- Joined
- Feb 15, 2014
- Messages
- 20,194
So, thoughts:
The constant stream of freeness and freenas and Freenas and whatever can get rather annoying. We tried an automated spelling enforcer for some basic stuff, like "FreeNAS". That incredibly limited automated fix was enough to cause significant confusion whenever FreeNAS was not supposed to be spelled properly, such as
I've corrected a lot of instances of "freeness" (Seriously, that's not even a real word, what kind of moron added it to a dictionary as anything other than a misconstruction of "freedom"? I just hate it with a passion.) and related misspellings, plus the occasional it's or its or whatever.
As for how appropriate this is...
FWIW, I'd be in favor of allowing for minor corrections, along the lines of the list posted by @diedrichg (without the actual list, we don't need that much bureaucracy, this isn't Wikipedia), with a snippet in the forum rules stating something like "To enhance readability, forum posts may be edited to correct common, minor mistakes, such as the spelling of FreeNAS. These posts will carry a note saying that they have been edited by a moderator. Larger edits, e.g. to remove inappropriate content, will be explicitly noted by the moderator who made the edit.".
That last part is something not written down, but that really should be followed - if something's going to be seriously edited, it needs a proper note, such as "Edited for personal attacks - Moderator Jim".
The constant stream of freeness and freenas and Freenas and whatever can get rather annoying. We tried an automated spelling enforcer for some basic stuff, like "FreeNAS". That incredibly limited automated fix was enough to cause significant confusion whenever FreeNAS was not supposed to be spelled properly, such as
freenas-boot
, which got rendered as FreeNAS-boot
, with confused users trying to figure out what was going on.I've corrected a lot of instances of "freeness" (Seriously, that's not even a real word, what kind of moron added it to a dictionary as anything other than a misconstruction of "freedom"? I just hate it with a passion.) and related misspellings, plus the occasional it's or its or whatever.
As for how appropriate this is...
I can't see a reason to not correct these (though I wouldn't bother with all of them, personally, only some of them), beyond tingly sensations that it's a slippery slope. I draw the line beyond correcting isolated words or maybe short phrases. Though, in all honesty, it's a line drawn under the influence of laziness, I don't see myself editing major portions of a post - unless it's to moderate something in or out (insert announcements, remove dubious links and insults, etc.).*Grammar Police sirens!
Your ≠ you're
There ≠ their ≠ they're
It's ≠ its
Affect ≠ effect
To ≠ too
Peek ≠ peak ≠ pique
Cue ≠ queue
In to ≠ into
Lose ≠ loose
Than ≠ then
Assure ≠ insure
I don't think I've seen anything to that effect, but I'm sure we could benefit from some clarity. I'll open a poll in this thread to gather some opinions that might help us tackle the issue.And is this something about which there's a somewhat-formal policy, or is it purely at the discretion of each individual mod?
FWIW, I'd be in favor of allowing for minor corrections, along the lines of the list posted by @diedrichg (without the actual list, we don't need that much bureaucracy, this isn't Wikipedia), with a snippet in the forum rules stating something like "To enhance readability, forum posts may be edited to correct common, minor mistakes, such as the spelling of FreeNAS. These posts will carry a note saying that they have been edited by a moderator. Larger edits, e.g. to remove inappropriate content, will be explicitly noted by the moderator who made the edit.".
That last part is something not written down, but that really should be followed - if something's going to be seriously edited, it needs a proper note, such as "Edited for personal attacks - Moderator Jim".