Unicyclist.com should adopt some forum rules.

I’m not saying there should be set rules that ‘discriminate’ against those of us who can’t spell very well. I’m not suggesting banning anybody for breaking said ‘rules’… I posted this topic to get some discussion about the current situation. The best way to begin an argument is by making an assertion, which I did (in the title). In posting a link to the rules from the explosm.net forum, I was merely providing an example of how other forums deal with issues. I’m not saying there should be punishments, I would just like the members of this online community to be responsible for their posts, and realize that when you post something, it is a reflection on your intelligence. If you want to feel stupid and have people viewing your post skip over it because it cannot be read, that’s your choice, and I’m not going to stop you.

I think you get where I’m coming from.

OH! I think you misunderstand this new lingo thing. It’s not supposed to be stupid, It’s kewl talk y’know. But, I get you. Personaly I think people who speel correctly al the time get kinda booring after a while. It adds personality when you have a speshuhl way 2 spell. thats wat i think Anyways…

I think you’re speshuhl.

I think general care taken when posting really helps the reader understand what you are saying. It really annoys me when people talk in acronyms and phoenetic spelling because it makes it a good deal harder for me to read. I honestly don’t mind if there are spelling errors in a post, but deliberate misspellings to sound cool is unnecessary.

I also don’t like it when people don’t say anything in their replies, because it doesn’t tell me anything about the topic, which is why I would be reading the thread.

The edit button is extremely handy, and I realise that it dissapears after a few minutes. But if you post the exact same thing twice, you can delete one without too much trouble.
Also, just to let you guys know, I reread all of my posts here on the forum. I’m not saying I don’t make mistakes, but I try to correct any that I find.

Thats my two cents.
Seamus

If by “adds personality” you mean “makes you look mentally disabled”, then yes, you are right. Typing with your elbows adds personality.

I hope each and every one of you who thinks its “kewl” to destroy English gets fired from a job at some point because your “message” was indecipherable. Then maybe people will actually try to look intelligent.

I’m gonna add on something else to my list:

  1. Accidentally double-posting, and then either a) posting a third time apologizing, or b) editing the second post (conveniently ignoring the ‘delete’) to apologize.

I’m gonna add on something else to my list:

  1. Accidentally double-posting, and then either a) posting a third time apologizing, or b) editing the second post (conveniently ignoring the ‘delete’) to apologize.

It’s all a matter of opinion. Our languge isn’t sacred. I guess wen ppl spl lik ths it sends a different image out to different people. People shouldn’t change their writing styles. If you can’t understand what someone seyz just ask them to be more clear.:wink:

I agree that people shouldn’t have to change their writing style. If you are typing with your elbows to make a point, or because it enhances your writing in some way, then go for it. I probably won’t read it, but then again, you probably don’t care. Typing like a drunk monkey because you’re too lazy to do it right just makes you look ignorant and, well…lazy.

I think some rules would be alright. I should probaly work on my typing. But most my post come out about the way I’d say what I wrote. But when people spell what like wat and use “internet lingo” ie. ROLFMAO(like what the hell does that mean?) stuff it kind of pisses me off(I can’t understaand any of it:o )

I think some rules would be alright. I should probaly work on my typing. But most my post come out about the way I’d say what I wrote. But when people spell what like wat and use “internet lingo” ie. ROLFMAO(like what the hell does that mean?) stuff it kind of pisses me off(I can’t understaand any of it:o )

When it comes to spelling and grammar, the main thing to remember is the audience. Who is reading your post? Who is intended to understand your post?

On these fora, the audience is international and from many different cultures.
English is not the native language for many people on here, so good comprehensible English is the best. Using shorthand or other methods of writing makes it difficult for those who want to try to understand it as it’s hard to look up what the words mean in a dictionary.

Preach it, brother. But even the native speakers and writers cannot often make sense of posts written by other, supposedly native English speakers and writers. I think they are asking to be chastised. I am happy to oblige. Sometimes that is not well received. That makes it even better; finding big buttons to push. Your tolerance threshold is set much higher than mine. They are not rebels, rather lazy morons hiding behind the threadbare cloak of rebellion.

Well, it makes them look like a complete idiot… :roll_eyes:

OH, SNAP!! That hurt bad!!

Anyways…

A standard metric unit allows for universal interactions, coordinating millions of items and people to that commonality. A standard langauge does the same.

Again, preach it, brother.

I think the one rule that we should all follow is this…

If you are writing a full sentence but you could fit it on a licence plate, you probably lost the audience. I speak perfect english and can barely understand about 30% of what goes on here. I feel I need my MSN decoder ring most of the time.

As for the rest of the rules, I am a wee bit less pickie.

I don’t like these rules!

No, it’s kiddy talk. It’s not new, either. The electronic mediums are fairly new and still sorting themselves out, but if we choose to communicate in English here, then that’s the language we’ll be asking for.

When you can’t read, write or type fast, the details matter less because you’re going through the material slowly enough to “get” most of it (assuming you are a native English speaker, which many of us are not). But someday you will learn to type and read faster. I think if I work at it I can type about 100 wpm. Regular English is easier than trying to “make stuff up” as I go along. As for reading, known words are easily recognized when you’re going over them at highway speeds. I have to slow down to “translate” words and abbreviations that aren’t common. They are annoying.

The other reason using a real language is good is the one I’ve mentioned many times before. You just might need to be able to read and write well to get a good job someday. Consider this good practice. English is a lot harder than unicycling. It takes a lot longer to learn, and to really get good at it you need lots of experience! :slight_smile:

Did you mean boring, or something else? Should I try to figure it out? I will assume it’s a typo (everyone makes typos). Go ahead and be bored. What you call boring I call readable.

If you are posting from a telephone number pad, this kind of message is acceptable (for me) as long as it’s less than a paragraph. If you’re using a keyboard that has separate buttons for every letter, no excuse. Learn to write.

Nobody said it was. We’re just asking people to use it.

Anyway, the above isn’t intended only for Goats, but he made the best quotes to respond to. Somebody mentioned earlier the concept of guidelines. I think that’s all we need, and it doesn’t require any extra work to accomplish. If we had a set of voluntary guidelines posted in a sticky, or somewhere, we could refer people to them if they need help with their posts. From there the site might be able to “self-police,” by pestering chronic offenders.

Spelling and grammar:
Nobody expects you to be perfect. Though I try to post clean, I make plenty of mistakes myself, especially when I’m in a hurry. If you’re twelve, I will expect less quality writing than if you’re out of high school. However if you’re an author of dictionaries, for example, type at warp speed and never proof your work, I will bug you about it if you have constant typos. :smiley:

Creating new threads:
This is almost a completely separate topic, but I’ll offer my one main rule in this area: Don’t. I hardly ever create new threads. But I still find plenty to write about. Nobody should ever create a thread without checking the first few pages of existing threads and/or spending some quality time searching.

Are you saying that people should write school papers using text message words just because it’s easier?

There’s a difference between you are talking to someone online using AIM or MSN and when you post something on a forum like this. At least make an effort!