[oclug]List Police

[Milan Budimirovic]

On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 16:06, Shad Young wrote:
> I for one am growing concerned about a seeming trend toward intolerance
> of others based on rather trivial matters.
> 
> I wold like to suggest that this forum is a lot more fun to participate
> in if others would be a little tolerant of other peoples quirks.
> 
> 1) Spelling and grammar - while they both are necessary in lending
> credibility to the writer, do they have to invalidate a point?
> 
> 2) Capitalization and punctuation - while they also lend credibility
> they primarily lend readability. But that does not mean that a post is
> invalid or impossible to read.
> 

No Shad, this has nothing to do with the truth or validity of the
messages in question. It has to do with showing some respect and
courtesy towards others on the list by making an effort to write
legibly.

And to set the record straight, I was was the one who brought the issue
up on the oclug-board list last week. Here is the text of the e-mail I
sent:

--------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 11:05:29 -0500 (EST)
From: Milan Budimirovic <milan at plcom-server.plcom.on.ca>
To: oclug-board at lists.oclug.on.ca
Subject: Request for addition to "Netiquette" document
--------------------------------------------------------

I would like the following text added to the OCLUG "Netiquette"
document:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Please make <I>some</I> effort at proper spelling, grammar, punctuation
and especially capitalization. While it is generally impolite to be
picking apart other posters' spelling and grammar, it is equally rude to
disregard these things altogether when posting to the list.
All-uppercase or all-lowercase posts with deliberately-misspelled words
and no punctuation are difficult to read and disrespectful towards
others on the list."

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I am making this request because lately we seem to have had way too many
posts from the too-hip-to-use-the-shift-key crowd. They should know that
this is a public mailing list, not AIM. I don't want people picking
apart each other's grammar. Far from it. But these all-lowercase,
randomly-punctuated  posts are **really** annoying. And I'm pretty sure
I'm not the only one on the mailing list who feels this way.