You'd have better success if you showed some respect for your readers by capitalizing and writing your posts in a normal style. Starting off with "lol" and an emoticon marks you as somebody who hasn't thought about what he is about to write, and who doesn't care to present his thoughts to the reader in an organized manner. In your comment history, other posts have it worse, and your writing style and mannerisms make you seem like a nut-case. If your comments were written using normal sentences, that would not be the case. However, if you're talking about "higher privileged clergy folks" downvoting you, writing style won't help much on that front.
> You'd have better success if you showed some respect for your readers by capitalizing and writing your posts in a normal style. Starting off with "lol" and an emoticon marks you as somebody who hasn't thought about what he is about to write, and who doesn't care to present his thoughts to the reader in an organized manner.
That is the biggest pile of bs I have ever read. Just because he starts his posts with a lol, and a smiley mean NOTHING. It angers and disgusts me to think that 17 other people happen to agree with you.
You guys (and I mean the HN "elite") try to avoid group thinking like its the plague, you believe you operate like the intelligent guys of the web but your reaction to that comment was disgusting and evident that your guilty of the same underlying thread that fuels racism and prejudice - difference.
What you've done is no different to this scenario - your at school, your one of the popular guys - and a kid reluctantly comes up to you one day, and says "Hey, I'm pretty shy around here because I feel I don't fit in." Your response was "well, of course you don't kid, look at you, you dress like an idiot and you stink" - then you and your cronies all laugh.
I used to really like HN, I used to enjoy the comments more than I did the articles at one point. But this has just become a place where people can split hairs, argue semantics, stroke their own ego's and do their best to feel self-important. Your comment is the epitome of my point.
I can't believe you just grilled that dude because of how he types. I've met plenty of very, very wealthy and successful individuals to know that how you type has absolutely no connection to how much respect you give readers, and how much they think about their responses.
The barrier to entry of participating on HN is not how you word, or begin your point - but the value you add.
> Just because he starts his posts with a lol, and a smiley mean NOTHING.
Actually it means a lot. When you read, your neurons get tingled. How this happens is affected by writing style. Not everybody has the time or energy to be a hyperrationalist information absorber that processes data into the same thing irrespective of the order and manner it arrives.
edit: I think you've misinterpreted my post if you think I said anything about whether his writing style is bad -- I've just said that it causes people to react a certain way. (Though, if you want me to declare which side I'm on on that matter of whether it's objectively bad, it's the opposite of yours.)
The pseudo-intellectualism that permeates this board is a little appalling. I can certainly assure you that C-level executives across Silicon Valley backed by the strongest VCs and beyond write in a much less formal manner than most people on HN. Nothing wrong with that.
Writing in clear understandable language and suggesting others do the same isn't "pseudo-intellectualism". It's just common sense. If you want your thoughts to be understood and respected, choose appropriate language to express them.
What people use in frequent communication with their friends or colleagues is likely to be different to that used on a public message board which brings together people from many different backgrounds for discussion of "deeply interesting" topics.
Context is very important, though. I don't think anyone is claiming that there is a correlation between intelligence and writing ability; only that within the context of HN comments from the majority of posters, style is important.
I suggest a study program in social signaling, but I'll summarize the relevant part:
People of unknown status must provide a signal that their status is appropriate enough to warrant respect and attention: if you're taking your Valentine's date to a Michelin 3-star restaurant, you wear your best clothes.
People of known high status have the capability of signaling their status in a seemingly perverse way: by countersignaling. When a movie star shows up to a Michelin 3-star restaurant, he wears jeans and a faded t-shirt to show that he's high-status enough to break convention there.
tl;dr: C-level execs backed by the strongest VCs have earned the right to write informally and still be taken seriously. Most of us have not.
You've missed your own point. By NOTHING, I meant that it "has absolutely no connection to how much respect [he] give[s] readers, and how much [he] think[s] about [his] responses."
He just might not be so hot on English, it doesn't mean he hasn't considered what he's going to say.
Seriously though, calm down. Both your post and the post you're referring to have plenty of upvotes, which is a strong indication that they are not unwelcome contributions to HN. Personally I think it's important to maintain civility, writing quality, and professionalism in an online discussion, and I'm glad that HN values that. It's a lubricant that enables more productive, more rational, more open discussion without getting distracted by juvenile things like distracting humor and emotionally charged debate (as when someone lumps an entire group of people together, makes generalizations about them, and compares them to racists).
HN is still one of the few places on the intertrontubes where it's possible to have a mature, rational discussion. If you find someplace better, by all means let everyone know.
I agree with all of your points, except one - when I'm doing something of leisure, i.e. commenting on hacker news, I actually don't think about my grammar or spelling and nor will I begin to.
As far as I'm concerned, people pulling people up on their spelling and grammar is a step to far.
I don't think anybody at Hacker News really begrudges your leisurely writing practices. However, it seems like you feel entitled to have your opinions treated equally despite the fact that you are presenting them differently. This is probably why many of your comments are getting downvoted. I am sure that you and posters such as frevd are cool, intelligent dudes; but most members of the HN community value conventional writing style. It's not in the guidelines because it is something that comes from the members of the community themselves. By intentionally eschewing the rules of writing, you are signalling to the community that you are not willing to "meet them in the middle", so to speak.
If the majority of HN posters did not care about writing style, this situation would be reversed. But, c'est la vie.
Attention is a scarce resource. Acting like a fool is correlated with actually being a fool. People are less likely to take a comment seriously when a cursory examination suggests that it's a waste of space. Maybe that's not the way it should be, but that's the way it is.
Are you serious? Have you worked in a board room at a Fortune 500 company? Most CEOs and executives don't have time to compose grammatically-error-free responses. Do you know how Steve Jobs writes? Now multiply that across 500 organizations of the biggest corporations in America and the shoddy writing will certainly shock you if you think "people are less likely to take a comment seriously" because their sentences aren't grammatically-correct. Calling someone a fool because they write differently from you is absurd. Ad hominem attacks don't belong on HN.
"Most CEOs and executives don't have time to compose grammatically-error-free responses."
I've been at 3 F500 companies in my 20 years of work, and where those F500 have even changed CEOs once or twice. The only time a CEO has ever sent anything grammatically or syntactically incorrect is when he's paging IT from his cellphone to fix something on the Executive floor. Everything else is carefully crafted and presented, especially internal memoranda. Being a CEO is more than just promoting synergy like a boss; communication (including and especially writing) is almost everything else.
> What you've done is no different to this scenario - your at school, your one of the popular guys
But this is exactly the kind of thing he's referring to, sloppy writing and sloppy grammar generally mean sloppy thinking.
If you're going to take the time to write something, you must want it to be read; have respect for your reader and use proper capitalization, punctuation, and correct contractions. There are a lot of people who won't even read what you have to say if the writing is lazy and disrespectful to the reader.
I do understand why this stuff matters and trips people up (and I sometimes ask for clarification when I can't understand what someone meant because of a typo), but this kind of mistake is quite common with native speakers who write what they "hear" in their head. In one of my college French classes, a native speaker of French was taking the class so he could get a teaching credential (IIRC). He routinely made this type of mistake, which I never made in French. Ironically, it was actually a reflection of his higher fluency.
As for the general topic of this sub-thread:
I really don't have any problem with the tendency on this forum to correct/critique someone's grammar or spelling. I just think how it is done matters. I can't wrap my brain around claiming that good grammar and spelling matter tons while delivering it with contempt, disrespect, hostility and general bad manners like those are just fine (which I have seen done quite a few times on HN). I would rather talk to someone who makes spelling and grammar errors but has manners than someone whose writing is impeccable but you can just feel them sneering down their nose at you. I didn't think the opening post from SamReidHughes really did that, though it wasn't all warm-fuzziness either. So I opted to assume it was "constructive feedback" given with good intentions even though it wasn't the warmest, most convivial delivery. But then I generally think manners require one to give the benefit of the doubt and only nail someone to the wall when you are sure they are not only being an arse but intentionally so. It takes two to make good communication happen. It isn't just about what one person does.
... I generally think manners require one to give the benefit of the doubt and only nail someone to the wall when you are sure they are not only being an arse but intentionally so.
I prefer to err on the side of safety, and never do any crucifying.
In the best case scenario, you never respond viciously to someone who was just expressing themselves honestly.
In the worst case scenario, you treat the incendiary jerks with unexpected kindness, which usually confuses and annoys them in turn. It's win/win, you see!
You don't have to be a good writer to know that sentences begin with capital letters and end with periods; children know that. Anyone who doesn't do that isn't having difficulty writing, they're simply being lazy and only thinking of what's easy for them rather than what's easy for the reader. Not being a good writer is simply no excuse.
I think words like "proper" are what throw a lot of people. It brings up images of a grumpy English teacher.
But natural language is like a programming language. If you start tossing brackets and semicolons all over the place, it won't compile, and it won't make much sense.
Things like grammar and spelling are the syntax of natural language, and failing to make sure you're close to the norm is a good way to throw an exception.
Not as concise as "proper" or "correct," but less likely to start an argument.
The root comment compiled perfectly. The grammar was understandable and the logic reasonably sound. The only deviations from the gold standard of natural English are: 1) "lol"; 2) ";]"; 3) lack of capitalization on some words. That is much closer to whitespace conventions than tossing brackets and semicolons all over the place.
I think #3 is the sticking point. I can read it, but a lifetime of reading has trained me to use capitalization past a period and space as a prompt to some sort of change. The lack of it makes a paragraph read like an unbroken sentence to me.
It slows me down considerably.
I'm not defending or agreeing with the complaint, just trying to find the reasoning behind one of the positions. I think people should step back and see what's actually bothering them about the writing (or if there's anything fundamentally bothersome at all).
I agree that the capitalization is a bit of a problem for the root, but at the same time I think SamReidHughes's reply was a vast overreaction. Looking back through the OP's comments per SamReidHughes's reference I agree they're not necessarily up to the HN prose standard but still nothing to go ballistic about.
To all of you - I'm used to capitalization (very much since I'm German and we capitalize every Noun), much less though do I know what to capitalize in English (I got so much angry comment in my phase of capitalizing everything i deemed important that I completely converted to an all-lower-case style).
I also know everything about punctuation, having taken two typing courses and one in standardized letter writing.
Despite all that, since I'm using CamelCase a lot and my shift keys have suffered from that so much that I have to press them forcedly, I try to limit their use whereever possible (this location just opted out of it ;).
Nowhere did I say or imply that, I simply said there are quite a few people who won't read sloppy writing; that's a simple statement of fact. If you want to be read by the widest audience, then consider the reader rather than what's easiest for you.
I've met plenty of very, very wealthy and successful
individuals to know that how you type has absolutely no
connection to how much respect you give readers, and how
much they think about their responses.
I've read enough on the internet to know that how people type is strongly correlated to their respect for their readers, whether they take long enough to think about their response and, above all, their clarity of thought.
In other words: your personal experience and opinion isn't relevant or convincing, because others have other priors.
The barrier to entry of participating on HN is not how you
word, or begin your point - but the value you add.
The value you add is very much in how you choose your words. Every single one of our most interesting contributors could make any comment vicious and denigrating without losing a bit of the valuable content. That would seriously diminish the value of their posts.
You cannot clearly separate presentation and contents. The presentation always influences how the contents are perceived and rated. You could be the smartest guy in the world: if you type without using caps, nobody is going to realize, because your text gets harder to read and understand. You can probably think of many more examples yourself, where presentation detracts from content.
Yes, the value you add. But there are semantics for this addition. Consider yourself contributing to an Open Source software. There are semantics and rules used by the contributors, this makes reading old code easier and possible.
The same is for HN, the community has rules for posting, even though they are not mentioned in the guide lines. It would be better to follow them. Just an example, in some communities, bad words are considered to be normal. Would you be happy if someone throw a word like that at you? After all it's his culture, no? But this is not the HN culture.
We value difference and we want to know your point of view, but there are simple rules for communication. That's it.
That is the biggest pile of bs I have ever read. Just because he starts his posts with a lol, and a smiley mean NOTHING. It angers and disgusts me to think that 17 other people happen to agree with you.
The whole structure of the original comment looks like a troll to me. (Get a rise out of us stick-in-the-mud HN with lol.) However, your reaction seems to be better designed to incense anger than to point out structural problems in the discussion or overlooked value in the original comment.
"The barrier to entry of participating on HN is not how you word, or begin your point - but the value you add."
The original impetus behind HN was that it is a place where people can have civil discourse online. Proper grammar and spelling when writing are a part of that - it is the equivalent of not drooling from your mouth when speaking.
English is nothing more than another vehicle humans use to communicate. For you to claim using proper grammar and well formed sentences of the english language is just a cop out to the point the OP was trying to make. Let me paraphrase in a grammar that is perhaps closer to on par with the level you seek:
"I have spent a long time on hacker news. In fact I used to communicate with others on a regular basis but that ceased awhile ago. My views are probably considered extreme to most in the community and thus I chose not to comment due to the "instant karma" I would receive based on my view that the community would most likely as a whole disagree with. Additionally, I know some who are much more intelligent than myself and yet they never comment. They merely troll (troll is a non-negative attribute here) the site soaking up information and leaving nothing in return. "
My opinion: the community is here to get down to business. Humor is pushed aside in most cases and discussions focus much more on the topic at hand. (No I am not claiming hacker news users do not have a sense of humor, I am trying to say that this community is driven by information and not jokes.) For those who would like this clarified: If you want jokes, digg, reddit, etc all exist, if you want information and perhaps a chance to learn a thing or two than hacker news is for you.
Personally, this is why I regularly browse the site. I view hacker news as a geek's fantasy show and tell.
you're right, I appreciate the honest words.
i'm just having difficulties in being serious - this is a personal trait and part of my very way to learn since it enables me to stay distant and see more of the bigger picture, thus not easily changed. I'll try to be more serious however.
also, since my english is rather poor, I apologize for my bad grammar and unstructured sentences.
It might be a good idea to mention that English is not your first language, at the beginning of your longer posts.
For shorter posts, it is probably worth your time to spend an extra 1 or 2 minutes making sure the capitalization and grammar are correct. But, for longer posts, when you are expressing more complicated ideas, spending too much time reviewing your writing style would damage your train of thought. It would probably suffice to say, "Sorry if my English isn't so great."
There's a HUGE difference between a native English speaker writing a thoughtless post with bad style, and a non-native English speaker writing a thoughtful post with bad style.
I think a lot of HN people are sensitive to writing style because it's a useful way to decide whether or not you should bother reading something. If a comment is very poorly written, it is more likely (but not definite) that the content is also poorly imagined.
The problem is when there are "false negatives" such as yourself--people who are carefully thinking through their ideas, but are not as well-versed in writing style. Help the community cut you some slack; advertise the fact that English is not your first language when you do not have the time or skill to make your posts perfect. :-)
Just about every language out there that uses the Latin alphabet capitalizes the first letter of every sentence. The lack of capitalization in your posts makes it a bit harder for a lot of people to read them, regardless of your tone or lack of seriousness.
Personally, even though i'm quite particular about punctuation, grammar and general writing etiquette i find your style to be more personable and therefore a hint of fresh air.
After all, provided you can convey your thought and emotion to me successfully, that's all that matters right?
Thanks for the flowers. I'm even using my broken shift-key for you're reading pleasure (I'm particular too about all that although I also like the style of all-lower-case, but I understand that might not be obvious and seen as an insult).
I'd really don't know if it's all that matters, but you might be right, I'll have a try. After all that's were emoticons might be of help as well (as a pro argument for their use ;).
It seems all my comments appear as a blob, despite me adding line breaks.
I'm not doing that on purpose, do I have to use a different system or editor in order to get more visual structure into it?
It seems to me that this argument boils down to whether a comment on HN is more akin to conversation (ie. somewhat less formal), or information.
My personal opinion is that with the rise of globalisation and non-native English's prevalence on the internet, any use of language that is understandable and unambiguous is good enough for discourse.
