Text Talk, bad spelling, poor grammar, and literacy laziness.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Ok i get it its about practice makes perfect. And i agree i have improved (very slowly) over time with my spelling through practising. But its the way its highlighted for all to see.

I understand why there are rules and i don't want to be seen to be challenging them because im not (well i suppose i am really) but i think disabilities need to be taken in to consideration, and highlighting people mistakes for the world to see isn't fair. maybe a PM just to inform the individual about their mistake (in a constructive way, not just refer to the rules) would be a better way. And if the English Boffins of the forum find it annoying then that much let them change the word spelt wrong on the post.

You obviously make an effort with your posts, but there are plenty of people who don't and this makes the forum difficult to read for others.

If we left it, this place would become a joke and that is not going to happen. Text talk is for mobile phones. Not for here. There are plenty of spell checkers and other bits of software to help those who want to help themselves. If people can't type simple replies on here, how on earth do they run a business?

It is also run by volunteers who have better things to do than PMing someone to inform them of their mistake.

There are also plenty of people who claim to be dyslexic but aren't and just use it as an excuse to be lazy and not make an effort.

The rules won't be changed or relaxed as it will make people lazy and the forum will become unreadable from certain people. Read through the forum and check out some of the nonsense posted on here. We have tried to help serial offenders, but certain people don't want to learn.

I understand your points Rone, but disagree and I think you need to spend a lot more time on here to see what we are up against.

[Shaun]

Well said, Darren.

[DazzyD]

I must say that reading through this thread has been enlightening to me as I've never considered the side of someone with dyslexia before. I spent several years as a Regional Equality Officer for a large trade union, a lot of which work included disabilities and the Disability Discrimination Act, but I never came across issues with dyslexia. So this has been an eye-opener for me.

First of all, it must have taken a lot of courage for Elliott to publish that assessment report online. It makes quite heavy reading but can leave no-one in any doubt as to Elliott's literacy issues. Fair play to him.

I can see Darren's side of things in that, as the Forum Owner, he wants the site to be understood by all of it's participants which is quite fair. Banning text speak is, in my opinion, a good idea. As a supporter of the Plain English Campaign, I think forums should be free of little-understood abbreviations and jargon so that information can be easily understood by all who try to access it.

However, my concerns over the points that Elliott has made lie around the fact that "severe dyslexia" is recognised under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA)and that "reasonable adjustments" must be made to ensure the person isn't "unfairly disadvantaged" when compared to a "non-disabled person". At this point, I will point out from the DDA, the law relates to employers making those "reasonable adjustments". However, it is my understanding that the DDA was extended to place obligations on service providers (for example, new building designers and shops which have public customers must be easily accessible and wheelchair-friendly). This makes me wonder if the Act would apply to forum owners as they are providing a servie to the public. If so, would it be possible to actually install a spell/grammar checker directly in to the forum itself so posts could be checked as they are being typed without having to install toolbars in to a browser? After all, some people might not be comfortable in installing add-ons such as this (not everyone is computer literate to this level). This would then count as "reasonable adjustment" which would then limit the need for posts to be deleted as they have been recently.

These are simply my thoughts on the situation - I'm not trying to open any cans of worms here.

[andyw]

what about a sticky thread with a link to an easy spell checker to use, and also a basic step by step guide how to set it up. would that not suffice or just get a moderator to write my post's for me

[ronedjs]

Darren, im not asking for the rules to be changed or relaxed I agree (with text talk) i find it hard to understand myself some times! What i am doing is pointing out that people with disabilities, when reading through this forum and writing responses are then worried that if they make a mistake with their spelling, grammar and literacy, they will be marked in big RED text telling them they have made a mistake (which everyone can see) this does knock confidence levels right down and also people who are very self conscious (im not, I posted my report. im just thinking of other people who will find it hard to raise this issue) about their disabilities will find it hard to engage on the forum.

I understand that you want the forum to look and feel professional and i applaud you for that (you guys are doing a great job!) but you need to see it from a different angle (which some people on here are not prepared to do).

I understand their are a lot of add ons that you can get, and trust me i have tried all most every one. It helps and i have learnt quite a bit from some of the add ons i have. But its labour intensive writing up your post then copying it over to an add on or word to check the spelling, then copy back to the forum to post. In my eyes this is suppose to be a fun place where information and advice can be passed on quickly! Not some sort of english lesson where if you work is wrong the paper comes back covered in more red ink than black (its not a fun feeling)

I know that if the rule wasn't their that a lot of people would become lazy and the posts would become unreadable. Im not asking for that im just asking for consideration when HIGHLIGHTING people posts. As for (darren) DazzyD i think adding a spell checker to the forum would be a good idea. It would also help in combating this issue from not only your side but from the members.

I don't want to sound like a narky old man (im only 19) but its just something that i think needs to be taken into consideration.

[Shaun]

I understand why there are rules and i don't want to be seen to be challenging them because im not (well i suppose i am really) but i think disabilities need to be taken in to consideration, and highlighting people mistakes for the world to see isn't fair. maybe a PM just to inform the individual about their mistake (in a constructive way, not just refer to the rules) would be a better way. And if the English Boffins of the forum find it annoying then that much let them change the word spelt wrong on the post.

To be fair, we have many times in the past taken dyslexia into consideration. We already know of a few members that we know to be genuine Dyslexia sufferers and we tend not to moderate them too hard as we know the difficulties they face.

There are many third party spell checkers. I myself suffer from bad English. I left School early with no exams to speak of and written English has been a major hurdle for me throughout my adult life. It's because of this that I have pro-actively taken steps to ensure that I try overcome that hurdle. These days there are so many tools to help people like myself, and people with Dyslexia etc that there is really no excuse for not trying (which you've admitted you try to do).

As for PMing members every time a rule is broken, we simply don't have the time. Highlighting it in the post serves two purposes, it makes the poster aware of what the issue is, and also informs other members of where not to go wrong.

As you can appreciate it is extremely difficult in this 'txt' era to spot a true dyslexic from someone who just doesn't care about their spelling, so we really have to have a consistent structure in place where the rules are the rules, although as mentioned in my opening paragraph we do try our best to make allowances when we know it to be a genuine oversight from people with genuine disabilities.



For those interested, my spell-checker of chioce is http://www.iespell.com/, although there are others such as google toolbar etc. I urge all of our members to find one they are comfortable with and install it to help themselves. Dazzy mentioned in his post about installing a spell checker into the forum. As far as I'm aware this is not possible with our forum software version. I will however look further into this.

[** IESPELL picked up about 10 errors in my post above - Check it out on the link above, it's brilliant. ***]

[DazzyD]

Hi Shaun

I'm not sure if it's possible to install a spell checker directly in to the forum either (I did say "would it be possible...") and I'm probably one of the least "web-expert" people on here (when I did my IT HNC in 94/95 the web was still a young child!!).

But it's good that you've said you'll look in to it. It shows that forum staff are taking these issues seriously.

[ronedjs]

Shaun i appreciate you response and thanks for agreeing to look in to it.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Im not asking for that im just asking for consideration when HIGHLIGHTING people posts.

We do tend to moderate on an individual basis because as Shaun mentioned we do know there are people who are genuine, but the people who we highlight tend to be the people who make the same mistakes over and over and over and make no real effort.

This is where my comment about spending more time on the forum comes into play.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Well said, Darren.

Should there be a comma there?