db_stat article at Sun wiki

There is a new article about db_stat on the eternal wiki. Follow the link.

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Posted at 09:35AM Oct 19, 2007 by tgardner in Collaboration  |  Comments[0]

Spelling and Grammar Corrections

Spelling and grammar are important in the business world. Yet, there is probably not a person among us who has not dashed off a quick email that contained incorrectly spelled words or poor grammar. This is unfortunate because spelling and grammar choices often contribute to bad first impressions, and can impede communications. However, it seems to be considered bad form to correct spelling and grammar in front of ones' peers.

In contributing to a Wiki, an editor should always correct poor spelling and grammar; this is one great strength of Wikis. Ideas "go to market" quickly in Wikis, and sometimes sentence clunk and misspellings remain visible in a Wiki article. Granted, the content and intent are the most important aspects of an article, spelling and grammar can and should be corrected by those who come after, in effect, we can all wield the red pen like our teachers did.

There is a difference between outright foolishness and misspellings and grammar problems, though. For a few hours, the Lord of the Rings article at Wikipedia had a section insisting that beavers and orcs attended the Council of Elrond. This disinformation was corrected quickly, however, because of the obvious nature of the incorrect information: it was pure vandalism.

Yet grammar problems and misspellings continue on Wikipedia. The sentence "The peer protocol was just a common way to achieve this" in the peer-to-peer article is not the best sentence in the world, and could be re-structured to make it more "professional". In the world of Wiki, it is up to the editors - that is you and me - to correct these "less than professional" errors. Step in, be bold, and stamp out sentence clunk and spelling errors. A sentence with badly spled wurds and poor gramer choizes is h@rd too reed.

No doubt, this entry has some poor choices in it, too. Nobody's perfect, but in Wiki, those poor choices can be corrected easily.

Technorati Tags: grammar, wiki

Posted at 09:29AM Oct 19, 2007 by tgardner in Collaboration  |  Comments[7]