Unauthorized Threadsitters

Unauthorized Threadsitters

Hello CAConrad0825, I am bobafett1972. I have be authorized to thread sit all of your present and future posts and thread. I will be watching closely for spelling and grammatical errors. No worries, I will fix all of your mistakes without any fuss. The powers that be assign "authorized" thread sitters to every poster on the board. There are no "unauthorized" thread sitters here, that is just preposterous...

*goes to get more Gin & Tonic for the long haul...*

alrighty.... .....time to put this thread to bed.....
remember to brush your teeth. i'll come tell you a story when you're all tucked in.
how about the one "how the clown scared the happy goat", sound good?

signed, the masked threadsitter.

I do believe we have started a new piece of ATS jargon. We should make a dictionary of ATS...LOL! Good work people, and to think this all came out of bad grammar!

I don't mind when people U2U me, I usually thank them for helping me make the best posts possible. The better the post, the better response you will get, the better you will be respected.

While I will tell someone not to use all caps and about repeat posts....spelling/grammar is something that should be left alone... English is not everyone's native tongue and we have member here form all over the world...most do darn well, much better than I would do if I were typing their language!!

English speaking natives (perfect example):

Bobby G Barbour:
800 total SAT
In English 100 (ESL) at Campbell University
Made an F

Victor Bedia Mendez (Spanish Exchange student):
In English 102 and makes an A.


Thank god for the public school system.

ATSNN is striving to become a respected center for news gathering and is the most public facet of ATS as a whole. Taking this into account, it is perfectly reasonable to expect contributing members to take the extra time and effort to check and correct their work before submitting it. Enough said.

Another issue is bias. I have submitted a couple of pieces where I was U2U'd to correct bias in the opening paragraph. I have no problem with this either, although sometimes the definition of bias becomes a little blurred. In fact I think that being able to add in your own opinion on the issue below, and the ability of members to comment and argue back and forth in the proceeding replies, is a little in contrast with this tenet. Stories end up being more like opinions/editorials than news pieces, and then in the replies they often degrade into smiley-face-filled slinging matches; not very professional IMO. I would like to see ATSNN stories stay "clean" and unappendixed on ATSNN, with replies only being visible if you click the link to see/make replies. Just a thought.

In ATS, spelling and grammar mistakes don't bother me at all and I rarely if ever call anyone out on it, unless they are so bad that they make the post nearly unreadable (after all, I live in China...every day reality is understanding mistake of grammar. ) In these cases the poster has shot him/herself in the proverbial foot because many readers will skip over the post, thus defeating the purpose of posting in the first place.

What IS annoying is errors of syntax where the meaning and intent of a post is completely changed by errors in such. Missing out a "not" or "don't" or "wouldn't have" is unexcusable. It hurts the brain to read as the poster seems to change standpoints on a particular issue within the same paragraph.

E.g.

"Airport security are trained to react to what you say, whether you're being sarcastic or not. If I were you, I would say that because they will handcuff you, lock you up, and send your luggage to the bomb squad in an instant."

In this case it's pretty clear that the member missed out a crucial "not", but sometimes it isn't so obvious. I guess sometimes in the rush to post before the thread moves on, folks won't take the time to re-read their posts, and I know I'm guilty of that too. Still, it's good form to use the "preview post" button and have a read thru again before posting.

[edit on 2005/3/12 by wecomeinpeace]

Isn't the purpose of us writing the article profiles about our opinion...isn't that why in print what we do is called an editorial? Just a thought. BTW That is the greatest Avatar ever!

Originally posted by CAConrad0825
Isn't the purpose of us writing the article profiles about our opinion...isn't that why in print what we do is called an editorial? Just a thought. BTW That is the greatest Avatar ever!

There actually is a specific section of ATSNN called Opinion/Editorial which is, of course, specifically designed for editorials and opinion pieces. The other sections are toted as news, so having the writer's opinion underneath seems a little odd. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it and I enjoy reading the author's stance (and giving my own) on the issue that they are reporting.

I guess it depends on what the proposed direction for ATSNN is. There are already many quality independent articles by volunteer ATSNN reporters, but if it is endeavouring to one day truly become a bona fide news media outlet - rather than a news gathering service - with reporters in its employ, then the opinion of the author presented within articles would be at odds with the generally accepted principles of unbiased, "just-the-facts-please" news. Again, such pieces would need to be confined to the editorial section.

Regardless, I think that the replies would best be kept on a seperate page to the original story. Not really that big an issue. Just my $0.02

Cheers for the av compliment. Watch for the upcoming movie, Freemasons Bustin' Out!