8

I've been active in the review queues, and the number of poorly written questions seems to be increasing.

I fully respect that not everyone is skilled with the English language, and I work hard to clean up posts in which it's obvious that the poster has limited English skills.

But recently, the number of posts with many obvious spelling errors has increased. Sometimes the letters in some of the words are so jumbled that I honestly can't figure out what words they are trying to use. These posts also often lack standard punctuation, capitalization, and use of paragraphs.

Spell-checkers are available on all modern devices, so it's possible that this behavior is driven by laziness and/or lack of interest in effective writing.

How can we encourage people to proofread their own posts with the goal of them fixing their many errors before posting in our community?

1
  • 2
    As a mod and a prolific editor, I just want to say this is a good question without a solution. There were some discussions/feature requests, like one in 2014 on MSE: Require questions to pass a spell-checker.
    – Andrew T. Mod
    Jan 30, 2021 at 11:32

1 Answer 1

1

Honestly, I think it's a combination of poor grammar skills, a bigger part playing out is laziness, using underated keyboards and/or speech with using microphone as dictation and the speech programs are best guessing As an example, I wear a partial, that facsimiles' two frontward teeth and without that plate I have a soft lisp and the voice software definitely only gets....perhaps 60% correct and depending on the length of my vocal answer, I will just text, slower but far fewer corrections.i am my own proof reader that stems from the second grade when told by my teacher that when reading aloud, I sound like a robot.... I don't recall anything else from that early time In my life, but I absolutely never sounded like a robot ever again.

1
  • Thanks for your ideas and your story. That experience with your teacher must have been traumatic (most teachers should never be allowed near students). I'm sorry you went through that. I still remember a kid telling me when I played the sax it sounded like a cow dying. But that was just another kid, and not a teacher, so there was no power difference. I was able to brush it off, but I do still somehow recall it, along with their name. I think one lesson of your post is that it may likely be laziness, but it could be due to a something as important & sensitive as a medical issue. Mar 11, 2022 at 5:06

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .