On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 10/17/05, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
[snip]
I wouldn't say anything about this paragraph, had it not appeared in the same post, because despite having a college degree in English, I still manage to misspell words. However, it borders on parody to find one statement with 3 glaring misspellings follow an incoherent one. I like to think that the people who post here on a regular basis are some of the brightest & most articulate (& yours truly) members of Wikipedia; seeing the above, I have to strongly reconsider that assumption. Typos & misspellings only undercut the power & logic of a writer's arguments, which is why I struggle to keep them out of what I write. (And an old Usenet rule dictates that at least one of these can be found in my email.)
Take a look at the other writings by this person. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it might be that they don't speak English as their primary language.
The point of my email was to focus on the problem, not the person; that is why I snipped off the identifying details. But since you raised that issue, I'll say this. I was under the impression that the original poster (OP) was a native English speaker, based on the idiomatic fluency of his language. Add to that the fact that the OP often makes a logical & plausible argument for his opinions, & this blemish of typos & misspellings is just a shame. If he's not a native speaker of English, he's fooling me now, & would fool me even better if he did just a little more work.
Had this person been another, run-of-the-mill whiner sending us another forgettable "I've been banned by a rogue Admin who picks on me because I violated the 3RR rule, but I won't mention it because that would make me look like the loon I am" email, I wouldn't bother making the effort; at most, I'd adjust the settings on my computer & make his email go bye-bye.
I'm trying to offer constructive criticism here. My message was "you could be a more effective writer if you did these things", not "your lack of grammar & spelling cancels out anything you might have to say; now go away." I'm sorry if that was not how it was received.
Geoff