Most of the time I don’t get bothered by typing/autofill errors in others’ posts. (My own often get edited several times.)

But some bring out my inner schoolmarm. I try to restrict my corrections to times when the error is confusing, or if I have a mnemonic that might be helpful. I bear in mind that this is an informal forum, but someone might want to be able to get it right when it matters.

*rediculous

I dare you to proof that its dead.

Also, from the [email protected] rules:

1. Open-ended question

On one hand some posters don’t give a shit. On the other hand, proofreading your own text is systematically harder than one that you didn’t write. I’m sure there’s some scientific explanation; it’s some kind of fact of life. It’s way easier to spot mistakes in other people’s texts. So don’t be too harsh on other posters; they didn’t hire a proofreader and that’s alright.

no u

It’s not dead! I make Apple intelligent proofread what I write. 🤓

…but yeah, I’ve completely forgotten how to proofread.

Usually how it goes for me:

1. Make post

2. See typo

3. Edit the post to fix it

4. See another typo

5. GOTO 3

Proofreading your own work without a significant time gap is pretty useless. You’ll catch a few obvious errors, but approaching the same problem in the same mental space tends to lead to the same thought patterns, tends to lead to making or overlooking the same mistakes.

You’ll do a bit better reapproaching the subject a few days later. It’s almost, but not quite, like reading a new piece of writing. In my experience, comments are set and forget, unless you’re obsessive like me and enjoy rereading your old shit.

By far the most effective proofreading, though, is an Editor. There’s a reason it’s a paid position for anyone who makes a living writing. A completely different person will read the text more as-is, without accidentally interpreting it how they INTENDED it to be written. This will catch far more errors, but isn’t really practical for shit posting in social media. The closest you’ll get is someone calling out a typo or grammatical error.

As long as the intent of the message is clear, it passes the bar for acceptable social media content. We’re not writing PhD theses, we’re just having fun discussions. We’re not writing a paper meant to be readable to someone independently, we’re engaging in dialogue and can easily ask the other person to clarify.

TL;DR high-level proofreading and error correcting isn’t really as viable on social media as it is formal writing, nor is it really necessary as long as the message received is the message intended.

I used to get really annoyed with blatant errors but I’ve grown more tolerant whenever they seem to be bona fide.

What I find a harder time with is the anti intellectual attitude of some people (I’m speaking overall online, not specifically on Lemmy), where writing poorly is used as a kind of code. And in the same vein, people who write using proper grammar and spelling being mocked.

When have random people on the Internet ever cared about correct spelling and grammar? In any language? I’ve been an Internet regular for over 20 years and if anything, autocorrecting smartphones have improved the average quality of spelling.

I still take pride in the written word

I’ve noticed less hostilities around here when it come spelling and grammar.

Mobile keyboards are awful (except the BlackBerry keyboard).

Im certainly guilt of this. In my defense while I generally did well in school, my worst subjects were language relate. Foreign was what I did worst at but spelling and grammer in my native came next worst. The best I did in subjects around language was more around reading comprehension and in writing more with creative aspect.

It’s mind numbing. I understand ESL speakers having trouble, and I understand being tired and messing stuff up in comments, but if you’re making a post you should be double and triple checking everything you wrote. It’s ridiculous.