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[bcantaire]

Do you require your students to pay attention to grammar and spelling when submitting their discussion posts?
I have had professors that do, but most do not.
Why or why not?

[mended_drum]

Sigh.  Yes, to some extent.  That is, understandable sentence fragments (like the first two in this post) or short comma splices are fine.  But writing in all lowercase letters, using textspeak, or committing egregious spelling errors (like the wrong "their") are not.  And the evil comma, which is oh-so-difficult, I let slide, but correct apostrophe use is required.

I even warn them against the trends that I hate ("thru," for example, or "cliché" used as an adjective) with a specific list.

Why?  Because I'm old and crotchety, and horrific written English makes my eyes bleed.  And that's exactly what I tell my students. 

[patchouli]

I agree with mended_drum.  Those are almost my rules exactly.  I also add no "ad hominems" on anyone.

[bcantaire]

I wish my professors would be a little more strict. I think the posts sometimes take on a conversational tone (much like on here), and that is fine, but I think it lowers the quality of the class when students are allowed to post things without even using spell-check. I almost submitted a post, this term, asking my classmates to remember that we are in college, and the spell check function is useful (and free). My husband talked me out of it, however. He is not as socially inept as I apparently am. ;D haha

[mended_drum]

I wish my professors would be a little more strict. I think the posts sometimes take on a conversational tone (much like on here), and that is fine, but I think it lowers the quality of the class when students are allowed to post things without even using spell-check. I almost submitted a post, this term, asking my classmates to remember that we are in college, and the spell check function is useful (and free). My husband talked me out of it, however. He is not as socially inept as I apparently am. ;D haha

Thank your husband, and make your suggestion in a course evaluation. 

[bcantaire]

lol ;)
Ok, I will do that.

[patchouli]

When students have corrected other students' grammar or spelling online, a couple of things usually happen.  Often students get embarrassed and "clean up" their writing, but there is sometimes some subtle anger at the student who corrected the problem. 

The anger part doesn't seem to happen in a real classroom (at least I don't read it or sense it), but is seems that without the attached body language, criticism seems to be taken more harshly.

You might write a quick private note (prefaced with nice comments first), to your instructor if you think he/she is the kind that wouldn't mind and would appreciate it. 

[lucys]

I do have some rules for discussion boards, but maybe not as many as I should. I do not allow text message symbols or abbreviations or messages typed in all caps. I do ask that messages be presented in a professional manner because I teach a technical writing course, but often I get posts with poor spelling or grammar. Commenting on it seems to help for a few weeks, but then e-mails go downhill again.