Don’t Act Like You Know Everything
You don’t. Nobody does. It bothers me to no end when I read a review where somebody suggests something utterly incorrect. And then I just feel sorry for the poor website owner who didn’t know any better and took the reviewer’s crappy advice! Sharing bad information can only lead to more bad situations and ideas, so if at all possible, just don’t do it.
On (X)HTML and CSS
Unless it’s your job to deal with coding, you’re probably not an expert – and it’s okay to admit that! Everyone is at different ability levels, and you may or may not be able to offer another site owner good advice on how to code better. If you do plan on telling someone how to code, make sure you know exactly how and why they should do it. If you don’t understand why valid coding would be a good idea, don’t go on a tirade about their site having 53 errors. Lecturing someone about something you don’t understand is stupid. If you really want to tell someone about a certain aspect about HTML or CSS, then simply direct them to someone who really knows what’s going on.
On grammar and spelling
It has become clear to me that most people don’t know much about proper grammar or spelling, yet they still choose to “correct” people on their websites. Unfortunately, sometimes people give very bad advice in this area, too. They tell others they should spell a word incorrectly or add commas where they don’t belong. It’s a problem, because other innocent souls might pick up on the same bad advice, leading to an epidemic of people who believe they know the rules when they actually don’t. For instance, I believe that most people spell “definitely” as “definately” because they see so many other people make this error.
If you are going to review others’ grammar, first make sure you know what regional version of English they are using (American or British English, for example). Don’t go off telling your friend from England to spell “colour” as “color” or “favourite” as “favorite.” Spelling and grammatical rules vary in different countries that use the same language. Look up the rules before correcting someone else if you’re not absolutely sure (or even if you are). Check to make sure there aren’t alternate spellings of words before you go off yelling, “You’re wrong!” (No, “definately” is not an acceptable way to spell “definitely.” I can’t emphasize this enough.)
And yes, I know that my subjects and pronouns don’t agree 90% of the time in these articles.
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