So I’ve passively managed to piss off bunches of Dopers because I choose not to capitalize. Whatever. I’m a reasonable person and I really don’t mean to alienate everyone. If enough people post below telling me to start capitalizing, I’ll do it. If there really isn’t any interest in the subject, I’ll know that the problem is a few wackos (not the sane) just getting their undies in a bunch.
If you can’t express thoughts on the subject in a civilized manner, I’m really not interested in them. I don’t intend on being a target.
Sorry for the egregious blunder with the name, Wonko. It’s Wonko the Sane, isn’t it. Pretend I just sent you a cyber muffin basket (with little robot muffins). One more time, sorry.
One reason only: It makes your posts easier to read. If you’re here to communicate (and I assume you are ) you want people to read and respond to your posts. Posts with intentionally flakey formatting, posts that aren’t capitalized (or worse, unpunctuated), posts filled with cryptic ‘shortcuts’ as “2 a11 u d0p3rz: this 1’s 4 u” simply get in the way of clear communication.
Capitalization alone isn’t that huge of a deal for me, but I’d rather read a capitalized post than not.
Since I was one of the people who spoke to you about the lack of capitalization, I feel this is somewhat directed at me.
Heres’ what I posted (before I went on to answer your OP in the other thread Link here : " Let me explain why I find the affectation of not using a shift key so problematical.
You know the eye chart where they check your vision? You know that big “E” at the top of the chart? well, without my glasses, I can’t see that. When I’m sitting at my computer, I often take my glasses off - since there’s this narrow piece of space where I can focus, I try and sit that distance away. But even so, some times, it’s hard for me to read. That’s why I’ll sometimes get a posters’ name wrong (I simply cannot focus on the letters very well).
When people use either all caps or no caps, the words tend to run together more and it makes it harder for me to read, really strains my eyes, making me grumpy (and you don’t want to see me grumpy). This also happens if you don’t make a paragraph break. So, I’ll tend to skip posts by people who do these things, just 'cause it causes more strain on my already out-of-warranty eyes. "
I wasn’t pissed off, didn’t think I came off that way, just wanted you to be aware that there were some specific reasons why some people may have a problem with the lack of capitalization. All I intended was to give you information - you’re allowed to continue to post w/or w/o capitalization if you choose, just understand that some people may have problems reading it, others it will irritate them.
So, this OP is a poll? Well, put me down for not liking the no capitalization gig. for reasons stated above. However, if you could please show me where I appeared to have my “undies in a bunch” over the issue, I’d be grateful.
Well, I’m a copyeditor by trade, so obviously I’ll vote for standard spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.
The reason? This is a written medium, and the way you present your words is your online image. Refusing to cap and punctuate does not reflect well on you, IMHO. (By “you” I mean anyone who writes this way, not necessarily you specifically.) In a forum that values “fighting ignorance” and getting the facts right, I think it’s reasonable to expect standard format from those who want to be taken seriously.
(There’s a person on one of my e-mail lists who never uses the shift key – and it’s a list for freelance writers and editors. Seeing this “style” in such a medium really torques me. She calls herself a publishing professional?)
Since you’re asking. I prefer the normal rules of capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. I’m not a perfectionist and realize that typos happen, but c’mon, we’re supposed to be intelligent people here. IMO, using proper capitalization makes the post look less intelligent.
As wring put it, it’s all about communication. This is a message board, of course, and one that is generally comprised of thoughtful, well-meaning adults who are here for the purpose of eradicating ignorance. Since communication is the key to eradicating ignorance, it follows that good communication will go a long way toward this goal.
Look at it this way. If you’re in a chat room and are typing to your friends, you’re going to take as many shortcuts as you can, because the room moves quickly - and you want to get your point across NOW! But here, on a message board, you have far more time to organize your thoughts. While it’s certainly forgivable for a person to take shortcuts in a realtime arena such as a chat room, we cannot be as forgiving. It’s nothing personal, you see. People are on here to be entertained and/or educated. They will be entertained and/or educated if they respect their fellow posters. If their fellow posters are respected, those posters will have respect as well. And what shows respect and consideration better than anything? Communication. And what’s the best way to show good communication skills on a message board? Use proper capitalization and punctuation.
It’s not that important to me, if your posts aren’t that important to you. Most people will notice posts without proper capitalization, but may tend to just gloss over them. I guess it just makes a post look like it was sort of thrown together, rather than thought out. If that’s the impression, then why give it a thoughtful read? Just my opinion.
There’s another thing about people who never capitalize which reminds me of “Calvin and Hobbes”. I can’t help but think of the bully, Moe - anyone who reads Calvin will know that Moe’s dialog was always written without capitalization. Not implying that anyone is a bully, of course - I just find it funny that I always think of Moe when I see that writing style.
I think there might be a few people here who might go postal over a lack of capitalization, bad grammar, abbreviations, and what not… I’m not one of those people. At least not on most days anyways.
If your style offends people they just won’t read what you write and the point of expanding communication between people and increasing our individual and collective knowledge will be lost.
It would be different if we knew where you lived because then we could make an anonymous call to the spelling and punctuation police.
Let me add a “ditto” to this. As both a copyeditor and an instructor of university-level English, I think I’m qualified to comment on this. In written communication, your only ethos is your writing. In other words, if you write like an idiot, you will be taken as one. Nobody knows you, nobody cares about you, and nobody is going to take the time to see if you’re ignorant or just lazy. You do nobody but yourself a disservice by ignoring the basic rules of the language you’re posting in but yourself (those who are openly ESL posters are not included in this).
Capitalize, use proper grammar, spell the best you can–use Word or something with spell-check and cut-and-paste if need be–and you’ll look more intelligent and many more people will pay attention to you.
I must concur with my fellow posters. Capitalism is a very important and effective writing tool. It lets the reader know where a sentence begins, or when special attention is to be paid to that word. I scan more than actually read, and tend to pick out capitalized words.
Since this thread has a poll element, you can put me down as pro-capitalization.
I will now attempt to make a humble case for my position.
See Wring’s explanation about ease of reading. It really is easier to read passages with the correct capitalization and grammar. Granted, it’s easier because that’s the way most people learned to read. If we all wrote in a language that had no uppercase/lowercase letter distinction, then we wouldn’t notice what we were lacking. However, we are, in fact, writing in English. Just because capitalization is something that was learned does not mean we can throw it out the window.
You, racerx, have not said this, so please don’t think I am misinterpreting you … but I have seen many other people online who don’t like to use the shift key say “well, what does it matter if i capitalize or not, as long as you know what i’m saying? if you have an issue with it, you are uptight and that’s not my problem.” To me, this is akin to coming to a party without any pants on, and then saying “you are uptight and that’s not my problem” when other people express their distaste for pantlessness.
Yes, in a grand sense, the person who doesn’t capitalize (as well as those who attend parties au natural) can decide that it’s not his or her problem if other people have a reaction to it. But in a “let’s try to make friends, have intelligent conversations, and a good deal of fun while we’re at it” sense, we all need to be sensitive to the established ways of communicating on this board. If I decided to stop using the space key, I can only imagine that people would stop reading my posts as a result, in addition to thinking I was somewhat of a git.
So, leave your pants at home if you must, but don’t be surprised if the people at the party seem to be avoiding you. I hope you take this for the civilized response it is intended to be.
Oh, now here’s a topic I just have to jump in on (or should that be, “here’s a topic into which I must jump?”) I’ve been around since the old pre-web BBS days of 10+ years ago. I used to be known as the Apostrophe Police back then, but my role was actually broad enough to encompass all aspects of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and, yes, capitalization. I think it’s clear where I’m going with this - I’m in favor of all aspects of proper written English. Even when BBS technology progressed to the point of multiline systems with real-time chat, I still advocated proper English usage. I just don’t get why people don’t care. The only way the rest of us know who someone is online is through the words they write. I would think it would be relatively important to write well, but to most people, it’s not.
I think the piss-poor level of literacy online is the result of laziness coupled with a general feeling of anti-intellectualism that’s oh-so-popular these days in our society. There are VERY few places on the net where I bother to converse with others, because I can’t bear to be subjected to stupidity. While lack of proper capitalization doesn’t necessarily indicate stupidity, proper English usage generally indicates intelligence, and I seek that out. I’m consistently impressed with the quality of posts on the SDMB, which is why I finally decided to jump in.
To sum up: capitalization kicks ass.
BTW: If anyone wonders why my user name is not capitalized, it’s probably because I’m obsessed with UNIX. That’s not a bad thing, is it?
I say yes, capitalize. Is it hard? No. Does not capitalizing mean you’re an idiot? Probably not, but I will certainly take you less seriously if you don’t.
) you want people to read and respond to your posts. Posts with intentionally flakey formatting, posts that aren’t capitalized (or worse, unpunctuated), posts filled with cryptic ‘shortcuts’ as “2 a11 u d0p3rz: this 1’s 4 u” simply get in the way of clear communication.