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I visit TL regularly in my down-time to see if any threads have popped-up with interesting news or articles, and time and time again I'll come across a thread linking to an interview I might care about, except after I start reading, 50 per cent of my brain is focusing on how badly it's written.
Look, I know eSports as an industry is very global, and not everyone speaks English as a first language, but you're posting the article in English, and I'm reading it... in English. When I have to do double- or triple-takes on a passage to make sure I'm understanding it properly, it really takes away from the interview and interviewee themselves. If you're serious enough about it to have your own website, or even just decide to advertise your article, please make sure it's copy-edited. It can't be too hard to find a volunteer help you in a community where everyone wants to be in the industry, or hell, even take the time and effort yourself to make sure everything looks fine and dandy -- many times the article isn't too poorly-written, which just leads me to believe it's simply laziness to proof-read it.
I ignore a lot of threads and websites because it's just frustrating to read some times, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Do yourself a favour and make sure what you're publishing is presentable. Beyond your own image and accessibility for readers, it reflects, however mildly, on the industry, too. Be professional, get respect, get readers, be a boss.
 
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On July 07 2011 05:03 Cedstick wrote:
-Beyond your own image and accessibility for readers, it reflects, however mildly, on the industry, too.
So what you're saying is... BAD ENGLISH IS HURTING ESPORTS.
Honestly, I don't particularly agree with you. People do their best to make sure content is in readable English and almost all the time it works out. It's not always easy for someone who doesn't speak English as their first language to get every sentence perfectly gramatically correct, and I'd rather have people err on the side of publishing content that isn't perfect than discourage people from posting content because they're afraid of getting flamed or yelled at.
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I just want to say -- and I'm not being smarmy, here -- that I like that you gave my blog two stars. Seriously. Like, that's an honest review of my blog, something I don't think I've ever seen here. It's either one star or five.
I don't mean the article to come-off as discouraging the posting of questionable articles, just put some effort in to it. Non-English speakers get a bit of leeway, but it's still incentive to better please their readers and, well, maintain those readers. This isn't just about non-English speakers, though; I've seen plenty of articles written by English-natives, interviewing English-natives, and written/edited like shit.
This isn't a black-and-white thing -- not everyone is at fault -- it's aimed at the more-than-should-be number of writers who actually do publish half-baked interviews.
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Zurich15358 Posts
Regarding interviews: Many of those are done over MSN or in a live setting like audio and then transcribed. People, or I should say untrained people just don't articulate themselves very well in those cases. And as a reader I'll rather have an authentic interview than one that's been edited for better English (within reason of course).
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I agree with what you're saying here, for the most part. Personally, I would like to see more articles posted with better English. Most of the time it isn't horrendous, but sometimes it can be frustrating when you can't entirely understand what the piece is saying simply because it was lost in translation. I am sure that there would be plenty of people who would be willing to do spelling/grammar checks just to improve the overall quality of the article. Not to take away from the translators, they do a helluva better job than I could, but why not go the extra step to make it that much better? :D
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Bad English takes away credibility from anything. That's that.Most teamliquid guys including me probably don't mind because we are biased. But if these same people read the newspaper or any other online article and found a bunch of mistakes I'm pretty sure we'd take that article a lot less seriously.
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In a scene where the best competition takes part in a country where english isnt their first language I wouldnt really get agitated by badly transribed interviews as it comes part and parcel with the speech barrier. And also the best interviewers will be working on a more developed sport than ESPORTS, as that will give them the best money in general. We will have to settle for less good writers ( nicest way to say it )
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As a bit of a grammar nazi I fully agree: copyediting can make a world of difference. Translations and direct quotes I can see giving some leeway to, provided they're properly formatted as such; but the presentation language's rules should be obeyed out of hand.
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On July 07 2011 05:19 zatic wrote:
Regarding interviews: Many of those are done over MSN or in a live setting like audio and then transcribed. People, or I should say untrained people just don't articulate themselves very well in those cases. And as a reader I'll rather have an authentic interview than one that's been edited for better English (within reason of course).
I realize this, and it's actually one of the main sources of my complaint. Yes, you want to stick as too-the-word as you can, as to not discredit the interviewee, but when something in hard to understand, edits must be made. They don't even have to be big edits -- usually it's simply a missing word, and/or a grammar mistake. People tend to be pretty lazy in online chats, and to let everything slide when a large portion of our interviews are being done using this method is kind of a drag for readers like me.
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Australia8532 Posts
Well for everyone that stumbles upon this blog and wants to post an interview - i am more than happy to proof read it for you 
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9070 Posts
there are about 7 more articles that need to be copy-edited for Pony Tales 5 btw 
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Someone has just read HuK's latest interview...
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On July 07 2011 07:26 disciple wrote:there are about 7 more articles that need to be copy-edited for Pony Tales 5 btw
Woman, I've got ten fingers and one brain! Give me time!
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Koreans speak pretty bad English, and they're leading the world in Esports... So what you're saying is:
KOREANS ARE HURTING ESPORTS
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EPT
