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Author | Topic: General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures (aka 'The Whine List') | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
It is just one more step toward the inevitable domination of form over content.
Jesus was a liberal hippie
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
'cause
AbE: I really think this subject deserves discussion, not in relation to spidey's suspension, but as a general thread. I do find it hard to read posts that are all lowercase. However, when the content is worthwhile I will gladly invest the extra effort needed. We have few members here that actually have the Biblical and Hebrew knowledge shown by spidey. I cannot remember a single exchange with him where I did not come away with some new insight, new understanding, new pathway to explore. Moose seems to really get bugged by form and also brevity, but in many cases I find that the content far outweighs any inconvenience and that often brevity is the best possible response. But Moose has the power. Edited by jar, : expand my points Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Literary and journalistic giants have resorted to all lower case text in an effort to wipe the slate clean stylistically, opening the writer's mind to the dictation of form by content. ee cummings is probably the most well known of those who went this route. Personally, I find it as easy to read as up-and-down text, perhaps because I've read so much of it.
Clearly, the assumption of language police powers by a debate moderator is inappropriate. A personal pet peeve should not dictate members' writing style. I frankly cannot understand why anyone would think otherwise. Like the TV, the personal solution is easy--turn it off. Moose, don't read his posts. Let other moderators look after spidey.
Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1467 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
You guys know we're talking about Moose, right? A wise man once said "the reign (of Moose) falls on the just and unjust alike." Arach is just lucky that his suspension came with a stated reason.
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Omnivorous Member Posts: 3978 From: Adirondackia Joined: Member Rating: 7.3 |
Well, hell, I bitch about the weather, too.
The weather doesn't change, but I feel better. Dost thou prate, rogue? -Cassio Real things always push back.-William James
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
I have difficulty reading every post. I read backwards, forwards, upside-down with equal difficulty. I have a lot more difficulty with posters who don't know what a sentence is than I do with a few missing capitals.
I personally have to put more effort into the style than the content or my posts would look like they were written with an axe. I think everybody should be suspended but me. "I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!" |
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1343 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined:
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oh, and Moose, my name is spelled with a lowercase "a". please endeavor to at least capitalize my name correctly if you're going to suspend me for capitalization.
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Percy Member Posts: 22391 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
arachnophilia writes: oh, and Moose, my name is spelled with a lowercase "a". please endeavor to at least capitalize my name correctly if you're going to suspend me for capitalization. I guess I always get this wrong then. In English the names of people and places are capitalized, so regardless of what someone's login ID is, when I refer to them in a message I always capitalize it, so arachnophilia becomes Arachnophilia. But I also maintain case for the rest of the name, so ICANT remains ICANT. --Percy
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jar Member (Idle past 394 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
There are many similar usernames. I am jar, not Jar although JAR or J.A.R. might also be appropriate. It also depends on the medium, for example on a signet ring jRa might be most often seen.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1343 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I don't especially mind, Percy, it's just that of I'm going to be suspended for picky issues like capitalization, the person doing it should at least try to get the capitalization of my username correct. We have a few members here who do not capitalize their usernames, for whatever reason. For instance, right now, bluegenes, dwise1, jar, and subbie are all online. None of them capitalize their names.
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
Is this a real Whine List? Looks like its all over but the shouting! Just to add my 2 cents, however.... I believe that all members of this forum should try and do everything within our power to make our posts as readable as possible. Occasionally, I make a mistake such as using a smaller case h for Him (my creator) or a larger case F (when referring to our father) Who may only be worthy of capitalization within the context of my belief)
Basically, I try my best to capitalize sentences only because I have not yet earned the right to be famous NOT doing it, such as ee cummings.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Phat writes: Basically, I try my best to capitalize sentences only because I have not yet earned the right to be famous NOT doing it, such as ee cummings. Cummings capitalized like everyone else when he wrote prose, and often preferred to capitalize his name. He's distinctly irrelevant to the question of whether or not it's easier to distinguish between sentences on discussion boards when people capitalize their initial letters.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1343 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
bluegenes writes: He's distinctly irrelevant to the question of whether or not it's easier to distinguish between sentences on discussion boards when people capitalize their initial letters. would we be interested in discussing this question? personally, i find that capitalization slows down not only my typing, but also my reading. minuscules ("lower case") were originally designed to aid in both, as we can typically recognize minuscules by their counterforms alone. for instance, compare reading a block of text in majuscule:
quote: to that same text entirely in minuscule:
quote: which one reads faster, and is easier on the eyes? keep in mind that the original greek and latin alphabets are all majuscule, and minuscules developed over time through several stages (rustic, uncial, half-uncial, etc) with the specific intention of aiding scribes in reading and writing large blocks of text. personally, i find that punctuation and spacing is more than sufficient to distinguish the beginnings and endings of sentences (many languages such as ancient greek and hebrew lacked these as well, btw), and context generally sufficient to distinguish proper nouns. before the invention of minuscule scripts, context was the only way to distinguish between proper and improper nouns. even after the invention of minuscule scripts, all nouns (and some verbs and adjectives) were generally capitalized. i had sort of thought about putting together a new topic on this, going over the history of capitalization and whatnot, and a discussion about its relevance in a language that changes as fluidly as english -- and more importantly whether or not capitalization should be a suspendable offense. perhaps i will put it together when moose gets around to suspending me for this post.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2477 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
arachnophilia writes: would we be interested in discussing this question? Sure.
which one reads faster, and is easier on the eyes? Speed-wise, the second is slightly better for me, and seems much easier on the eyes (in this color scheme, certainly). So, from your little experiment, I vote that we continue to use lower case as the basis. Then, a bright idea would be to put capitals in at the beginnings of sentences to help distinguish between them, and perhaps for any words we choose to emphasise, then we can understand how and why practical modern English evolved. In other words, we're back to square one, and both of your examples are worse.
arach writes: i had sort of thought about putting together a new topic on this, going over the history of capitalization and whatnot, and a discussion about its relevance in a language that changes as fluidly as english... The history would be interesting.
-- and more importantly whether or not capitalization should be a suspendable offense. You'd be alone on the board if it were!
...perhaps i will put it together when moose gets around to suspending me for this post. On past form, he seems to do it once every 8,000 or so non-capitalized posts, so you should be O.K. for a while. Are you sure you aren't over-intellectualizing your non-capitalization, when it might just be a simple case of "I can't be bothered to hit the shift key?" On the lighter side, I just remembered an old joke about capitalizing proper nouns. It can occasionally make a difference, as in: "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse." "I helped my uncle jack off a horse." Not the best joke ever, but relevant.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1343 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
bluegenes writes: In other words, we're back to square one, and both of your examples are worse. if you hit "peek" on the above post, you can compare to a third example, the original text. the KJV bible i cited above capitalizes somewhat arbitrarily at the beginning of every verse regardless of punctuation or grammar. frequently, this results in a capital following a comma. this is somewhat representative of that period of english. earlier examples include frankly even more arbitrary capitalization schemes, often capitalizing the majority of the first letters. older still, capitalization is mostly absent, except for the first letter or any particular passage, similar to the way manuscript often illuminated the first letter. the modern system of capitalization wasn't locked in until roughly the 18th century. the interesting point is not that we have added capitals, but rather that since their addition, we have consistently done away with capitals, all but excluding the first letters of proper nouns, and the first letter of a sentence. the trend is not towards caps, but rather away from. removing them entirely is simply the next logical step. further, i find lack of capitalism not nearly as much of a deterrent to reading as i do poor post organization and line breaks. overly long paragraphs, or a bunch of short one-liners, do not scream "read this", and forgetting to add that extra space between paragraphs is even worse. for instance, many of the exceptional creationists PNTs here, copy-pastas, are generally quite unreadable thanks to poor formatting alone. correct capitalization cannot save them.
Are you sure you aren't over-intellectualizing your non-capitalization, when it might just be a simple case of "I can't be bothered to hit the shift key?" perhaps. but i did say as much in the above post -- i find it much faster to type this way. the potential drawback here is that i am much more prone to typographical error. but an advantage is that it becomes much easier to edit my text, as i can rearrange clauses essentially at will. however, for the record, i do in fact use my shift keys. when i type anything italic, for instance, i'm generally doing it in html (not bbcode), and the less-than and greater-than symbols require using a shift key.
On the lighter side, I just remembered an old joke about capitalizing proper nouns. It can occasionally make a difference, as in: "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse." "I helped my uncle jack off a horse." Not the best joke ever, but relevant. certainly. and it comes up sometimes in the scriptural debates. capitalization i mean, not jacking off a horse. as i mentioned above, even modern hebrew lacks any kind of case difference. the square aramaic script used in biblical hebrew developed from proto-semitic in the jewish scribal community much the same way capitalis rustica derived from the capitals script used for roman, well, capitals -- it was simply easier to write; more suited to ink and paper/papyrus/vellum. later scribes, like rashi, developed scripts much like the roman uncials, and used them to set their comments apart from the formal scriptural text. further, there is even a modern cursive handwritten script design for quick and fluid writing. i can personally confirm that it's far easier to write by hand. but the mixture of majuscule and minuscule scripts just never happened in hebrew, probably due to the lack of a tradition illuminating manuscripts. and so, even modern hebrew lacks case. this fact frequently comes up when discussing other gods, found in the old testament. the masoretic hebrew makes no distinction between the elohim in the "gods of canaan" and the elohim that refers to yahweh.
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