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Line Breaks
This is a matter that I cannot simply edit away. There are some people on this forum using line breaks incorrectly, and it's extremely irritating to me. kilarney and blast flame are the most recent offenders.
In sum:
When writing on the Internet, you just leave two carriage returns between each paragraph. Not one. Not three. You start a new paragraph when the subject changes substantially, the point is complete, or the speaker in quotation marks changes. You do not just leave single carriage returns around willy-nilly. It's sloppy-looking, and makes your writings difficult to follow.
In sum:
When writing on the Internet, you just leave two carriage returns between each paragraph. Not one. Not three. You start a new paragraph when the subject changes substantially, the point is complete, or the speaker in quotation marks changes. You do not just leave single carriage returns around willy-nilly. It's sloppy-looking, and makes your writings difficult to follow.
Comments
;-)
U r aksing fore trubble, Mr Peirod.
Big trubble,
(Edit that, you Godwin's Law-inducing punctuation mark.)
Do not do this:
<blockquote>A quote.</p></div></blockquote>
Do not do this:Talking.
<blockquote>A quote.</p></div></blockquote>Do not do this:Talking.
[quote]A quote.[/quote]
Talking.
Here is what you should do:
<blockquote>A quote.</p></div></blockquote>Talking.or[quote]A quote.[/quote]Talking.Do you now see how to comment directly after the closing tag without making spaces or newlines? That is what you need to do. The forum's CSS will make it look nice, trust me. Remember, just use the Preview button. If there is a bunch of extra whitespace, make sure to delete some newlines.
And if it is you (note: two "enters" used for new thought), do you find yourself arranging things for no apparent reason? Does it drive you crazy if someone moves your toothbrush a couple of inches from its proper resting location?
I haven't really started a new thought, but yet I hit enter twice. That must drive you crazy!
And here I hit enter just once. Mwahahaha!
U r kewl.
Raaaaaage dump.
Your better off not reading my responses anyhow ^_^
This is the same type of attitude that the record and movie companies have now about the change in media distribution. Bitch about it all you want but change happens whether you like it or not.
The very nature of language has been altered enormously by the internet just as it has been by television, radio and the printing press as well as every other form of expression from the beginning of sapience. It is far from a static thing that is "just so", with every deviation from your own tunnel vision concept of the world something to be railed at and condescended to.
By being such a hard core prescriptivist in the most fluid medium of all time Mr. Period appears to show us that he is closed minded and slow to catch on to the wonders our age has to offer. I would like to think this is not the case. If there is a way to justify the nit being picked in this particular thread as something other than prescriptivism from a subjective standpoint (which is the main fault of prescriptivism in the first place) I'll give him this one. Though I doubt it can be.
The world of Language is a very large and very fast moving thing. You'd be best served by jumping on for the ride Mr. Period.
The way a person types is very indicative of their education, attention to detail, and care. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they communicate. People who cannot express themselves properly do a great disservice to themselves. I can say, for example, that I would never consider hiring a person who had so much as a single spelling or formatting mistake on their resume or cover latter.
Also, I note that our esteemed Mr. Period doesn't enforce the more pedantic rules of language (prepositions anyone? full formatting syntax?). His only job is to clean up atrocious typing and hideous grammar. Everything we ask Mr. Period to enforce is for ease of readability and aesthetics.
On a broader scale, language is a method of communication, like a standard. People can deviate from a standard in hopes that their deviation will become a new standard. But deviation alone doesn't cut it, and you assume responsibility for breakdowns in communication when you do so. Using a nonstandard sentence construction may be technically wrong but practically just fine. Spelling common words incorrectly, however, or writing in a way that occludes your point, is wrong in both senses, for it reduces your ability to make known your message.
The spellings of words in English tell an intelligent reader a great deal about them, particularly their etymology and hints as to their meanings. The seeming superfluous letters in words like through or neighbor aid in quick reading and allow one unfamiliar with a word to hazard an educated guess as to its meaning. The proper construction of sentences allows meaning to be accurately and unambiguously expressed. Several of the logical fallacies that exist spawn from ambiguous use of grammar.
Following the standard of language is intelligent. Breaking a rule of language knowingly is also often intelligent, provided you understand why you are doing so and can rationalize this decision. Breaking a rule of language ignorantly does nothing but showcase your ignorance or carelessness.
Enforcing a modicrum of proper grammar and spelling has also done wonders to keep the general riff-raff and trollishness of the intarweb off of our forums thus far.
But it definitely does not help that it's usually really late at night or really early in the morning when I troll message boards ^_^
Is it correct to say that Geeknights airs "every weekday" Monday through Thursday? I noticed you say this in your close. Shouldn't it be "each weeknight?"
You're right about the problem with quotes, I hadn't noticed that. It would be really nifty if those extra line breaks were inserted only when they were needed because, though I can use non-WYSIWYG editors, I don't like to when I don't need to. There are of course cases where I would intentionally break the normal convention of having two lines between paragraphs, but those are specific exceptions to the general rule.
I applaud Mr. Period's efforts in making the internet a more readable environment.