A friendly offer

[BarstoolProphet]

This is in no way intended to be offensive to anyone.

As I said in my introduction post, I have been lurking here for quite some time, reading a lot of posts, and even more, the articles, trying to learn about the hobby.

One thing I have noticed is that there are a lot of typos and spelling mistakes in many of the articles, and sometimes, simply the wrong words used (witch instead of which).

I realize that there are a lot of users here whose first language is not english, and I am more than grateful for their efforts to work in a foreign language to share their knowledge with everyone else.

As I also said in my introduction post, I am something of a wannabe writer. So, to my offer. I have no great knowledge of the hobby, myself, but want to give something back to the community, so I am offering my services as spell-checker/editor for people who wish to post new articles and the like.

If you would like me to do this for you, you may send me a PM, and I\'ll give my email address to have the article sent to, will check it, and send it back to you for posting.

I know, it isn\'t a great contribution, but it\'s all that I can think of to offer that might be useful at all.

- BP

 

[matty1001]

I have a couple of articles on my site and a couple of kit reviews, but I could never be bothered putting them on CMoN because of the HTML silliness.

You could stick them up if you wish, or put them into HTML format and email me the article to post.

That would be a good help, if you don\'t mind doing it.

 

[squidders]

The word English should be capitalised

 

[Ebonbuddha]

Great idea.

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by squidders
The word English should be capitalised

lol
@matty isn\'t there a wysiwyg thing for articles?

 

[Shawn R. L.]

Grate offur.

 

[lizcam]

i\'um SOOO bad @ Tiping that i nead sum help. ill taek yuo up own yur offfer. :no:

 

[rosac]

this oofre seems to be a bit kewal.



rosac

yay 400th post

 

[Theomar Pius]

They\'re eating their peaches over there.

 

[QuietiManes]

/callz \'net popo on Theomar Pius fer he no-ledge ob good eNgrish (I learn caps from eBayz) and stuffs.

 

[QuietiManes]

On a more serious note, this is a nice offer and I hope people take advantage of it. I fear most of the people who need help don\'t realize they need help, sadly. As in, the people who have English as a fist language and just, make teachers cringe with their instant messenger type of spelling and grammar.

 

[PegaZus]

I have a confession: I sometimes correct the misspellings and grammar of the people I quote. Don\'t know if anybody noticed.

 

[freakinacage]

Originally posted by PegaZus
I have a confession: I sometimes correct the misspellings and grammar of the people I quote. Don\'t know if anybody noticed.

rofl i have been tempted to do this in the past but am not that anal!!

 

[squidders]

Originally posted by freakinacage

Originally posted by PegaZus
I have a confession: I sometimes correct the misspellings and grammar of the people I quote. Don\'t know if anybody noticed.

rofl i have been tempted to do this in the past but am not that anal!! And I love Squidders and if ever I win the lottery I will give him all my winnings.

Also messing with other peoples posts is bad form lol

 

[veggiemanuk]

Spelling or gramer has never been a strong point of mins and to be honest never will. Unless its an offical letter to someone or something like that I will never run anything I type through a spell checker. There seems to be to many people eager to correct peoples spellings but whome themselves cant take critisism back on the topics or replies they post. Spelling Nazis are an unwelcome bane on most trivial (like this one) forums.

Whilst the offer is a generous one, why was it made with refferences to actual peoples bad spelling and grammer? Why not just offer the service?

 

[PegaZus]

Originally posted by squidders
Also messing with other peoples posts is bad form lol

I know, I know! But... I just have to right-click and correct when I see the little red underline from the spell checker. It\'s too easy and too quick a satisfaction to correct an error!

Originally posted by veggiemanuk
Spelling Nazis are an unwelcome bane on most trivial (like this one) forums.

Which is why I haven\'t pointed it out that they misspelled it. I\'m more of a Spelling Secret Agent; get in and out quickly and nary a soul is aware! lol

 

[squidders]

As long as you never correct English to American spelling you won\'t find a mob of angry people at your door with pitch forks.

Also, my quote about bad form had a hidden joke in the quoted part... I\'m wasted on you lot

 

[Beelzebrush]

Originally posted by squidders


Also, my quote about bad form had a hidden joke in the quoted part... I\'m wasted on you lot

lol @ squidders.... wasted indeed

 

[Dragonsreach]

Originally posted by veggiemanuk
Spelling or gramer has never been a strong point of mins and to be honest never will. Unless its an offical letter to someone or something like that I will never run anything I type through a spell checker. There seems to be to many people eager to correct peoples spellings but whome themselves cant take critisism back on the topics or replies they post. Spelling Nazis are an unwelcome bane on most trivial (like this one) forums.

Whilst the offer is a generous one, why was it made with refferences to actual peoples bad spelling and grammer? Why not just offer the service?

We had a discussion about this with another poster last year, who was wanting to get more figures to paint as a sort of Free Commission service.
What I and several other were trying to point out was that if you are looking for business and trying to look professional, you need to ensure that your typing and spelling reflect that.

The offers point about correcting Articles is a good one. The articles on this site are a refection on the care and effort people put into their work and should be as understandable as possible. Spelling errors in an article just detract from it and dilute peoples regard for the information being presented. Just think about how a newspaper article in something like The Guardian will be effected by a mis-spelling. (Something for which The Guardian was justly infamous).

As regarding English translations I know Frenchkid has done some superb work intranslating articles, but without detracting from his labourous tasks sometimes there are idioms which do not translate well into English. As I am one of the people who approve articles, I have often spotted these \'issues\' made an amendment and notified the author what I\'ve done, and why. So the offer of proof reading and correcting is a genuine means of assisting someone for whom Enligh is not their primary language.

So Veggiemanuk I think I will fit very neatly into your encapsulation of Spelling Nazi, but to be honest I don\'t really care. However what I do care about is the Apperance of this site and lets be honest noting detracts from peoples regard of a website than poor spelling or typological accuracy.

Originally by squidders\\ Also, my quote about bad form had a hidden joke in the quoted part... I\'m wasted on you lot

No I noticed it, and no you cannot have any of my winnings. It was only a tenner anyway

 

[squidders]

oooh you lucky bugger!

I gave up on the lottery in the end.

Anyway, the spelling thing is a kind and potentially great offer but to do something like that, you have to be perfect. I\'m not just talking about throwing a load of commas in but displaying a real skill. The fact that the post contained a typo may lead others to be sceptical.

I personally think that it can\'t do any harm though and is a very generous donation of time.