Should the mods ban excessive use of spelling shortcuts?

[newbie]

No offence to the younger/hipper/sms generation, but I have great difficulty following posts that use excessive spelling shortcuts, such as

gr8 = great
b4 = before

I vote that the mods ban excessive use of these, similar to rule against all caps usage. Am I the only one?

[Fazal]

Y not? 1 thing 4 sure, Im not 1 of them hu lyks dis. becaz dis is hud to understand. go 4 it beby, chng da rul 4 every1 frm 2day.

[Spitfire_x86]

I vote for yes.

[Rubu]

me2.

[RazabQ]

As myself - yes.
As moderator: do we risk becoming old fuddy-duddies by our refusal to git wit da plystn gen?

[reinausagi]

Languague is always evolving. Net-speak will eventually find it's way into the Oxford dictionary. We should embrace it- or it will leave us behind in the dust, like so many 9" Macintosh SEs in my in-law's garage....

[akabir77]

Yes we should ban them...

[allrounder]

i say no. y dont you all try to learn the new way of short messaging? you can learn something from them right?

[newbie]

I think it is ok to do it on chats and on sms, but when I see a 5 paragraph post using these, I can't make the effort to read it carefully.

Edited on, August 24, 2005, 12:56 AM GMT, by newbie.

[Zunaid]

Originally posted by reinausagi
Languague is always evolving. Net-speak will eventually find it's way into the Oxford dictionary. We should embrace it- or it will leave us behind in the dust, like so many 9" Macintosh SEs in my in-law's garage....

Have you thoguht of selling them on ebay?

[Fazal]

Originally posted by reinausagi
Languague is always evolving. Net-speak will eventually find it's way into the Oxford dictionary. We should embrace it- or it will leave us behind in the dust, like so many 9" Macintosh SEs in my in-law's garage....

U R D man

[mwrkhan]

ne1 not using da kween's english shud b banned drawn & quarterd.

[guy_zin]

in my humble opinion, you shouldn't have that much difficulties to follow the spelling shortcuts.

As a NEWBIE yourself you know these jargons are there for expressing someone's feelings/actions in a shorter & innovative way .

here I am quoting from a online jargon dictionary(net-lingo) the defination of NEWBIE..i think, its quite relevant to your earlier request to the mods regarding banning those( look, you yourself used/shortcutted the word MODs instead of Moderators in your opening post..and if you look around BC pages you'll notice the presense of 'U2U' instead of 'you to you'..so there are too many of these to escape from .)

now . please,read the defination of NEWBIE specially the last sentence.

newbie
Someone who is new to the Internet or new to computers in general. "Newbie" is sort of a derogatory term, but hey, it doesn't have to be :^) Everybody on the Internet was a newbie once, yet many netizens tend to forget this. So, newbies are often picked on. The best way for a newbie to avoid being flamed, for instance, is to be sensitive to the informal rules and etiquette of the Net

if we need requesting a ban of words/languages ..how about this one:

Originally posted by be_friend_13
its not da point dat if i m 4rm da neighbourin country den i m gonna criticize others!!
dude no had feelings against u but u must understand dat its simply worse 2 keep on repeatin da same thin dat ash is young n desperate n so i gave n instance of irfan!
howeva being rude dude wont help u out!

Edited on, August 24, 2005, 2:22 PM GMT, by guy_zin.
Reason: added some comments of a friend!

[ejaj_a]

When we write something in the forum we should try to write in proper spelling as it shows respect to others. It's not bad to use short cut spelling but we should only use them for private chat / sms or their own personal friends and family. When we are writing in public domain it's nice to use spelling the way most people would like to see it. Couple of weeks ago there were reports in London Metro Newspaper suggested that most of the employee feel irritating when their colleague use short spelling in their internal email. They have found this report by conducting interviews with thousands of employee working different companies in the city.

[Mahmood]

Originally posted by Fazal

U R D man

Dude! She is a woman.


even if its hard to understand these shortcuts, we can not ignore or ban them. So my suggestion, learn them, ask the poster what it means.

realistically, if the mods have to look for spelling and filter out shortcuts, we will need 50 mods per forum, unless our moderators have nothing else to do, no job, no life.

[chinaman]

Well the key word is "excessive". While one or two "truncated or shortcut words" in a sentence is palatable, predominent use is less appalling. It also makes the message light.

What we all can do, whether mod or member, is to discourage anyone who makes excessive use of these so-called truncated or shortcut words.

[newbie]

Thanks chinaman... indeed my suggestion was with regard to "excessive" use of shortcuts. The post cited by guy_zin is a prime example. Maybe we should just follow chinaman's suggestion and try to discourage such excessive usage. I will also try to brush up on the hip lingo.:cool2:

Edited on, August 24, 2005, 5:50 PM GMT, by newbie.

[Fazal]

Originally posted by Mahmood

Dude! She is a woman.

Ops! U R D Oman

[allrounder]

When you say 'you are the man' doesnt necessarily mean that person needs to be a man, does it? In this case the action or the message was bold/brave/manly that is way the praise 'you are the man'. If it is a female who was bold/brave she can definitely be praised as 'u r da man'.

While saying 'u r da woman' would mean that the person is soft hearted and caring.

So to Fazal I say, go ahead and 'B a man' and say to reinausagi that 'u r da man'.

Originally posted by Fazal

Ops! U R D Oman

[Tigers_eye]

It's always hard to teach old dog new tricks. I personally, try not to waste my time reading messages with paragraph full of short cut words. One liners are alright. Can't adapt the new aged, hippie jargons. Especially like had = hard???

[AsifTheManRahman]

well if it's excessive to the point that it is not understandable even by people who are used to it, then it should definitely be condemned. however, it isn't fair to to edit anything just because some people refuse to learn new things.

what should definitely be banned, imo, are posts that don't make sense at all. it is usually very evident from those particular posts that the author is struggling, in vain, to cope with the demands of typing in a foreign language. given that members on this board are allowed to choose between two languages, this should not be the case. a major concern is that it hampers the quality of discussion, and, moreover, is frustrating when the meaning is hard to decipher.

[Spitfire_x86]

1 h8 l33t sp34k

All l33t speakers are moron