Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Thoughts on "acceptable misuse" language policies on the web

Software and web sites are fundamentally driven by the underlying language/code that provides either the operating system or a web browser with instructions. If there are errors in spelling or syntax within the code, then the computer will reject the intent of the message/instruction, and refuse to execute the wish of the programmer. Writing works in much the same way, but with a much more unpredictable audience. Unlike linguistic parsing within a computer (which offers second chances to rewrite code if the message doesn't get through the first time), a human user may actually tolerate errors, but a human audience also has the capacity to walk away from the writer's work permanently.

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