Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by _bxg1 on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:29PM (#22293579)

For anyone else who finds the lack of capitalization distracting, run the following in your JS console to fix most of the sentences and "I"s

  document.querySelectorAll(`p`).forEach(el => {
    el.textContent = el.textContent.replace(/[\s]i[\s]/g, ' I ');
    el.textContent = el.textContent.split(/\.[\s]+/g)
      .filter(sent => !!sent)
      .map(sent => sent[0].toUpperCase() + sent.substr(1))
      .join('. ');
  })

Edit: Tweaked to filter out empty strings because it died about 80% of the way down the page

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:46PM (#22293734)

amazing. maybe i’ll turn this into a toggle on all my posts

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by kyralis on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:56PM (#22293826)

Please do. The lack of capitalization made me close the tab after about two sentences; this just doesn't make it past my "worth reading" filter. Sure, maybe it's good, but I have heuristics like this for a reason, and I'm quite happy to ignore work that simply can't be bother with basic English language norms.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by 205guy on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:47PM (#22294247)

To be honest, the author's capitalization didn't bother me, and I didn't notice it until halfway through. Even his comments here are readable to me.

However, your heuristic worked because the content of the article was crap. Or to be more charitable: over-promised with a good idea and under-delivered with incompetent data-analysis, mangled conclusions, and ax-grinding (reiterating an opinion that he admits isn't supported by his data).

Sadly, it gives us another data point: a person who doesn't follow "fake rules" and totally uses "totes" in comments didn't write a good article. not a good look

[ Parent | on HN ]

[dead]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by marcinzm on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:10PM (#22293937)

It's not fake rules, its things which make it easier to read a large piece of text. You apparently value being unique and "non rule following" over the comfort and ease of reading of your readers which says a lot imho.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by variaga on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:53PM (#22294297)

Indeed.

Many years ago, I took a poetry class and on the first day the instructor said (roughly): When E.E. Cummings did not capitalize the word 'I', it was creative and original. You are not E. E. Cummings. If you do not capitalize 'I', you are boring and pretentious. Capitalize your 'I's."

Breaking the rules of grammar is good when it adds value to the writing. I don't see how refusing to capitalize added any value here.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @08:33PM (#22295200)

#TIL E.E. Cummings has this in common with me

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by buzzert on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:38PM (#22294187)

It also lacks professionalism and makes it difficult to take seriously. I certainly hope he doesn’t write emails like this at work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by jshevek on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:22PM (#22294048)

I think it is unfair of you to assume his motive, and inappropriate to use the idiom normally used to impugn one's character.

Would you apply the same reasoning to Cummings?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by marcinzm on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:46PM (#22294241)

>I think it is unfair of you to assume his motive, and inappropriate to use the idiom normally used to impugn one's character.

The post I replied to basically said that asking for capitalization makes you stickler to pointless rules who won't get far in life. I merely replied in kind to the tone of that post which probably isn't exactly nice of me but I would say it is fair.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by organsnyder on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:31PM (#22294127)

Poetry is much different than prose.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by jshevek on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:40PM (#22294201)

I don't see how that's relevant, as I was talking about the man, his actions, and the presumption of motive.

Cummings disregarded capitalization norms in his prose as well.

Edit: Maybe you meant: since Cummings wrote a lot of poetry, he is a special case and therefore can be forgiven for disregarding capitalization norms in his prose?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by bradknowles on Monday February 10, 2020 @06:02PM (#22294372)

It's much more important the quality of the poetry he wrote than the quantity.

I can write a program to generate thousands of haikus. Doing so does not make that body of poetry meaningful in any way [0].

[0] Well, other than the fact that it got me a free monogrammed PowerBook G4 Laptop sleeve that was being given away by some people who underestimated the willingness of a younger programmer to beseige them with computer-generated haikus. ;)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by jshevek on Monday February 10, 2020 @06:17PM (#22294465)

Let's keep this in context. Are you saying that Cummings did or did not 'apparently value being unique and "non rule following" over the comfort and ease of reading' ?

Edit: Or maybe you are saying that we should only presume motive of people who don't write great works?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by tptacek on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:36PM (#22295827)

I don't know whether capitalization is a fake rule or not, but civility is a real rule here on HN.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by jshevek on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:12PM (#22293956)

I find your capitalization choices relaxing to read, and allows for better pacing. The critical parent comment was primarily sharing a perspective shared by a subset of potential readers. You can ignore the feedback, but responding with this tone can lead to you being dogpiled by haters.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:17PM (#22293999)

if author saw my previous comment re adopting a "proper case" toggle view, they could have given me the benefit of the doubt. i definitely want people to read in a format comfortable for them. i also know which rules don't matter

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by fredsanford on Monday February 10, 2020 @06:49PM (#22294666)

>> i definitely want people to read in a format comfortable for them

>> i also know which rules don't matter

Are you sure? These 2 statements conflict in this context.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @08:34PM (#22295205)

after years of writing how i want and never getting complaints, then 1 day on HN, i will build a toggle.

(aka the problem is you)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by qzx_pierri on Monday February 10, 2020 @09:56PM (#22295607)

I thought the lack of capitalization made the article seem more down to earth and cozy- Kinda like if a friend sent me a long text. Don’t let the grammar nazis & pedantic condescension on HN deter you. I like the design.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by stringyham on Tuesday February 11, 2020 @05:35AM (#22297451)

i'm,using,my,own,rules,deal,with,it

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by _bxg1 on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:48PM (#22293753)

If you want to provide a toggle, you might be better off including the capitalization in the raw content and using this CSS property to do the lowercasing: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/text-transf...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @04:52PM (#22293795)

it’s tricky cuz i still capitalize proper nouns e.g. San Francisco.

i do have css for down-casing title etc however

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by roel_v on Monday February 10, 2020 @06:17PM (#22294464)

Is this a stylistic choice, or a statement about 'speed of living' or so, or why do you do this?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by ryanckulp on Monday February 10, 2020 @06:34PM (#22294565)

i do it to keep things casual. for some reason it drives people crazy.

spoke more in depth about this stylistic decision, with context, here: https://www.everyonehatesmarketers.com/marketing-without-bud...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by deadmetheny on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:17PM (#22294002)

Imagine getting this mad over a blogger's stylistic writing choices.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by _bxg1 on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:21PM (#22294044)

Not mad, just found this more readable

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why I’m Leaving San Francisco: Meta study by jshevek on Monday February 10, 2020 @05:58PM (#22294335)

Is it possible you responded to the wrong person? I agree that this thread seems to be damaged by excessive criticism and focus on the writing style, but the parent comment was simply offering a solution.

[ Parent | on HN ]