Astahost's Professional Stance Is A Falling Dream Spelling and grammar is a dismal

[mayank 2]

As for the lighter side of life - there's always Xisto - where posting rules are far more relaxed - where you wouldn't face scorn about poor english.

Errrm.. Ahhemmm...Did someone say that rules are strict over here and at Xisto the rules are relaxed!
Oh! I am sorry for this, I did'nt notice that this was said by Our ADMIN

Anyways Jokes apart, I will say that Xisto is a place, where all talented people are posting and when I say talented, they all are talented enough to understand what is expected from them and if it is about making posts by using punctuations and using correct grammer then there is no problem with that!
Infact, the people who are stressing on the use of the correct grammer and punctuation are the ones who understand that not each and everyone over here is from a english speaking country, so they do ignore these small mistakes. But, when someone is making sentences which will not make any sence if punctuations won't be used, then they will have to point out that member over there.

And Mr. Admin, if you are talking about Xisto and its rules then please follow this link (In naughty mood today):
http://forums.xisto.com/topic/79560-topic/?findpost=

[Shooting Star Haven 0]

If you ask me to believe a native english speaker won't understand the word as simple as afore-mentioned - then one shouldn't claim to be a native english speaker in the first place.

Quite surprisingly, around five million people here can't read past the eighth grade level. Studies have shown that here. One thing I find that causes that is our traditional relay television watching. Television takes our attention off things. We're most likely doing something else. And also, people that represent themselves on TV are really ignorant, trying to assign blame to others. But nevertheless, english is our primary language. Not understanding "SAT words" still doesn't change that fact.

 

While this might seem like an elitist point of view to you - I'm sorry to say, that's how it IS. We're not interested to have our forums filled with thousands of lines of absolutely meaningless junk consisting of nothing but, hehe, haha, lol, like etc.

Not really elitist. "L33t sp33k" would imply the annoying use of symbols and numbers and pretending you're better than everyone else. Plus, an elitist board is generally built up of hacker wannabes, which really isn't the case here. I don't see Xisto as elitest, rather just a little bit pretentious. Please don't take offense to this, I don't mean it that way. Grammar is important. People do look to that as a first impression in judging your work. I just meant that grammar shouldn't be the know-all-end-all concept of professionality. There should be more to that too.

 

As for the lighter side of life - there's always Xisto - where posting rules are far more relaxed - where you wouldn't face scorn about poor english. That is why people who feel a little strangled in here are always advised to go join Xisto.

I don't feel like an outcast here. I kind of like it at Xisto. But I don't think everything should be layed out as a gradual progression. Digressing is a tool that most professional writers will do. Most books do digress. They don't just choose a point and walk with it throughout the novel. Digression sometimes brings good points into a discussion. It takes things people can relate with and overall makes everything more memorable. In fact, the use of humor grasps a lot of attention by your audience. It's a great start to any sentient post. It leads your readers to your thoughts. It expands upon everything. And it can be easily done too. Humor occurs when you connect two unlike things that no one else can believe connectable. Also it might have some truth behind it. See how this article uses humor to make a thoughtful point:

 

about angry asian man:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

[Saint_Michael 3]

well I for one can admit when it comes to writing or typing I suck at it. Hard to tell when to put this "," or this "." in the right spot of course I barely use ";" that I can't remember what its used for. To me if you give it the effort and take your time with it. then people will understand what you are saying.

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

I must admit that I haven't read this entire thread, but I shall post here anyways. I have to admit that, although I personally pride myself on proper grammer, I haven't always corrected my grammer or spelling when posting here. Although, contrary to other posts that I did read here before posting, grammer and spelling go a long way to properly explaining the proper way to correct a problem or explaining your point of view.

For those of you who's primary, or native first language, isn't English, I must comend you on your grasp of the language. I personally have grown up with American English as my native tongue and have studied others, to much disappointment and failure, and have found that next to the written versions some asian and middle eastern languages, English is one of the most twisted languages in the world.

Although I digress; to properly explain ones point of view, give directions on how to do something, or explain the more complicated intricacies of how to design a bit of code to do a automatic mailing of a form from a website proper grammer and spelling are a must. Without proper spelling and grammer trying to use an automated translator like the one that can be found at this LINK, supplied by google.com, will not work properly. Also trying to understand what one person means, while trying to figure out what they were trying to spell or say, can give one a headache as pointed out in another post already made here.

To close, please understand that while some may think that spelling and grammer might not be important; to others its not only professional but good manners.

So ends yet another rant by - Logan Deathbringer

Happy Holidays, one and all....

[ruben1405241511 0]

Well, digress as much as you want, fellows, but don't lose the main point:

Keeping Xisto a forum, that is worth to be read. I personally feel that especially tutorials, but also normal threads should be written in a manner, that invites others to research in these forums for information, find the threads and get answers.

This is not possible, if a thread deals mostly with kiddies expressing their amusement with lols and hehes. But on the other hand, certainly everyone agrees that we're still humans and should have a personal level too.

But since this topic should concentrate on the English language and it's proper use, I would like to get back to my recommendation:

Often I notice little spelling mistakes (not common typos, which I would ask everyone to remove by looking at one's text again before submittal) but I don't correct them because I don't want to get on people's nerves etc.

Another thing that occurs to me often is that people, who are too eager to get credits answer my questions without properly reading them. Because they are not so good at English, they don't get the whole point directly and tell me stuff I knew since birth.

 

It might seem like a too simple solution, but it is a first step, to assign BB-codes to these events, so that one could simply blast misunderstandings with a [misunderstanding] which ends up as "Please read my posting again, you have misunderstood me due to language problems. I ask you to look up words you don't know and try again" or something more polite.

Plus the spelling extension.. I would really like that, also for myself. At the moment I'm relying on Mac OS X integrated spell check, but since I write in German, Swedish and English simultaneously it is set to "Multilingual" and therefore doesn't notice some common mistakes. Others might not have a spell checker at all in their posts. I would really like to get better at English while using the forum. I disagree with all you saying that advanced language is only used to impress peasants, I think it contributes to beauty of writing and it makes it easier for us to read a text fluently (better language leads to better understanding if you don't suck at English and only know the basics).

[Quatrux 4]

Well, Opera has a spell checker, (do not know if it requires aspell to be installed) you just write something in the text area and make a spell check, it is really useful to make less grammar mistakes (it auto replaces them if you want to), but for those who's English is a third language (like me) the sentence structure or logic could still be quite bad and maybe not understandable.

[saxsux 0]

Yes! Finally, someone's actually said something about poor spelling and grammar of some people's posts! It really annoys me when I see poorly punctuated and spelt posts, especially in a place such as Xisto. It really ruins the true emphasis of Xisto - of intellectualism, learning and sharing your knowledge with others.

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

Well for those of us that use Firefox I have found an extension for it that does spell checking. Its called Spellbound and can be found HERE, while the dictionaries for it can be found HERE. Now I doubt it has a grammar checker, I have yet to find one, though with practice one shouldn't need the help with grammar.

The spell check libraries are extensive, I would redefined suggest looking into this if you have the time and inclination to do so. Also, get a Websters Dictionary and if you aren't sure of a word, even if the spell checker says its correct or incorrect, then just look it up.

Well, hope this helps everyone out.

[iGuest 3]

I think there is too much expectation. People make mistakes, even people who you think would not, like editors of a news paper, book, etc. Everyone does, and I notice them.

So then what can we do about it?

Should we automatically force spell checking? We want to keep this a friendly forum, and not make it too daunting, the more actions a person has to make the less user friendly it will become.

Should it be the members of Xisto's responsibility to correct any errors? We already have a lot to do, especially since a lot of us are more voluntary, and have lives outside of Xisto.

Maybe we can do something, I was intrigued by the link to the spell_checker that was posted on http://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=antilost&e=com and my idea was using it, but instead of needing to press the spell check button, I was thinking that I could make it so that spell checking was checked while you were typing, and would be similar to MS Office with the squiggly red line and other Office applications, that notify you of errors while you type. It's just an idea I had, and it would be great to get something like this happening. If I can find any free time, I will work on this.

As for correcting grammar, or making sure that the correct word is used, is still left up to the member of that post. Do we really need to hire an editor to check every post made here?


Cheers,


MC

[Khymnon 0]

I don't think this is a matter of forcing anything on anyone. What we're discussing here is, I think, a way to provide a guideline, not a rule.

 

Yes, there are people whose native tongue is not English -- I'm one of them, actually -- and we cannot expect them to stick but to the very basic elements of grammar and pronounciation. There are those who are more comfortable with using shorthand forms. There are those who use slang often. There are many types of contributors here, and so I suspect enforcing a *rule* wouldn't work at all.

 

But as a general guideline, contributors should make the effort to make their posts meaningful, as much as they can. If the meaning comes across alright, then it's alright -- even though I do prefer writing in a syntactically and grammatically correct way.

 

The spell-checker idea is a great one. I suppose it might require some modifications to the forum coding, but I trust there are people here who are can volunteer to do the job, and they'll most probably do a dashing one, too.

[cyborgxxi 0]

Hmm... alright. So this topic is now about administrators/moderators, or Xisto staff, and spell checking? Okay, then maybe there should be another thread about it :DHowever, I think spelling is an important aspect of communicating, for it makes everything look nice and professional, not like 'i dink dat u r kul!' Haha, that's kinda noobish or "not nice". No matter, you don't have to change your browser or read a book on spelling and grammar. If you have the heart to improve your spelling and grammar, though, it will be good for you.I'm sure it will be

[Logan Deathbringer 0]

cyborgxxi, this thread is about more then just the grammer, and spelling of the moderators/admins/members, it also concerns the way the "professionalism" of all who post here seems to be slipping a bit lately.Or atleast thats the what I've gathered and come away from this thread with. I just mainly posted about the grammer and spelling as my idea on a first step in correcting the slip we as a community have let happen. But thats just my humble opinion.

[Khymnon 0]

cyborgxxi, this thread is about more then just the grammer, and spelling of the moderators/admins/members, it also concerns the way the "professionalism" of all who post here seems to be slipping a bit lately.

As usual, an excellent opinion, Logan, and I wholehearedly agree.

The professionalism level here at Xisto is much higher than at many other forums I'm subscribed to. Which is why I'm willing to help as much as I could to keep it that way, if not to improve it.

[saxsux 0]

cyborgxxi, this thread is about more then just the grammer, and spelling of the moderators/admins/members, it also concerns the way the "professionalism" of all who post here seems to be slipping a bit lately.

 

Or atleast thats the what I've gathered and come away from this thread with.  I just mainly posted about the grammer and spelling as my idea on a first step in correcting the slip we as a community have let happen.  But thats just my humble opinion.

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You know what I find quite ironic? The fact that someone posting about ppor spelling and grammar, and who can't even spell the word "grammar" correctrly.

 

Apart from that, I must say I do agree with you. We've been seeing so many posts about Google or GMail, and "What's your favourite" kinda stuff. Standards have been slipping, not only in spelling and grammar, but also the general quality of posts. People have been posting stuff that is only just above being spam, but is actually a waste of time for anyone to read, but moderators and admins have allowed it.

I think we need some serious reform in standards here.

 

I'm not knocking the Xisto staff, or Xisto - they do a fantastic job, I've yet to find somewhere better than here - but it would help if the site were a bit more presentable. The forum is a bit of a mess at the moment, this skin isn't amazing, and quite a few features don't work very well. Quite a large amount of the site could do with updating. The packages page (http://forums.xisto.com/package.php) still refers to members having to get at least 50 posts for hosting (the old system, before hosting credits were introduced). Acording to the webhosting page (http://forums.xisto.com/index_webhosting.html) the servers haven't been updated since 2004. A lot of the site is out of date, or contradicts itself.

It's not just us that need to clamp down on spelling and grammar, the Xisto staff really ought to do something too.

[ruben1405241511 0]

I agree with saxsux on the sinking quality of posts, I especially am annoyed by threads, that are about current events, (and thereby according to my understanding "News") being published in forums, with related contents (like stuff about the sony rootkit in security issues). This kind of stuff floods everything and makes it difficult to find the threads where people are actually looking for help. I don't think, publishing News is a bad thing, I just think, that they should stay in their forum, because they rarely result in replies that are interesting two months later.On the other hand, saxsux, I think no one should be bashed for his/her spelling problems, because the opinion behind doesn't get any less worthy if the writer spelled "grammar" wrong. That's why I suggested the [spell][/spell] stuff. That makes it easier to note down mistakes and help without any scornful notions.Good observations on Astahosts topicality though, I agree, that this also contributes to an unprofessional look. Another thing, I would ask for, is the "My Assistant" Tool to be upgraded, so that it can be made easier to keep track of threads, that you are interested in (not only topics you started). I image it in a way, that I flag threads, that I'm interested in. I know that I can search for "replies to my topics", but there might be threads, that I can't contribute to, but that I'm interested in. Furthermore the Advanced Search thing gets cluttered up with the sticky threads, because they are sticky in search too, no matter how old they are (completely senseless in my eyes).I hope we can change Xisto to the better together!