Article Mistake corrections

rpm

rpm

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Can you please post all mistakes – grammatical or factual – you find in our news articles here? It will be great if you can post:

  • Article Link
  • Mistake description & paragraph number

We would also like to minimize discussions in this thread to make it easier to fix mistakes and track new posts, so please ONLY post article mistakes here (hence no follow on comments).
 
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Grammatical error:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/5391.html
First paragraph - third line

MINISTER of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri's last-minute decision to appeal the positive Altech ruling means regulator Icasa has again been forced to put its value added network service (Vans) licensing process on hold. That came in the same week some Vans were due to take possession of their shiny new licences - entitling them to build their own networks - following Icasa's decision not to appeal the ruling.
Click to expand...

A common error made by some journalists involves the changing of tense midway through a sentence. Although this example is midway through a paragraph, the sentence in question refers to the previous sentence which is written in the present tense. The third line refers to the previous sentence in the past tense. This is a little anal and somewhat borderline I will admit, but is in my humble opinion, grammatically incorrect. I might be wrong though...:o
 
Grammatical error:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Internet/5385.html
Paragraph 2

Last week Ispa launched its first hall of shame report that lists the top five South Africa spammers.
Click to expand...

This should read "South African spammers" as the article implies these are local spammers and not necessarily about all spam received within South African borders. If not, then the article in its entirety is ambiguous...
 
Grammatical error:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/5380.html
Paragraph 1

The competitive wireless broadband space has seen many players battling it out for market share, forcing prices down and encouraging higher download and upload speed.
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In my opinion the word speed should be used in its plural form as it relates to both upload and download.
 
Grammatical error:

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/5380.html
2nd last paragraph

The latest deal comes from iBurst where the wireless broadband provider is throwing in four-months’ free HSDPA 3.6 access – priced at R49 per month – free of charge with every HSDPA contract.
Click to expand...

Hyphen abuse. Although as far as I know, there are no universally accepted rules regarding when a hyphen is and isn't appropriate, it isn't required nor appropriate within the context of this sentence...
 
Hi DJK

Thanks for the feedback. Corrected the spammer problem - the rest mostly come from syndicated sources and I would be hesitant to change it except with a blunt error. It will be good to focus mainly on articles written by MyBroadband, unless there is an obvious error in a syndicated article.
 
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/5387.html
South African broadband operator iBurst is hoping to add to the recent national accolade count after being named a Finalist in the 2008 World Communication Awards to be held at the London Hilton on Wednesday, 26 November 2008.
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Should be "its"? And what is its "recent accolade count"?
 
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Factual error in http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/5372.html in the first paragraph of the article:

"The inherent value-add in the wireless local area networking and communication standard, 802.11n, continues to attract the interest of business and is taking root in the market at a much faster rate than what was initially projected."

From wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n:
- "IEEE 802.11n is a proposed amendment to the IEEE 802.11-2007 wireless networking standard to significantly improve network throughput over previous standards, such as 802.11b and 802.11g.." - my emphasis
- "802.11n is expected to be finalized in November 2009,[2] although many "Draft N" products are already available."

At "paragraph" 4 (how can one sentence be a paragraph?!):
"For example, in the case of a 54mb product, one can really get close to running at 54mb on a 802.11n router or access point, specifically because of the way this solution works from a technical point of view." ...exactly as I predicted: milli-bit?! Yet he gets it right in the next paragraph with 300Mbps: basically, the article needs (technical) consistency.
 
Biostar TF8200 A2+ review article at http://mybroadband.co.za/techreviews/Hardware/105.html needs cleaning up:

Para.1 (1st non-Italics): "NVIDIA 8200-powered motherboards are not new to the local market, but very few are of the calibre the Biostar TF8200 A2+ is. More often than not, the 8200 chipset powers microATX motherboards, which are perfect for HTPCs and office use. \" That / at the end there has to go.

Para.3: "The number of performance-boosting options in the BIOS and in the included software is surprisingly comprehensive for this type of motherboard, especially at this price. The board not only sports= LEDs that light up to show you any errors during boot-up, but it also has a power and reset button on the motherboard for DIY specialists." Similarly, that = shouldn't be there.
 
OKI C5950 review at http://mybroadband.co.za/techreviews/Hardware/106.html errata:

Para.2, last sentence reads: "And this is before you take into account the more generic administrative jobs involved in the daytoday running of a company." - obvious missing spaces between the words.

Para.3, first sentence: "Due to the specialised nature of our line of work, we need particularly highfidelity reproduction of digital material." - same again there.
 
Hi bdt

Thanks for the great feedback - both articles corrected!
 
"Cobol far from dead" article at http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Software/5410.html errata:

Para.8, last sentence reads "Furthermore, 25% of Cobol applications around the world are being extended and applications written in Cobol account for five% of all new applications being written." - that 5 as a word breaks with the percentages in the rest of the article being expressed numerically.
 
"Engaging with Web 2.0" article at http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Internet/5321.html errata:

Para.5 reads "Right Now - the internet is an immediate media, so actively try and make sure there are the least number of barriers to providing community members with what they need when they need it." - has two errors:
- "an immediate media" should be ~ medium.
- for "try and make" he should be made to sit in the dunce corner: that should be "try to make"!
 
"Digital TV faces problems" article at http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/5395.html errata:

The second-last para. reads "The company said it would still manage to ensure that the technology reached 80percent of South Africa by the time the World Cup kicks off." - that should be "80%", yes?

The last para., first sentence reads "But critics expressed less faith in the signal distributors." - that should be singular: distributor.
 
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