[Mousethecat]

This is a very relevant topic to the Internet as a whole. Thank you for sparking worthy interest.

In a world where the primary form of communication is text, things like tone, body language, volume, emphasis, ect... are all much more difficult to convey. Though some IM applications, chat rooms, and forums give you the ability to add some more color to your otherwise black on white words. Giving people things like italics, bold, and adjustable font size to work with. Some people can communicate with text just as well as talking with them face to face.


In most cases, I will judge the quality of someones opinion, argument, statement, whatever, based on the overall quality of their writing. For example, I'm reading user reviews on a movie. Lets say that 8 out of 10 people voted positive and the other 2 negative. If the 8 people who voted positive write like a typical basement dwelling pre-teen who clearly has no memory of what proper english looked like, while the two people who voted negative wrote out what looks and reads like an obviously thought out, well formed, proper english using review. I'm going to think the movie was bad.

That was a pretty stupid and pointless example, but you get the picture. Taking time and using proper english in the internet will get the favor of the people who matter, the intelligent users. At the same time, no one should expect anyone to have absolutely perfect english, especally in IM and chat room settings.