In the press. "The OpenMoko wiki - a tangled pile of mostly outdated and incomplete documentation."

matt joyce matt.joyce at gmail.com
Fri Jul 18 00:50:59 CEST 2008



AVee wrote:
> On Thursday 17 July 2008 23:35, Dotan Cohen wrote:
>   
>> 2008/7/17 Brenda Wang <brenda_wang at openmoko.org>:
>>     
>>> Hi, I am wiki full time editor of Openmoko.
>>> Thank you for your opinion . I will put more effort , to make wiki more
>>> easy to use.
>>> And now , If you want to know what we have on wiki , Please use this
>>> Index page.
>>> http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
>>>
>>> Brenda
>>>       
>> I'm going to upset some people with this post, but I think it's
>> necessary. When I speak English, I make a conscious effort to be clear
>> and to use correct grammar. That is because when non-native English
>> speakers must communicate in English we often have trouble with the
>> sentence structure and lack of gender to identify subjects.
>>
>> I think that whoever maintains the wiki should have a very firm grasp
>> of English grammar. Not necessarily a native speaker (as they often
>> have bad grammar in my opinion, probably because they have no trouble
>> deciphering the meaning of the sentence anyway). I mean no offense,
>> Brenda, but English with Asian  grammar (I'm assuming Asian based on
>> the grammar style and your last name) is very difficult to read and
>> understand. I hope that my criticism is seen as constructive and not
>> personal, because I mean no offense yet I'd like to see the wiki
>> maintained by someone more qualified.
>>     
>
> I think you do raise a valid point. However, I also think it perfectly ok to 
> seperate the purely content related redaction from the linguistic issues. As 
> far as I can see there is absolutely no problem with the content itself. 
> Maybe someone should proofread it before it's posted. Or after it is posted, 
> it's a wiki after all, you really should just correct any errors you find.
>
> AVee
>
>   
We should encourage people to dump their knowledge, if it's accurate, 
it's valuable.    Spelling and grammar are quick edits.
I would hate to think someone wants to contribute but doesn't because 
they feel their language skills aren't good enough.

Useful content will attract more eyes, which in turn will improve the 
likelihood of errors being spotted.

I for one, am a shocking typist and have appalling spelling but my 
grammar is reasonable.  Hoorah for little red lines under words.


Matt




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