i don't use the shift key much, or Netiquette, evolving internet Typography and - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: f5r5e5d
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 09:30:51 am
content: ... 'Proper English' wankersI have used an informal style, few caps, no periods in forums for a while now ('i' for 'I' however does feel pretentious still to me for some reason)and have I drawn the ire of of some - to the point of having posts deleted ex post facto of a mod deciding 'a rule' was neededthis has just been a evolution and copying what I've seen elsewhere on the web for quick, informal communicationthis is not for a textbook, resume, or even an 'essay'and others recognize evolving styles over different media:http://digitaleditions.dlook.com.au/2016/11/how-the-internet-changed-the-way-we-write-%C2%B7-fiction-essays-and-web-content/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/19/twitter-grammar-no-punctuation_n_6785766.htmlhttp://www.contentious.com/2004/09/13/grammar-and-punctuation-for-the-web-whats-proper/the wankers case:https://web.archive.org/web/20030206074012/http://www.infernus.net/rants/write_like_a_wanker.html(corrected hopefully, also:http://www.netalive.org/mirror/wanker.html) copied multiple times on the weban example from eevblog:Quote

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 09:51:54 am
content: eet depunds un ow u wnt peeple two fink ov u an yr rgumentsIf you want people to categorise you with the barely literate twats on Farcebook and Twit-er, then that's your choice.

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 09:59:31 am
content: It's something that can be discussed, but the bottom line is you are communicating in the world that exists today, not the world that might exist tomorrow. This isn't a twitter-like environment, so let's dispense with that argument right away.You clearly know from experience what reactions you get from your style, and choose do it anyway. If that works for you, great. If it doesn't, then perhaps you need to bend a little, at least when you're talking to people you want something from.

author: nugglix
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:19:48 am
content: And don't forget the ignore function this forum offers.Bottom of kill file might betheplace for this kind...

author: f5r5e5d
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:27:17 am
content: ooh, did I hit a nerve?the part about being 'Proper English" wankers is just this response - how about your obligation to bend, reading what content you find useful, and allow for a rather bigger worlddid any of you read the quote, want to go on record as that being a model eevblog pattern?being a wanker is about injecting your hobby horse into other discussion - often when frustrated for other reasonsgenerally calling for the ignore list sounds like petty tribalism - but personally, by all means, you know your limits best, when you can't reply without ad hominem attacksI' pretty sure that here I've been a net source of useful EE commentary out of my 30+ years professional practice

author: ovnr
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:41:09 am
content: Feel free to write however you like, but don't be surprised if people dislike you for it.If you're contributing to an actual discussion, writing properly indicates that you've also put some small amount of effort into your post, just like seeing a properly laid out PCB inspires greater confidence in the product quality. If you just vomit out a typo-filled mess, I'm less inclined to actually read it and give it the time it'd need - why should I waste the effort onyourterrible post when I could read a well-written post below it?Personally, if I see a post where it's evident that the user has no interest in spending a minute or two making an effort to make said post readable and clear, I stop giving a shit about that person's opinion or - especially! - problem. "herp derp my thing doesnt wrk plz halp" is not going to get much help. "My toaster has started toasting itself; can anyone identify this melted blob (image here), and is it safe for me to attempt a repair or should I just chuck it in the bin?" is more likely to actually get a response.

author: nugglix
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:48:32 am
content: Looks like the only reason of the above was to provoke.Kill filing just another asshole is the best one can do.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:49:07 am
content: You start sentences with capital. You also start every noun capital if you write in German. You also start cities and names capital. Thats just the way it is.And you only place extra enter between paragraphs.I'm quite sure there are studies, pairing all lowercase writing with different personality disorders.

author: f5r5e5d
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:54:57 am
content: still haven't read the eevblog quotes that triggered my post?Quote from: nugglix on February 03, 2018, 10:48:32 amedit:'quote' button in different place than I'm used too

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 11:04:13 am
content: We're not talking about proper English. Nobody cares if you use the Oxford comma or not. Or which country's spelling of words you use (e.g. color vs colour). Or whether you use one or two spaces after a period. What we're talking about is the BASICS of grammar, which both native and second-language writers (we have plenty in this forum) of the language use as a rule. What they care about is that the visual clues they've learned are missing, which for some is very annoying. Which you already know!And no, neither of us has an obligation to bend. However, as a practical matter, you may get better results if you aren't annoying their sensibilities. Nothing said in this thread is going to change that reality.As for your professional experience, I don't see how that is relevant to this topic.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 11:21:04 am
content: I know plenty of people who write simply. They're not as easy to understand but they're not a jerk about it, so it's tolerable.I'll let the reader decide if this is relevant information or not.Tim

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 11:53:37 am
content: Proper spelling and grammar never hurt anyone. It's not "netiquette", it's known as being "able to spell" and "having half a brain".

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 12:01:08 pm
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 03, 2018, 10:27:17 amYour attitude is what disappoints me. That, along with your ignorance.The single most critical issue on any forum is clear communication. If you are not aware of this, then your arrogance is to be mourned.This is text based communication. There is no body language - no vocal inflection - no feedback as we "speak" ... things to which we don't even pay conscious attention when in face to face conversation.By not maintaining a consistent form in your communication - especially on well established subjects - you are crippling yourself, weakening your message and quite possibly confusing people who do not follow your line of thinking.Add to that the fact that we have a global membership here and that many do not have English as their first language - and your excursions into "creative" conversation are at high risk of becoming incomprehensible.Many of us have taken the interest in learning how to use the English language as best we can, so that we can communicate quickly, efficiently and accurately. Even then, we don't always do a good job.However, if I have to start interpreting what you want to write, then I will have to wonder if it's worth the effort. Even then, if I try and get it wrong - then you'll castigate me for being so obtuse.One last thing. This thread is something I would expect from a troll.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 12:03:42 pm
content: Brumby: Absolutely spot-on!

author: Brumby
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 12:06:58 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on February 03, 2018, 09:51:54 amThat's how some things have looked to me.QuoteHarsh? Not really .... but it is rather accurate.One other thing ... some of the discussions here involve electricity in situations that can be lethal - and that risk may not be obvious. Clear communication is essential.

author: dmills
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 12:27:55 pm
content: In a text based forum, all anyone knows about you is what you write, and I would observe that a reputation for being picky about SPAG is actually pretty close to being a common feature of the more useful end of the forums out there. How do you wish to be perceived?This place is not Twitter, posts should be considered pieces of writing not generally off the cuff one liners, and if you want well thought out, reasoned answers it is helpful to put some of that thought and effort into your post, otherwise why should we bother?Fora tend to have a house style to some extent, and when posting in any forum it generally works best if you read a little first, obtain an idea of what the house style is and then either more or less follow it or decide that this is a hill you wish to die on (or just troll, also fun sometimes!), basically old USENET style good behaviour.EEVBLOG is actually fairly tame, you try the no caps thing in say the UK Theatre industry forum "The Blue Room" and see how far you get! It is probably the premier forum for technical theatre in the UK and is an extremely useful resource, but they rightly take the view that SPAG matters in technical fields, 1mA and 1MA are not the same thing.Sometimes the comma changes the meaning in dangerous ways ("You may touch the busbar, live electrics can be dangerous" Vs "You may touch the busbar live, electrics can be dangerous").It is up to you, but lazy SPAG gets you frowned upon in nearly every useful technical forum I have encountered, Here, "Sound on Sound", "The Blue Room", "Photonlexicon", "StackExchange", "DIY Audio", various mailing lists... It is a sufficiently common trait that I would figure there is some underlying reason.Regards, Dan.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 02:03:32 pm
content: So, in summary:When someone asks the local forum residents (who range from beginners to grey bearded gurus with decades of experience) to spend their free time helping them, by asking forum question, without expectation of any rewards, it's perfectly OK to make their effort that much harder by not even trying to make your questions legible, provided that you can save .0025 seconds by not using stuff like caps or punctuation.Good to know, simple courtesy is dead. While we're at it, let's just throw out the concept of a shared language out of the window and communicate by means of emoticons and memes with cats perhaps?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 02:40:10 pm
content: I like how the OP effectively argues that capitals and punctuation aren't really necessary any more, yet compensates for the lack of them in his posts by having a single line for each sentence with a blank line in between. Apparently he does consider capitals and punctuation necessary, but just replaced them with an alternative.

author: hans
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 04:12:14 pm
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 03, 2018, 10:27:17 amBecause punctuation has a non-zero entropy! Here is your post with no punctuation at all, except spaces:QuoteWell, good luck reading that. I'm not trying.Writing style is one of the few ways of informal communication methods one has, and you're neglecting it. Not being able to make proper paragraphs of sentences that are grouped together shows one has the writing skill of an 8 year old. Being able to write well is a invaluable "soft" skill. Have you seen how hard it is for people to write documentationwell?Aside from attention span, it's not easy to:- Know the readers objective when reading your document.- Know the background of the reader at any part in the story, and adjust your writing and explanations to that background.- Write only relevant parts into a document.- Write the relevant parts in order.- Don't repeat yourself while writing, rather reference. Repeating once or perhaps twice can be fine, but it gets old real quick.- Writing things down unambiguously.- Bonus points: finding joy and satisfaction in playing with words, rhyme and metaphors; for example try writing a poem (can recommended), although applicability is limited in engineering.Perhaps this is why a "technical writer" is a profession, because this is not easy.Now I'm not a perfect English writer (let alone speaker) neither. It is not my mother tongue. When I'm tired the comprehension of sentences goes down. I've never had the head for language (I was terrible at German and French in secondary school), even though since the past few years I've started to develop an interest for it. But at least I feel proud of making an effort from it.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 04:55:02 pm
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 03, 2018, 10:27:17 amBased on your posts in this thread, I see no reason to suggest that you have helped or were professional. Alternatively, why change now? Old age perhaps?If you can't be bothered to consider your readers and help them, then why do you think they should help you?

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 05:04:36 pm
content: Bad spelling, punctuation,grammar etc. simply makes you appear less literate, and people will, in the absence of other information, infer a lower level of intelligence, competence or education, and may take what you say less seriously.No different whether it's a forum or in real life.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 06:42:04 pm
content: Quote from: dmills on February 03, 2018, 12:27:55 pmExcellent example. I've worked with a coworker who almost never used punctuation; and even when speaking, would create excessively long run-on sentences. It has resulted in more than one massive misunderstanding --- fortunately not the lethal kind.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 08:32:24 pm
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 03, 2018, 10:54:57 amYes, I have and, going by the responses here, I think most others have too.This is a professional forum, where people invest a reasonable amount of time helping others. It is not Facebook or twitter. As many others have already stated: making an effort with spelling, punctuation and grammar, shows the writer has: made a reasonable effort and thought about what their post, before hitting the reply button.Fair enough, not everyone uses perfect English all of the time. I can accept people will occasional make typographical errors or confuse similar words such as loose and lose and that one shouldn't get flamed for such errors, but they should make a reasonable effort to avoid them.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:01:51 pm
content: Despite some folks can be obnoxiously anal about form, which sometimes is thrown as a last resort to try to dismiss/derail the argument, in my opinion care for the spoken/written word conveys the idea that you also cares about details - an important aspect for quality technical work.

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2018, 10:25:16 pm
content: I have two comments woth examples following, but fundamentally when I read notes with bad grammar, punctuation or spelling, and if it’s frequent, it’s like listening to a scratched record, it becomes irritating and distracting, and it detracts hugely from the content itself.If you don’t spell, puctuate or use grammar reasonably well, you will frustrate your reader because they have to waste their time reading and re-reading in an effort to understand what’s being said. As an example, a company I’ve done work for use cheap offshore labour for a lot of their work, and the technical documentation is horrendous in terms of grammar and readability. As a result, onshore deployments frequently fail or need rework as the documentation is so poor, with the deployment engineer having to guess. It goes without saying that you must be precise in the technical world, it is not the place for nuance and guesswork.Secondly, if you can’t be arsed to write in a readable way, it reflects on you as a person. At the extreme, occasionally I come across CVs/resumes where the applicant doesn’t give a fig, it’s full of missing determiners and lacking any sentence structure: s/he (it’s usually he) simply won’t get an interview.Occaional aberrations are reasonable, we all do it, I know I do, but to not even try says more aboit you as a person.

author: timb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 12:58:20 am
content: Quote from: amyk on February 03, 2018, 06:42:04 pmHere’s another example:1) After we went riding, I helped Uncle Jack off the horse.2) after we went riding i helped uncle jack off the horseThe meaning is completely different! If someone posted #2, we’d all see them as some freak who liked to give hand jobs to horses, instead of a polite person helping his Uncle down.#Capitalization Lives Matters

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 01:15:45 am
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 03, 2018, 09:30:51 amQuoting a guide to trolling, with a malformed url that points to nowhere. Good work on wasting even more of other peoples time for your little soapbox.

author: GreyWoolfe
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 03:40:38 am
content: I am not going to speak to the OP, but of myself. I have heard the sound of my voice. To me, I sound like an illiterate Brooklyn cab driver. As such, I try to speak as well as I can and as clearly as I can to get my point across. This extends to my writing. I have had to produce simple documentation to help non-technical people use our deployed equipment effectively and without causing expensive damage. This, as many know, is quite difficult. Even in email exchanges or threads with my fellow technicians, I try to be as clear and unambiguous as possible. Technology leaves little room for error. English is my native language and I certainly am not perfect with it. However, I believe it behooves anyone who is a native English speaker/writer to be as clear and concise as possible. I certainly will not condemn or berate someone for what appears to be intentionally poor writing skills, but I will not give much credence to what they have to say. Of course, your mileage may vary and you may take what I say with as many grains of salt as you seem fit.

author: f5r5e5d
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 07:26:41 am
content: thanx for the heads up - fixed urlI was arsed to create this thread after reading what I quoted in the 1st post from a thread which was active just a day or two agowhich was bullyingso no, this isn't an out of the blue attention begging troll - but is deliberately provacative to highlight the bad behavioralways fun to to reverse the name calling direction and watch the sputteringQuote from: Someone on February 04, 2018, 01:15:45 am

author: Nusa
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 07:32:17 am
content: You just described yourself as a:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 04, 2018, 08:27:50 am
content: Quote from: f5r5e5d on February 04, 2018, 07:26:41 amYou don't go around exposing anything, you report it to a moderator, if you can't live with that way of doing things then leave!