Yes, but we're mainstream scientists! When someone writes a way that's Against the Mainstream, it's our job to the Evil Establishment to stop them! Do your homework.

*Cough*

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I find futurescientist's style charming. BTW, very nice photo, futurescientist.

Oh, wait, where have I heard this "conversation" before?

Then I doubt you've been in a forum or a chatroom that suddenly got overrun by AOL users. It's a nightmare. It's aNIGHTMARE

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

You do understand that I am trying to make a point very similar to yours? Remember the conversation not so long ago about a certain posting syle? I initiated the question on this very thread. That's why I find this really funny.

I have trouble remembering my name in the morning. I have a bad memory. At least, I THINK I do... I don't really remember...

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I would like to point out that I started capitalizing the first letter of every sentence in the knowledge that not doing so had annoyed people. And then I would like to second Lonewulf's assertion that replacing everything with abbreviations/misspellings is really annoying.

__________________
Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

bah, no problem with not capitalizing, gillian. at least, i think so. nothing wrong at all. see how easy it is? it's fun!

(Dang, it's hard for me to do that for long... my pinky keeps hitting the shift of its own accord)

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Just in case I was one of those people, I should let you know that I was not at all annoyed by the non-capitalization.

__________________
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

I see it as this: Some people find it annoying, some people do not.

The advantages to typing "u" instead of "you" is to save a few milliseconds of typing, not have to be decent at typing out sentences (hence, have a lower WPS), and being "cute", perhaps.

The disadvantages are: You probably will annoy someone sooner or later, you can't write any documents using that method in school, you won't be able to practice your typing skills, and a few other unmentioned disadvantages.

The disadvantages trump the advantages. There's more good to trying to type in a more proper manner (and I mean "proper" to mean, what businesses and schools expect of you, not myself).

At least, that's the way I see it. If you think differently, you're wrong. (Just kidding!)

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I won't even to bother to read posts if they are written in shorthand gibberish.

__________________
The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

I don't think it was necessarily annoying to most people either, just that it was ironic that in a nitpicky grammar thread, you weren't practicing proper sentence structure!

But I also feel that noone should feel pressured to change the way they post here just because it's annoying to some people. (I know you're not pressuring, just stating that it annoys you.) Abbreviations annoy some, resurrecting old topics annoys others, but instead of pointing it out I think the graceful thing to do is just ignore it. With the thousands of posters on this board, there are going to be thousands of posting styles PLUS different levels of annoyances. All should be tolerated if it's not against the rules.

I don't see anything wrong with politely stating that it annoys me. If they say that it would take too much to change the way they post, then I'd live with it. However, I'm not the type that likes to keep silent about my feelings in anything. That's what annoys me about school; people complain about their instructors behind their back, but never have a face to face conversation with the instructors about what they do.

Personally, sometimes I put in the effort into discussing something with the instructor in private when I have an objection to something. I keep it polite and civil, and don't try to annoy them. So that's basically what I was trying to do here... but it's hard to be private on a messageboard.

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I thought about the private issue after I typed my message. Someone might be more receptive to changing their style if they are asked to in a PM rather than in front of everyone. Personally, I would be embarrassed if something I did was pointed out in front of everyone, and it started a long OT conversation. Some people might get offended. Others might not care!

Of course this is just another example of my opinion. It bothers some that people use abbreviations, and it bothers me when people point it out! Oops--just my mentioning that is hypocritical! Sorry if I offended anyone.

Yeah, you're right, I should've PMed. Sorry, Futurescientist!

It's probably my fault that he's not posting replies. I feel bad. >.>

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

Yeah, ditto. Once I see a 'u' for you, or as soon as I realise that what appears to be one sentence with no capitalisation or punctuation is actually meant to be separate sentences (you see that a lot on Amazon reviews), I stop reading. People for whom English is obviously not their native language aside, If you can't be bothered to write properly, I don't care what you have to say.

__________________
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." - Isaac Asimov

I don't take such an extreme approach, since many of my friends do type without proper capitalization and such (but not so much on the "u" and such).

I discourage it, but I don't write off people that type that way. In fact, I was the only one in a chatroom willing to talk to a newbie with few friends in a chatroom, and further drove people away with his typing style. I still talked to him, and we became friends, pretty much. He was a pretty interesting character. (We've split up since then as friends, when we ticked each other off, but that was a completely unrelated issue).

__________________
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." -- Thomas Paine

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor. -- Heinlein

Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov

I think my post above sounds a little bit too harsh, and less tolerant than I really am. I must have got out of bed on the wrong side or something....
I don't write someone off if they mis-spell a word, or don't capitalize the initial letter of each sentence, or anything like that. I was thinking more of this sort of thing... (Bad Amazon reviewer warning)

__________________
"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." - Isaac Asimov

That's just too annoying.
I rarely read anything lacking at least some kind of punctuation and capitalization. And I don't like abbreviations and replacing words with numbers either, but that's mainly because it takes somewhat longer time for me to understand the posts. English not being my mother tongue, you see. I've learned it just as much by reading as listening, unlike most of you who learned to speak it before learning to write it. That's why all those should of/should have, their/they're/there mistakes appear little odd to me.

I swear - if I ever get to meet you and Paulie Jay, the drinks are on me.

__________________
"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams