. These are used to split two keys where the first doesn’t have any values.
A backslash, \. This is to escape the next character.

It should be noted that this means that commas are entirely optional following closing brackets.

Namespaces¶

From here the keys map to keys in a namespace. For example Welcome means points to the global Welcome which will take the entered name and return the welcome greeting. The VTC however causes the inner dictionary to be passed to the VTC namespace.

Each namespace accepts multiple keys for the same function. This means you can use the long form Welcome[John Doe] or the short form W[John Doe]. The keys on namespaces are also case insensitive and ignore spaces, this means Vote to Close is the same as votetoclose.

This is a key to make skim reading easier:

🔗: Contains a link to a relevant page.
📜: Changes the output of the text.
📚: Indicates that it points to a namespace.
🚩: Produce an error

Global¶

The global namespace contains:

@ At

Will strip spaces in the name.

🚩 Empty: There is no point in using Core.@ without a name.
📜 Else: @{value}

H Hi

🚩 Empty: There is no point in using Core.Hi without a name.
📜 Else: Hi {value}.

📜 W Welcome

Empty: Welcome to Code Review.
Else: Welcome to Code Review {value}.

📜 VTC Vote To Close C Close

🔗 Empty

Unfortunately your question is currently off-topic. Once you have fixed the issues with your post we’ll be happy to review your code.

📚 Else

Enter close reasons namespace.

Unfortunately your question is currently off-topic. {messages} Once you have fixed the issues with your post we’ll be happy to review your code.

📚 SP Site Policy

Enter site policy namespace.

📚 SO Stack Overflow

Enter Stack Overflow namespace.

Close Reasons¶

🔗 📜 Broken CNWAI Code Not Working As Intended

We only review code that works as intended.

📜 📚 Not Empty

Since {messages} we can see the code is not working correctly.

📜 Q Quote: you’ve said {values}
📜 T Talk Talking: you’re talking about {values}
📜 A Ask Asking: you’re asking us {values}

🔗 📜 Context MRC Missing Review Context

The code you have posted is missing context to be reasonably reviewed.

🔗 📜 CNI Code Not Implemented

You are asking about code that has not been implemented.

🔗 📜 BP Best Practice

Generic best practice questions cannot be reasonably answered.

🔗 📜 AoM Author or Maintainer

We only review code from an author or maintainer of the code.

🔗 📜 MD Missing Description

Questions must include a description of what the code does.

📜 DR Design Review

Design questions, like any other question, must include code.

🔗 📜 EoC Explanation of Code

We do not explain how code works.

🔗 📜 I Inline

The code to be reviewed must be inline in the question.

📜 Golf

Golfing is the dark side of the force.

Site Policy¶

🔗 📜 T Title: Titles should only consist of a description of your code.
🔗 📜 IO Insightful Observation: Answers must make at least one insightful observation, and must explain why the change is better than the OP’s code.
🔗 📜 AI Answer Invalidation: Please do not update the code in your question to incorporate feedback from answers, doing so goes against the Question + Answer style of Code Review. This is not a forum where you should keep the most updated version in your question. Please see what you may and may not do after receiving answers.

Stack Overflow¶

🚩 FP False Positive

False positives don’t generate messages

🔗 📜 C Close Closed

Don’t use the existence of Code Review as a reason to close a question. Evaluate the question and use a reason like; needs focus, primarily opinion-based, etc.

📜 R Recommendation

Empty

This question would be off-topic on Code Review.

📚 Else

Enter Stack Overflow close votes namespace.

This question would be off-topic on Code Review as it {messages}.

🔗 📜 📚 W Wording

In the future please {messages} when recommending Code Review. Take, “This may be on-topic on Code Review. Please check if it is on-topic and how to post a good question before posting there.”

📜 D Doubtful: use doubtful wording
📜 L Link: link to the help center

🔗 📜 I Insight

Please familiarize yourself with what is on-topic and our guide to Code Review for Stack Overflow users.

Stack Overflow Close Reasons¶

📜 Broken CNWAI Code Not Working As Intended: does not work as intended
📜 Context MRC Missing Review Context: is missing context
📜 CNI Code Not Implemented: is asking us to implement code
📜 BP Best Practice: is asking about generic best practices
📜 AoM Author or Maintainer: is not the OP’s code
📜 MD Missing Description: is lacking an explanation of the code
📜 DR Design Review: is asking for a review of design not code
📜 EoC Explanation of Code: is asking us to explain the code
📜 I Inline: does not have the code in the question
📜 Golf: is asking about golfing