32 replies to this topic

[Misanthrope]

Mistakes happen. In the fury of writing long-winded posts (or short, meaningless drivel) it's often easy to misspell a word here or there, or overlook a typo. I have no problem with that, nor with taking a little artistic license to spice up the post if it adds some intrinsic value to the thread. But lately, I've noticed some folks going out of their way to deliberately misspell common words and butcher the English language beyond recognition. To cite a recent example, one poster found it appropriate to spell "anyways" (which is not a real word, anyway) as "Anywayssss." I could go on, but the drift should be apparent. This blatant disregard for decent use of the language creates an unpleasant environment for those of us who still place value on written communication that resembles something above moron-grade level.

My suggestion is that Trap 17 staff make a stronger effort to enforce the rules and guidelines it already has in place to this effect, specifically:

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Languages (warning): All posts made must be written in decent English.

Thank you for your consideration.

[sonesay]

I agree with you there, I'm not the best writer myself in the world but I'm trying to write correctly most of the time. It will help in work where you have to write clearly and consisly so that people will understand better. Its also good practice to try and enforce this on members so we do not get too many bad use of english on our forums. Sometimes it is hard to tell if a person is writing bad on purpose or if its their english.

[rvalkass]

If you spot a post that is badly written then please Report it using the Report button below the post. This alerts all of the staff members so it will be dealt with quicker than waiting for one of us to find it. Like you say, it is in the rules, and enforcing that rule makes sure that the forums contain high quality, readable posts.

Personally I correct posts I find that are written "in txt spk - lk dis" or use unnecessary abbreviations, such as "u" or "r" instead of "you" or "are". I've also corrected a few posts that contained hundreds of exclamation marks and smilies.

[velma]

Well....

The only problem with targeting every one with bad grammar is that you cannot always blame them for the bad language.

We have to keep in mind that not all the countries in the world are taught English as the first language .
These are a few reasons why a member might have "poor" English :-

1. Living in a place where English is not a priority. (In a place where the mother language or national language is spoken more than any other)

2. Due to bad teachers or their own faults, their English might be poor

3. Just plain old bad grammar.

4. Mobile Phones and their limits


I don't think a member should be warned, threatened, treated like a dunce just because he does not have a good grasp over a language.

On the other hand, It is our responsibility to help members with poor English. I think being members in a "community" makes us responsible for each other's personal growth. By personal growth I mean Self esteem, disabilities, flaws and so on.

I had even suggested to OpaQue that we open a sub forum where members can post useful topics on how to improve their English... But we could not as we needed members who would take out the time to open topics and help members.

We would also need a forum leader who would monitor that particular part of the forum... As we could not find anybody active enough for the job.. We decided to shelve the project.

But If you are interested in it Misanthrope, I will be extremely happy to get the forum started for you You can email OpaQue further IF you want to volunteer for this.. It is not a compulsion what so ever

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Personally I correct posts I find that are written "in txt spk - lk dis" or use unnecessary abbreviations, such as "u" or "r" instead of "you" or "are". I've also corrected a few posts that contained hundreds of exclamation marks and smilies.

Been there and still doing that... Almost 15 out of 20 posts are in text language in the FeedBacker section

I once re wrote a post because it had too much of slang and looked like a giant text

[kobra500]

sometimes i'm just not in the mood to waste time woorying about how im writing which means you get me writing wrong spellings and stuff like 'u r kk'

[Misanthrope]

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“The only problem with targeting every one with bad grammar…”

A brief revisit of my initial suggestion will confirm no suggestion of “targeting” each and every poster who engages in bad grammar, nor ignorance of the board’s diverse customer base. Indeed, one can hardly spend any time at all on the forums without noticing the broad spectrum of cultural diversity and background, which in my opinion, only adds to Trap 17’s appeal. Few website forums can boast of such “universal” readership – or longevity. No one can fault a non-English speaking member for making grammatical errors here or there. Obviously, it goes with the territory and is to be expected to some degree. Ironically, I find the most bothersome and repetitive butchering is made by native speakers who, out of laziness or ineptitude, find it quite amusing to deliberately misspell and botch up the language. I imagine this creates a frustrating environment for non-native speakers who are legitimately trying to learn the English tongue. And naturally, it just pisses off anyone who places value on coherent communication.

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“I don't think a member should be warned…”

I do hope this staff member is not suggesting staff disregard Trap 17 rules that clearly state a warning is to be given for not utilizing decent English.

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“ threatened, treated like a dunce just because he does not have a good grasp over a language.”

No one, until now, has felt it necessary to use terms like “threaten” in reference to this thread - building up a straw man only works when you have enough straw, and even then, the effect is transparent to all but the idiot. Members should not in any way feel “threatened” when staff simply enforce rules that are already in place, and in clear sight for all to see. Further, members have a right to expect a certain level of lingual quality on the forums. Simply throwing the ball back in the topic-starter’s court strikes me as a cop-out, as a legitimate solicitation to man a “grammar” forum clearly would have been made by now. To their credit, the vast majority of members do make a valiant effort to at least write in decent English, regardless of country of origin, socio-economic status and so forth – though I fail to see what mobile phones have to do with anything. In a forum where words are the primary method of communication, it only makes sense to maintain decent grammatical standards, and one has to seriously question why anyone would take offense at enforcing said standards. And when we start making excuses for those who don’t even attempt a stab at decent English, we start down that slippery slope toward acceptance of the lowest common denominator. Somehow, I doubt that’s what anyone wants for the future of Trap 17.

[Saint_Michael]

I have to agree that giving a warning for improper use of the English isn't the right move because then everyone including the non-english speakers would be getting warnings, and that would take the fun out of posting. Granted everyone knows my reputation when it comes to writing the English language and I believe I have improved greatly over the last couple of years. Granted I still suck at it , but still to give warnings to something like for not capitalizing the I when referring to yourself or have to many comma's in a sentence, or it being a run on sentence would be a tad anal. Yeah I agree a warning about excessive use of letters and exclamation points would be warranted, but somethihng like the misuse of words such as anyways which is an adverb, but Nonstandard in the academic world.

Of course we cold debate all these internet words being entered into the dictionary world are rather annoying, and you be surprise how people get angry about this words such as anyways. However, Misa you have to remember though that most of the members are kids, and txt msg has ruined most of their minds a bit, and when they do go to college they will face that hard fact, and sadly back when I was in high school they didn't work much on the english language and thus my problem.

Of course you could say you can blame the American's for ruining the English language, but me personally I think their are too many rules to the English language. Granted that some of those rules make sense but some are just annoying, but as to which I have to get back to you on that .

[Watermonkey]

Saint_Michael, on Jan 18 2008, 07:24 PM, said:

I have to agree that giving a warning for improper use of the English isn't the right move because then everyone including the non-english speakers would be getting warnings, and that would take the fun out of posting. Granted everyone knows my reputation when it comes to writing the English language and I believe I have improved greatly over the last couple of years. Granted I still suck at it , but still to give warnings to something like for not capitalizing the I when referring to yourself or have to many comma's in a sentence, or it being a run on sentence would be a tad anal. Yeah I agree a warning about excessive use of letters and exclamation points would be warranted, but somethihng like the misuse of words such as anyways which is an adverb, but Nonstandard in the academic world.

Of course we cold debate all these internet words being entered into the dictionary world are rather annoying, and you be surprise how people get angry about this words such as anyways. However, Misa you have to remember though that most of the members are kids, and txt msg has ruined most of their minds a bit, and when they do go to college they will face that hard fact, and sadly back when I was in high school they didn't work much on the english language and thus my problem.

Of course you could say you can blame the American's for ruining the English language, but me personally I think their are too many rules to the English language. Granted that some of those rules make sense but some are just annoying, but as to which I have to get back to you on that .

I have to say, Mike, I used to shudder when I went to read one of your posts. Your main problem is you seem to loose focus on keeping the grammar clean. The post above can serve as an example of this. You start out with a paragraph that's pretty much void of anything that substantially tortures the language, but there are a couple simple typos that spell check could've caught. The second paragraph contains "cold" instead of "could" and English should be capitalized, but these are errors easily overlooked. Seems like the last paragraph falls apart, but either I was seeing things, or you came back and corrected it before I could tear it apart. Either way, overall, I'd agree with you: Your grammar and writing skills have improved considerably and are worthy of someone in the high school level in the inner city like in Baltimore or something. A compliment -if you recall what I said about a year ago on that topic. There's an analogy I'd like you all to consider:

In the United States of America, a nation of large, hairy, overgrown children who don't like to take responsibility for their own actions, there's been a growing sediment against the second amendment of the constitution which reads,

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Amendment II (the Second Amendment) of the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights declares a well-regulated militia as "being necessary to the security of a free State" and prohibits infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." The meaning of the Second Amendment is one of the most misunderstood and disputed among the entire Bill of Rights.

-from Wiki

The language, while a bit unusual by today's standards, is very simple, and eloquent. It means, simply, what it says. But a growing body of people would rather blame an inanimate object (a firearm) for the senseless crimes such as rapes and murders instead of owning up to the fact that a firearm, left without human contact, can do no harm. These people try and claim the second amendment, the highest law of the land, is meant to arm militias, not individual people. It clearly does not mean this, and if you look at supporting documents and simply understand that all the amendments to the constitution are a protection of personal liberties, it would be clear to you too. To those who'd ban ownership of firearms, I say this: The constitution is the law of the land. If you don't like one of the amendments or you'd like to add one, there is a mechanism in place whereby you can either amend an amendment or add one. Simply follow the rules and change the law fairly. Until that time comes that the second amendment is changed to mean something you'd like better, the law is the law and it must be obeyed in a civilized society. Period, end of discussion!

So my point is this. If the rules of this forum are in need of revision or clarification, Shree should make the change. That's all. Misanthrope is simply pointing out that a certain rule is being enforced arbitrarily at best because it's too vague. Clarifying it might help, enforcing it would help too. I doubt she's really trying to come down hard on people such as you, Mike, or someone from Bangalore or Bangcock who's writing English as a second language. That wouldn't be reasonable. Someone who has demonstrated, either on the shoutbox or in a thread they are perfectly capable of putting together sentences and putting their thoughts down "on paper", but occasionally just get lazy or want to show people how "cool" they are by flaunting the rules and purposefully mangling the language should, by all reasonable interpretation of the rules in place at this time, be warned. How is this unreasonable? How is this overbearing? I see it as standard moderation and maintenance of this forum. Nothing more, nothing less. (BTW, in this paragraph, I originally mis-spelled seven words. Spell check is our friend. In Firefox, just right-click anywhere and activate spell check, then right click while hovering your arrow over a word with red underline and correct it. It's simple, only takes a minute, and makes you look like you're a freaking genius!)

Edited by Watermonkey, 19 January 2008 - 05:30 AM.

[Misanthrope]

It’s quite chivalrous (and strategic) of you to stand behind the staff member’s opinion, Saint Michael, as misplaced as that effort may be. Had you bothered to read my initial post, you would have garnered that I, in fact, agree with much of your polemic. To illustrate, I recently reported a post that contained numerous misspelled words and grammatical errors, some of which appeared to me deliberately made by someone who speaks English as a first language. I imagine the poor moderator spent a good deal of time cleaning up this member’s post. I think most would agree it's quite inconsiderate to post in post in poor English when you clearly know the language. It was not a matter of one un-capitalized or one misspelled word. The post in question had been a topic starter, thereby setting the tone for the rest of the thread, so I fail to see how reporting such a mess could be considered “anal” in any way. As long as the post was, I wouldn’t have bothered had it been a matter of one typo. Had it been just one sentence, than yes, one typo would definitely stand out. Furthermore, members are encouraged (or at least I assume they are) to report posts that violate Trap 17’s posted rules, which the post in question obviously did. I think it’s fairly clear when a non-native English speaker makes an honest mistake, but it’s also quite apparent when a native-speaker is just blatantly lazy or going out of his way to slaughter the language. Surely you’re not suggesting Trap 17 lower its’ standards by abandoning it’s “use of decent English” clause? If you are, perhaps you could open a brand new topic expounding on why we should no longer enforce rules on decent use of the language. I’d be more than happy to debate you on it. I’m no expert, but I’ve seen a great deal of improvement in your writing skills just in the past few months, and the fact that some semblance of grammatical quality is enforced here is testament to this.

The fact that many members are young and/or non-native speakers only serves to drive home my point. Those of us who learned English as our first language have a duty to uphold it’s grammatical integrity, and we do a great disservice to those still grasping at it’s concepts when we allow it to falter beyond recognition.

Edited by Misanthrope, 22 January 2008 - 06:03 PM.

[Saint_Michael]

Actually I read all the posts; I might have to clarify my original post. Don't get me wrong get anal on the obvious misuse of proper English post and all that stuff, what I was getting at was that someone might misinterpret, if unlikely, what you’re getting at with topic and the issue you are pointing. Also I base my post on being a past moderator on this forum and being well aware of what’s going on even when I am not here on the forums, scary as that maybe. Also stop using big words I just now had to Google polemic to figure out where you’re going with this; one heck of a scrabble word to use though , anyhow what I was getting on the misinterpretation of you topic people would unlikely begin trying to find obvious things and create a witch hunt on those people who don't do it on purpose. Of course that wasn't my intention with my first post as I was only stating that with this being a forum of teenagers and the very strict rules that come into becoming a mod someone would believe they are do good by nailing everyone that forgot to put an I before an E.

Of course I am glad I have that spell checker in Firefox as I type rather fast, or at least I lead myself to believe I type fast, I keep on typing and when I end that sentence I double check it and see if I missed anything. Trust me I wouldn't win a debate if I had the best debaters on my team . Yes members are supposed to reports posts they see as strange and that were lies the problem, especially with people who just join are busting out these posts most of us well know are copy and paste. Usually most people ignore them and go on their merry way; however, people like me who can spot the bogus post right away without trying won't be zooming on the individual words and how they look. I go after the content overall and see if it looks legit or not, now granted I can somewhat nail a grammatical error here in there if the posts are pretty long, but I can't judge everyone's writing skill based on assuming where they live, unless they mention where they are from then I would somewhat know how they would type.

I agree though that helping non-English speakers is useful but I seen a few posts here on the forums where people just degrade the way people post. I am not referring to anyone here on this topic, but I know most people come across those topics and the English is completely broken. Usually I try to read it out and fill in the gaps and then respond if possible; However, and don't take this the wrong way, but the last few years I hear a lot of people saying if you can't speak English get the hell of America, but if you place that kind of mentality in the forums as diverse as this people are going to be thinking some bad stuff. Again misinterpretation and in some way perspective as well could be use, but like I said yeah warn those who are obviously doing it on purpose or being excessive but still think about the way a person posts before making that judgment call.

I might have rambled a bit but I think you can see where I am somewhat going with this post .

EDIT well I decided to think about it some more and came up with this.

As members of this forum regardless of our status, it's everyone responsibility to help other members out. Topics like these not only make the staff do more work but make us look incompetent towards the rest of the members, and also telling them what everyone should be doing and not just the staff . As a member of this forum it is your role to help others out that you see struggling or having a hard time adjusting to the way the forum works. So what would be more beneficial then helping people out by writing tutorials such as the one tikiprincess wrote on writing essays, or providing resources to help those become stronger writers such as you. As a Moderator it is their job to make sure the forums are run properly and not be teaching people how to write, that responsibility goes to the teachers and parents and the proper education a person is supposed to receive. Although they don't read every topic and post on the forum its your role as the member to bring it to their attention so they can fix and maybe send a friendly message about some typo's they made. People make mistakes and given them warnings every time they want to add a couple of exclamation points or use words they feel most comfortable with don’t make them look uneducated.

I believe if you had someone correcting all your mistakes all the time you would get discourage and start second guessing yourself right? And so if we do that to the members they would feel the same discouragement every time the trap17 staff has to give them a warning every time they start tearing the English apart, and when it comes to the English language there is nothing descent about it. When they are referring to descent English the rules are referring to members making sure that their posts are understandable. They don’t need to be rouge scholars with a master’s degree in the English language, just as long as it is legible enough that everyone can understand what that person is talking about.

So instead of telling moderators what they need to do why don't you help the moderator's out and provide information on how to become a better at the English Language. As for the repeat offenders of this let the mod's know and they will take care of the situation as they see fit, and if the person deserves a warning they will get it, but when it comes down to how to write that is up to the person and if they want to write badly and not seek any advice on how to correct it then it is their problem and not ours. You don't have the right to criticize how moderators do their job if the forums were perfect then there would be no need for moderators. Heck I had my own style of moderating and most everyone was aware of it, I dropped the hammer when it came time use it and no one said anything especially when I went back to be just a normal member and having a good time.

So I put this challenge out to you let’s see some topics how to help the members improve their writing skills, either be tutorials or writing resources and not discourage them and make people look uneducated. Heck you don't even need a writing forum because we got the education forum and the tutorial forum as the best two places to post these things. It is easy to discourage someone because of the way they are, but it sure is amazing how hard it is for people not to help others out when they know that person could use it. Of course if people can get over themselves and ask for help now and then who knows we wouldn't be seeing ridiculous topics like this in a forum that provides useful info and not a place to bash other people.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, if every person had to write perfect English, I wouldn’t be taking English for the third time in college. GASP!! All you want about that dirty little secret of mine, I don’t care as quite a few people know that anyways. However, that’s the problem with forums and trying to communicate what a person feel, and so being a little excessive in some things is alright, and screw the Academic English world because unlike them not everyone are English gods or oh so smart. I may not be a genius, but every time I have to read stupid topics like this saying how people should be and all that crap makes me want to smack the person, because quite frankly I don’t care how you think I should be.
I will admit that the only reason why my writing skills have improve so I can make people like watermonkey and even you Misa to shut up about how bad my writing is and all that stuff. Trust me you don’t even know how much I held back when I had to deal with that crap last year, and WM knows they did a lot of trash talking, case being the post he just made in reference to that.

Hell right now I don’t even know if what I am saying is perfect English but AT LEAST YOU KNOW MY FEELINGS ABOUT IT!

So GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES and thinking your all that because quite frankly you’re not, and screwing with kids minds is not being helpful and so it should be you two who should get the warnings and not the people who don’t have the perfect lives like you two do. So before you two get all “anal” and try to destroy my post with your big words and trying twist my words around, I want to see you two posts some topics on how people can improve, and if you can’t do that before replying to what I just said. Then you prove my point on people like you.

Edited by Saint_Michael, 19 January 2008 - 12:13 PM.