It's been itching my nose for some time, but after reading
this, I feel like screaming. Here's the original Tech Description for you:
The HellBat is a pirate varient of the Great War era Ulysses. Ulysses fighters were stripped of their shields, weapons, engines and many other tactical systems and were sold to the highest bidder under the Post Cappella Economic Reclaimation Act. Many of theese ships fell into pirate hands where they were heavily modified. Their innards were gutted to make room for a quad Gatling System. Much larger engines were added as well as lateral thrusters, greatly improving speed and handeling. Diamondfiber composit armor and makeshift shields complete the package, making the HellBat the biggest threat next to the Shivans. To quote the GTVA pilot that first spotted one 'It was like a bat out of hell, no pun intended', and the name stuck.
(And it's still not clear whether it's Hellbat or HellBat.)
If we were to correct all the mistakes that are in it, we would end up with this (corrections highlighted):
The HellBat is a pirate variant of the Great War-era Ulysses. Ulysses fighters were stripped of their shields, weapons, engines and many other tactical systems and were sold to the highest bidder under the Post-Capella Economic Reclamation Act. Many of these ships fell into pirate hands where they were heavily modified. Their innards were gutted to make room for a quad Gatling System. Much larger engines were added as well as lateral thrusters, greatly improving speed and handling. Diamondfiber composit armor and makeshift shields complete the package, making the HellBat the biggest threat next to the Shivans. To quote the GTVA pilot that first spotted one: 'It was like a bat out of hell, no pun intended', and the name stuck.
However, since this is a quote from someone else's work - specifically, the table file -, we just cannot modify it. It would also be inconsistent with the Tech Descp with which it was released. The standard way of handling quotes that have spelling and typological mistakes in them is the [
sic] way:
The HellBat is a pirate varient [sic] of the Great War era [sic] Ulysses. Ulysses fighters were stripped of their shields, weapons, engines and many other tactical systems and were sold to the highest bidder under the Post Cappella Economic Reclaimation Act [sic]. Many of theese [sic] ships fell into pirate hands where they were heavily modified. Their innards were gutted to make room for a quad Gatling System. Much larger engines were added as well as lateral thrusters, greatly improving speed and handeling [sic]. Diamondfiber composit armor and makeshift shields complete the package, making the HellBat the biggest threat next to the Shivans. To quote the GTVA pilot that first spotted one 'It was like a bat out of hell, no pun intended', and the name stuck.
(Note that not only spelling mistakes were sic'ed here; absences of punctuation marks were not).
This is the method I encourage people to follow. This is the way it is done in journalism and academic writing to mark mistakes in quotes. Yes, it basically suggests "It is not me that cannot spell, but the one that I quote," but it's an excellent tool to leave someone's work intact while calling the reader's attention to the fact that is not something the editors can touch. Using such notations makes our Wiki look a bit more professional.
I would like to sort out a deal with you, as some of our Tech Descriptions have some sort of spelling mistakes in them, and it should be clear to all readers if it is the man that wrote the TD that cannot spell, or collectively all editors who happened to access that page.
