Forum Language

[Ancelot]

I just got back from another hobbyist's place.

Being a hobbyist himself, a moderator and the founder for a fish forum( sorry i wont disclose the forum for identity sake. hope everyone understand), he shared with me alot of insights, personal opinions, and ideas with me. But one point that struck me the most was the fact that he mentioned about the way we post our views on the forums.

He said that the language we use to post our views on our local forums (including our political forums) are either too Singlish or the way we post it is too crude. And such scenarios does not need to take many to make it a norm in the forums. All we need is one person to type the way he/she sms/talk and we get amany people doing the same, we become frustrated about how some nice threads can turn into petty arguments, or casual chit chat and drifted off course from the main topic. Or we simply could not find the sort of details we want despite reading 20 pages of threads. It has occurred to me before and I am sure it has occurred to some of our friends here too.

Given such a scenario, I asked him what's the best solution about such a problem. He said for our local forums it is a little too late to salvage the situation. This is because everyone is already like that. the moment one enters, the body and mind just move into motion. It is hard to save the situation. Hearing this, I gave a sigh.

Therefore, I do not ask for a change overnight, but a small favour from everyone. Let's try to be intellectual for once. I understand some of us have difficulties trying to phrase our ideas (that includes me) into words, but just for once, let's try to be intellectual, so that newcomers can read our posts with greater understanding and experts can immediately diagnose our problems if we have any or give us constructive comments. To be in this hobby, we have given up so much of our brain cells to accomodate the knowledge so let us once conduct ourselves well and share our knowledge with others. Let's hope that by doing so we can attract more foreigners into this forum, so that we can exchange our ideas with them and learn what is out of this country and out of our books. Reefkeeping is importantly about sharing and getting our ideas across the globe. So can we try for once compromise with our Singlish and switch to give better English?

Sgreef is a good place to exchange reefkeeping ideas so let's not let it waste away so easily.

Hope you all out there understand what i am trying to put across.

Just my 2 cents

~An imperfect guy

[acidjazz]

Hi i see where you are coming from. Its true that things have changed and the forum is not what it used to be before. You see many reefers leaving Src or going to reefcentral instead. To be frank, reefcentral is truly a forum dedicated to reef keeping. Their discussions are right to the point and the experience they share is valuable. Basically, its like an encyclopedia.

Src is like children's playground nowdays. Mods, pardon for hitting right on the nail but i am sure you couldnt agree with me more. There are so much politics going on and so much insults thrown around. Some reefers believe they have a sense of self righteous to "protect" Src. They humilate people on the forum and more often than not, sacrastic language is used.

I believe Src is not a place to vent your anger or throw your baby tantrums or whatever. Its established in the first place to share the reefing experience. Beginners who joined the forum get shoot down for asking too many questions or repeated questions etc.

Certain comments in Src are not needed and it seems like several reefers like to add fuel to fire. Its not just the language that we have to change, but the whole culture.

In my own opinion, its already too late and i can totally feel why some senior reefers have already left Src while many others are avoiding it.

Signing off,

Paul

[Terryz_]

It is already all too late to salvage the situation in Sgreef... It has worsen as times goes by... 1-2 years ago, all a bunch of friendly and helpful reefers...

Now, newbie post qns, nobody answers... I agree that it is tiring to repeat all those things again but we should at least give them a rough idea and ask them to read the pinned...

The only thing that we should do now is to make newbie feel that Sgreef is a good place..

And lesser personal attacks, sacarstic remarks, flaming war and small arguements over trival matter....

It will make Sgreef a better place...

Really missed the pass...

[RAV-65]

Hi i see where you are coming from. Its true that things have changed and the forum is not what it used to be before. You see many reefers leaving Src or going to reefcentral instead. To be frank, reefcentral is truly a forum dedicated to reef keeping. Their discussions are right to the point and the experience they share is valuable. Basically, its like an encyclopedia.

Src is like children's playground nowdays. Mods, pardon for hitting right on the nail but i am sure you couldnt agree with me more. There are so much politics going on and so much insults thrown around. Some reefers believe they have a sense of self righteous to "protect" Src. They humilate people on the forum and more often than not, sacrastic language is used.

I believe Src is not a place to vent your anger or throw your baby tantrums or whatever. Its established in the first place to share the reefing experience. Beginners who joined the forum get shoot down for asking too many questions or repeated questions etc.

Certain comments in Src are not needed and it seems like several reefers like to add fuel to fire. Its not just the language that we have to change, but the whole culture.

In my own opinion, its already too late and i can totally feel why some senior reefers have already left Src while many others are avoiding it.

Signing off,

Paul

You 4got to add that there are people who profiteer in SRC, yet condemn the people here and den try to call others children.... These are the main scums that we should try to rid...

[olezontie]

And those who hide behind others and creating trouble everywhere.

And those dishonest people who does not even have the guts to come clean even when they are being confronted.

What do they think we are? Stupid?

[mUAr_cHEe]

but but but but but.....

i like woonming leh.......

dun like that lah..... after all we are are sillyporean......

can let me have abit of local flavour when i overseas...

the only thing i can do here whenever i am overseas that makes me feel like i in singapore is when i surf SRC, listen to Don and Drew podcasts, play with my daughter or hug my wife.....

seriously... that is the way things is.... as charles darwin calls it... evolution.....

things just grow as how it is as it adapts to the enviroment.... basically SRC, the mods, the country provided such an enviroment... so thats the way things are.... really no offense to SRC, the nice mods, big kahuna , or LKY....

so we just got to live it, suck it up.... do what we can to help it get better instead of bi'tching about it now...

[ervine]

this is like the time when there was a group of people who advocated proper english to be used on personal blogs (back about 2-3yrs ago when I had a blog)...

I don't see a point... if you are looking for more in depth and technical articles, posts, replies, etc then yes SRC might not be the best place to go but it feels more like home as compared to other forums out there. Try going to reefcentral and asking for advice that only locals will know, eg. incoming stock for our LFS, or where to buy wood for your cabinet, etc...

I seriously cannot imagine having a local forum where every post sounds like a GP essay, it's just too sterile...

What's wrong with using a little singlish in our posts? Does the message still get across, if so then it's still effectively communicated, perhaps even more so than if proper english was used.

Lighten up bro...

[Achilles Tang]

Interesting topic!

While I would very much like to sit on the fence after attempting to go both ways... let me tell u from experience that it needs 100% co-operation to achieve Ancelot's dream (or mine and many others).

Some people think that RC is a perfect place but sadly, it is not. It's a real great place to do research and to hear the feedback from other hobbyists but it is not home (to me).

SRC is home, with all its imperfections, idiosyncrasies and flaws. We have a vast majority who are great people.

We have had a few troublemakers. *shrug* No home has perfect fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, grandparents, in-laws, dogs, cats, fish or even household pests.

We had a wonderful place but when it got too large, you can expect troublemakers to come in too.

EXAMPLE:

Every western town has its candy shops, nice farms, provision supply shops, pleasant folks who doff their hats at you but when someone strikes gold nearby, everybody will swarm into town, the scum, the gamblers, the drunks, the prostitutes, the gunfighters, the cheats, the wicked.

Unless you have a strong sheriff with committed deputies, 100% backed by 100% of its citizens 100% of the time, you cannot absolutely maintain your previous PARADISE.

So perhaps some people will get disgruntled and move to a new uncharted part of the country to set up new homes, but believe me, the cycle will continue.... because no man is perfect or can guarantee what he says or do will upset another.

[blueheaven]

Actually, it is the value of each and every post that determines how a forum runs

You have to agree that there are some posts of real value here in SRC and there are some which bear no value at all.

I mean, check out the comments in this thread. We already have people posting petty replies and we got people using crude words.

To be honest, I see a very interesting trend. Firstly, there would be people who are always on the prowl and pounce on the prey once it is vulnerable. Then, there would be the bunch of people who support that "predator" by giving biased and shallow comments.

I do not know why we have these people, it may be either they enjoy chipping in the conflict or that they want to create a good impression to the "predator" who is often a person with influence.

And of course, we'll then have the people who will clean things up and the whole process goes back to square one.

If we just urge everyone to put more value into their comments and stop all the petty, shallow and useless postings, things would have been better.

And to ensure that, this is why I believe AT is reorganising his commitee of mods.

SRC is not totally defeated yet and I believe the new year would bring us more good than bad

[jem]

What I can input here from my understanding is that..

Different people comes from different backgrounds..

Each are brought up in a different way..

Each person have a different way of acting and talking..

In a previous post i said this before..

When people communicate face to face..

We can understand and identify what they are trying to imply better through face expressions,tones,body language and how they talk..

Through text messages we can understand only by the messages they type and miss out the rest of the important expressions..

What im trying to point out here is that..

we shouldnt take the things people say here to harshly..

be it sacrastic or crude remarks..

just let it off unless it something concearning life and death situation..

commercial or buisness issues will be submited to higher authorities (eg. SRC mods) to handle..

and dont be too itchy hand/mouth and add a comment to it..

jus voicing out my opinions

[Clownfish]

i dun see y we cannot talk n be ourselves? wheres the freedom of speech here?

arent we suppose to make friends here engaged in the same reefing activity?

must we talk n act like a foreigner in order to attract our foreign friends? in that case, we might as well type in chinese here since China has such a big population.

let's just face it, different countries are unique in their way, they eat differently, act differently and of course talk differently... y must we mimic the foreigners? y must we talk like them? which includes using their slangs? there are so many countries out there... so do we need to post our comments in 4 different languages plus japanese plus korean plus german plus italian plus etc etc... so that ALL foreigners are able to read the post? now dun tell me international language is english n therefore we should use standard english, i DUN BELIEVE the foreigners themselves dun use SLANGS in their postings. even the americans n british speak differently.... "I'm fine, thank you" and "I am good" are different.

must we treat every posting like an official writing in standard english? must every posting be treated like a formal report? dun u tink that would be too tired? I dun believe everyone who wans to exchange ideas here (i'm referring to Singaporeans) is born with a silver englishmen spoon in his/her mouth lor...

In conclusion, i dun really tink language matter, most importantly it is our content that matter....

[mUAr_cHEe]

only 2 ppl i know and noticed used proper english, spelling punctuation and for crying out loud... GRAMMER!!! in this forum...

boss and BH......

u tell me lah.... how many else of you always enf of a sentence with "..."

how many else of you all can don't type extra full stops??

[bluezing]

muar chee...

do u go to edmw? i tink u will feel very much rike home ober there~

hehe

[jem]

butt hors..

miee thinkks bluezing-ie da kors kors..

ish berie kawaii de nehss...

hees..

*hugxx and muackxx worx*

[Ancelot]

Hi morning, thanks for the replies.

I think my point is misunderstood here.

Typing Singlish into your posts I have no qualms with it. However. I am stressing that too much Singlish will kill the contents, and threads have a higher chance of becoming a casual chitchat forum or worst, end up in quarrels. And it is our arguments/causal chitchat as a result straying away from main topic, our childishness etc. that drive our own experts away, for example Morgan, Tanzy, danano etc. Their lack of participation cut short of our abilities to learn more and gain more. I got to say that what we learn in books, these guys have learnt it few hundred times. And what we do not learn in books, these guys still know it all. So in the end, we are the ones on the losing end. So who stand to gain? They do! And do not tell me that they are busy with work as an excuse. Singapore is now on a 5 day working week.

Therefore, I am saying it is possible to still use Singlish, however, we have to choose where to use it, how we going to use it, and using it will it be of any value to our contents, and if we can do that, i am sure we can still get our contents across.

[bluezing]

Hi morning, thanks for the replies. 

I think my point is misunderstood here.

Typing Singlish into your posts I have no qualms with it. However. I am stressing that too much Singlish will kill the contents, and threads have a higher chance of becoming a casual chitchat forum or worst, end up in quarrels. And it is our arguments/causal chitchat as a result straying away from main topic, our childishness etc. that drive our own experts away, for example Morgan, Tanzy, danano etc. Their lack of participation cut short of our abilities to learn more and gain more. I got to say that what we learn in books, these guys have learnt it few hundred times. And what we do not learn in books, these guys still know it all. So in the end, we are the ones on the losing end. So who stand to gain? They do! And do not tell me that they are busy with work as an excuse. Singapore is now on a 5 day working week. 

Therefore, I am saying it is possible to still use Singlish, however, we have to choose where to use it, how we going to use it, and using it will it be of any value to our contents, and if we can do that, i am sure we can still get our contents across.

hi hi bro~

i kinda agree with u...

but each forum has their own culture. likewise for human being, each of us have our own character.thats what makes this world such an interesting (though sad at times) place to live in.

but i really do see where u r coming from...

2 thumbs up for you for reiterating this point across to us..

ps: apologise for my "..." and non-existence of captial letters, and poor grammar as well

[Ancelot]

Thanks for understanding it. I hope my point gets across to everyone.

Cheers!