Correcting Old Typos

January 26, 2006 7:27 PM

After no small amount of careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that is patently silly to correct your own typos from earlier in a thread. You can all stop doing it now. Thank you.

[more outside]

Seriously. If what you meant in the first place is still quite obvious in spite of the typo, you're really only drawing my attention to it by correcting yourself.
posted by Afroblanco to etiquette/policy at 7:27 PM (86 comments total)

We've gone over this.

There's nothing to be done aboot it.
posted by shmegegge at 7:29 PM on January 26, 2006

I mean, ABOUT it.
posted by shmegegge at 7:29 PM on January 26, 2006

Deja vu al over again.
posted by justgary at 7:35 PM on January 26, 2006

ALL over...
posted by justgary at 7:35 PM on January 26, 2006

In Canada aboot is acceptable.

_{no, not really}
posted by tiamat at 7:35 PM on January 26, 2006

Wow, how'd you do that, tiamat?
posted by Iamtherealme at 7:43 PM on January 26, 2006

I think an exception should be made if you use regular-expression-speak to correct yourself. That makes it geeky and awesome!

Sincerely,
staggernation
posted by staggernation at 7:55 PM on January 26, 2006

s/stagger.+/Afroblanco/
posted by staggernation at 7:55 PM on January 26, 2006

Afroblanco, I can't thank you enough for this pronouncement. If you have any more tips on how we're supposed to behave, I understand that writing them down on stone tablets and handing them out on Mt. Sinai to trustworthy followers is a reliable way of getting the word out.
posted by scody at 7:58 PM on January 26, 2006

Actually, you don't write, per se, on stone tablets. They're stone, you see.
posted by yhbc at 8:01 PM on January 26, 2006

Is it OK to corect oneself within the same comment?

Sorry, I obviously mean 'correct'.
posted by pompomtom at 8:07 PM on January 26, 2006

Better than a callout on these sorts of non-issues, it is better to address the one or two users that uses the behaviour in excess.

In my memory there has been only one user who obsessively-compulsively fixed his typos. That problem was addressed directly and subsequently resolved with a minimum of fuss.

MetaTalk is sometimes the worst way to fix things.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:10 PM on January 26, 2006

Excuse the excess of betters in that message, please.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:11 PM on January 26, 2006

Wow, scody just totally compared me to Moses. Wouldn't that make her, like, the anti-Godwin?
posted by Afroblanco at 8:15 PM on January 26, 2006

People wh opost to correct spelling should be forced to down a pint of santorum.
posted by A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter. at 8:22 PM on January 26, 2006

Sorry, make that "who post".
posted by A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter. at 8:22 PM on January 26, 2006

Five bucks well spent!
posted by yhbc at 8:24 PM on January 26, 2006

your user name is NSFW and you didn't warn us in advance.

i just got fired.
posted by Hat Maui at 8:34 PM on January 26, 2006

No morew spelling cxorrections fo0r me then!
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:34 PM on January 26, 2006

Also, an oldie but a goody. Speling mattrs, bettter late than nevar.
posted by mwhybark at 8:40 PM on January 26, 2006

Better than a callout on these sorts of non-issues, it is better to address the one or two users that uses the behaviour in excess.

It would have been better (aka less of a callout) if one or two individuals were splayed out before us?
*checks calendar, ahh Opposite Day*
posted by If I Had An Anus at 8:51 PM on January 26, 2006

unusually small text left as an exercise for Iamtherealme
posted by cortex at 8:56 PM on January 26, 2006

The characters on tiamat's post were half on the line, half on the "posted by". It didn't do that for anyone else? I even checked in IE and Firefox because I thought at first it just loaded wrong. Hmmm....
thanks for the exercise though - I've been at the computer far too long.
posted by Iamtherealme at 9:02 PM on January 26, 2006

I's divided on these questino.
posted by interrobang at 9:02 PM on January 26, 2006

Shut you, newb.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:10 PM on January 26, 2006

Sorry, of course I mean to say 'fuck up, nweb'.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:10 PM on January 26, 2006

No wait. I meant to say...

Ah well, you've probably got the gist by now.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:11 PM on January 26, 2006

(I'm just poking fun, of course.)



But seriously, don't fucking tell me what to do, or I'll cut ya! I'll cut ya bad.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:16 PM on January 26, 2006

I like it when people correct themselves on totally trivial errors. It's so revealing of an anal, insecure, obssessive nature.
posted by scarabic at 9:19 PM on January 26, 2006

is it too early for ad hominems?

From afroblanco's profile:

Occupation:TOTAL computer geek
...
Email: cerulencaterpillar at hotmail dot com

does anybody else see the paradox, here?
posted by signal at 9:19 PM on January 26, 2006

You mean that he misspelled 'cerulean'?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:28 PM on January 26, 2006

I did it on purpose to weed out the losers.
posted by Afroblanco at 9:41 PM on January 26, 2006

Hotmail is now old school.
posted by justgary at 9:42 PM on January 26, 2006

Can I just suggest the folks who feel compelled to post minor self-corrections at least *try* a couple of times to let it slide? I used to be one of you, honest, but you know what? It feels *great* to let it go, not clutter the site with obvious noise, and trust your fellow MeFites to not think you're an idiot for transposing a few letters or something.

And if you can't? Well, if you're that worried about spelling, get in the habit of using the damn spellcheck already. Geez.
posted by mediareport at 10:00 PM on January 26, 2006

I did it on purpose to weed out the losers.

Well played!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:51 PM on January 26, 2006

betcha mediareport had to wear a correction-patch for 6 months in order to kick the habit
posted by Cranberry at 11:03 PM on January 26, 2006

Need editing grace period. 30 seconds is fine and won't end MeFi as we know it. Please Matt? *flutters eyelashes*
posted by Firas at 11:19 PM on January 26, 2006

Uhh, by which I mean, give me an 'edit' link next to my above comment for 30 seconds after posting it, using which I could have added this clarification to the above rather than posting another comment...
posted by Firas at 11:20 PM on January 26, 2006

There's nothing to be done aboot it.

Actually, on sportsfilter we have a 3 minute grace period where you can edit or even delete your post. It comes in quite handy.

I have no inside info, but I have a hunch matt brings it to mefi very soon.
posted by justgary at 11:43 PM on January 26, 2006

Can I just suggest the folks who feel compelled to post minor self-corrections at least *try* a couple of times to let it slide?

Actually, I let mine slide most of the time. When they're particularly egregious or weird, though, I'm going to correct them. If I can skip over 50-line stream-of-consciouness questions gumming up the works in AskMe, then people can bloody well skip over a one-liner clarifying whether I meant "prostrate" or "prostate" in a preceding post.

I would point out, too, that for all my interest in correcting myself at times, I don't have any compulsion to correct other people's spelling or grammar mistakes. Heck, I'm an editor; if I'm going to point out someone's dangling participle, I'd better get paid for it. (That sounds so much dirtier than it is.)
posted by scody at 12:09 AM on January 27, 2006

I've always done this for my own edification. Though, strangely, I'm extremely lazy about proofreading my own material on the internet (either here or in e-mails). I just chalk it up as somehow tied into a deeply-rooted spiritual malaise that's taken hold of me. Or whatever. I just wanted to say "malaise".
posted by The God Complex at 12:41 AM on January 27, 2006

I didn't need a hyphen between "deeply" and "rooted" given the "ly" suffix. Imagine that.
posted by The God Complex at 1:07 AM on January 27, 2006

< pointless pseudo-html tags>

I think that most people correct their spelling out of fear that the other side of the argument/debate will derail and a make a deal about the mistake. That tactic may not crop up here very much, but some people may have picked up the habit in < ivory tower> lesser < /ivory tower> forums, and found it hard to break.

I've done it myself many a time (in "regular-expression-speak," of course), generally because I get my < male using female under-roo imagery> panties < /male using female under-roo imagery> in a bunch over my own gramatical/spelling mistakes. I'm anal about that sometimes.

My reaction to this call out is that if you can't deal with my anal retentiveness, then... uh... too bad.

< /pointless pseudo-html tags>
posted by brundlefly at 1:41 AM on January 27, 2006

< pointless self-correction>

"grammatical"

Sorry.

< /pointless self-correction>
posted by brundlefly at 1:43 AM on January 27, 2006

I think that most people correct their spelling out of fear that the other side of the argument/debate will derail and a make a deal about the mistake.

Not for me. I do it, but I do it because I care about words a lot, and I would like people who read my words to understand that I care about words. Which means correcting myself, as I do when I speak, if I fuck up.

And, of course, I'm pedantic as buggery, which I try like hell to tamp down, I do. The pedantry, not the buggery, I mean.

Or, perhaps, as scarabic would have it, I'm anal, insecure, and obsessive. That'd go along with the whole buggery thing, wouldn't it?

Anyway, the most annoying thing for me about brundlefly's deliberately annoying demonstration is that he left spaces after his <'s. Which probably wasn't the point, but there you go.

Each to their own, as long as we're striving up rather than down.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:05 AM on January 27, 2006

"cerulencaterpillar" < ---- now see? i read that as cerumencaterpillar and thought: cool.. larval earwax.br>
Horrible typist here; some typos are obviously that; others can change the apparent meaning of what I want to say.

A 3 minute window would be great. 30 seconds isn't long enough; sometimes it takes that long for the page to refresh after posting.
posted by reflecked at 3:14 AM on January 27, 2006

grrrr

:) The extra "br-stuff" is not a typo. I know zippity about html, but i do know that I just got "automagicked".
posted by reflecked at 3:16 AM on January 27, 2006

I want a couple of semicolons back. They could be needed later to prevent (omg) run-on-sentences.
posted by reflecked at 3:19 AM on January 27, 2006

; ;
posted by caddis at 3:27 AM on January 27, 2006

I am very anal.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:07 AM on January 27, 2006

I think that most people correct their spelling out of fear that the other side of the argument/debate will derail and a make a deal about the mistake.

Not most, but certainly some. And they're right to have that fear, at least a bit, because it does happen from time to time. Witness the first few comments in here, f'rexample.
posted by Gator at 4:33 AM on January 27, 2006

not clutter the site with obvious noise

No, the misspellings were the obvious noise, correcting them is just good manners.
posted by LarryC at 5:12 AM on January 27, 2006

This quote by shepd from the earlier thread still causes me to raise my hat in salutation:

Typo corrections are fine if they clarify something that makes no sense due to the typo.
If it still makes sense with the typo then nobody will care, except jerks.
But I accept that some people feel the need to correct themselves and won't be stopped. So could I ask you nicely to post your corrections in small type? That way you get it off your chest and it bothers the rest of us less. (Seriously: see five fresh fish's post at the end of that thread.)
posted by languagehat at 5:49 AM on January 27, 2006

'Scuse me, I meant to put a line space after the quote as well as before.
posted by languagehat at 5:50 AM on January 27, 2006

I am very anal.

Welcome to the club. We have t-shirts.
posted by A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter. at 6:20 AM on January 27, 2006

Uhh, by which I mean, give me an 'edit' link next to my above comment for 30 seconds after posting it, using which I could have added this clarification to the above rather than posting another comment...

Would the comment be live for those thirty seconds? Because if so I gotta go with oh please god no.

Seriously, why not make your own magical grace period through the power of Imagination? Get your post all ready, hover your mouse near the Post Comment button, and then read it again while pretending you had really clicked the button. And then if there's a problem, pretend you click on an Edit button, and go to work.

It just seems awfully goddam simple to me.
posted by cortex at 6:40 AM on January 27, 2006

I am very anal.

Welcome to the club. We have t-shirts.

I don't WANT to be exposed to anus.
posted by mr.marx at 6:54 AM on January 27, 2006

Actually, you don't write, per se, on stone tablets. They're stone, you see.

Getting back to this, I think you could write just fine on stone tablets with a grease pencil.
posted by COBRA! at 6:55 AM on January 27, 2006

More and more, Metatalk is my favorite part of this site.
posted by JanetLand at 6:56 AM on January 27, 2006

these threads always go like this
posted by jessamyn at 7:30 AM on January 27, 2006

Worth five bucks: A frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter. Heh.
posted by fixedgear at 7:39 AM on January 27, 2006

this thread is fcuking hard to read, what with all the typos.
posted by carsonb at 8:13 AM on January 27, 2006

I don't WANT to be exposed to anus, eithr
NSFW!
posted by carsonb at 8:16 AM on January 27, 2006

languagehat, you'd like folks who make minor spelling errors to put their corrections to same in between HTML tags? Tags that, if not entered exactly correct, don't work?
if they could do that, they could avoid the spelling error in the first place.

Put me in the "if it doesn't trash the meaning, let it lie" camp - unless the post is littered with multiple abuses. If it's a mess, clean it up (preferably before hitting Post).
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:54 AM on January 27, 2006

I do it because I care about words a lot, and I would like people who read my words to understand that I care about words.

*applauds*
posted by scody at 9:13 AM on January 27, 2006

Maybe we could figure out how to indicate <faute d'orthograhie>speling</faute d'orthograhie> mistakes more clearly? An automatic spelling and grammar check that inserts the blink tag? Mass executions in the public square? But then again, why is this even an issue? People make mistakes, people want to be clearly understood ergo people try to correct themselves, sometimes needlessly. It's silly, but so are humans. I doubt we'll be able to change human behavior unless comments become editable... or edible. either one.
posted by blue_beetle at 9:36 AM on January 27, 2006

I make typos all the time. It has to do with my typing ability and the process by which my brain tells my fingers what to push. I try to avoid the temptation to correct them. I think people generally understand what I am saying.

I do feel the urge to correct things when I sometimes leave out a word like "not." I have learned that there are certain petty and pathetic losers who will jump all over a post when an obvious "not" is missing. It is incredibly grating when people try to use typos against you, so the temptation to correct exist. Especially when, for a purely hypothetical and demonstrative example, you write 4 paragraphs about how bad drugs are, and then you write the sentence, "for these reasons, drugs should be legal." Anyone reading the preceding paragraphs would know that the author mean "should not," but that doesn't stop people from trying to use typos for petty purposes.

If we all tried to read comments for the substance of the thought expressed therein instead of trying to look for ways to snipe at people, then the need to correct typos wouldn't exist.

We should ask for basic attempts at grammar, but not get up in arms at minor, obvious mistakes.
posted by dios at 10:03 AM on January 27, 2006

"; ;"

Thank you caddis; I'll save them until I really need them.
posted by reflecked at 11:38 AM on January 27, 2006

o hell.
posted by reflecked at 11:39 AM on January 27, 2006

I doubt we'll be able to change human behavior unless comments become editable... or edible. either one.

Comments should totally be edible. Mine would taste like M&Ms.

I wonder what stavros's would taste like
posted by Afroblanco at 11:52 AM on January 27, 2006

IANAL, but U ANAL.
posted by 31d1 at 11:55 AM on January 27, 2006

I don't even want to know what user 32746's comments would taste like.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:01 PM on January 27, 2006

languagehat, you'd like folks who make minor spelling errors to put their corrections to same in between HTML tags? Tags that, if not entered exactly correct, don't work?
if they could do that, they could avoid the spelling error in the first place.
Put me in the "if it doesn't trash the meaning, let it lie" camp - unless the post is littered with multiple abuses. If it's a mess, clean it up (preferably before hitting Post).

I'm in the same camp. But obviously a lot of people aren't going to listen to us, so I'm trying to minimize the annoyance factor. (Besides, if they have to put it in small tags, maybe they'll decide it's not worth it and give up on the whole idea.)

I do it because I care about words a lot, and I would like people who read my words to understand that I care about words.

Caring about words is not the same thing as obsessively correcting minor typos.
posted by languagehat at 1:24 PM on January 27, 2006

cortex, why? I think a lot about computer interaction in terms of online writing (i futz around with the innards of blogging software) and I'm convinced that any interface that doesn't offer spell check, preview and a short grace period after posting is just inhumane. As far as these things go, I mean. There's no need to push the limits of HTTP onto the behaviour of the user.

While we're on the tangent, this is also why I find rants about 'just learn some html, fuckwit n00b!' really strange. A person who knows HTML inside out should come to realize what is a tedious artifact of technology and what web based writers 'actually' need to learn. Markup is the antithesis of writing, it breaks the flow of the text. I can't wait till nobody has to know an anchor tag to make a link, in any context.

Yeah, anyway. What's the problem with having a comment live for a minute or two while the poster edits it? How many comments do you make that directly nitpick something said a minute ago, clarifying which would null your point?
posted by Firas at 1:58 PM on January 27, 2006

Caring about words is not the same thing as obsessively correcting minor typos.

How about you speak for yourself (and apparently everyone else), and I'll just keep speaking for me, huh?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:56 PM on January 27, 2006

Huh? I've never claimed to speak for anybody but me; yes, I'm fond of making pronunciamentos, much like a certain wondrous chicken I know. Get up on the wrong side of the roost this morning?
posted by languagehat at 5:27 PM on January 27, 2006

Aye.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:37 PM on January 27, 2006

Firas said:

cortex, why? I think a lot about computer interaction in terms of online writing (i futz around with the innards of blogging software) and I'm convinced that any interface that doesn't offer spell check, preview and a short grace period after posting is just inhumane. As far as these things go, I mean. There's no need to push the limits of HTTP onto the behaviour of the user.

[tangent elided]

Yeah, anyway. What's the problem with having a comment live for a minute or two while the poster edits it? How many comments do you make that directly nitpick something said a minute ago, clarifying which would null your point?

My point is that grace period is a totally abstract concept. One could achieve the same functionality by closing their eyes, saying, "I am clicking submit", and then opening them and rereading their as-yet-unsubmitted post. There is no missing feature here; there is a lack of self-discipline in posting. No skillset limitation is being punished; this is not like "learn HTML newb" because there is nothing to learn but a tiny extra bit of patience and forethought, both of which are qualities worth encouraging.

And not only is adding the feature of a grace period unneccesary bloat, it's bloat that also introduces a window (however slight you may consider it) for confusion and abuse.

That is my objection. It's a solution seeking a problem, and a can of worms as well.

You speak of spell check, preview, and a short grace period as a common set; I say one of things does not belong.

- Spellcheck helps people compensate for poor spelling or typing. That's a good thing, for folks who are challenged by those issues.

- Preview helps people check that what they thought they typed (or encoded via html) is or is not what they actually generated. That's good; they can check their content, edit as necessary, and then preview again, until satisfied.

- Grace period offers nothing but a crutch for people who use Preview insufficiently. It is feature bloat; it adds nothing but an arbitrary step (and a small window for stupid abuse) to post workflow.

Explicitly, the problem with having the post live for a minute or two is that people can (and someone will) make inflammatory posts and revoke them. And then you'll have comments about the non-existent post. Which will lead to a fine fucking mess, basically. It's a bad addition to the site. (A non-live grace-period would remove this issue, but create a forced lag for commentors, which I imagine would not be terribly popular among anyone who enjoys the sort of quick, responsive conversation that happens here sometimes. But that's a different debate.)

I just read through my post on preview, corrected two typos, added a sentence, and previewed again for the hell of it to skim the changes. Ta da!

Having said that, there will inevitably be some sort of error in my rendering above. And that's okay.
posted by cortex at 5:47 PM on January 27, 2006

Seriously, why not make your own magical grace period through the power of Imagination?

It would be great if brains worked like that, but this can't-see-the-mistake-until-its-posted problem is a real thing, like "chess blindness" where you can't see your blunder until you take you fingers off the piece.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:18 PM on January 27, 2006

But you can! Brains do work like that. Sometimes you have to slow down and encourage your brain to work like that, but that's part of learning.

Or, more to the point, brains have no greater guarantee of seeing the error after the fact. You slap in this grace-period code, and then you'll have people who didn't notice their error until after the grace-period expired. What then? Double secret probationary period, to fix problems missed in the grace period?

Read your post out loud to yourself if you go critically blind after the first or second silent read-through. Read it backwards. Reread it slowly and with purpose. And so on. The idea that any of these things are better done in a panicky 30-second window after hitting post is just plain silly, despite whatever psychological corner you might have gotten in the habit of painting yourself into, neh?
posted by cortex at 8:33 PM on January 27, 2006

Well, I'm partial to 5 minutes rather than half a minute, I just proposed 30seconds to lessen the 'resistance to change factor'. But I do see your point, I think the reason we're driven to different conclusions is that we're seeking different things: my goal is to make the commentor more comfortable, to the exclusion of most other things (especially the "can't bother to code this in" factor); yours is also looking at the effect a changeable live comment has on the discussion… which I care about too, but don't think it'll have that much of a detrimental effect. Au contraire, it'll lead to happier writers!
posted by Firas at 8:50 PM on January 27, 2006

Heh. Indeed, different axioms.

As to 5 minutes instead of half a minute -- that reduces the panicky-ness for all but the longest comments, but increases dramatically the window for abuse. Imagine the damage that could be done by five-minutes of a subsequently revoked trollgasm at the beginning of a sensitive thread.
posted by cortex at 9:02 PM on January 27, 2006

Listen here, Afro-blanket. Some of us like to drink beer and download porn and smoke cigars. And we're going to correct our spelling if we want to. So why don't you just shut yer stinkin' trap!
posted by skank at 9:54 PM on January 27, 2006

Hm, auto-error-flagging bilnk tag! I LIKE IT.

er... blink, I mean.
posted by mwhybark at 11:00 PM on January 28, 2006

I like it beacsue it made me larf, ok?
posted by mwhybark at 11:01 PM on January 28, 2006

waita minit... maybe in the live preview? No! God, stop me before I kill again.
posted by mwhybark at 11:02 PM on January 28, 2006