Well, it’s an interesting question: what are some good reasons?
Perhaps someone is writing avant-garde poetry, and might wish to use all-lowercase as a sort of artistic statement? But it seems to me like Less Wrong isn’t the place for that; and, in any case, we’d then judge the work as poetry. Most poets used proper capitalization, in any case…
Yeah, I think the poetic direction is getting at some of the things I was pointing at above. Distinctness is hard to come by on the internet, especially if you don’t have control over the complete typography, and you might be able to create your own brand within a subculture by “being the guy who only uses lowercase”. If you succeed, then that seems good and might even be for everyone’s benefit. But since distinctness is sparse, people will rationally be averse to giving up that brand-space to just the first person who comes around, and will generally be much more critical of someone who claims that level of importance in their first post.
I agree that this is a reason people might do this.
I think it is an unusually bad reason; and I think it’s especially important that we punish such behavior when it’s done for this sort of reason, even more so than when it’s done because of laziness or ignorance or anything else.
Someone who tries to “create their own brand” by intentionally sabotaging their readers’ reading experience, is burning the commons by undermining the norm that everyone should strive to make their writing as readable as possible (in the typographic / orthographic / etc. sense, not necessarily in the sense of “dumbing down” the content).
And since, as you point out, there is incentive to do this (distinctness is hard to come by—and, I will add, it’s much easier to be distinct by breaking rules of good typography, than to be distinct by… producing distinct ideas / etc.)… that means that unless we punish this sort of thing, it’ll be rampant.
If you succeed [at creating your own brand in this way], then that seems good and might even be for everyone’s benefit.
This is possible, but a) it’s quite unlikely (most people’s writing is not nearly good enough to be worth it), and b) the cost [from people burning the commons in this way if such “distinctness” isn’t punished harshly] is far, far greater than any expected gains.
i think it’s positive sum to exist-in-a-state which supports people using more explorative grammatical styles, because language is pretty constraining for expression for a lot of people and pushing them to optimize their language use helps a lot
this has the downside that poeple need to be capable of parsing different grammatical styles, but as far as i can tell on platforms where this is widespread literally everyone manages to do this because it’s much easier than parsing different writing styles (which is necessary for anything involving a large number of people writing things)
if i put two spaces after the ends of sentences would that help you, oliver? like this. to make sentences more clearly delineated. (edit: i think they get removed automatically, is there a way i can make that not happen)
i think it’s positive sum to exist-in-a-state which supports people using more explorative grammatical styles, because language is pretty constraining for expression for a lot of people and pushing them to optimize their language use helps a lot
I agree with this, and personnally I didn’t even notice the lack of capital letters until it was pointed out. I also agree that sometimes it makes sense to place hoops in front of people to make sure you have their attention.
I do not, however, think that this is one of those times.
To the extent that people care, it’s a battle that is going to have to be fought somewhere before people accept your way of writing, and I think you should reconsider where/how/if you want to fight this battle. I’d do it differently.
Sorry for the spaces thing. It’s a thing that our editor framework does that isn’t super trivial to deactivate (curtesy of Facebook which maintains draft.js). I hope to get around to changing that behavior at some point.
Well, it’s an interesting question: what are some good reasons?
Perhaps someone is writing avant-garde poetry, and might wish to use all-lowercase as a sort of artistic statement? But it seems to me like Less Wrong isn’t the place for that; and, in any case, we’d then judge the work as poetry. Most poets used proper capitalization, in any case…
But other than that…?
Yeah, I think the poetic direction is getting at some of the things I was pointing at above. Distinctness is hard to come by on the internet, especially if you don’t have control over the complete typography, and you might be able to create your own brand within a subculture by “being the guy who only uses lowercase”. If you succeed, then that seems good and might even be for everyone’s benefit. But since distinctness is sparse, people will rationally be averse to giving up that brand-space to just the first person who comes around, and will generally be much more critical of someone who claims that level of importance in their first post.
I agree that this is a reason people might do this.
I think it is an unusually bad reason; and I think it’s especially important that we punish such behavior when it’s done for this sort of reason, even more so than when it’s done because of laziness or ignorance or anything else.
Someone who tries to “create their own brand” by intentionally sabotaging their readers’ reading experience, is burning the commons by undermining the norm that everyone should strive to make their writing as readable as possible (in the typographic / orthographic / etc. sense, not necessarily in the sense of “dumbing down” the content).
And since, as you point out, there is incentive to do this (distinctness is hard to come by—and, I will add, it’s much easier to be distinct by breaking rules of good typography, than to be distinct by… producing distinct ideas / etc.)… that means that unless we punish this sort of thing, it’ll be rampant.
This is possible, but a) it’s quite unlikely (most people’s writing is not nearly good enough to be worth it), and b) the cost [from people burning the commons in this way if such “distinctness” isn’t punished harshly] is far, far greater than any expected gains.
i think it’s positive sum to exist-in-a-state which supports people using more explorative grammatical styles, because language is pretty constraining for expression for a lot of people and pushing them to optimize their language use helps a lot
this has the downside that poeple need to be capable of parsing different grammatical styles, but as far as i can tell on platforms where this is widespread literally everyone manages to do this because it’s much easier than parsing different writing styles (which is necessary for anything involving a large number of people writing things)
if i put two spaces after the ends of sentences would that help you, oliver? like this. to make sentences more clearly delineated. (edit: i think they get removed automatically, is there a way i can make that not happen)
I agree with this, and personnally I didn’t even notice the lack of capital letters until it was pointed out. I also agree that sometimes it makes sense to place hoops in front of people to make sure you have their attention.
I do not, however, think that this is one of those times.
To the extent that people care, it’s a battle that is going to have to be fought somewhere before people accept your way of writing, and I think you should reconsider where/how/if you want to fight this battle. I’d do it differently.
Syntax, not grammar
Sorry for the spaces thing. It’s a thing that our editor framework does that isn’t super trivial to deactivate (curtesy of Facebook which maintains draft.js). I hope to get around to changing that behavior at some point.
This bothers me too. I would like double spaces. In comments too please.