> "As a rule," - in the main but I have some fabulously sarcastic American mates.
Sure, me too. They are my favourite kind of American mate. :-D I stand by the point though.
Parallel example: Lobste.rs bans Reg links being posted as stories, at all, 100%.
The mods said it is "snarky" and mean and mocking and feel it is not worth sharing.
> There are some very dodgy commentards on el Reg.
I said nothing about commentards, and I'm not now.
> As you say, it is thriving but I do think it has lost some of its edge (as I said we are all a little flabbier).
Please note: I am a writer, not an editor. I have zero editorial control and in the context of the Reg I don't want to be an editor again. I've done it, for a much smaller site, and it's very hard work indeed. I do not fancy the job of doing it on such a high-profile high-traffic site, not one bit.
All I will say is this: the change in style is conscious and intentional.
> I often think that el Reg and Private Eye are in a similar space in the hyper-dimensional space of reporting (yes, I said that without blushing).
Fair. Aspirational, I'd say. I like and respect Lord Gnome's mighty organ.
> "are not native English speakers and struggle with wordplay" - hard disagree
Ha!
This again is a policy decision, but at coming up on 3Y full-time there now, they are right. You would be amazed how little people understand. I was.
And the ones who understand least do not know it.
General reading comprehension on the Internet at large is extremely poor.
> English is the French language, as you know well.
You mean, "lingua Franca"?
You know the Franks spoke an ancestor of German, right?
But yes, it is.
I also note I lived in Czechia for nearly a decade, speak poor intermediate-level Czech as a second (er, 6th) language, and in that time I had to totally redefine my understanding of "fluent English speaker".
I stand by what I said.
Globish is a thing. It is not the same as standard English, and British English is, sadly, not the standard form: that is American English.
> enough machine translation to get a good idea of what is going on.
Which is precisely an example of an area where idiom and slang and elliptical figurative speech goes wrong the worst.
The decisions were made, and made knowingly. It's not my place to question them, but anyway, the reasoning was sound.
Sure, me too. They are my favourite kind of American mate. :-D I stand by the point though.
Parallel example: Lobste.rs bans Reg links being posted as stories, at all, 100%.
The mods said it is "snarky" and mean and mocking and feel it is not worth sharing.
> There are some very dodgy commentards on el Reg.
I said nothing about commentards, and I'm not now.
> As you say, it is thriving but I do think it has lost some of its edge (as I said we are all a little flabbier).
Please note: I am a writer, not an editor. I have zero editorial control and in the context of the Reg I don't want to be an editor again. I've done it, for a much smaller site, and it's very hard work indeed. I do not fancy the job of doing it on such a high-profile high-traffic site, not one bit.
All I will say is this: the change in style is conscious and intentional.
> I often think that el Reg and Private Eye are in a similar space in the hyper-dimensional space of reporting (yes, I said that without blushing).
Fair. Aspirational, I'd say. I like and respect Lord Gnome's mighty organ.
> "are not native English speakers and struggle with wordplay" - hard disagree
Ha!
This again is a policy decision, but at coming up on 3Y full-time there now, they are right. You would be amazed how little people understand. I was.
And the ones who understand least do not know it.
General reading comprehension on the Internet at large is extremely poor.
> English is the French language, as you know well.
You mean, "lingua Franca"?
You know the Franks spoke an ancestor of German, right?
But yes, it is.
I also note I lived in Czechia for nearly a decade, speak poor intermediate-level Czech as a second (er, 6th) language, and in that time I had to totally redefine my understanding of "fluent English speaker".
I stand by what I said.
Globish is a thing. It is not the same as standard English, and British English is, sadly, not the standard form: that is American English.
> enough machine translation to get a good idea of what is going on.
Which is precisely an example of an area where idiom and slang and elliptical figurative speech goes wrong the worst.
The decisions were made, and made knowingly. It's not my place to question them, but anyway, the reasoning was sound.