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watson.fawkes
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The Social Norm of Capitalization
I suggest two social norms for capitalization. A social norm means that members may urge compliance independently, with requiring an official policy.
All chemical compounds should use proper element capitalization. I know what "naoh" probably refers to, and it's likely not a
misspelling of the guy with an ark. Nevertheless, it's still harder to read. My attitude, rarely expressed directly to members who do this, is "If you
can't be bothered to hit the shift key, I can't be bothered to care about your question."
All abbreviations should be spelled out in full at least once before they are used, especially in subject lines that open new threads and appear
on summary pages and in HTML titles. I suggest the spell-first, abbreviation-in-parentheses-following (SP-AiPF) convention for clarity. SP-AiPF is
pretty widespread already. My attitude, similarly mostly silent, is "If you can't be bothered to explain yourself, I can't be bothered to care."
To my mind, these are some of the least burdensome consequences of a general care in writing for many other people to read. There's already a
social norm here that members should at least some research before asking a question. How much less work is it to take an extra moment to ask a
question legibly?
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aonomus
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I commend you for the fact you still have hope for people to use proper spelling and capitalization. I don't have that hope.
Plus, the people most likely to offend are also the least likely to read this sub-forum.
I'd say make it mandatory for major infractions (ie: entire posts with no capitalization, punctuation, and butchered spelling get warnings) and ignore
the occasional slip ups (IUPAC naming pedantics and SP-AIPF). Promote the fact that people should Google something before asking it in a 1 sentence
post.
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Nicodem
Super Moderator
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Good to see I'm not the only one who gets pissed by the continuous abuse of element's symbols, for they are symbols and not letters. Thus, without
proper capitalization they mean shit. I wanted to complain myself already several times, but did not because I don’t think the people who are too
lazy to use the shift key will ever bother reading it, or changing for better. It still hurts to read crap like “h2so4” or “naoh” all the
time, but my attitude is to ignore such posts where the poster shows obvious signs of illiteracy. That’s more or less the response I give when they
are lazy or kewlish or otherwise annoying. Except when I’m in the mood though, when I might waste some time preaching even though knowing it is a
complete waste of time (but at least it gives me the illusion of having fulfilled the moderator’s duty).
I don’t see an easy and efficient way to avoid post like that by any change in moderating policy. I have been trying for years to enforce even the
most basic scientific method, the use of references, yet I feel I had close to no effect. This experience led me to believe it is not possible to
change lazy people by any simple approach, especially if you have to deal with hordes of lazy people.
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watson.fawkes
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Quote: Originally posted by Nicodem  | | I have been trying for years to enforce even the most basic scientific method, the use of references, yet I feel I had close to no effect.
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I believe you've had a significant effect, actually, not by changing the lazy people but by chasing them
away. If you can't change lazy people (not in any great quantity, at least), the second best you can do is keep them from polluting your own social
environment. It doesn't benefit the lazy, but it does benefit the non-lazy. It's not as good an outcome, but it's better and it's realistic. So
therefore, thank you.
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watson.fawkes
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Yet we may lead
them here. Part of my thinking is that links to this thread might be posted in response to particularly egregious or flagrant examples, if not in the
hope changing the perpetrator, at least in strengthening the expectations of good behavior.
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aonomus
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Considering that most of the illiterates' eyes glaze over when being preached to (lest they become defensive), essentially they think 'tl;dr'.
Perhaps a screenshot of a horrible forum post vs a good forum post with some infographics and flashy crap is exactly what the kewls need to 'change'.
That, or the Clockwork Orange treatment with a crash course on the English language.
Govern with an iron fist = kewls leave and don't come back. Forum stagnates, fewer people join the hobby
Lack of control = smart people leave and go to another forum with less crap
Moderate control with the entire forum population self policing new posters and 'encouraging' proper posting etiquette = ?
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cyanureeves
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movin up
sounds good. this will force me to learn.but hope yall dont give up just yet cause theres a bunch of good stuff ill miss out from other people who are
very apt in chemistry but not grammar or english.tolerance is rewarding too,its inviting.inviting who huh?i use naoh alot its shorter than sodium
hydroxeyesofacrosseyedtoad.i googled a symbol i saw here yesterday that looked mean as hell and it was just ethanol.NaOH. i like it! the universal
language of love almost.
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bfesser
Resident Wikipedian
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Watson.Fawkes:
Hear hear!
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gnitseretni
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People should use proper grammar, PERIOD!
Posts like the one below are a real eyesore!
| Quote: Originally posted by cyanureeves | | sounds good. this will force me to learn.but hope yall dont give up just yet cause theres a bunch of good stuff ill miss out from other people who are
very apt in chemistry but not grammar or english.tolerance is rewarding too,its inviting.inviting who huh?i use naoh alot its shorter than sodium
hydroxeyesofacrosseyedtoad.i googled a symbol i saw here yesterday that looked mean as hell and it was just ethanol.NaOH. i like it! the universal
language of love almost. |
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bquirky
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What a charmed life you all must lead if Grammer on the internet is your biggest problem
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hissingnoise
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Indeed! While I find poorly written posts irritating to read I often choose irritation.
Carelessly written posts by English speakers make me wonder if their carelessness persists when they handle reactive substances.
Allowances should, of course, be made when the poster doesn't have English as a first language . . .
I don't, however, find it a major problem!
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Ephoton
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well I read this thread.
still I read as much as I can when I have the time.
grammer is one of my problems but I can see your point.
still I use element symbols properly.
maby im better at coded language than written.
does that make me unworthy of such a place as this.
I hope not I like quite a lot of you and kind of hoped that some of you
felt the same 
e3500 console login: root
bash-2.05#
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Arthur Dent
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I've been accused of being a grammar nazi on occasions, and English isn't even my native language! I do a lot of translation work and live in a
bilingual city (Montreal)...
I wholeheartedly agree with watson.fawkes that the language, grammar (sic) and syntax on some posts makes them hard to decipher sometimes, and I am
much less likely to grant any form of credibility to the poster if the post looks like something texted on an iPhone by a 13 yr. old teen girl. I
mean, if one sucks at English and it's their native tongue, I bet that their knowledge of chemistry wouldn't be any better...
There are posts written by people whose native tongue is not English and they often make a brave effort to make it legible but some of them make me
smile because when you read them aloud, they sound like a Yakov Smirnoff monologue! LOL (pretty much dated myself there...) 
Watson.fawkes has a good point that people on this forum should indeed use the "long" name of a reagent at least once, especially when it comes to
organic chemistry. When I look up a chemical I am unfamiliar with, it's easier if I have a proper reference to it than some cryptic abbreviation that
looks like a cat dragged its paws on a keyboard!
I usually allow quite a bit of latitude in the grammar used in posts, but when a post looks almost intentionally written by a demented monkey, or is
obviously written by a dumb little "kewl" with a post count of one, who just discovered the reaction between baking soda and vinegar in mommy's
cupboard, I tend to skip this post or the whole thread because I feel it's a waste of my time and of all of the other "real" members of this forum.
" i wnt mak GP wat i do?? plzzz!!1!! "
I am glad to participate or help inexperienced members in their quest to synthetize a reagent or build a piece of equipment, but when the grammar of
the post is horrendous, I don't feel I want to make the effort to help if that person can't at least make the effort to use the Caps key once in a
while on their keyboard... and the "texting" abbreviations just make my friggin' skin crawl!
As I said, this may be because of my background as translator/copy-proofing work in French and in English, but I consider proper grammar as important
as the usage of the words "please" and "thank you". My grammar isn't perfect and I'll do the occasional blurb, but I do make an effort to use
Shakespeare and Molière's language the way it's supposed to.
Robert
[Edited on 6-12-2010 by Arthur Dent] (typos, LOL)
[Edited on 6-12-2010 by Arthur Dent]
[Edited on 6-12-2010 by Arthur Dent]
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Ephoton
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maske ?
Je ne comprends pas
ya gotta love this place.
[Edited on 6-12-2010 by Ephoton]
e3500 console login: root
bash-2.05#
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Arthur Dent
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Yeah, you got me there... I meant make... LOL
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hissingnoise
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o i h8 dat 2
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madscientist
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Biggest problem to me is a lack of paragraph breaks. Huge blocks of sloppily written text can be difficult to read.
Poor grammar, overuse of cryptic lingo etc. can be a little annoying but it doesn't bother me that much.
We still like you Ephoton!
I weep at the sight of flaming acetic anhydride.
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vulture
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Ditto.
Science stands or falls with proper communication. I often find it sad that native English speakers show great disrespect for their own language, yet
those are also the people who will shout "habla ingles" at foreigners...
One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
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Ephoton
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At least you guys push me to better my self rather than screaming for
recipes
I like that.
e3500 console login: root
bash-2.05#
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bbartlog
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Agree with the use of proper capitalization. And reasonable grammar, and so on. Further, even if people get offended, I think it makes sense to tell
them: there's an implicit quid pro quo, where the amount of effort people spend trying to answer your questions is going to be strongly correlated
with the amount of effort you put into your posts. Not only that, but some people really do lack awareness of how they come across and would benefit
from being reminded that their sloppiness makes them look stupider than they really are.
| Quote: | | I have been trying for years to enforce even the most basic scientific method, the use of references, yet I feel I had close to no effect.
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There may not be improvement, but sometimes the best that can be done is to prevent the slide into complete degeneracy.
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madscientist
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So long as the content is good, it's still a positive contribution.
I do encourage adhering to standards that make posts readable - no huge blocks of text, proper capitalization, no use of undefined acronyms (outside
of ones standardized in the literature: DMSO, LAH, etc.), reasonably decent spelling. We do have a spell checker that highlights misspelled words as a
post is written.
I'm not going to crack the whip though unless someone is truly teetering on unreadability, writing as if they have been ripping bong hits of
phosphine.
I weep at the sight of flaming acetic anhydride.
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Magpie
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When you pose a question or ask for help on this forum I would think that you are after the highest quality response that you can get. So why would
you present that request in poor grammer or cell phone jive? This will just get you junk answers from people that talk like you. If that's good
enough you should just go to the junk forums to start.
| Quote: Originally posted by bbartlog | Not only that, but some people really do lack awareness of how they come across and would benefit from being reminded that their sloppiness makes
them look stupider than they really are.
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I get this same feeling when I see someone wearing a baseball cap backwards. It immediately knocks their IQ down by 20 points.
| Quote: | | I have been trying for years to enforce even the most basic scientific method, the use of references, yet I feel I had close to no effect.
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Nicodem, I believe this is having a positive effect - keep at it, please.
The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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Ozone
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Coincidentally, this arrived in my email today. I decided that it was relevant to this conversation...and amusing.
"Grammar:
Those of us who fall into the world of hi-tech should take note of the importance of correct grammar.
I have noticed that many who text messages & email, have forgotten the "art" of capitalization.
Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse."
Cheers,
O3
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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hissingnoise
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Yeah, the one that tells me I'm misspelling certain words when I know I'm using the correct spelling.
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turd
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Which is completely
useless since my computer's language is not set to English. 
I think we should all make an effort to write clearly but let's not overdo it and turn this message board into yet another bleak peer reviewed
journal. The most effective way of sucking joy out of science. 
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