Sorry, can't take it any more

[Rocketman]

Does it really work, though? Would you speak to someone who you wanted to hear and understand you in unintelligible mumblings? You might not speak the language perfectly, but you still want to be understood, to convey to the listener your thoughts. The same holds true for the written word. If no one can understand it or it takes too much effort to decipher it, your thoughts will fall on deaf eyes.

On the other hand, if your goal is to mumble for the sake of mumbling, and don't care if you are understood, then intelligible is irrelevant.

No, I think that in an open forum your going to get a wide range of abilities to express one's self. I think that if you want to read what someone has to say, you need to have the ability and the patience to forgive them for small grammatical and spelling errors like the one's that are being discussed in this thread.

I don't like the long, never-ending paragraphs with little or no punctuation making the poster's post hard to read. But, I seldom belittle the poster or complain about it. If I am interested in what they are posting, I'll decipher it. If I'm not, I don't waist my time. I make that decision. They posted it, I decide whether or not to read it.

I think I do a decent job of writing on the forums but I catch myself making mistakes and I catch myself not remembering how to punctuate or spell certain words/sentences. I actually did quite well in school, but that was 27 years ago. I don't come to the forums to get English lessons. I come here to read about expedite related topics. If the topic is interesting, I have the patience to work through the poster's lack of perfect grammar, spellig and punctuation.

I just think that those who get their shorts in a wad over this stuff should maybe get a better fitting pair of shorts

I do apologize to the masses. My phone pulls up the forums and shows a list of "latest" topics and posts without regard to which forum they are in. I definitely did not intend to particpate in the Soapbox forum. I will happily leave the bickering nature of the Soapbox to those who do it best.

 

[AMonger]

I've got an even better idea. How about I/we type it and you have a choice... read it or don't read it. That works for me.

Nope. Literacy is mandatory. Nobody leaves first grade without reading or 3rd, 7th, or 12th grades without being at grade level in reading, writing, and comprehension. That's the way it's got to be.

--

You know the problem with bad cops? They make the other 5% look bad.

 

[Turtle]

No, I think that in an open forum your going to get a wide range of abilities to express one's self. I think that if you want to read what someone has to say, you need to have the ability and the patience to forgive them for small grammatical and spelling errors like the one's that are being discussed in this thread.

Small grammatical errors and spelling mistakes are one thing, and they're no big deal for the most part. The complaints about the small things are mostly friendly jabs, but are also reminders to those who are guilty of them to think more about them and improve on their communication skills. The small mistakes are almost universally forgivable, but the larger mistakes are not, and it should not be incumbent upon the reader to have the ability and patience to forgive the large errors. If the writer wants to be understood, it is the writer's obligation to make the effort.

I don't like the long, never-ending paragraphs with little or no punctuation making the poster's post hard to read. But, I seldom belittle the poster or complain about it.

I seldom belittle a poster or complain about such posts, either. But that's mainly because I simply skip over such mumblings and ignore them.

I think I do a decent job of writing on the forums but I catch myself making mistakes and I catch myself not remembering how to punctuate or spell certain words/sentences.

Same here. I think most do a perfectly fine job of communicating here.

I just think that those who get their shorts in a wad over this stuff should maybe get a better fitting pair of shorts

To a point I agree, but I also think in any community, real or virtual, there is a minimum level of anything, be it spelling and grammar or whatever other behaviors one chooses to list, that will be tolerated long term without comment.

I do apologize to the masses. My phone pulls up the forums and shows a list of "latest" topics and posts without regard to which forum they are in. I definitely did not intend to particpate in the Soapbox forum. I will happily leave the bickering nature of the Soapbox to those who do it best.

You're going to blame your phone for you not looking at the lower right hand corner of every thread which tells you which forums you are reading? Seriously? LOL Oh, that's OK. You should see what happens when a moderator posts something into a Carrier Forum which they are not leased to. It's almost as bad as the indiscriminate and reckless usage of apostrophe's.

 

[highway star]

If I'm not, I don't waist my time.

That would be waste, not waist.

For Pete's sake...

 

[mjmsprt40]

Nope. Literacy is mandatory. Nobody leaves first grade without reading or 3rd, 7th, or 12th grades without being at grade level in reading, writing, and comprehension. That's the way it's got to be.

You've never been in the Chicago public school system, have you. It's not uncommon to hear of high-school graduates who can't read their diplomas and who are totally at sea if they have to do anything beyond simple arithmetic. It's a bit better now than it used to be, but not much. Kids still get passed up the next grade even though they can't do the work at the grade level they were at.

 

[greg334]

It isn't just Chicago, it is most of the public schools systems.

 

[AMonger]

You've never been in the Chicago public school system, have you. It's not uncommon to hear of high-school graduates who can't read their diplomas and who are totally at sea if they have to do anything beyond simple arithmetic. It's a bit better now than it used to be, but not much. Kids still get passed up the next grade even though they can't do the work at the grade level they were at.

I'm saying, that's how it's going to be when I'm elected Grand Poobah.

2012: Ron Paul or not at all.
The lesser of two evils is still evil.

 

[Ragman]

I'm saying, that's how it's going to be when I'm elected Grand Poobah.

 

[cheri1122]

Small grammatical errors and spelling mistakes are one thing, and they're no big deal for the most part. The complaints about the small things are mostly friendly jabs, but are also reminders to those who are guilty of them to think more about them and improve on their communication skills. The small mistakes are almost universally forgivable, but the larger mistakes are not, and it should not be incumbent upon the reader to have the ability and patience to forgive the large errors. If the writer wants to be understood, it is the writer's obligation to make the effort.

I seldom belittle a poster or complain about such posts, either. But that's mainly because I simply skip over such mumblings and ignore them.

Same here. I think most do a perfectly fine job of communicating here.

To a point I agree, but I also think in any community, real or virtual, there is a minimum level of anything, be it spelling and grammar or whatever other behaviors one chooses to list, that will be tolerated long term without comment.

You're going to blame your phone for you not looking at the lower right hand corner of every thread which tells you which forums you are reading? Seriously? LOL Oh, that's OK. You should see what happens when a moderator posts something into a Carrier Forum which they are not leased to. It's almost as bad as the indiscriminate and reckless usage of apostrophe's.

That indiscriminate and reckless usage of apostrophe's [sic] drives me crazy, too - you did that on purpose, right?
PS I like the carrier for whom we drivers, too.

 

[Turtle]

Yeah, I did that on purpose.

You're actually the one who broke me of that nasty habit, especially the its-it's issue, and the reckless, mindless gross apostrophization of plurals like CD's and DVD's.

I will admit that autocorrect on the phone often gets its and it's wrong, and I'm too lazy to go back up and make the necessary corrections. But I'm aware of it when it happens.

 

[greg334]

Sorry I can't take something else any more - HTML code not being filtered by the site. I feel with all these mods/admin et al being in this section of the forum, please please edit those HTML code out of the posts.

example -

QUOTE=AMonger;505944]Santorum: State Murder as a "Moral Enterprise"

“God did not just give us rights,” pontificated His High Holiness Rick Santorum during a January 17 campaign stop in Lexington, South Carolina. “He gave us a moral code by which to exercise them. See, that’s what Ron Paul sort of leaves out. He leaves out [that the] rights and responsibilities that we have come from God…. And he says, `No, we just have rights, and then that’s it.’ No, we don’t. America is a moral enterprise.” And morality, Santorum believes, is best instilled through State coercion, including officially sanctioned murder. [/quote]

I can't blame Amonger for this seeing it is ignore all too often.

 

[AMonger]

When I was in school, we ran cross-country every week, which meant a long line of people outside the nurse's office with excuses to get out of gym that day. The nurse was an old woman who wrote the archaic "to-day" instead of "today." So the most frequent goldbricks, who were also the least educated, would decide that meant TWO DAYS. So they wouldn't dress for gym the next day, either, and the argument would ensue at roll call.

"Why aren't you dressed?"

"The nurse said two days."

"No, it was one day."

"No, it was two."

Every time.

--

You know the problem with bad cops? They make the other 5% look bad.

 

[AMonger]

Sorry. When I paste something like that, I can't see the markup crap until I actually view the message after it posts. Then I go, "How did all that crap get in there?" and I click modify/edit to take it out. When the edit screen comes up, no markup is visible for me to take out. I go back to the message view, and there it is again. I'd take it out if I could, but I can't.

--

You know the problem with bad cops? They make the other 5% look bad.

 

[cheri1122]

Sorry I can't take something else any more - HTML code not being filtered by the site. I feel with all these mods/admin et al being in this section of the forum, please please edit those HTML code out of the posts.

Why should the mods [at least one of whom wouldn't know HTML code from a Hotmail addy] edit those posts? I think it's the poster who bears responsibility for fixing it, whatever 'it' is, if they typed it.
If AM can't edit in the format he uses, it's up to him to find something that works, IMO.

example -

QUOTE=AMonger;505944]Santorum: State Murder as a "Moral Enterprise"

“God did not just give us rights,” pontificated His High Holiness Rick Santorum during a January 17 campaign stop in Lexington, South Carolina. “He gave us a moral code by which to exercise them. See, that’s what Ron Paul sort of leaves out. He leaves out [that the] rights and responsibilities that we have come from God…. And he says, `No, we just have rights, and then that’s it.’ No, we don’t. America is a moral enterprise.” And morality, Santorum believes, is best instilled through State coercion, including officially sanctioned murder.

I can't blame Amonger for this seeing it is ignore all too often.[/QUOTE]

 

[greg334]

First he explained the situation before and I for one don't want to have him stop posting and my comment was not about him

Second
Out of four or five mods, there are at least two who can correct the posts and as a couple of them are quick to edit posts when they don't like whats being said, it is a two minute operation at most to do a find and replace.

 

[cheri1122]

No offense, but I don't like the idea of mods editing anyone's posts. If something needs changed, they can ask the poster to change it, or delete it if it's all that bad, but editing is too close to censoring, IMO.
AM's formatting problem is like the one LOS had with double posts: annoying, but apparently fixable. And when the fix is found, sharing it would help anyone else who encounters it down the road.

 

[greg334]

Well I would agree but editing for the positive experience for the visitor in this case. This isn't really a censorship issue but a problem with the site and there should be some effort.

 

[Turtle]

Editing (and deleting) isn't "too close" to censorship, it's the very definition of censorship. It's straight up censorship. A censor is someone who examines books, plays, news reports, motion pictures, radio and television programs, letters, cablegrams, etc. (in our case here on EO, forum posts), for the purpose of suppressing parts deemed objectionable on moral, political, military, or other grounds (in out case here on EO, it's "other grounds", namely, based on the Code of Conduct). This site has it's own Code of Conduct which lays out the rules for content censorship, and if the members fail to censor themselves it's the job of the moderators and administrators to censor the members' posts for them.

To say that there are a couple of mods who are "quick to edit posts when they don't like whats being said," is simply not true (except for maybe a handful of rare exceptions). For example, there are two instances that I can immediately recall where someone took cheap pot shots with personal attacks against you, Greg, and not only did I like them and think they were hilarious, I agreed with them, but I edited them out anyway, because they violated the Code of Conduct. Others have done the same, or simply deleted the post, in many instances.

Moderators are here not to reformat the posts of people who can't figure out how to post correctly, but to moderate the forums according to the Code of Conduct. Editing out HTML code, unless it somehow violates the Code of Conduct, is something that moderators shouldn't be doing as a matter of course. If it's just a simple two minute thing, then anyone who wants to undertake the two minutes can copy the text into a word processor, reformat it, then repost it as a reply directly under the original. Easy. So easy that that's what AM should probably be doing himself before he copies and pastes articles.

I think the problem stems from smartphone-formatted Web pages that use things like WML, which use XML when rendered for desktop browser, and when text gets copied the unrendered HTML code shows up as plain text to non-smartphones and other mobile devices. AM can't see the plain text, because his browser is interpreting the HTML code under WML and rendering the page for his mobile device. When a desktop accesses the page, the server renders the page for the desktop, thereby showing the WML as plain text. It's probably not that, exactly, but it's really close. Parts of the text is simply getting lost in translation.

Mods could edit the posts, but then you get into the "feed a man a fish" scenario where reformatting the posts will only encourage AM to post more in the same manner.

I suggest AMonger check the browser ID on his devices, his browser settings, and his CP settings, and see if playing with those changes things.

 

[greg334]

Sorry turtle my comments were not directed to you nor was I asking for your opinion. I expected lawrence to take note of the issue and see what changes can be made.

That was part of the purpose for my complaint, to get more than just superficial comment or two about what mods do and don't do, it was about having one of you acually be concern about the issue s just step up and make the post readable.

More often edits happen because of the code of conduct and that is understandable but it seems that if one is to be concerned to enforce the coc then it makes sense that the usability of the threads and posts should be of an equal concern.

With the complaints of censorship by any editing happening from many who are members and former members, this is an entirely different issue and I find the logic used to support not doing it as illogical as it can get.

 

[cheri1122]

Sorry turtle my comments were not directed to you nor was I asking for your opinion. I expected lawrence to take note of the issue and see what changes can be made.

That was part of the purpose for my complaint, to get more than just superficial comment or two about what mods do and don't do, it was about having one of you acually be concern about the issue s just step up and make the post readable.

If it's ok for mods to edit to "make the post more readable", then HTML code is not all they should fix, right? There's a lot of spelling, grammar, and punctuation that they could clean up too.


More often edits happen because of the code of conduct and that is understandable but it seems that if one is to be concerned to enforce the coc then it makes sense that the usability of the threads and posts should be of an equal concern.

Uh uh - the CoC is black & white, but the "usability of the threads and posts" is open to interpretation.
When posts are too difficult to make sense of, it's up to the members to point it out, so the OP can fix it.
Or not.

With the complaints of censorship by any editing happening from many who are members and former members, this is an entirely different issue and I find the logic used to support not doing it as illogical as it can get.

I didn't allege any censorship, merely said that editing is too close to it - the potential to change words and meanings is one that should be avoided.
If my words need changed, I want to change them myself.