RE: customize-apropos

[Drew Adams]

       I probably shouldn't jump in here, but that text tells me nothing,
       except to stay away from the option in question.

    That is what it tells you _if_ you do not know what you are doing.
    What else do you believe people should be doing if they did not
    _deliberately_ want to override the usual Custom safeguards, but got
    to see these options by accident (presumably through a bug)?

       If this is truly dangerous, then we shouldn't show it.

    By default, we do not show it.

       If this is truly dangerous, then we shouldn't show it.

    It is not necessarily dangerous if you know what you are doing.

This message is shown if someone does `C-u M-x customize-apropos' - that's
what we're discussing, right? So, you're saying that someone who does that
either must "know what he is doing" and not need and not want to know how to
change the options he explicitly asked to see, or he doesn't "know what he
is doing" and so should be scared away.

Is that a fair characterization of your position? To me, it is reasonable in
that context to remind people that they can use M-x set-variable to change a
non-defcustom user option. I wouldn't even want to scare people for internal
variables; I'd just tell them that the variable is not intended to be
changed by users. That may be what you intended, but the language you used
is too strong for that purpose.

Reminding people how to change a non-defcustom user option and reminding
them not to change internal variables is more useful than just telling them
"use only if you know what you are doing". Besides, this is not about
_using_ the variable ("use only if"); it is about changing its value.