So here we are, a good four months later... I still think the [spell]ing syntax should be introduced, so that there is a good way to note mistakes without aggrieving the others.
Was there any action taken from the organisational side or are we still at the same point with some people maybe changing their writing?
I have been gone for a while and now noticed that there are editbuttons now. Kinda nice, especially for typos, but doesn't help against real spelling mistakes.

A little off topic, but actually the reason why I actually clicked reply:
While I agree with you on the rest, evought, I am convinced that most flame wars and insults on the internet occur, because people dare much more. In real life we keep much more to our manners, but there are many people out there randomly starting flame wars with others in chat rooms. If you talk to your friends on an instant messenger, this stuff occurs a lot less often, on the one hand, because you know the other person and their "grade of roughness in language", but also because we have a lot of Chatspeak (emoticons, capitalisation, italics, boldness and so on.) to help us out with the missing gestures and facial expressions.
I honestly think that most flaming begins where someone doesn't stop teasing/insulting/whatever is upsetting because he knows that he doesn't have to await serious consequences. It's much easier to insult someone when there is no risk of him choking you =)
I'd like to see those studies though, got link?

Not the ones I was looking for, but this one goes into a bit of it. It talks more about lack of expression and tone more than style.

I would just like to make a small analogy here. What you're saying is like saying, "You don't have to write correct XHTML code, 'cause browsers will overtime accomodate to your silly hacks!". This saying is what led to an estimated huge profit loss for web developers and internet sites all over the world. Just think about that. Back then, people were like, "Oh don't worry! It'll work on Netscape!" or whatever, and that's exactly what happened, it ended up working only on Netscape or whatever other browser because of the program's quips of uncomformance, that used to be called bugs but stuck on for backward-compatability.

And if you think that this won't matter for languages, just think of future advancements in the fields of AI and language recognition, when in the future we'll have several dialects of English, based on which IRC channel we hang around on, and speech recognition could be delayed because people like you don't want to write/speak/use valid English!!!

Wow, that was really just an exaggeration.

@evought: That's interesting. From personal empiricism, I would never think so, but that might be because most of my friends know that I always use sarcasm. Plus I don't talk that much to strangers on the net. I found a bit poor that they didn't consider netspeak (smilies etc.) at all, because that's the way people convey emotions in emails.
Hell, if I got a cent for every ^ I made in a conversation I would be stinking rich and if there was a key for ^^ (two in one), then my keyboard would probably 20% less used.

@seec77: That was not an exaggeration at all, just surf some IRC channels and compare their way of speaking... Or read a bit on urbandictionary.com.. Or read stuff from communities in Australia and compare with those from America.
What's exaggerated or even bullshit: The analogy.. In human brains you don't have to worry about backwards compatibility that much, of course, it might be hard for future English readers to understand what we meant with "Jump off" or so, but the constant development of human language is what it makes it SO much more rich than XHTML, which is just mark up language coming in different versions, made up by a central institution. What would you say, if they suddenly placed an institution in your country that told you "'a-whole-nother' is not a real word, please use something else.". Well, ok already the case in France ^^ but still, you will be understood by your fellow humans. You can't compare that to computers. Not yet at least.

I haven't really read alot of the posts in this thread but you have to remember there are people of all ages here so not everyone can use perfect spelling and grammar.

There is also no absolute definite rule on using commas and such, it's more of a guideline much like indenting with programming, it's really up to the programmer (or writer in this case) where they decide to use it.

Don't forget there is also the use of ; which is well, let's say a full stop is 100% breather, a comma is a 50% breather and ; would be a 25% breather or atleast that's how I see it.

The whole short speaking of everything in online chat certainly doesn't help as the thread started said, I tend to avoid using shorter versions of words and such anywhere anymore.

But you can't expect a kid who is only 10 to write good content on a various range of topics. This is a technology forum and therefore demands good posts, which includes grammatically correct sentences, a good vocabulary etc. It is hard for the ones that don't speak English, but small errors (such as commas and spelling complicated words) can and are tolerated. However, using leet speak and similar ways of expressing yourself is not appropriate.

I know that I make mistakes every now and then, but I do try to correct them, unlike some other people. Hey, I'm fifteen and English is not my mother tongue. Still I am able to write understandable sentences. It's all about being willing to try. Without that, the whole web would be just another failure.

@ pyost: Some kids are ahead of their time, I mean you're only fifteen, I started making (bad) websites with twelve, but there are some even faster kiddies out there. We shouldn't try to hard to be elitist round here, but still everyone should make his best effort, if he isn't able to make himself understood that way, then this forum obviously can't help him. Still Leet-speak and so on, don't really show the "best effort".

Yes, but I think everyone understands that for a beginner's web site you don't need anything special. I started with a free forum host, then moved on the a free host with bunch of ads, and slowly increased my knowledge. And now I'm looking for the best.

Nothing is free, there is always something you have to do in return. Here, you must make good posts. At other places, you have to keep ads on your web site

I would have to agree with pyost. I don't see it as being elitist to simply expect our user base to be limited to those willing and able to make coherent meaningful posts. To call that elitist for not allowing young children onto the board would be the same as saying we should let a 5 year old on the board as long as they do their best. In most cases, the best attempts of a 5 year old wouldn't exactly be up to par. If you want to keep a forum professional and of a high quality you need to make choices and those choices do not need to, and will not always, be the choice which allows everyone to participate.

Not all environments are appropriate for all people, this one is not appropriate for those who cannot make decent posts, no matter which factor is limiting their ability to do so.

Yeah, now you are just senselessly ripping my post apart, I don't think I was that unclear. As long as they can make themselves understandable. Of course they have to be able to contribute something, but why should I mention that, it's in the rules already. I think we all know what's ok and what not, so we could just slowly step back from the topic, put our credit-greed on the ground and our hands on our heads.