Re: Attempts to ban constructive criticism...

[nathan@parka.winternet.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <4s4afd$6j@nnrp1.news.primenet.com>,
John Bowling <johnlb@primenet.com> wrote:
>I'm adding a note to this thread which I feel is a better approach to some
>of the reasons for critizm.  While there are some valid reasons for
>correcting people about their posts, most of what I see done could be
>better served if you would direct them to the FAQ about posting.

   Mentioning the newsgroup news.announce.newusers is one thing, but
without mentioning specifically what they didn't get right, they're
likely to just ignore the advice or not learn from the experience.
Basically, I say "please fix XYZ" rather than "you suck. Go read XYZ
and try and figure out why you suck."

 
>I know that everything that Nathan has said about the format of posts
>and other 'netiquet' is covered in it, but I would be willing to bet that
>50% of the people on the internet don't know about it, and 75% don't know
>where to find it.

   I'd say it's less than 5% that mess up. For all the people on the
internet, 90+% get it right the first time. [If they didn't, it'd be
a full time job correcting them] It's the 5% that's either clueless
or malicious (those who've been corrected many times and can't learn)
that need the corrections. 


>And I agree with Dark_Dude that we are international, and that some
>Apple II users have English as a second language.  And sometimes as a 
>very poor second language.  Could you, as an example, read and write 
>French well enough so that a native French citizen couldn't find errors 
>in your posts in French? 

   Mr. Tigh Buckles, poster child of those who seek to villify my
corrections of his English grammar, is a resident of the US,
Pennsylvania to be exact. And supposedly in middle school learning
English. With education in this country going to hell in a handbasket,
he'll have to learn either in school that a lot of !s at the end of
sentences, and that lines of text (and not sentences) do not end with
;s. Or he'll learn it online.

   I've far more lenient of bad English grammar from those outside of
the US. However, some people licing in North America were unable to
read the English in my posts telling someone speaking Dutch and
selling _Macintosh_ software on c.s.a2.marketplace to move to a Mac
newsgroup. Being relevant has nothing to do with language, but
everyting to do with context.

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~nathan/      <*>
# And he said to them, "To you has been given the secret of the
# Kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in
# parables" Mark 4:11, NRSV