The modern internet world is a bit of a double-edged sword (and actually, while we're talking about language, I need to say that I've always disliked that idiom. "A double-edged sword," which has the meaning of something that has both benefits and costs in light of a sword that can cut your enemy with one side of the blade but cuts you yourself with the other... clearly, early idiom writers were horrible, horrible fencers... idiots). On one hand, online exposure is leading to a higher dependency on the keyboard and faster/better typing (in theory); on the other hand, it's also leading to shorthands and other lazy habits that often crop up in other, less informal writing.
So, like any skill that goes unpracticed, basic writing mechanics drop out of a lot of people's working skill sets. And even if they can remember learning these tricks and rules at some point in life, it just means it's that much harder to put them into practice. So you get lazy "your/you're" mistakes, initial letters that don't get uppercased, "rouge" instead of "rogue", and other problems far beyond those. They're bad habits, and even if your like-aged friends don't care and you don't care, one day you're going to be in a situation where someone is going to care and you're not going to be able to perform.
That said, I've always had a few friends with these sorts of problems. In some cases English was a second language and in others it was simply just not a particular academic strength. My best friend - came to Canada from Korea in the mid-90s - is a Software Engineer, graduated from the University of Waterloo and everything. He currently works for Microsoft in Washington State now... and I got to proofread and edit his cover letter. Same thing with my cousin who now works at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Now my cousin was a straight-A student, excelled in school, gifted in music, has an assertive business-oriented personality... and she still double-checked with me whenever she had to write a letter to different executives from her previous years.
It's not a question of "are you smart enough?" and it never has been. Anyone can pretty much learn how to do anything; it's just a question of how much time it takes to teach. So hey, while in the process of learning why not get some help from someone who already has that particular bit of learning covered?
So now we come back to The Writers' Bloc.
We're all members of this site. Some of us are a little younger, some of us are a little older... some of us are a lot older... but we're all still just members. No one's paying us to help others; no one's grading the written works done here. We all want to give a little help to anyone who asks for it; I'm sure we're even up for a little help as well with other bits that are perhaps not our particular specialties.
If the list at the top of the introductory page is any indication, we have a lot of people free to give a hand to anyone who would like it. It's my hope that in the coming months, we can work them all to the bone (and I mean that in the kindest, nicest way possible). So if you have a fanfic in the works but feel you could use a second pair of eyes to look over it, there they are! Have an essay that feels a little on the bland side? We've got people for that too! I know we have a lot of potential writers out there who just need to clean up their writing a little more before the Fan Words are overflowing with quality content - all we need is for these writers to be willing to come out and ask for help.
Finally, I want to make a point that we didn't call it "The Beta-Readers Guild" or anything like that because this World is more than just a hiring post for beta-reader henchmen. This is a place for all writers to discuss their methods, ask for help, and learn a little more about a craft that we love.
So here we have it: The Writers' Bloc of theOtaku.com.
And yes, the apotrophe after the "s" means it's plural. 'Cause there's more than one of us.
-SomeGuy (Content Writer, theOtaku.com; Editor, Fan Words)
