[Rant] Do editing/proofreading errors drive you mad, too?

[jaerdaph]

Honestly, minor spelling and grammar errors don't bother me as long as I can still get the gist of what is being said relative to the context and the mistake doesn't hinder or prevent game play. I'm a player, not a book collector.

Blatant rules errors like sloppy stat blocks or mistakes that show a lack of knowledge of the rules fundamentals really irk me though.

 

[kenobi65]

Do editing/proofreading errors drive you mad, too?

Like putting the wrong topic tag on a messageboard thread?

 

[jaerdaph]

Like putting the wrong topic tag on a messageboard thread?

I was hoping this was actually going to be the theme of this year's GenCon.

 

[Wraith Form]

Do editing/proofreading errors drive you mad, too?

Yes, it makes me mad.

I refuse to buy Mongoose products due to this issue. Even after they claimed to hire more proofreaders and editors, their books were rife with weird grammar, sentence structure, mis-spellings, etc. So I washed my hands of them.

Now WotC is starting to slack off. John Cooper should be well paid for his "unofficial monster stat errata".

 

[James Jacobs]

Editig/proofing errors absolutely drive me mad. Especially when I catch them in an issue of Dungeon.

 

[Dagger75]

I found the rogue/rouge error in Warhammer novel.

It doesn't bother me cause I don't write very good But if I do catch them I know other people have.

 

[Piratecat]

Editig/proofing errors absolutely drive me mad. Especially when I catch them in an issue of Dungeon.

Good thing you're a professional editigor!

 

[Ourph]

I have a suspicion it's a combination of the growing illiteracy in North America and over reliance on word processors to do all the heavy lifting.

I would LOVE to see some of these companies do one run-through with spell-check. Just one. That single step would eliminate 30-40% of the errors. Including a grammar-check would eliminate another 30-40%. Many won't even make that minor concession toward quality control.

 

[The Human Target]

God, it bothers me to no end in gaming books or any other print media.

I really love Steven Erikson's Malazan, Book of the Fallen series, but it seems like the editor for the book went "eh, thats pretty long" and didn't even bother to fix glaring errors.

Flavor mistakes in gaming books are bad but easy enough to fix. Rules errors can cause game confusion and the need for pages of Errata shoved into the back of my book that really makes me question the money I spent on it.

I also hate hard to read fonts and poor layouts. And when art doesn't come close to matching the description. Or when captions are out of place.

And publishers too lazy to add in a table of contents and index.

My kingdom for sound editing.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

It's not as easy as it looks. Even with a Spell and grammer checker the computer doesnt catch everything and it takes along time. These companies, dont have the cash to do all the fixing you expect. I'd imagine the 30 price tag is just enough to keep them going. If you want error free books i'd imagine your going to pay for towards 45 bucks, and Im willing to pay less for more errors. I, just like WOTC dont have the cash for more error free books.