discussion: personal section cleanup

IN the current v106 PR, this section is 73 lines total and 46 prefs (or which 4 are active, because those four make sense and everyone finds those four things annoying). It’s getting bloated. And I expect I will be moving a few more items there

This is an issue. The more inactive items in here that we add, the more items that get reset to default with prefsCleaner. Which is not an issue if someone wants to change from default and they add an override: so they have a record and it doesn’t get accidentally reverted by clicking around in settings where those cards can have fucking wide click areas to toggle shit, and also makes it easier for them to migrate. This is the way.

But what about users who, for example, via the UI change an option (unaware that there is an inactive pref in the user.js), e.g. they customize and then right click on the downloads button and select auto-hide. Next startup it has reverted back. Or they disable the default browser check on startup (which I just moved in the v106 PR to personal) … etc. Granted not many of these 46 items have a UI.

Now I could just remove some of them, that seem fairly useless, and/or have a UI: like default browser check, the non-master milestone prefs, the full-screen prefs, but then after that it starts becoming subjective, and there’s some neat info in there. And it doesn’t solve the issue of the section potentially growing.

So what I propose is to move it all to a sticky issue and link to it. A locked issue. If anyone wants anything added they can ask in a new issue, and the size of the personal prefs length is not an issue - although this is NOT the purpose of this repo, and any additions would have to be fucking great ones. I’m not going to maintain a list of hundreds of prefs.

The only issue is what to do with the four active ones: and that’s easy, we keep them in that section

So something like this

/*** [SECTION 9000]: PERSONAL
   Over time we have collected a lot of non-project related but useful prefs, listed at [1].
   If any interest you, add them to your overrides. The four active prefs below are universally
   agreed upon as really annoying, so we've added them here for you to save you the trouble

   [1] https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/issues/ISSUENUMBER
***/
user_pref("_user.js.parrot", "9000 syntax error: the parrot's cashed in 'is chips!");
/* ANNOYANCES ***/
user_pref("browser.messaging-system.whatsNewPanel.enabled", false); // What's New toolbar icon
user_pref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.addons", false);
   // [SETTING] General>Browsing>Recommend extensions as you browse
user_pref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.userprefs.cfr.features", false);
   // [SETTING] General>Browsing>Recommend features as you browse
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone", "ignore"); // welcome notices

Class, discuss! I’m 100% sold on this, so if you have objections, speak up

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

I like this 🥇

[Thorin-Oakenpants]

I don’t have to justify myself to you, but I have - again and again. Go create your own repo if you don’t like it

It has already been explained that the section was problematic. It has already been explained, multiple times, why those four prefs were kept, as exceptions to the “rule” (the “rule” being one that I made, not you - i.e we should not include prefs that have nothing to do with this repo’s core purpose… wait for it… unless it really adds value for our user-base) - this was explained above, it was explained when that section was made and everything was inactive except those four, it was explained in the previous commit where it said "these four prefs are active because … "

You are arguing over something that was never stated. No-where did I ever state that ALL personal prefs would be removed. You are arguing over semantics, and pointing out what is fucking obvious, that not all personal prefs were removed.

Now, because there is nothing else left, it is appropriated named “non-project related”. What goes in there or not is up to me, not you. There is no contradiction here - I “wrote” the fucking “rule”, not you.

If you want to be a “purist” based on how you perceive my logic, by not allowed any non-project related prefs, and have the section removed, go ahead

The archived issue is now going to be erased, thanks to you