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pyesetzI've been making a few edits at Wikipedia (under my *ahem* other name). I searched for articles containing a word that's rarely misspelled (only a few dozen wrong hits), then edited every such article to correct the spelling. By several metrics⁽¹⁻²⁾ this is the most useless geeky time-waster I've ever been involved with, easily beating my Table of disgusting images in a history book. Correcting typos in Wikipedia is unlike removing water from a pond using an eyedropper during a rainstorm in that it feels like you're actually getting somewhere. Plus there's the feeling of belonging to the Typo Team, a very small community of like-minded geekazoid grammar Nazis.¹Ratio of "feeling of accomplishment" to actual work accomplished.
²Ratio of time expended to fraction of work completed.
It's so easy! No research—you don't have to understand what each article is actually talking about—just look for a misspelled word. The only moderately-difficult part is that, after looking at the same misspelled word over and over again in different articles, the bad spelling starts to look right, so you have to keep firmly in mind which is the wrong spelling and which is the correction! I can easily spend an hour at Wikipedia without sparing even a moment's thought for what I *should* be working on, which is... um... oh yeah. Now I remember. Shit — maybe I should go fix some more typos now.
I've decided not to try to fix the 788 occurrences of the phrase “OF IT'S” (a few of which are actually not wrong). Even my gluttony for punishment has its limit!
²Ratio of time expended to fraction of work completed.
It's so easy! No research—you don't have to understand what each article is actually talking about—just look for a misspelled word. The only moderately-difficult part is that, after looking at the same misspelled word over and over again in different articles, the bad spelling starts to look right, so you have to keep firmly in mind which is the wrong spelling and which is the correction! I can easily spend an hour at Wikipedia without sparing even a moment's thought for what I *should* be working on, which is... um... oh yeah. Now I remember. Shit — maybe I should go fix some more typos now.
I've decided not to try to fix the 788 occurrences of the phrase “OF IT'S” (a few of which are actually not wrong). Even my gluttony for punishment has its limit!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 09:59 am (UTC)At the start of It's a Wonderful Life some money is stolen from a bank."
where you can't change the IT'S because it is the name of a movie.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-05 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 02:07 am (UTC)And in honor of speelchuckers, this timeless ditty by an unknown net.poet.
Eye have a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques for my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight for it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me write a weigh.
As soon as a miss steak is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong!
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased to no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer told me sew.
Wikipedia knows all!
Date: 2005-11-06 08:55 am (UTC)