Not their opinions so much (well, that too) but their utter lack of writing skills? Not just the sad, brain-damaged sprites who belong to the IMDB and Amazon boards, either. I’m on a message board for people with family members who have a certain medical condition, and good night nurse! how they butcher the English language. These are supposedly educated adults, yet they have not the vaguest comprehension of spelling, grammar, punctuation . . . It takes all my self-control (of which I have very little to begin with) not to break into someone’s story of illness and death and heartbreak and go, “for goodness sake, I’ve seen goldfish crackers with better writing skills than you’ve got!!”
And where did all the Upper-Case Letters go? Why does everyone write like e.e. goddam cummings?!
One of the things I like about this joint is we can josh each other about even minor spelling and writing errors . . .
I’m on several boards, mostly for infomation on living with hives and kidney stones. What’s killing me is the friend-of-a-friend crap. “I learned from this guy who drives a taxi, who overheard a plastic surgeon’s cell call, that if I drink llama urine sprinkled with pixie dust, I’ll be cured! This is fantastic!!!1 Anyone know where I can buy a llama?” Then later… “Of course you’re still in horrible pain. YOu haven’t used the llama urine yet, have you!”
Yes. I’m on a couple of other message boards, and I have to repress the urge to try to reach through the screen and strangle people who write, “so um lol last nite i thought i’d try postin whatya think about my c00l scarf isnt it hawt???”
People are lazy, not necessarily dumb. There’s nothing to reward or punish them for their writing skills or lack thereof, so their writing gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, aka, if you can understand what they’re saying, it’s Miller time.
The only other board I hang out on regularly is Absolute Write. Since it’s populated by writers (published and unpublished), editors, publishers, and agents, the writing is terrific. Just like here, people who come in posting in gibberish tend not to last long, though you can’t be as mean there as you can here to make your point.
But “people” is already plural. “Peoples” would be referring to groups of certain kinds of people distinguished by race, religion, or whatever. Thus, people’s would be single-group possessive, while peoples’ would be plural-group possessive. I would further argue that the latter would only be used when group segregation is germane to the point being made.
I’m quite used to being in the company of people who can read, write and spell, both on this board and at work. I read some technical and music fora, and they’re not too bad overall. What’s really jarring is when I get e-mails from old friends from childhood, and their literacy skills have never improved much beyond Grade 3. It’s baffling.
This board is very good for the very reason that so many users do crack down on those of us that have poor spelling and grammar skills. The strong moderating fully supports reasonable writing skills and the system of expecting cites and being cynical reduces the misinformation on the SDMB compared to any non-technical board I have seen.
Basically, I am saying that the users that demand good writing and information are the ones that made this board great and useful and keep it so.
I apologize that I drag the writing level down, but I am working on it.
Those of us who have . . . She says, admitting her “peoples’” error.
I have a friend who, in person, is smart and funny and well-educated, but via e-mail she uses all lower-case letters and writes like an eight-year-old at a slumber party. I still like her, but I do think less of her mental abilities.
Not all other forums are havens of bad spelling and grammar. Another forum I frequent, Stardestroyer.com tends to have well written posts, probably because people who do things like post in all lowercase tend to be relentlessly mocked. The place is like a giant BBQ Pit, but a well educated one. And you do need a tolerance for Star Wars fanboyism, not surprisingly.
Good, as long as you avoid the Politics forum; lots of rabid rightwingers. The sort who say that the CIA is sabotaging the war in Iraq because it’s full of Democrats, who want us to lose the war as badly as possible.
The Paradox game forums…Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, and such…are pretty good, especially compared to every other gaming forums out there. Although there are lots of europeans who don’t have english as a first language, at least people capitalize.
It depends on the board. You can get some nice conversations here, second only in literacy to the sff.net boards (which are populated by professional SF writers), and there are good boards at snopes and, surprisingly, at the Crane Pool Forum (if you recognize the name’s origin here, then you will enjoy it).
OTOH, the IMDB boards seem to be populated by 12 year olds (with some exceptions).
