Please Avoid Using TXT Shorthand On ATS (UPDATED)

"HERE HERE S.O!! amen to that"

*TRG applauds & jumps up and down!!

I so aggree! This is a discussion board not an IM site. All points should be stated CLEARLY and not in some odd unreadable 'chatspeak'.

Errr. Txt Shorthand?

Maybe your message would be more comprehensible if you actually explain what TXT Shorthands are. Do you mean "Abbreviations"?
I guess so..

But there might be others wo have no clue what "TXT Shorthands" are, and thus there will be no reaction. After all "TXT Shorthands" as a definition seems to fall into the same Meta-Language as LOL,

There simply is no need for text-messaging style typing when you have a computer keyboard right in front of you, in fact using methods such as that only creates bad habits and prevents one from becoming a faster and more accurate typer. I can completely understand abbreviating things when you are constrained to like 160 characters and have to work with an 9 button keypad and no T9 support, but when you have a full qwerty (or dvorak for the truly leet :p) keyboard in front of you its just lazy to continue to dumb down your typing and it reflects poorly upon the poster. I for one completely support this initiative by the ATS staff, thought it might be worth suggesting to slacken the stance on text speak in places such as BTS where the discussion tends to lack in substance when compared to other areas such as PTS and ATS.

Originally posted by osram
After all "TXT Shorthands" as a definition seems to fall into the same Meta-Language as LOL,

I'm just wondering somthing how can it be that this has turned into a 4 page topic I find it freaky people can talk so much about short hand mobile text. Don't get me wrong I am agreeing with SO about it and it should't be ignored just find it strange thats all.

Good move! I find such posts illegible and tend to skip over them.

While you guys are at it can you please also ban the use of the word sheeple?

I just hope ATS doesn't start moderating/suspending members just for using 1337speek. In my opinion, the rambling "anti-periods" members who can post a 500 word post without a single punctuation mark (they also make the entire post one giant paragraph) are far worse. As Are The Ones Who, For Some Odd Reason, Capitalize The First Letter Of Every...Single...Word.

If you are going to eliminate one aspect that makes the site unreadable (in your opinion), then there may as well be a full-fledged "War on Grammar" to bring the site up to scrupulous levels of the scientific community. But then we risk alienating a core part of site membership.

IMO BTW, LOLZ.

[edit on 30-4-2007 by Yarcofin]

Yarcofin,

While I do agree with everything you just said, it is extremely tough to implement or govern any such plan. Some members have a first language other than English. Others are not what you would call, "grammatically inclined". I don't think it is a good idea to punish those who simply don't know better. There is a difference in bad grammar and l33t.

IMO.



[edit on 30-4-2007 by chissler]

Originally posted by Yarcofin
I just hope ATS doesn't start moderating/suspending members just for using 1337speek. In my opinion, the rambling "anti-periods" members who can post a 500 word post without a single punctuation mark (they also make the entire post one giant paragraph) are far worse. As Are The Ones Who, For Some Odd Reason, Capitalize The First Letter Of Every...Single...Word.

If you are going to eliminate one aspect that makes the site unreadable (in your opinion), then there may as well be a full-fledged "War on Grammar" to bring the site up to scrupulous levels of the scientific community. But then we risk alienating a core part of site membership.

IMO BTW, LOLZ.

[edit on 30-4-2007 by Yarcofin]

Well.. there might be other languages where, apart from the beginning of a sentence, "Subjects" or "Names" are written in capital letters.. like German for instance.

You are right. One cannot expect too much from users who can't use english as their main language. We should handle this in a tolerating and still consequent way.

Honestly..

I've been part of writing groups before. I even operated one at one time. The general consensus was that "grammar wars" as you put it were beneficial and necessary when done in a polite and helpful manner.

You have to set the standard for contribution and encourage members to aspire. This isn't a chat site.. we have BTS for that.

Research forums such as 9/11 would benefit the most and continue to attract the kinds of individuals that makes this site great.

[edit on 30/4/07 by SteveR]

txt speak? Sorry, but my bad spelling is just that, bad spelling. Some days worse than others. If any of my posts contain something resembling this thing of which we speak, rest assured that it is merely rotten spelling on my part.

On a lighter note: This is going to cramp the style of several people herein. .

Some people are missing the poimt... Either because of some comfusion... Or on purpose.

When we refer to avoiding "TXT short hand" typical of SMS messaging... we are being specific to shortcuts such as
u
ur
l8r
... And so on that replace words...not the popular online acronyms such as WTF


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Posted Via ATSmobile (BETA v0.3)


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Maybe it was made by purpose. To show you guys that "TXT Shorthand" isn't a very comprehensible definition in itself. At least not without combining the definition with examples.

Rather sounds like coming from a Meta-Language like "rofl, cu, sup etc.".

Separated By A Common Language

I'll be blunt. When I see a post that starts off with something like "ru series?", "orly?" et al, I rarely read it.

I consider such posts to be "write only" and an unnecessary distraction from meaningful discussions.

Let's be honest about it: unless you're Shakespeare or Hemingway, it's probably not worth the time to decrypt this sort of post, and my eyes will usually tend to linger on them only long enough to spot obvious T&C violations before moving on.

Love it or hate it, ATS is a community in which the common language is English.

We recognize and appreciate that for many members English is not a first, second or even third language. Accordingly, perfect English is not required, and I think most members can agree that the ATS staff aren't exactly "grammar Nazis".

However, at the current stage of ATS' development, posts in languages other than English are not permitted, and that includes TXT.

I think it's been made clear enough that little a slang here and there is not the issue (and arguably part of the culture), but if a moderator should contact you regarding language problems, please try to work with us on this.

We're not asking for much.

I guess I understand now...

No offense to the Administrators, but I think this site IS becoming overly "stuffy", or "anal" as another user put it.

First we got punished if our posts were considered "too short".

Then we got punished for putting too many quotes in our messages. I'm sorry, but I like to quote each particular part of a message as I answer it.

Now we're going to get punished for using acronyms?

I used to visit this site on a daily basis, but have been doing so less and less because, IMHO (sorry for the acronym...please don't punish me), it IS becoming "elitist".

The strange thing is is that I am a member of many other boards, some with nearly 500,000 users, and they don't have a problem with over quoting, nor do they have a problem with messages being "too short" or get upset when people use acronyms or SMS "lingo".

If you ask me, it seems that this site is becoming one of the very things that it is against.

Originally posted by elderban
No offense to the Administrators, but I think this site IS becoming overly "stuffy", or "anal" as another user put it.

If you ask me, it seems that this site is becoming one of the very things that it is against.

Tend to agree, that is perhaps the reason for the explosion of posts for this thread. I'm sure that SO had no idea that this thread topic would post so much 'controversy' (maybe hoopla better word for it?)

But in fairness I would not think the mods would be too concerned with the SMS text writing thats going on...

Threads like this thriving like this are caused by there being nothing better to discuss at the time.

Slow news day?

2WIMC,

ther R ppl hEr hu spk eng az a 2nd lngwij. f I dun undRstNd wot U R sAN, how wiL dey?

bsidez, it mAkz U L%k LUG.

......

Honestly, the whole point of posting is so that you can share your thoughts with others. Don't you want people to be able to comprehend your posts?

Originally posted by d1k
Yes there are some absolutely ridiculous situations where you can barely read the post, and I do agree a mod should take care of those posts but setting up warnings and complaints is going too far IMO.

No one said there would be warnings... I said I don't want to have to go there.

I can see people whom have nothing better to do sending in complaints in spite of other users, taking advantage of these new semi-rules simply because they may not agree with the poster.

There are only a handful of people petty enough to provide constant complaint over things such as this. And while there is some minor complaint abuse... generally, it's an important tool that most members use wisely to help moderators manage ATS.

This is an Internet message board

This is ATS. We aspire to higher standards. That aspiration is the reason for our growth. We will not stop.