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Accuracy of Front Page Stories

A

abrooks

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 18, 2004
643
192
London, UK
I pointed out in this post on another thread that MacRumors is consistently inaccurate in how it refers to the App Store and how it types names such as iPod touch and iPod nano.

Don't get me wrong the editors of MR do a stand up job but calling the App Store the iTunes App Store is not something that I'd expect to see on such a popular site.

Same applies to capitalising the second word in iPod touch and iPod nano etc.
 
abrooks said:
I pointed out in this post on another thread that MacRumors is consistently inaccurate in the how it refers to the App Store and how it types names such as iPod touch and iPod nano.

Don't get me wrong the editors of MR do a stand up job but calling the App Store the iTunes App Store is not something that I'd expect to see on such a popular site.

Same applies to capitalising the second word in iPod touch and iPod nano etc.
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"inaccurate in the how"? A run-on sentence in the second paragraph? Informal sentence structure in the third paragraph? Come on, these sorts of grammatical mistakes are not something that I'd expect to see in someone who obviously cares deeply about details.
 
lofight said:
How is iPod touch, iPod nano and iTunes App Store wrong?
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He is complaining that the official name is "iPod touch" yet those stubborn editors at MacRumors insist on calling it the "iPod Touch". That capital letter makes a big difference, you know! Lack of journalistic integrity, or some such.
 
notjustjay said:
"inaccurate in the how"? A run-on sentence in the second paragraph? Informal sentence structure in the third paragraph? Come on, these sorts of grammatical mistakes are not something that I'd expect to see in someone who obviously cares deeply about details.
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Valid points, but fails to address the issue at hand.
 
Come on, I mean is it really that serious to write iPod Touch instead of iPod touch? Oh and by the way, iTunes App Store = App Store, while iTunes App Store may not be the formal name, it does not make it inaccurate.
 
One reason that stories aren't as thoroughly edited as stories at a traditional news organization is that MacRumors tries to post news as soon as possible after it's known. Most site visitors are more interested in knowing the breaking news and the rumors of what's coming quickly, rather than how it's capitalized.

It's also a small staff, so the editing/review that big-team sites can do often has to wait until after a story is published, or be bypassed entirely.

Personally, I'm always in favor of perfection, and regularly nitpick grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, but I know that perfection can't necessarily be provided at Internet speed.
 
Doctor Q said:
One reason that stories aren't as thoroughly edited as stories at a traditional news organization is that MacRumors tries to post news as soon as possible after it's known. Most site visitors are more interested in knowing the breaking news and the rumors of what's coming quickly, rather than how it's capitalized.

It's also a small staff, so the editing/review that big-team sites can do often has to wait until after a story is published, or be bypassed entirely.

Personally, I'm always in favor of perfection, and regularly nitpick grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling, but I know that perfection can't necessarily be provided at Internet speed.
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Nail on the head. I would much rather hear about the event a few minutes early than have it 100% grammatically correct. It's a small price.
 
Slip said:
Nail on the head. I would much rather hear about the event a few minutes early than have it 100% grammatically correct. It's a small price.
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It's a balance. We do try to be factually accurate and sometimes that may delay a story even to the point where we may no longer get a "scoop." But we'd rather that than look like asshats an hour or day later.

Meanwhile, grammar is like Q said. We do our best while trying to get things out in a time-sensitive fashion.
 
Why not send a note if you notice something amiss?
Submit a "correction" and see if it gets applied

Woof, Woof – Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
MacDawg said:
Why not send a note if you notice something amiss?
Submit a "correction" and see if it gets applied

Woof, Woof – Dawg
pawprint.gif
Click to expand...

That works for regular readers but the people who only check once per day would only see the incorrect story and probably never see the update. Better to be accurate the first time around IMHO.
 
MacDawg said:
Why not send a note if you notice something amiss?
Submit a "correction" and see if it gets applied
Click to expand...

Which, as often as not, it doesn't. No criticism of the people who are in charge of this intended, but very often we're talking about quite obvious grammatical errors. I've turned in quite a few of them over the years, representing only a small fraction of the flaws I've seen. Of those, probably no more than half are fixed.
 
Are the complaints really that bad or does nobody really notice. If it is not hurting the experience of the site I don't think it is a big deal. It is not like every word is misspelled.
 
If nobody cares about grammar, then I suppose the errors really aren't "that bad." I recognize that hardly anyone cares about trifling issues such as grammar and spelling any longer, so perhaps we're just talking about humoring the few of us who still do. I hope not, but maybe this truly is the case.
 
IJ Reilly said:
If nobody cares about grammar, then I suppose the errors really aren't "that bad." I recognize that hardly anyone cares about trifling issues such as grammar and spelling any longer, so perhaps we're just talking about humoring the few of us who still do. I hope not, but maybe this truly is the case.
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We do certainly care about grammar and spelling in our articles, but as has been mentioned, we try to balance getting the information up quickly rather than putting our articles through a real editing and review process before posting.

I know that there are several admins/editors (myself included) who try to read over published stories and correct errors we spot at that time. We also do make every effort to fix mistakes reported to us by other members...I'm not sure why some of your reports have fallen through the cracks, but we'll certainly endeavor to make a concerted effort to make sure that doesn't continue to happen.
 
WildCowboy said:
We do certainly care about grammar and spelling in our articles, but as has been mentioned, we try to balance getting the information up quickly rather than putting our articles through a real editing and review process before posting.

I know that there are several admins/editors (myself included) who try to read over published stories and correct errors we spot at that time. We also do make every effort to fix mistakes reported to us by other members...I'm not sure why some of your reports have fallen through the cracks, but we'll certainly endeavor to make a concerted effort to make sure that doesn't continue to happen.
Click to expand...

I understand the need for a certain amount of post-hoc editing, but the point I am making is that in my experience, half or more of the error reports are not acted upon. This does leave the impression that the comments are not needed or are perhaps unwelcome.
 
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