Proposer

Proposer: @Henrik 🤖

Proposer’s role:

Co-founder and Ex-Board Member of Kiez Burn e.V., technical advisor and evocator of the Robot 🤖 Ministry. Newsletter Reader.

The advice process

Information gathered before posting

Exclamation marks counted in newsletter from March 6th: 25
Number of words in newsletter from March 6th: 714 (including imprint)
Word to exclamation mark ratio: 28.58 w/!

(see attachment "Newsletter 2020-03-06.txt" for original source)

People/roles most affected by this proposal

• Communicorns: @waldo @Alina, also known as Milda! and whoever else is writing the newsletter

• Everybody who reads the newsletter

People/roles with the most knowledge and experience relevant to this proposal:

• author (not sure, since author of newsletter wasn't stated): maybe @waldo and/or @Alina, also known as Milda!

The proposal

Background

There are too many exclamation marks in the most recent newsletter (from march 6th titled "Almost spring dear Kiez Burners! Let's co-create 2020!"). The overuse of exclamation marks is generally frowned upon (sources: [1] [2] [3]) and testifies to a bad style of writing.

Why not use exclamation points? Because exclamation points are the ball-peen hammers of the writing world. Wielded at just the right moment in a story, they can be brutally effective. But overuse them–or use them incorrectly–and the reader is likely to walk away from your book with a headache.
(source: see [2])

I claim that only by reducing the number of exclamation marks the quality of the newsletter could be improved.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170301-what-overusing-exclamation-marks-says-about-you
[2] https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/exclamation-points/
[3] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/05/laugh-own/

The proposal

Increase the words to exclamation mark ratio to at least 100 w/! (words per exclamation mark) by reducing the amount of exclamation marks being used.

How would the proposal be implemented

When checking the final version of the newsletter, hit ctrl+f (or cmd+f) and search for "!" – count the words and calculate the w/! ratio by dividing the number of words by the number of exclamation marks. If less than 100, reduce the exclamation mark. repeat.

Exception: If exclamation marks are used for artistic purposes those should be taken out of account.

Who would implement this proposal

Future authors of Kiez Burn newsletters.

When would this proposal be implemented

With the next newsletter (at the time of this post scheduled at march 18th).

What would be the cost (time, money, effort, etc.) of this proposal

No cost. Minimal effort. Effective output.

What are the advantages of this proposal (relative to the current situation and/or counter-proposals)

It makes the newletter less "loud" and more "serious" in the sense that it sounds less like an instagram post of a pubescent teenager (no insult to newsletter authors or pubescent teenagers intended)

What are the disadvantages of this proposal (relative to the current situation and/or counter-proposals)

Authors would potentially need to come up with a creative solution on how to be more expressive about their emotion on the text they're writing. Also readers might not realize the importance of a piece of writing if it's not indicated by an exclamation mark.