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  • Maybe an automated OOC nudge?

Capitalization and punctuation on SIC
Maybe an automated OOC nudge?

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Would it be possible to automatically capitalize the first letter and add a period after SICs? I don't think I'm the only person who gets irked by this, but people don't seem to understand the IC nudges that happen and there's no way to remind people OOCly via SIC.

Maybe this is best solved with some kind of automated OOC nudge? (This way might be better so that people aren't having their thoughts modified if there is some edge case that might be hard to cover with an automated solution.)

`[OOC: Your most recent SIC didn't contain any punctuation. Please use appropriate grammar and syntax for speech.]`

`[OOC: Your most recent SIC didn't contain any capitalized letters. Please use appropriate grammar and syntax for speech.]`



EDIT: Damnit I typoed the title.

(Edited by ikunaut at 5:15 pm on 12/15/2025)


Edit by Slither: No sweat, I got you.

(Edited by Slither at 8:27 am on 12/16/2025)

By ikunaut at Dec 15, 2025, 5:13 PM | 2
I think many people who don't properly capitalize things are screenreader users, being able to toggle automatic fixing might be better than constant reminders.
By zxq at Dec 15, 2025, 5:15 PM | 11
I don't really see a need for this. Sometimes people make mistakes. I for one have a keyboard with a finicky left shift, Has it really been that bad? I play a decent amount and haven't really noticed it.
By Rillem at Dec 15, 2025, 5:17 PM | 0
It's weird that this game doesn't do it for you. It's something I've seen implemented in literally every other game I play
By Eve at Dec 15, 2025, 5:17 PM | 0
Yeah I don't want to make life harder for anyone. It just makes it harder to read for me and I see other people try to point it out IC to no effect. I have even seen a couple staff shouts about it lately.

If it can be solved automagically then maybe that is the best option.

By ikunaut at Dec 15, 2025, 5:23 PM | 0
I think if the staff has to use OOC shouts to remind people it's probably a worth while code change. Some of those OOC shouts look like combat and give me minor heart attacks.
By NightHollow at Dec 15, 2025, 5:26 PM | 2
I don't really like the idea of forcing it for several reasons:

1. Parsing text is time consuming and the MOO is single threaded.

It's easy to say 'capitalize the first letter' and 'add a period at the end'. But what does that actually mean? When do we add a period at the end? What if it should be an ! instead? Or a ? instead? Would we only do it if there is no punctuation at the end of a string of text? It would require multiple checks. And while those checks are happening, nothing else is happening (even if it only takes a few micro seconds).

2. What if you intended it? Stylistic? In the moment?

cm I think I'm being followed, and the motherfucker looks like they are about to shoo

Just an example, but I find it might reduce the ability to creatively express yourself. We aren't harping on this as staff to get in the way of creativity, we're harping on it to reduce the immersion breaking aspect of someone rarely capitalizing the start of a sentence, or rarely adding punctuation.

Why? Because we all read a lot and when we see something that our eyes don't expect it can be immersion breaking.

At the same time, seeing something you don't expect can be immersion increasing if done right. I've seen people do really need things with the SIC. I don't know if I want to enforce conformity as the default.

3. SIC is a good canary in the coal mine

We don't -need- to enforce this. And it isn't just the SIC. The SIC is the canary. We see people doing it there and we can assume it is happening elsewhere. Getting a reminder about the SIC can push people to do better elsewhere.

Historically, I'm a terrible speller and grammarian (that's a word right?), but in my 20+ years on Sindome I've got better at spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, etc, both by seeing -others- do it correct, and having people give me constructive corrections at opportune times.

By Slither at Dec 16, 2025, 8:37 AM | 5
I find it kind of a bummer that SIC requires it. It's expressive, lower case vibes, and so forth are a means of expression. This is a text medium, even if SIC is mean to be thought that should make it more expressive not less, even without the screenreader concern.

If we do want it as a rule, just pass it through the simplest measures automatically:
string[0]=uppercase(string[0])
if string[string.length]!=!,?,. then string.append('.')

I can't think of any case where this would cause the sic to look worse, and would painlessly help enforce standards while not alienating folks using a screenreader with something meaningless to their experience, as far as I can tell a sentence without a capital at the start, and without a period at the end parses identically to a screen reader.

If we're trying to use it to enforce a better standard of writing, I think there's better ways.

By Pladdicus at Dec 16, 2025, 8:43 AM | 1
Thanks for the detailed response, Slither.

The last point is actually why I was thinking about an automated nudge. It allows doing it intentionally but would help people keep it in mind. The rules for that could quickly become complex though so yeah, maybe it just isn't a practical feature.

Because SIC is so widespread it potentially affects the immersion of everyone in the game. But not everything can, or should, be fixed with automation.

I have loads of SIC pet peeves (like saying merely "!?" or "…" or "Guh.") so I am probably just more sensitive to this than others.

By ikunaut at Dec 16, 2025, 10:33 AM | 0
As a user of a screen reader, I'd like to give my opinion.

I don't know how much a capital letter makes a difference in reading for someone who can see the letters. The only time it really makes a difference to me is when everything is in capital letters. WHEN EVERYTHING IS LIKE THAT, YOU CAN BE SURE SOMEONE IS SHOUTING! But if it's not that, letters are letters to me. Punctuation helps a lot in knowing the person's feelings if it's a question mark, comma, exclamation mark, and sometimes the famous star. The period also helps a lot, to know if someone is pondering something or not, but at the end of a sentence.

It's really easy for me to forget to capitalize, even after warnings, since it just goes through my mind and disappears, because of habits I have of always just typing and hoping the message will be perfect for someone who can see.

I don't know how messages are processed in SIC by Moo, but if it's considered a channel, I don't know if it would be too difficult to capitalize only the first part of the sentence and add a period at the end.

By kalenna at Dec 19, 2025, 1:11 PM | 1
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