A softfork is a change to the bitcoin protocol wherein only previously valid blocks/transactions are made invalid.
HA HA HA
heres a tip
buzzwords "user assisted softfork"(UASF)
buzzwords "miner assisted softfork"(MASF)
were non existant terms before LUKE dreamed them up .
it was all false social drama, to try to hid/downplay the controversy it would cause.. calling it soft doesnt mean its soft. it just a word someone chose for a buzzword to confuse the sheep
if you dont know what controversial fork (hard) is. then you really have not looked at what real hard/soft are in regards to real hard/soft forks since many years before lukes bait/switch social games name twisting buzzwords
but hey.. because a certain group buzzworded it in the last 2 years. (like 'conservative' you will follow their buzzword as the truth, rather than really understand/research
in short a soft fork is a fork that is not controversial or causes much network effect/damage. thus its soft
if it causes controversy/drama/alot of network effect.. its hard
even luke knows that. which is why he now wants to use the buzzword "inflight upgrade" for softforks
even other devs knows that. which is why they now wants to use the buzzword "compatible upgrade" for softforks
Sort of like you calling a "soft fork" a "hard fork."
None of this matters anyway. Soft vs. hard is not important. What matter is whether a fork is compatibility-breaking. That is what causes network splits. That's why BIP148 was just as reckless as many hard fork proposals.