Quality of News Writers?


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Er, no...that's a silly suggestion. You're implying that if you don't like a builder's bricklaying, you should become a bricklayer yourself.

I'm not trying to be a news reporter. If I was trying, then there should be a minimum quality expected of me.

I have yet to see any reports from you. As news staff we have full access to seeing what you report and are in charge of fixing errors that are reported ourselves.

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I have yet to see any reports from you. As news staff we have full access to seeing what you report and are in charge of fixing errors that are reported ourselves.

Is that a reasonable argument? I mean, we're here, now making our issues known and you're arguing the logistics of it.

You must remember that he opened up this thread with the sole intention of doing what you're asking of him, but he didn't quite know how.

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Neowin won't make you be from what it seems, but it's a case of do YOU as an individual want to be that accurate with your writing?

It's your legacy as a writer you're leaving behind with Neowin. Your style/way of writing and everything is a representation of you as a writer. You represent Neowin in the big picture, but your individual articles represent yourself also.

That's why these topics/posts are just feedback, no one here is telling you how to write, at the very most Neowin tells you your grounding (with whatever rules/screening is in place for news-posters).

Everything else is up to yourself, we're just giving you some food for thought for your career. When I linked to those FireFox dictionaries earlier it wasn't a joke it's genuinely a potentially useful tool for some writers depending on how they write. Do you do it all in browser (higher chance of mistakes) or in a word processing application first?

Oh no audioboxer, I wasn't taking these posts as a personal attack against my writing and I am always open to suggestions and feedback. I am reading each post here trying to understand their concerns and learn from them. I don't know exactly which writers they are taking about, possibly me? but some of their suggestions are quite good, but ultimately address the writers incorrectly. These 'suggestions' can come across to use in a rude manor, which doesn't help anyone here.

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Then why be paid to write?

I'm sorry, but if you can't get the basics right, through lack of education or through an illness or disorder - then you shouldn't be paid to write - or you should have an editor in place to ensure those mistakes are dealt with before going live.

Did you forget that this is an unprofessional news website? It's actually a good thing that someone is trying to be a writer and be paid for it, it's not like you are paying them. Just because someone does athletics and cannot run as fast as the worlds fastest person doesn't mean they shouldn't try. What you are saying that people shouldn't be given the chance to improve their skills on the idea that they will never meet up to your standards.

I have respect to the news team, they have some balls to write something for a website which is viewed by thousands of people.

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Oh no audioboxer, I wasn't taking these posts as a personal attack against my writing and I am always open to suggestions and feedback. I am reading each post here trying to understand their concerns and learn from them. I don't know exactly which writers they are taking about, possibly me? but some of their suggestions are quite good, but ultimately address the writers incorrectly. These 'suggestions' can come across to use in a rude manor, which doesn't help anyone here.

Who comes across rude? I've yet to see a single post in this thread that discusses this matter in distaste.

Maybe you're mistaking constructive criticism as rudeness?

Did you forget that this is an unprofessional news website? It's actually a good thing that someone is trying to be a writer and be paid for it, it's not like you are paying them. Just because someone does athletics and cannot run as fast as the worlds fastest person doesn't mean they shouldn't try. What you are saying that people shouldn't be given the chance to improve their skills on the idea that they will never meet up to your standards.

I have respect to the news team, they have some balls to write something for a website which is viewed by thousands of people.

Wrong.

I am giving feedback on how they can meet up to the standards (not my standards).

What you are doing is excusing these amateur mistakes and pretending that it is perfectly acceptable for it to happen.

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Is that a reasonable argument? I mean, we're here, now making our issues known and you're arguing the logistics of it.

You must remember that he opened up this thread with the sole intention of doing what you're asking of him, but he didn't quite know how.

All of these concerns come across as if they have been built up over periods of weeks. Some of you are stating everything we do wrong here, which I don't personally have a problem with, but how do we know if no one says anything? Waiting weeks to say anything because someone made a thread isn't the correct way to address the issues.

I am going to talk about you here and say that you are very vocal on these matters and seen inaccuracies over the course of the time we have been writing and fail to report any problems but address them all at once, and when I make a comment to just simply report problems to criticize my methods of dealing with a problem I had no idea about.

I was only trying to refresh the idea of how to go about this issue to stop errors being made time and time again, especially if we are not aware of the foreseen problems.

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Who comes across rude? I've yet to see a single post in this thread that discusses this matter in distaste.

Maybe you're mistaking constructive criticism as rudeness?

Wrong.

I am giving feedback on how they can meet up to the standards (not my standards).

What you are doing is excusing these amateur mistakes and pretending that it is perfectly acceptable for it to happen.

Wrong again, what standards are these then? Standards you think they should be?

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Who comes across rude? I've yet to see a single post in this thread that discusses this matter in distaste.

Maybe you're mistaking constructive criticism as rudeness?

Wrong.

I am giving feedback on how they can meet up to the standards (not my standards).

What you are doing is excusing these amateur mistakes and pretending that it is perfectly acceptable for it to happen.

Standards? I understand there are certain grammatical standards in the English language, but I have actually had a report gone through on my work because of my Canadian spelling. It is very hard to define an official standard we must all follow, since some of us post from Canada, United States, England and other countries. Three different styles of English.

Colour, Color.

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All of these concerns come across as if they have been built up over periods of weeks. Some of you are stating everything we do wrong here, which I don't personally have a problem with, but how do we know if no one says anything? Waiting weeks to say anything because someone made a thread isn't the correct way to address the issues.

I am going to talk about you here and say that you are very vocal on these matters and seen inaccuracies over the course of the time we have been writing and fail to report any problems but address them all at once, and when I make a comment to just simply report problems to criticize my methods of dealing with a problem I had no idea about.

I was only trying to refresh the idea of how to go about this issue to stop errors being made time and time again, especially if we are not aware of the foreseen problems.

So you think because I have agreed with the opening poster and given my opinion on the matter in public and not through a private system that I, also had no idea about - that I am rude and deconstructive?

That's astounding, and is exactly the reason I stopped posting around here. Your inability to accept feedback no matter what form it is in, or when it arrives - is a testament to exactly what I said before.

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So you think because I have agreed with the opening poster and given my opinion on the matter in public and not through a private system that I, also had no idea about - that I am rude and deconstructive?

That's astounding, and is exactly the reason I stopped posting around here. Your inability to accept feedback no matter what form it is in, or when it arrives - is a testament to exactly what I said before.

You are taking my earlier comment, something that I didn't even mention in the quoted piece, personally. I didn't mention any names, I was merely addressing the concern that this issue could of been handled differently.

You seem to think I am talking about you..when I am not. Please don't take my quotes personally mac.

You stopped posting around here because I can't take accept feedback? Have we ever talked before?

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Standards? I understand there are certain grammatical standards in the English language, but I have actually had a report gone through on my work because of my Canadian spelling. It is very hard to define an official standard we must all follow, since some of us post from Canada, United States, England and other countries. Three different styles of English.

Colour, Color.

I was replying on the content of the quote, where the poster indicated it was okay to use Their, There, Where, etc incorrectly.

I'm aware that there are different spellings for the same word across the Ocean - that's never been an issue - and if anyone reported it as such, I'd assume you didn't hold a grudge with that person through their lack of understanding.

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OK I didn't want to have to close this but this doesn't need to be a mud slinging fest. Mistakes happen...c'est la vie. There's a process we expect members to follow named "report a problem" on the news post. We'll be making this easier to see in a future update to the site.

To the OP, please PM me with the specific articles you had in my mind when you started this thread. Mac please PM me as well to continue this offline. Everyone else...you're welcome to PM me too.

Thanks

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