An appeal for moderation

[Fragbait]

Hi,

As one who has often taken up the mantle of 'grammar nazi' in the past, this may get me accused of hypocrisy.  On the other hand, if what I am about to say came from a poster noted for sloppy posting, then it would have no weight.  So, perhaps, the only ones who can make this point would all be hypocrits.

A forum must have standards or devolve into primordial ooze.  Anyone with more than a passing experience with Internet, especially web, especially game, fora holds that as a self evident truth.  Not nearly as self evident is that if the standards are set arbitrarily high, the result is invariably stagnation and decay as the existing posters drift off and new ones are scared away before they can become regulars.

Thus, the standards must be set with some care.  Too low, and the noise overcomes the signal.  Too high, and there is no signal left.  Either way, the death knell of that forum has been struck.  Those with something worthwhile to say but without a Churchillian command of the language (and there are many such) should be welcome to post and not overly intimidated.  I fear that, in an effort to maintain high standards (a worthy goal) we at the Lounge have (or perhaps just are about to) crossed the line into stagnation.

So, if it is not too late, let me suggest that we show more moderation in the sense "to lessen the intensity or extremeness of" our grammarian criticisms and less moderation in the sense "to preside over" the means of expression of others.

Let us set the standard of acceptable communication at acceptable communication.  Instead of searching for a perfect medium, perhaps devoid of message, we could settle for a medium sufficiently clear that the message is conveyed.  Not an abadonment of standards, but a repositioning of them away from the snobbish self-congratulatory levels we seem to be approching.

--Pete
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Hi,

I cannot quite understand why you think these fora are bound to run into stagnation:

Board Statistics
Board Stats  Our members have made a total of 62,954 posts
We have 2,245 registered members
The newest member is sid_jain
Most users ever online was 514 on Dec 14 2004, 02:01 AM

We have more users than ever. We had a new record of most users ever online just recently, we even got a whole new division of fora!
I just seem to fail to realise the point. It's only natural that the action on the DII division of the fora slows down a bit, after all this game has its 4 years on its hunch, too.

And I don't think that we are being to strict in our standards. After all it's the LURKERlounge, and I think the forum regulations could become clear to everyone who lurks for a while. Spellcheckers and dictionary sites aren't rare, too. If a new member has a difficult start because he is flamed a lot, that doesn't necessarily have to result in him leaving, but can also cause him to adapt and become a (worthy) member of this community. Yours truly didn't have an easy birth here neither.

So what's the big deal? Perhaps we are a little bit to offensive in our trout wiping, but then again - that's what seperates the lounge from other fora, isn't it?
I'll happily change my point of view if I'm being convinced, though.

Greetings, Fragbait