; Improve docstring for `inhibit-startup-echo-area-message'

Both the docstring and comments now indicate why this variable has
specialised treatment.

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 5 deletions

diff --git a/lisp/startup.el b/lisp/startup.el
index 61f6db74f2e..aaa6883bd58 100644
--- a/lisp/startup.el
+++ b/lisp/startup.el
@@ -76,13 +76,24 @@ once you are familiar with the contents of the startup screen."
 
 (defvar startup-screen-inhibit-startup-screen nil)
 
-;; FIXME? Why does this get such weirdly extreme treatment, when the
-;; more important inhibit-startup-screen does not.
+;; The mechanism uses to ensure that only end users can disable this
+;; message is not complex. Clearly, it is possible for a determined
+;; system administrator to inhibit this message anyway, but at least
+;; they will do so with knowledge of why the Emacs developers think
+;; this is a bad idea.
 (defcustom inhibit-startup-echo-area-message nil
   "Non-nil inhibits the initial startup echo area message.
-Setting this variable takes effect
-only if you do it with the customization buffer
-or if your init file contains a line of this form:
+
+The startup message in the echo area as it provides information
+about GNU Emacs and the GNU system in general, which we want all
+users to see. As this is the least intrusive startup message,
+this variable gets specialized treatment to prevent the message
+from being disabled site-wide by systems administrators, while
+still allowing individual users to do so.
+
+Setting this variable takes effect only if you do it with the
+customization buffer or if your init file contains a line of this
+form:
  (setq inhibit-startup-echo-area-message \"YOUR-USER-NAME\")
 If your init file is byte-compiled, use the following form
 instead: