fortunately this is not a strict coders' forum as far as i'm concerned - i appreciate all kinds of people with varying experience from diverse sectors, after all this is what information exchange is about, and more variance adds to a broader and more objective view, lots of fun and more information (and entropy for that matter).
in fact i don't even believe there is a specific topic other than things that are obviously very interesting to a certain group of people.
as for my communication skills - i think i have none, and despite my earlier statement being more a lame excuse for my lazyness to communicate, I'm kind of proud of being disconnected and I somewhat aim for provocations, since all I care about is rationally and deliberately looking at things from a different and unique perspective, since i believe this kind of contribution to be of value, even if it might appear naive or if i'm slashing the common ground or if i don't point out purpose.
but since english is not my native tongue I'm not really successful at communicating sarcasm in a rhetorical way.
so please don't vote for me since i'm not used to that :p.
Of course it is not a strict coders forum. Even simply being female makes me very much a minority here and I have seen a number of posts from women who cite that as an obstacle to effective participation.
I like getting a diversity of views and feedback/information. It is one of the reasons I work hard on coming across politely and respectfully when speaking with people who have strongly different views from mine: It is the only way I have found for such interactions to be really good opportunities for growth instead of pissing contests. Pissing contests rarely have any productive value.
As for speaking English as a second language: Stating up front "please forgive my English" seems to work pretty well to smooth things over for some members here. Practicing your English will improve it, possibly quite a lot in a short time. (I have seen that with foreign friends who chose to speak with me in spite of sometimes having very poor English and me not knowing their language at all.)
And I apologize if you don't actually want solutions. Many people don't. I am often annoying in that way.
"As for speaking English as a second language: Stating up front "please forgive my English" seems to work pretty well to smooth things over for some members here."
This isn't my discussion and so I apologize for potentially butting in, but being an ESL speaker myself it bothers me a bit to see ESL writers apologize for their English. I'm not sure if this is unique to those who are ESL themselves, but I find distinguishing between an ESL writer and a sloppy native writer trivial. If it's at a point where it causes problems communicating, we'll know it's because English isn't your first language, and we know the writer would rather not make these mistakes - no need to apologize.
As for conveying sarcasm in short posts on the internet, the difficulty is far from limited to ESL writers.
Some people here are quite anal about grammar and spelling and do not seem to readily infer that someone is an ESL speaker. I come from a bicultural/bilingual home. English is my native language but I also am prone to imposing German-isms (for lack of a better word) onto my writing, especially when tired. I do this in spite of not growing up knowing much German. I'm generally pretty tolerant of individual quirks and of the acclimation process new people go through. Lots of people are not. I basically agree with you that they shouldn't need to apologize/explain but in some instances it does seem to help smooth things over.
I appreciate the "please forgive my English" notes, actually. I am a native English speaker, and I have no ability whatsoever to distinguish between ESL writers and sloppy natives. I certainly was not aware that frevd was not a native speaker until he mentioned it.
Well.. wow, I take that as a compliment.
I should definitely read more HN comments though, to improve on my writing style (sorry, I got all my early English from coding and the rest from chats &c. (barely speaking a word even today), and those sources are undoubtedly not the best pool for poetry).
I must say that many people here are surely right what serious contribution is about, i.e. involving serious commitment, not sloppiness, which certainly improves on content quality.
However, if that scares away those of us who merely wanted to point out something without having the time for a proper pronounciation (especially non-natives), less a proof, it would be sad to lose their opinions.
Unproven Intuitions and fun statements must be allowed as well, otherwise you'd lose some important flow here, and who can say what might inspire others, effectively.
Prohibiting smileys and alike or limiting types of expressions through forced writing style can even mean worse, being contraproductive for the overall content submission. But surely there are better places for instant-talk.
