Discrimination

[Mac12]

This was written by ChrisReid in another Thread, in reference to a Post written by Dran that purportedly contained grammatical errors:

"I don't care whether you speak any English at all, but you should know that English names don't rearrange their spelling several times in a single paragraph. That's just careless and insulting to people you expect to read your posts."

Who the hell are you to have a go at someone simply because they do not speak English as a first language!! Have you ever considered the fact that his mistakes (if there are indeed any!) could have been mere mistakes? It is an absolutely patronising attitude to take, assuming that English speakers are better than those that do not have it as a first language.
Or maybe fat nerds who sit or their arses playing out dated computer games and living in a fantasy world aren't aware of such things as racism and discrimination...
At any rate, this guy deserves a heart-felt apology. Also, quite frankly people who are so ready to discriminate should not be allowed to run a public forum - which, furthermore, is downright stupid when there are so many people who will feel as I do.
Lastly, this has been proof-read and spell checked, so I hope that it is coherent enough for those of you who consider yourselves above the rest of us...

Banned for breaking rules 1, 5, 6, and 9.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Dran spelled "Tolwyn" wrong three different ways in the course of two posts. As even the bit you quoted states, that has nothing to do with whether or not he speaks English as a first language -- it's just lazy and stupid.

 

[Mac12]

-- it's just lazy and stupid.

And I suppose all of you Die Hard Wing Commander fans are infallible and beyond making mistakes, are you?
I slight reminder about tidy posts would have sufficed, as opposed to the discrimination Dran recieved.
Quite frankly, you are just adding to the insults and image that you WC "experts" consider yourselves above everyone else, when in reality you should just get a life.
Who gives a crap if Tolwyn is spelled right or wrong? Are there not more important things in life?
No, for you, I suppose there's not...

 

[Cpl Hades]

Normally I'd just give you a week probation to let you think about what you've done wrong here, but signing up just to post this and your comment about "out dated computer games" makes me think you're just here to cause trouble. You're welcome to email us about this if you feel the need. I'm banning you for breaking rules 1, 5, 6, and 9.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

I think everyone here is a die-hard Wing Commander fan. I know you're just a second gimmick account from someone who's bitter about... well, who knows what, but never the less the following still bears repeating for the second time in as many threads: we don't care whether or not English is your first language, or if you're writing perfect English... but we do require that you try.

Doing things like spelling the same name wrong three different ways or replacing 'you' with 'u' are lazy, and frankly ultimately insulting to everyone who does really, really try. There's dozens and dozens of non-native speakers here who, unasked, put a great amount of effort into posting in an intelligent manner. The community is full of Germans and Brazilians and others who have always made a huge effort, and as a result have become excellent English writers over the year. KrisV, on our own staff, is one of these people. We just recently had a Japanese poster who used translation software to communicate with us... it wasn't perfect, by any means, but nobody complained becuase he was putting forth an effort. That's what's important here -- not country of origin or race (?) or anything of that sort.

 

[ChrisReid]

Who the hell are you to have a go at someone simply because they do not speak English as a first language!! Have you ever considered the fact that his mistakes (if there are indeed any!) could have been mere mistakes?

Who are you to come here and tell us how to run our forums? Dozens of posters make typos and simple mistakes here every single day, and we don't say a word to them. You obviously don't understand the situation.

It is an absolutely patronising attitude to take, assuming that English speakers are better than those that do not have it as a first language.

My very first post on the matter explained how non-native English speakers were more than welcome here.

I slight reminder about tidy posts would have sufficed, as opposed to the discrimination Dran recieved.

A slight reminder about tidy posts is exactly what Dran received.

Quite frankly, you are just adding to the insults and image that you WC "experts" consider yourselves above everyone else, when in reality you should just get a life.
Who gives a crap if Tolwyn is spelled right or wrong? Are there not more important things in life?
No, for you, I suppose there's not...

I understand that you're only here to anonymously stir up trouble and troll the forums, but in case any legitimate poster reads this - this has nothing at all to do with spelling, of course. We ask that capable posters take a few seconds to make sure their posts aren't full of silly mistake as a courtesy to other readers. We reminded Dran of this rule, and he acknowledged it. This was completely resolved yesterday.

 

[MajorCamKollent]

*Sighs* I foresee another ban.

What's Chris, and the rest of the staff, supposed to do? Sit by and watch the rules set up by the CIC staff be broken? The rules are set up by the staff for a reason and are enforced for a reason. Without them, we would have a bunch of "hi how r u doin" posts.

 

[KoN21]

Chris wasn't discriminating at all when he responded, he even said that people who don't speak English as a first language are welcome. It just becomes really frustrating to try and decipher posts and extrememely frustrating when they need to be deciphered due to pure laziness. It's also not the case that anyone thinks they're better than anyone else. I for one don't have 1/100000000 the knowledge of most of these guys but the experts like LOAF, Death, ChrisReid and the others actually enlighten me, they do not belittle me or anyone else for that matter. Go post your ridiculous claims somewhere else.

 

[Dran]

This is Dran. I appreciate your support and all, but I am more than capable of defending myself. In this instance I have decided to not fight back, and take the criticism. We can all improve in some way.

Now I would not agree with being called lazy, but it is fine with me, and I can take it I am a big boy, and yes I can be lazy, as I am sure we all are at times. With the particular post I did not run it through a spell check. Though this mistake would not pick-up on a spell check, I did re-read it, but I did not pick up on this mistake. So it goes, life is far larger than a single forum post, so I decided it would be best not to react in a negative manor to what Chris wrote. Perhaps this was written cause of some other posts I had made, and had mistakes on my reading, and in replies. That is ok, I know why I have these difficulties, and I just ask for some patience if I mess up sometimes. I will try my best to conform to the rules.

Sometimes I do agree that the tone can be a bit aggressive and un-friendly at times, this aggressiveness some times tickles my aggressive side, but I believe it takes a bigger man to take a punch then to start swinging back. I also believe that when you have to attack a person by calling them names, you have also lost the argument, and do so for other reasons that I won’t get into.

In the end this is their site. I like this game, and mods, and so if I want them if I have to abide by certain things and I will do so to the best of my ability. When in Rome, do like the Romans. In that particular forum I made my statement and left it at that. I believe both LOAF and Chris had a good point, though I may not agree with the way it was stated, However, I did not think it was bad enough to start an argument over. Cause as you said there are bigger thing in the world to worry about.

Now Picking on Wing Commander, I don’t know. It maybe an old game, but there are many great things about it, and insulting it on a site like this will get you nowhere fast.

Seriously, if you have a gripe with LOAF and Chris about this, I am sure we can all discuss this and put it to bed. I say forgive, and forget and move on.

 

[Edfilho]

Seriously, I'm Brazilian, and I definitely expect people to post decently. If you want to be taken seriously, at least. It's ok to make semi-garbled posts in IRC or purely chat forums, but when one intends to make a point, it's better to be as precise and clear as possible.

Not being a native speaker is NOT an excuse to be sloppy.

BTW, Dran, I see you can make some pretty articulate posts, and I sincerely congratulate you for it.

 

[Dran]

Thanks.

I really don't think any good can come of a post like this, plus I don't like all this attention, I request that this topic be closed please.

If there needs to be a vote then please state so.

My vote = Yes.

 

[ChrisReid]

Sounds like a good idea.