Does grammar affect credibility in your eyes?

Em...I never said that you said that people should or should not consider certain factors important. That wasn't what I was trying to say, at least.

I don't recall seeing too many people stating that one or two errors would be a cause for avoiding someone's products, but okay.

Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with it. This is a forum, after all. If they are not selling any products of their own, or if their sales letters completely lack the grammar and spelling mistakes found in their general forum posts, I don't see any conflict in their arguments. I certainly don't see why it should render their arguments to be invalid, at any rate. Most people seem to agree that excessive errors is a cause for concern, and honestly I don't see what it matters that the presentation of these complaints have "less than perfect" spelling and grammar themselves.

A couple of posters are obviously being lazy. But some are making an honest effort. Like me. I dislike grammar and spelling mistakes, yet my own posts often contain mistakes of their own. Should I keep my mouth shut then, since I am incapable of producing content that is 100% error free?

It seems to me that you're holding these people to an unreasonable standard. They are not trying to sell anything in their posts, they're just stating an opinion.

I agree. One should not be insulting towards others when pointing out faults, but stating that it is "unprofessional" for a person to not have a high level of standards for the quality of their English is hardly what I'd call an insult. More of a opinion.

If someone was selling an English dictionary, and they had one or two errors in their copy, suppose someone pointed out those errors, and stated that it was unprofessional? Yet, in their review, they have one or two errors of their own. It's not that they were being lazy, they just made an honest mistake. And, unlike the seller, they did not have the option of getting a proofreader to go over their content (you can hardly expect someone to even proofread a product review, can you?).

There are different levels of acceptable standards, in my opinion, in different mediums. Since a sales letter is meant to persuade people, we tend to hold a higher level of standard for them. We expect people to put plenty of time and effort into them. Not so with forum posts criticizing them.

So why are you expecting the critics in this medium to adhere to the same standards of an entirely different medium? Doing so would require people to spend hours on their posts, and maybe even going as far to hire a proofreader. That's just plain silly.

I disagree. I don't think that's what people are saying. If a sales letter has plenty of grammatical errors that could have easily been fixed if the seller had simply ran their copy through a spell checker, then that is a fair indication that they could have been equally lazy with the creation of their product. And this doesn't just pertain to grammar errors within the product itself (which in and of itself can detract from the consumer's experience), but also the research (or lack thereof) put into the product too.

Effort matters. If a lack of it is found in a highly important piece of content (the sales letter), does that mean the seller doesn't even care about the product?

One or two errors is understandable. I find errors in your own ebooks and sales copy, Paul. That's not because you're incompetent or didn't try, it just happens. I understand that.

And most of the people who posted in this thread feel the same way. They're not talking about one or two errors, but lots of obvious errors.

I agree.