As a moderator on several of the Forums here on SDN, I read literally hundreds if not thousands of posts a week. Perhaps I am also becoming a Grumpy Old Man, but in the spirit of the Moving to Strict Rules to improve Quality and Control and the Rules of Engagement I would like to express some of my pet peeves regarding the some of the posts I see in the Forums.
First I would like to say that there are many posts that are quite professional and helpful. A great big thanks to those who take the time to make such posts. You really make my (voluntary) job easier.
That being said, these are professional Forums, and there are a huge number of posts and posters that do not treat them that way. The Forums are not a chat board and we are not SMS texting each other. I am continually surprised at the general lack of respect for the readers of posts that the posters show. Let me give some examples.
- SPELL CHECK!!! I understand that English is not the first language of many, if not most, SDN users. The posting tool, however, has a neat little button to help out
Please use this button before submitting your post! I have seen many posts that are absolutely unreadable due to spelling errors that could have been easily corrected before the post was made.
- USE COMPLETE WORDS!!! Like I said above, the Forums are not a chat board and we are not SMS texting each other. I continually see…uhh…”words” such as “u”, “plz”, “ur”, “i”, etc. in posts. From “u” to “you” is only two keystrokes; “plz” to “please” only three; “ur” to “your” only two; and “i” to “I” simply means holding down the shift key! I can understand the simplified language when typing on a phone and, in fact, I do it all the time myself when texting. But we are not restricted in length like in SMS format and presumably all have full keyboards here. Take advantage of them! These shortcut words are borderline insulting to readers, especially when, as a moderator, I see them day after day after day.
Now, these may sound like petty complaints, but we are all supposed to be professionals, no? Let me put it this way, would you write this way to your boss? Asking for a job?
Or, more simply, if you don’t take the time to make a professional post, why should we take our professional time to help?
Usually, I contribute to the ABAP development. So, I want to make one more point about using the code markup {code}… {code} to make the CODE easily readable.
Regards,
Naimesh Patel
KK
So people believe that forum Moderation is an easy thing…But as you said, we had to actually read thousands of posts everyday…Line by line…Move them, lock them, delete them, edited them…And when people use “SMS lingo” or misspelled words, the job becomes even harder…
The Spell Checker button in the forums in great…But if you’re on Firefox, nothing beats bundled Spell Checker…I’m using it right now -;)
Greetings,
Blag.
Personally I find the sloppy behaviour worse than the sloppy SMS-speak.
Consider yourself (and the NW forums) blessed. You should see what the ABAP forums are like… (shortcuts and abbreviations are a product feature… 🙂
So if I’m doing it, you can to.
On blogs, I usually copy and paste the main text into OpenOffice.org for a run through prior to publishing.
Jim
Amen to that. Still valid in 2015! 🙂