In-House Preview Online: Part 4

[billybaruch1]

How do I quote someone on this board? Hey, I'm a n00b.

See http://apolyton.net/moo3/preview/par...omization2.php

for the "eighty-four turns that I saw come and go," unless the flash-backs'll make your eyes bleed. I wouldn't want that to happen.

[13Matt13]

How do I quote someone on this board? Hey, I'm a n00b.

3 options:

1. Click "Reply with quote" and it should quote their whole post.

2. Highlite and right-click copy the quoted text, then click the "Quote" button in the reply screen (next to "List" which is next to "PHP")

3. Put "Quote" tags in fron of and behind the quoted text in the body of a response. To start a quote you use {QUOTE}, but replace the first and last characters with brackets []. To end a quote you use [/QUOTE].

This is a quote.

[Sirian]

I found your staccato sentences to be so short and too the point that it was irritating

It's been a while since somebody found fault with my writing for being "so short and to the point that it was irritating". Less than one percent of criticism of my forum posts lean in that particular direction.

If you want to nitpick my comma placement, then take the time to spell my name correctly. Issues with these previews reach beyond such minutiae.

Dan's command of grammar isn't a problem, nor is there any lack in his vocabulary. I did not intend to elaborate, but you've piqued my interest.


Here's the opening paragraph from Part II:

In the first installment of this feature, I discussed the various races in Master of Orion III at length. Numerous excerpts from the game's manual were used to add more meaning to the background story. It is an accurate assessment that one need not immerse themselves in those details to play the game, enjoy and do well in it. However, the old expression “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is analogous to the importance of that discussion. It allows you, the player, to build profiles on those vying for the same territory, power and wealth as you. Knowing how your enemy is apt to think and react based on their past actions and tendencies is invaluable in crafting a strategy to defeat them. After all, we are talking about a strategic environment of intergalactic engagement.

Now what did I learn from this paragraph? Nothing. What does he manage to say here? Not much. There are two bits of information: a recap of contents from Part I, and an admonishment of Dan's assessment of the urgency of what he wrote there.

There is NO new information here for anybody who read Part I. For those who did not, this sales pitch is still a poor start to Part II. So let's parse his words, shall we?


"In the first installment of this feature, I discussed the various races in Master of Orion III at length."

Both prepositional phrases waste my time. "of this feature" is already implied. "at length" may be a grand bit of foreshadowing, but I don't get the sense here that Dan is intending to satirize his own work.


"Numerous excerpts from the game's manual were used to add more meaning to the background story."

This sentence competes with the Sahara. I brought a glass of water near my desk and watched in astonishment as the contents evaporated instantly, sucked into the moisture void. It was that dry.

I admit there is a thread through this paragraph that can be uncovered with devoted study. Rather than lead us along the thread, Dan drops a trail of bread crumbs, expecting us to pick up all the scattered pieces and assemble them into a slice of whole wheat. Those who bothered to do so then discovered that the assembled information offered no substance. If you ask a reader to trust you like this, to follow along on faith that you are leading somewhere, you need to deliver.

This second sentence is extraordinarily weak, because of its verb. The weak verb clashes with the strong adjectives, fostering confusion, lengthening the mental image for the reader.


"It is an accurate assessment that one need not immerse themselves in those details to play the game, enjoy and do well in it."

More wordiness. The meat of this sentence lies in the subordinate clause. The redundancy rises to painful levels. Redundancy is not a style, Hydro. This sentence can be transformed by cutting the first six words.


"However, the old expression “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” is analogous to the importance of that discussion."

Readers are going to judge for themselves. Having Dan tell us about the importance of his last article is belied by the UNimportance of the first paragraph of this article.


"It allows you, the player, to build profiles on those vying for the same territory, power and wealth as you."

Which "it" is he talking about? After six reviews of this sentence, the meaning remains ambiguous. I can tell you now, Dan's assessment of the races isn't going to allow me to do anything. I agree that knowing about the races and their details will inform effective strategy, but Dan's point in this paragraph is to puff up like a blowfish over the significance of his first installment. That's absurd. All the relevant details will be available from many sources.


"Knowing how your enemy is apt to think and react based on their past actions and tendencies is invaluable in crafting a strategy to defeat them."

This is the strongest sentence in the paragraph. Not news to me, but the observation may be useful to some.

Yet even here, there's a useless phrase tossed in. "Based on their past actions and tendencies" is already implied.


"After all, we are talking about a strategic environment of intergalactic engagement."

Dan concludes a weak, wordy paragraph with an empty sentence. "strategic environment"? "intergalactic engagement"? College words conveying a kindergarten message. Give me a break! Those completely new to Master of Orion will know a few basics about the game, and if they don't, nothing in this paragraph will enlighten them.


Now an edited version:

In the first installment, I discussed the various races in Master of Orion III. One need not immerse themselves in those details to play the game; however, knowing how your enemy is apt to think and react is invaluable in crafting a strategy to defeat them.

There. Nothing added or changed. I made only cuts. This version actually says more than Dan's uncut version, because by getting to the point, the picture formed in the reader's mind is clear. Leaner prose is more likely to sell. Readers become confused by empty words. They tend to resent hand-holding, deliberate coyness, redundancy and any insult to their intelligence. Wasting a reader's time is a sign of disrespect. Whether that is from inexperience, self-importance, or misguided priorities, readers won't care. They will tune out. If you are going to craft fancier prose, you have to pay even more attention to trimming the fat. Strong words can open windows into a vast, magical world of inner beauty by engaging the imagination, and readers will love you if you can convey them to that experience. If you promise that sort of vision with fancy words, then deliver only snake oil, you will be particularly loathed.


Part IV moves in the right direction. In addition to the information in Part V, I'm now looking forward to the writing just to see how Dan reacts to all the criticisms.


- Sirian

[Jack Frost]

This entire critique has been very interesting. I will admit that reading through it has made me reflect on my own writing (as well as contributed to a better preview)... and I think I've learned a lot

The first principle of a writer is to learn to cut. You cut, then you cut some more, then more. The more you cut, the better the writing. Adjectives are the enemy, they weaken nouns. Adverbs and prepositional phrases are the enemy, they weaken verbs. Verbs are the only strong words. Verbs convey power. Nouns are only there to show who or what is performing the action described by the verb. All the other words combined only add detail. Each detail added distracts from the core message, though. Finding a healthy mix of description and power is an art form. There is a lot more to writing than putting letters together to form words and assembling words into sentences. Writing is about communication. You have ideas, you use words to convey them. Those who lose sight of the ideas to focus too much on the words end up saying a whole lot of nothing.

That's a fantastic paragraph. I've saved it, and intend to quote it later. Thanks.

[MarkG]

What's up with the lower case letters?

#1 it's easier
#2 it gives a less "selfish" meaning
80% i do it for reason #1, 20% for both

I believe you would have come across better the last few days on the IG forums had you not "dealt" with the flames

up until i responded on IG, i hadnt noticed any actual opposition to all this "fun"... that seems to have changed a bit

[mactbone]

Silly Greek, English is all about ME! That's why we capitalize I.

[Sirian]

#1 it's easier
#2 it gives a less "selfish" meaning

As for point two, there, Mark, you've got it backward. The standard rule in English is to capitalize the pronoun, I. For you NOT to do so is selfish, asserting that you are special enough to get away with breaking the rules.

Point one actually has validity. However, it is also selfish, imposing additional burden on the reader to translate "i" into the word "I". That is understandable, acceptable, and even the new standard, for internet chatroom conversation. If you're on IRC, AOL IM, ICQ, or any live chat forum, you may have many conversations going at once, and need to type very quickly to keep up with all of them. If you can't, you end up neglecting somebody and that comes across as more rude than using mangled language and shorthand to communicate. That is the only circumstance in which shortcut typing is justified: when you are in such a typing blitz crunch that you truly don't have time to type correctly. Any situation besides live chat, it's laziness.

Forum posts are more like written letters or emails, and they will be read by many more people. Each one of those who has to slog through poorly written lines wastes the time you save in your typing. When you save five seconds by shortcut typing, and waste a combined five minutes, a few seconds at a time off each reader, the net result is wasted time. You waste other people's time to the tune of manyfold what moments you save yourself. You see that as justified? Your time is valuable, but ours is not? Or have you never examined it that closely?

I, as a reader, have come to the decision not to allow others to impose that time wasting on me. I ignore ALL forum posts and emails that cross the line on shortcut typing. If you don't care enough about me to take a little time to make your message clear, then the message must not be important. Right? If it's not even important to the writer, why should I be concerned about it?

Both your reasons for not capitalizing "I" are centered on yourself. That's your prerogative. You've always been clear enough that I read all of your posts (in threads I follow). I appreciate the work you've done here at Poly, and the only beef I have ever had with you was that you let the Poly Civ3 tourney melt away and disintegrate, without bothering to tell us it was dead. Once I figured that out, I went and started my own tourney, but that's another story. I DO appreciate your work, and I don't nitpick your writing style. I comment here because you are setting a poor example with these excuses for not capitalizing "I". It's one thing to do it, something else to claim you are in the right in doing it. That last is too much to swallow, sorry.

Let me add, Thank You for hosting news and community about MOO3. If the game lives up to its promises, I will be hanging out at Poly a lot more. Peace.


- Sirian

[Kc7mxo]

I think we need another order of chill pills here. . .

what? The buggers at IGmoo have already used them all? To no effect? *Gasp!*

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Sirian
you NOT to do so is selfish, asserting that you are special enough to get away with breaking the rules.

where do you get that i feel special? billions of people do not follow the rules of the english language every day

Any situation besides live chat, it's laziness.

my apolyton time is limited. there is that thing call "real life", you know.....

You waste other people's time to the tune of manyfold what moments you save yourself.

i fail to imagine someone wasting time over trying to understand that "i" is "I"....

It's one thing to do it, something else to claim you are in the right in doing it.

i never said i'm right. i only shared my viewpoint, explaning how i feel.

[Sirian]

where do you get that i feel special? billions of people do not follow the rules of the english language every day

Your behavior is justified because of what others do?

Thousands of people break traffic laws every day. Does that mean you should ignore a red light? Drive on the wrong side of the road? Exceed the speed limit? What if you do these things and cause an accident? What if you don't cause an accident, but "just" cut somebody else off? You believe you have the right to do that?

Take responsibility. What's with this list of excuses? The bevavior is a minor thing, but the attitude behind it is not.

my apolyton time is limited. there is that thing call "real life", you know.....

So you don't have time to put a little more care into your work? Is that it?

If you don't have the time to capitalize a few letters, you may be overcommitted. That's your business, but quality matters. You don't have time to write with professionalism but you'll take the time to argue with me about why you feel standard language usage doesn't matter to you?

i fail to imagine someone wasting time over trying to understand that "i" is "I"....

Then you don't understand how language functions.

Words are symbols for ideas. Each word represents one or more meanings. Fluency comes about when the brain recognizes words as a whole. Just as Chinese writings have picture symbols for words, so languages using an alphabet reach a point for the fluent speaker and reader of singular symbolism.

The word "later" is not read by a fluent English speaker as "L A T E R". There's no thought to "L", then "A", etc. The letters are not processed individually. The whole word is recognized and translated in the brain as a single thing, not a composite. The word is recognized and translated to the meaning associated with this word.

The word "l8r" is a different word, a netspeak shorthand word. The pronunciation is the same, the meaning is the same, but the symbol is different. The brain goes through a different process here, and unless someone is as fluent in netspeak as they are in English, that process first translaters "l8r" into "later", then from "later" into the meaning. This interrupts the fluid flow of language, halting fluency.

For you, not being a native English speaker (although you do seem fluent, so I could be mistaken), the process is two stage already. You read the English and translate all of that into Greek, then process the Greek meanings. For you, translating "i" or "I" is the same step, both translate straight to Greek. Fine. Not so for us native English folks. We read "I" fluently, all of us. Only some of us read "i" fluently.

"i" has other meanings in English. One of those is mathematical, a symbol for an irrational number. That meaning has to be ruled out by the context of the sentence, for those of us who have to pause, even if for a bare instant, and "remember" that we may be dealing with nonstandard English usage.


Let me give an example. Tell me which of the two following sentences take you less time to read, to comprehend, and to understand.

"Your shoes are untied."

"ur shoes r untied"

Any difference at all for you? Any?
What about these:

"He poked me in the eye before I knew what was coming. Later I went to the doctor to be treated."

"he pokd me n da i b4 i nu wut wuz comin l8r i went 2 da doc 2 b treated"

Any difference for you there?

You're doing the same thing with using "i" to mean "I". You may be doing it less than some others, but you're doing it. It does add mental length for any reader not fluent in the word you're using, the nonstandard way you use it.

Do you have the right? Of course you do. Are you wasting the time of others by being slothful with the language? Yes, you are. If you don't care about that, and don't plan to change it, that too is your prerogative, but make no mistake, it's a poor standard you hold for yourself on this point.

Rules have meanings. Some rules are bad. Times change and the reasons behind some rules fade away. If languages are not guarded carefully, however, to maintain a set of standards commonly recognized as correct usage, then languages can splinter and those speaking the different dialects can no longer communicate with one another. The more you wander off the clear path of standard usage, the more you narrow your audience.

I challenge you to write a complete article in netspeak, and find out just how many readers bother to read it all the way through.

i never said i'm right. i only shared my viewpoint, explaning how i feel.

You explained why you break a particular English rule.

Breaking one rule is no big deal, but if you break enough of them, you could end up where Dan's articles have gone: into the realm of obscurity, where many readers choose to tune out rather than spend the extra effort to piece together the meaning of sloppy writings.


I've said my piece. I won't pester you any further. Good day.

- Sirian

[MarkG]

You don't have time to write with professionalism but you'll take the time to argue with me about why you feel standard language usage doesn't matter to you?

actually, i dont. whether or not you're dropping this, i am...

btw

"he pokd me n da i b4 i nu wut wuz comin l8r i went 2 da doc 2 b treated"

i never wrote this way. going to an extreme example in order to prove the wrong of a tiny(compared to the extreme) breaking of a rule, goes against common sense
and another thing

Breaking one rule is no big deal, but if you break enough of them...

since you're here for a long time you probably have noticed that i dont brake more rules(intentionally that is), except this one(and of course only on forum posts). so you making a deal out of this really serves no purpose. instead you're wasting everyone's time by making them read all this stuff and keeping me away from doing work that would be for the good of the visitors of this site.

hopefully you mean that you've said your piece, so lets move on with our lives.....

[darcy]

instead you're wasting everyone's time by making them read all this stuff and keeping me away from doing work that would be for the good of the visitors of this site.

Mark, you probably don't care what I, a visitor of this site, think about this matter, and this is your right. I'm telling you anyway.

My time is not being wasted by this discussion, which is very interesting. It is being wasted by the way you publish your previews.

I come here looking for information about Moo3. I want the information which is hidden in your previews, that's why I read them again and again. However, due to the hundreds and hundreds of meaningless words DanQ uses and you refuse to cut, I have to actually *decipher* Dan's text. That is a painful, boring process, and *that* is wasting my time.

It is especially painful because I'm enthusiastic about the subject matter and full of good will towards the author and this site. Then I have to read how you accuse Sirian, the person who made the most intelligent and useful posts in the whole thread, of wasting my time (I am implied in "everybody" and "visitors of this site"). I agree completely with everything Sirian said, and I'm not even a native English speaker.

If you are serious about reducing the amount of wasted time, please get an editor for the previews to ensure they are published in concise, precise and easy-to-understand English.

[Jack Frost]

As for point two, there, Mark, you've got it backward. The standard rule in English is to capitalize the pronoun, I. For you NOT to do so is selfish, asserting that you are special enough to get away with breaking the rules.

Any analyst would disagree with your second point. Uncapitalizing "I" is something of an act of resignation/humility. I myself notice that if I have had a bad day and feel bad about myself I tend to slip on capitalization of "I".

Not that you actually care, at this point you are just being a pain in the ass.

[billybaruch1]

Part IV moves in the right direction. In addition to the information in Part V, I'm now looking forward to the writing just to see how Dan reacts to all the criticisms.

Sirian, you da man! I really appreciate your insightful observations.

But Markos may be smarter than all of us for taking the heat in place of Dan. Also he owns this board and we don't. Or maybe we do, unless he (Markos) is just being selfish.

Uncapitalizing "I" is something of an act of resignation/humility. I myself notice that if I have had a bad day and feel bad about myself I tend to slip on capitalization of "I".

Writing is not about you. We all hope DanQ has gotten that message. When you write something and I read it, it is mine. Any writing or speaking or net messaging must first consider how the information will be received, not how you feel about your bad hair day, or whatever.

The lowercase thing is not just about "I and i" (to borrow a phrase from the Rastafarians). English also capitalizes the first word in a sentence.

Off-topic: if someone posted an internet message like the following, in some forums there would be an uproar about not shouting. "ALL WAS SO CALM AND QUIET AND PEACEFUL. WE WERE ALL SLEEPING AND THE BIRDS WERE SOFTLY SINGING." But there was no shouting involved, was there? Then they'll say it was hard to read. All lower case letter messages are also hard to read.

I understand people have to hold their ground and not lose face. But shouldn't there be some learning going on sooner or later? or l8r? Just having fun...

[MarkG]

Originally posted by darcy
Mark, you probably don't care what I, a visitor of this site, think about this matter, and this is your right.

if you visited this site for sufficient, you would see that i do care about what the visitors say

My time is not being wasted by this discussion, which is very interesting.

if the time you choose to spend for moo3 info is not spend by having to reading discussion on the capitalization or not of "i", then all the best for you

It is being wasted by the way you publish your previews.

i'm sorry that you feel this way. we do our best to please everyone, something not always possible. at the same time we dont force everyone to read the previews in their entirety either...