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Ever read someone's post, blog entry, or really, anything that requires typing? You continue, then all of a sudden, you see a spelling mistake, and thought that the person's lost *all* credibility because he can't even pay attention to such a small detail.
Can you tolerate spelling mistakes? In what degree until you realized it's just another guy who googles everything (if he doesn't find an answer on the first results page he goes to wikipedia) as his source? Whatever happened to real education, what you actually know without going to google/wiki (and keeping your hands off the keyboard if you're not an expert in the subject)?
   
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Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language?
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I've come to accept that misspellings/incorrect punctuation/capitalization are just a part of internet discourse. In my opinion disregarding someone on the internet for misspelling a word is kind of like disregarding someone in real life for using a slang word. Yes, we could all laboriously craft our posts to be perfect pieces of prose, but in the end we are a bunch of guys talking about a video game...so what's the big deal if a few letters are out of place?
Also, as Stylish pointed out, TL is a very international community, and many of our members haven't been speaking/writing in english their entire lives.
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On February 01 2011 03:13 StylishVODs wrote: Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language? This. Although I often treat a person with bad grammar/spelling from foreign countries much nicer and give them the benefit of the doubt more often. That being said, a lot of the most annoying people on TL are people from the United States who can't spell and make 100's of troll posts while not getting banned by some weird miracle/coincidence.
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I have found native English speakers to make much more stupid spelling mistakes than people who speak English as their second language. Lots and lots of English speakers cannot handle homophones and mess them up all the time, thus making them look like idiots: there - their - they're your - you're its - it's lose - loose And then there's this annoying should of / could of / would of crap.
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The only thing that really bothers me is lose/loose, at least your and you're sound similar. Other then that one word I don't really mind.
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I think you can kind of tell if English isn't their first language, but still tolerate their post because it sounds correct. I know it sounds condescending now, but it's easy to tell if a post has little effort put into it, and the post has no more content than what you'd see on google's first page of results.
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On February 01 2011 03:13 StylishVODs wrote: Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language?
Normally if I see basic spelling and grammar mistakes in a post I cannot help but lose confidence in the competence of the poster. However I remind myself that he/she might not be a native English speaker so I try not to let it affect my judgment too much... (although sometimes I can't help but stop reading when i see "too" instead of "to" or "they're" instead of "their", etc.)
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I feel the exact same way as you OP. If I am reading a newspaper article and see 'its' when it should be 'it's', I pretty much rage quit it regardless of how much I was enjoying it.
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Right, I forgot that being a foreigner or having other strengths besides written English meant a general lack of knowledge or intelligence.
I'll let Jinro know the next time he posts on TL. Or IdrA, with his lack of capitalization. Or MarineKing, if he ever posts in the "who's who" threads again. Or TLO, or pretty much any non-American/English progamer.
Those darn foreigners should know better than to try to act smart. Oh, and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors in my post; I'm just a lousy francophone. I'm sorry I'll never be as good as you.
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On February 01 2011 03:13 StylishVODs wrote: Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language?
On TL you just check the country of origin, if it's an English-speaking country you can be 95% sure it's their primary language. And then you can commence rage.
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There was a really good post about a guy who basically writes papers for people and is a very good related subject to what you're posting here. I would link but I can't find it, anyone else know what I'm referring to and can post it?
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On February 01 2011 03:25 sc4k wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:13 StylishVODs wrote: Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language? On TL you just check the country of origin, if it's an English-speaking country you can be 95% sure it's their primary language. And then you can commence rage.
unless you're american. then you can just be plain ignorant and make a blog about it! ^_^
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On February 01 2011 03:28 AnodyneSea wrote: There was a really good post about a guy who basically writes papers for people and is a very good related subject to what you're posting here. I would link but I can't find it, anyone else know what I'm referring to and can post it? http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=169816
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On February 01 2011 03:24 Slivered Skin wrote: Right, I forgot that being a foreigner or having other strengths besides written English meant a general lack of knowledge or intelligence.
I'll let Jinro know the next time he posts on TL. Or IdrA, with his lack of capitalization. Or MarineKing, if he ever posts in the "who's who" threads again. Or TLO, or pretty much any non-American/English progamer.
Those darn foreigners should know better than to try to act smart. Oh, and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors in my post; I'm just a lousy francophone. I'm sorry I'll never be as good as you.
We're talking about random people here, your average poster (not just the TL forums but anywhere on the net). When you're referring to a known poster, he already has a "built-in" credibility in your mind.
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Spelling mistakes aren't much of a concern for me I find. They're very easy to sift through. I think TL is very high on the written communication scale considering it's an online forum.
What you mentioned that does bother me quite frequently is the amount of self-proclaimed experts we seem to have. There's a lot of good information here, but there's a lot of misinformation as well. The other thing worse than leaving out good information is substituting it for something that is incorrect, and it's done pretty often around here sometimes. Often posts that are asking for knowledge on a subject seem to be met with "I dunno lol, but it makes sense to me to do blah blah blah."
There's very few people here I give credibility to right off the bat. These are the ones that have shown maturity and a reasonable degree of thought in their posts. And I do stress very few. Realizing the good majority is teenagers and young adults (myself included), it's hard to give legitimate respect where credit is deserved. There's no bullshit filter here, and that's partly why I love it; a bit of knowledge, and a bit of ignorance. To be honest, most people just talk out of their ass, convinced in themselves they know what they're talking about. Silently laughing is half the fun.
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On February 01 2011 03:28 AnodyneSea wrote: There was a really good post about a guy who basically writes papers for people and is a very good related subject to what you're posting here. I would link but I can't find it, anyone else know what I'm referring to and can post it?
This it?
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=169816
EDIT: Ninja'd
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Zurich15330 Posts
On February 01 2011 03:19 MorefaSho wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:13 StylishVODs wrote: Do you ever consider that many posters might not have English as their primary language? That being said, a lot of the most annoying people on TL are people from the United States who can't spell and make 100's of troll posts while not getting banned by some weird miracle/coincidence. Is that really a problem? Can you name these individuals please?
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On February 01 2011 03:21 Altar wrote: The only thing that really bothers me is lose/loose, at least your and you're sound similar. Other then that one word I don't really mind.
I see that the difference between 'then' and 'than' doesn't bother you.
I really dislike when people use 'should of' 'instead of should have'. It just doesn't make sense grammatically.
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On February 01 2011 03:30 newvsoldschool wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:24 Slivered Skin wrote: Right, I forgot that being a foreigner or having other strengths besides written English meant a general lack of knowledge or intelligence.
I'll let Jinro know the next time he posts on TL. Or IdrA, with his lack of capitalization. Or MarineKing, if he ever posts in the "who's who" threads again. Or TLO, or pretty much any non-American/English progamer.
Those darn foreigners should know better than to try to act smart. Oh, and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors in my post; I'm just a lousy francophone. I'm sorry I'll never be as good as you. We're talking about random people here, your average poster (not just the TL forums but anywhere on the net). When you're referring to a known poster, he already has a "built-in" credibility in your mind.
I'm a random person, an average poster. I'll make sure to try to avoid posting in any forums you frequent, as I don't want to offend your delicate sensibilities with my sub-par second-language.
And even if you can look at someone's country and make assumptions about his first language, you have to remember that the kid might be an unbelievable math whiz who just isn't that good at English, or something of the sort. You can't just start disregarding someone because their English isn't as good as yours. That's incredibly presumptuous.
You know what I really dislike on TL these days? The arrogance and self-entitlement that many newer posters seem to have. They feel like they're always right and that everyone should conform to their standards. Forum guidelines? No need. Known player giving advice? He's a noob. Person writing with inferior English? Must be stupid.
Get a grip on your priorities, and start respecting posts for their content, not the way they are written.
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Baa?21243 Posts
On February 01 2011 03:09 newvsoldschool wrote:
Can you tolerate spelling mistakes? In what degree until you realized it's just another guy who googles everything (if he doesn't find an answer on the first results page he goes to wikipedia) as his source? Whatever happened to real education, what you actually know without going to google/wiki (and keeping your hands off the keyboard if you're not an expert in the subject)?
I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying there's a correlation between spelling mistakes and people not being experts on a subject? You do realize that stuff like typos happen right? Or that someone can Google up some information on a subject and then type a post about it with perfect spelling and grammar while knowing nothing about the subject to begin with?
I just don't see the connection you're trying to make here.
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spelling and grammar doesnt matter as long as you know what they mean. i get very angry when people judge posts or use spelling and grammar as an argument.
correct english != knowledge on the subject matter
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I actually find that people from Canada/USA have worse English than European posters in general.
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On February 01 2011 03:19 Scorch wrote: I have found native English speakers to make much more stupid spelling mistakes than people who speak English as their second language. Lots and lots of English speakers cannot handle homophones and mess them up all the time, thus making them look like idiots: there - their - they're your - you're its - it's lose - loose And then there's this annoying should of / could of / would of crap.
I find these the most annoying kind of spelling mistakes. But 99,5 % of posts in TL are still fully comprehendible. Maybe not anywhere near perfect english but pretty good overall seeing that there is people from allover the world posting.
u gotta skate instead of losing it because of something so trivial as grammar in the internet.
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On February 01 2011 03:39 Slivered Skin wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:30 newvsoldschool wrote:On February 01 2011 03:24 Slivered Skin wrote: Right, I forgot that being a foreigner or having other strengths besides written English meant a general lack of knowledge or intelligence.
I'll let Jinro know the next time he posts on TL. Or IdrA, with his lack of capitalization. Or MarineKing, if he ever posts in the "who's who" threads again. Or TLO, or pretty much any non-American/English progamer.
Those darn foreigners should know better than to try to act smart. Oh, and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors in my post; I'm just a lousy francophone. I'm sorry I'll never be as good as you. We're talking about random people here, your average poster (not just the TL forums but anywhere on the net). When you're referring to a known poster, he already has a "built-in" credibility in your mind. I'm a random person, an average poster. I'll make sure to try to avoid posting in any forums you frequent, as I don't want to offend your delicate sensibilities with my sub-par second-language. And even if you can look at someone's country and make assumptions about his first language, you have to remember that the kid might be an unbelievable math whiz who just isn't that good at English, or something of the sort. You can't just start disregarding someone because their English isn't as good as yours. That's incredibly presumptuous. You know what I really dislike on TL these days? The arrogance and self-entitlement that many newer posters seem to have. They feel like they're always right and that everyone should conform to their standards. Forum guidelines? No need. Known player giving advice? He's a noob. Person writing with inferior English? Must be stupid. Get a grip on your priorities, and start respecting posts for their content, not the way they are written.
Is that what you really thought I'm imposing on? I'm not trying to be an elitist or require a PhD in literature or else I'd brush the post off as useless.
As I posted on a reply, misspellings don't bother me if the post explains itself well. If a foreigner talks to me, I can understand if they make a mistake or two, but aside from that, what he's saying makes sense and he knows what he's talking about, or else I'd rush to end the conversation. I'm a freshman in UCLA and there are lots of foreigners here who don't have perfect English. Still, some of them are my friends and I like having them around.
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On February 01 2011 03:39 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:09 newvsoldschool wrote:
Can you tolerate spelling mistakes? In what degree until you realized it's just another guy who googles everything (if he doesn't find an answer on the first results page he goes to wikipedia) as his source? Whatever happened to real education, what you actually know without going to google/wiki (and keeping your hands off the keyboard if you're not an expert in the subject)? I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying there's a correlation between spelling mistakes and people not being experts on a subject? You do realize that stuff like typos happen right? Or that someone can Google up some information on a subject and then type a post about it with perfect spelling and grammar while knowing nothing about the subject to begin with? I just don't see the connection you're trying to make here.
There's a bit of a correlation in the two. If 1) the post has spelling mistakes, and 2)the information on the post has no depth beyond what google/wiki tells you are the kind of posts I'm ranting about. If a post hits BOTH of those criterias, bam, stop reading that post, scroll to the next one or click another topic to read.
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I think it's important to understand that a person's argument could still be logically valid even if their English is poor (or their post count is low).
That being said, from a peripheral standpoint, it makes the person look sloppy and less professional if the grammar, syntax or spelling is incorrect.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
Spelling mistakes bother me less than careless grammar, confusing sentences and incohesive paragraph structure.
Although I cannot understand posts suffering from rampant spelling errors. Most browsers feature built-in spell checkers which underline misspellings. I guess such posters choose to ignore or disable this feature???
IMO ESL learners possess better spelling than their native counterparts.
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I never nitpick at someones spelling unless they do it to someone else, while making their own spelling and grammar mistakes.
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On February 01 2011 03:39 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying there's a correlation between spelling mistakes and people not being experts on a subject? You do realize that stuff like typos happen right? Or that someone can Google up some information on a subject and then type a post about it with perfect spelling and grammar while knowing nothing about the subject to begin with?
I just don't see the connection you're trying to make here. I think it's more giving an air of not caring about your post.
I accept spelling mistakes if you're just making an offhand post, but if you're for example making a topic trying to convince me that XXX is imbalanced or XXX political system is the best or something like that I expect a certain degree of quality, in order for me to spend my time reading it.
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I don't see a problem with spelling and grammar errors. Most people aren't novelists, and many have difficulties writing, but unless the mistakes are stopping me from understanding the post, I couldn't care which 'your' their using or weather there's an extra comma, where there shouldn't be. Gotta cut people some slack.
trollface :D
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spelling is meh. english has a lot of stupid ass rules and peculiar things. basic grammar errors (their/they're/theyre, etc), i assume that the person is a moron.
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The only mistakes that bother me are the ones that get corrected for you and you ignore it anyways. Honestly, most browsers have an auto-corrector now, just fucking use it.
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On February 01 2011 07:04 Redmark wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2011 03:39 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying there's a correlation between spelling mistakes and people not being experts on a subject? You do realize that stuff like typos happen right? Or that someone can Google up some information on a subject and then type a post about it with perfect spelling and grammar while knowing nothing about the subject to begin with?
I just don't see the connection you're trying to make here. I think it's more giving an air of not caring about your post. I accept spelling mistakes if you're just making an offhand post, but if you're for example making a topic trying to convince me that XXX is imbalanced or XXX political system is the best or something like that I expect a certain degree of quality, in order for me to spend my time reading it.
I'm in complete agreement. Having a well polished article is really important if you want to be convincing or have your website or organization be taken seriously in general.
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On February 01 2011 03:19 Scorch wrote: I have found native English speakers to make much more stupid spelling mistakes than people who speak English as their second language. Lots and lots of English speakers cannot handle homophones and mess them up all the time, thus making them look like idiots: there - their - they're your - you're its - it's lose - loose And then there's this annoying should of / could of / would of crap.
Amen. Its an embarrassment to the rest of us. On the bright side, I can rest assured knowing that getting a job, in even this economic downturn, is made that much easier by the sheer volume of idiots out there who's resumes get thrown in the trash after someone reads it for 5 seconds.
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I have a Ph.D. in genetics and I misspell shit all the time. Some people are just bad at spelling, it doesn't make them retarded or not worth listening to.
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On February 01 2011 03:19 Scorch wrote: I have found native English speakers to make much more stupid spelling mistakes than people who speak English as their second language. Lots and lots of English speakers cannot handle homophones and mess them up all the time, thus making them look like idiots: there - their - they're your - you're its - it's lose - loose And then there's this annoying should of / could of / would of crap.
Amen to that, these people are almost always synonymous with being douchebags and posting garbage. And it's really easy to tell the difference between someone who has English as a second language and someone who just isn't that bright.
It's all about perception, e.g. if you dress like a gang member then people are usually going to be wary of you; if your posts look like they're written by a 10 year old then you aren't going to come across as very bright.
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United States2822 Posts
The only thing I don't understand is people who use the computer extremely often but never bother to learn how to type or spell properly. One of my best friends is on the computer as much, if not more often, than I am, and his typing ability and spelling is atrocious. I've told him about it before, and he just doesn't seem to care enough to get better, or at the very least passable, at something he uses so frequently.
But for the most part, there's a certain line. Typos and occasional misspellings are okay if they do not detract from the overall message. Typing properly does add a bit of professionalism to any written article, and I will opt to read a long post that's typed properly than one in which none of the first letters of each sentence are capitalized.
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definitely this, but it's usually not as extreme. I factor some other variables: What the topic is about, how many posts the guys has/who he is, where he is from, and how many times he makes other grammatical or spelling mistakes.
If the guy's name says hes from US or Canada and he's repeatedly saying 'loose' or misspelling something really basic I just can't take him seriously.
There is a huge difference between an honest mistake/typo and someone trying to sound knowledgeable on something but not knowing/caring about basics of how to convey the knowledge they have to others.
If your excuse is that you're too lazy to type properly because its just the internet or whatever then I'm too lazy to read your poorly written post as well. If you don't write seriously, then I can't take you seriously.
PS- In firefox and many browsers there is a built in spell checker. If someone doesn't have/use this, then that also says something about their skill/knowledge as well.
All that being said, I think I often have a problem with syntax and that leads a lot of people to misunderstanding me or calling me dumb.
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This is kind of an interesting thread. Everyone who has posted have been self-conscious about using immaculate spelling and grammar, yet half the people are arguing that proper spelling and grammar aren't necessary. I'm guessing people who actually do make these mistakes just dodge this thread altogether.
I feel that if someone is too lazy/stupid to differentiate between your/you're, especially if they are long-time English speakers, it really impacts negatively on the substance of their writing. Improper spelling/grammar gives the impression that the writer is simply throwing away his/her thoughts and doesn't care of anyone understands them or not.
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I find there are two things to consider when it comes to grammar and spelling in a post:
full words <-----------------------> empty words and the type of grammar mistakes. For example, when mightyatom writes a post, you know he's conveying concepts and ideas very concisely despite the grammar and spelling mistakes. those don't matter because his message is so clear. And if I see an error in one of JWD's posts, I know he's generally well-written and sensible so I'll forget about it just after reading it.
But if I start reading some girl-blog post from a poster I've no recollection then I'm predisposed to judge harshly. If I see "I almost went over their and chated it up..." I'll just press back.
my policy on this is that the further on that little spectrum up there the writing is towards the left, the more I'll disregard grammar and spelling. Often is the case where people's words will be empty but to hide this they fastidiously spell and punctuate everything correctly. So it's like a language shield that really isn't about the language at all.
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Before I judge people on their spelling and grammar, I usually look at their country of origin, which is found ^^^^^^^^^^^^ here.
I usually type with proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation, since I feel that proper grammar is a nice first step towards a quality post, though it is only a step. Quality content always trumps quality grammar with crappy content.
There are plenty of people who have nice, valid opinions that don't have the time or language capabilities to express themselves in perfect English. Likewise, there are many posters who write eloquent, pretentious essays as posts yet don't actually have a valid point amongst all those words.
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Korea (South)1897 Posts
When I write a blog entry, my objective is to write it out as quickly as possible and many times it is either a story/experience or something related to some type of industry insider perspective. Now, I don't have a lot of time and while I could spend the time to write it flawlessly, if I actually did that, I'd likely never write it at all. So my posts are chalk full of every possible error you can make in the english language. So I can 100% say, that I'm exactly the type of poster who would likely turn off the OP.
but in my case, i'd be happy if the OP never read through my posts and thought they were crap because of the spelling and grammar. I'd rather what I wrote never made sense to some types of people. ^^ keke, bet you didn't understand that part either kaka.
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Depends. You can often see whether someone just made a mistake or two, or if the person just doesn't know how to write properly. I have to admit, I do base a lot of their credibility on how they write, but certainly not all. What I often see is people with terrible punctuation, spelling, grammar etc. make bold, somewhat controversial statements, in discussions. Like, borderline trolling, but probably not. I choose to ignore those, yet most people don't. You'll often see one post being quoted by like ten different people explaining why he/she is wrong, while a quality post just drowns in these other posts.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, at least for me, good posts that don't feature good writing often mix in with the shitty posts. I find that the shitty posts are often the posts that get the most attention, just because a lot of people like to point out when they're wrong and I find that extremely annoying, and thus quickly ignore those. So I guess I might be a bit too hasty ignoring some posts due to bad writing, but I try not to.
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Writing is about communication. Writing with bad grammar or spelling makes it more difficult for the reader to understand your message. Writing with bad grammar or spelling makes you a bad writer. What's so difficult to understand about it?
There is also the idea that most academics or professionals need to write well in order to succeed in their occupations, and they need to write often enough that it becomes habitual to write correctly. Therefore, if someone isn't using correct grammar, it's less likely that he's got a college degree or an engineering job or whatever. This hurts his credibility, especially if his post is about engineering or philosophy or whatever.
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