What are you're thoughts on people using chatspeak or L337 on the Dakka Forums , I'm fine with stuff like LOL or ROFL but sometimes its just stupid. When people constantly use numbers and don't even try to write out their words can be annoying and difficult to understand. What do you think?
blood reaper wrote:What are you're thoughts on people using chatspeak on the Dakka Forums , I'm fine with stuff like LOL or ROFL but sometimes its just stupid. When people constantly use numbers and don't even try to write out their words can be annoying and difficult to understaand. What do you think?
First of all, you are refering to both Chtspk and L337, two totally different animals.
/nitpick
Anyway, I would say I find it annoying, but only if done constantly. If someone posts a well thought out post and the puts either of those two at the end, it's all good.
Bu7 1f 7h3 3n7ir3 pos7 is 1337 sp34k, 7h47'5 wh3r3 I h4v3 a prob13m.....
If 90% of the population gets what you're saying, who cares. The point of communication is just that. If you don't like how they post for any reason, block them.
Not on dakka. This is too refined of a forum; it will automatically make you look like a fool. If that is the norm on other forums, so be it. But I know the reason I chose dakka was for the polite atmosphere and the attempts at being coherent.
I wish the poll has a middle ground. The forums aren't a novel, and as such I don't mind a little bit of grammatical error here and there. I'm more concerned with what they're saying, not how they say it. So if someone can't get their point across, then yes, I have a problem with it.
micahaphone wrote:Not on dakka. This is too refined of a forum; it will automatically make you look like a fool. If that is the norm on other forums, so be it. But I know the reason I chose dakka was for the polite atmosphere and the attempts at being coherent.
This. Typing what you're saying takes effort, reading it takes effort. Communicating your ideas should be worth that effort.
I have a major problem when someone is incapable of typing correctly. It's really not that difficult. Utilizing internet shorthand usually makes things worse.
The only exception I make to this is when English is not the user's first language. It is fairly easy to tell when this is the case (even without the flag that represents their country of origin). In this situation, grammatical and spelling errors are not the product of laziness or apathy.
I am able to pay due respect to people attempting to read my posts; others should be able to do the same. Even if my sentences usually sprawl past common boundaries (mostly due to my thought process), they are still perfectly within the confines of the English language. If someone cannot take the minimal amount of time required to spell and punctuate their thoughts properly, I immediately look down upon them as disrespectful and unworthy of my time.
Hm, the poll might have needed a few "shades of grey" options.
I, for example, avoid 1337-speak like the plague. And while I´m quite fond of some chat abbreviations like asap, afaik, imo and so on you´d very rarely, if ever, catch me using stuff like lol, rofl and so on.
blood reaper wrote:What are you're thoughts on people using chatspeak or L337 on the Dakka Forums , I'm fine with stuff like LOL or ROFL but sometimes its just stupid. When people constantly use numbers and don't even try to write out their words can be annoying and difficult to understand. What do you think?
They are second against the wall when the WeinerTime comes.
chat, leet, and textspeak all rise from areas where either extreme brevity is valued, or the obscurity inherent is actually favored. Neither is the case on Dakka, so neither is appropriate for most posts.
I'm not going to mind a few choice bits, but we have full keyboards and no real time limit on our posts. I say use them.
I'll admit that there is a distinct lack of apostrophes in many of my posts, mainly due to being so used to texting (and a certain inherent laziness), and i cant help myself when it comes to using lol, lmao, or rofl sometimes. Otherwise its proper spelling, punctuation and grammar all the way. I dont understand anything else and im sure that other Dakka users feel the same (especially users for whom English isnt their first language).
As long as you are able to communicate your thoughts coherently, use what ever form you want, just understand that not everyone will take the effort to read what you wrote. This stands also for walls of poorly formatted text and rambling posts full of typos and poor construction.
One of the reasons I just couldn't take games like WOW anymore was the chat & 1337 crap. It was funny for about 3 minutes in 2002, now it's just a way to prove how stupid you are.
I tolerate and use chat-speak in the following 2 situations:
When I am sending a text message from a cellphone (because I am too cheap to pay for 2 messages just to spell the words properly)
I am playing online and you only have 1 line of text to write in
Otherwise, web-forums should not use them at all (except where it has replaced a 'smilie' for conveying an emotional response e.g LOL, pwned, etc) as there is no need to abbreviate. Dakka is and should remain a place of good spelling and grammar!
Chrysaor686 wrote:I have a major problem when someone is incapable of typing correctly. It's really not that difficult. Utilizing internet shorthand usually makes things worse.
The only exception I make to this is when English is not the user's first language. It is fairly easy to tell when this is the case (even without the flag that represents their country of origin). In this situation, grammatical and spelling errors are not the product of laziness or apathy.
I am able to pay due respect to people attempting to read my posts; others should be able to do the same. Even if my sentences usually sprawl past common boundaries (mostly due to my thought process), they are still perfectly within the confines of the English language. If someone cannot take the minimal amount of time required to spell and punctuate their thoughts properly, I immediately look down upon them as disrespectful and unworthy of my time.
You said it perfectly. I always go through my posts to make sure to fix any spelling mistakes, or anything that isn't clear. I don't always catch everything, but I try. My primary problem is run-on sentences, which is a product of too much enthusiasm and caffeine. I also use Codexes instead any of the fancier terms that certain people insist on, and in that case really don't care what anybody else says about it. That's the exception, though. And I really hate it when people spell Waaagh! wrong. It's not Waaugh or Waargh. And the W must always be capitalized. Otherwise, I'm pretty easygoing.
(See, I caught a spelling error in there somewhere and fixed it.)
Necros wrote:Another thing that bugs me for some reason is when someone quotes a reply, and then just puts "this" under it...
This.
Sorry Necros, couldnt help myself.
Writing "This" underneath a post, whilst generally unhelpful, does go some way to provide a consensus of people's ideas/thoughts/responses etc.
Most of the time though, I find that "This" posts have an explanation attached.
I try. No but seriously, it does help to show agreement with a comment IMO, so long as there is some sort of well thought out and properly typed response/explanation along with it
dont mind bits like "lol" and other abbrevs, as lets face it what harm does it do.
but I dislike the random and often pointless numbers and idiotic demeaning phrases.
conversely I also intensely dislike the pedantic pseudo-intellectual grammar patrol. They are easily as bad as the other extreme who type like a baby mashing a keyboard.
Necros wrote:Another thing that bugs me for some reason is when someone quotes a reply, and then just puts "this" under it...
This.
Sorry Necros, couldnt help myself.
Writing "This" underneath a post, whilst generally unhelpful, does go some way to provide a consensus of people's ideas/thoughts/responses etc.
Most of the time though, I find that "This" posts have an explanation attached.
I do that occasionally, when I agree with what somebody is saying but don't especially feel the need to add anything. Sometimes, somebody else simply says it perfectly.
Revenent Reiko wrote:@Darko, i know dude see my edit
Your ninja skills are strong.
But as the DGN, I must point out your incorrect spelling of the word "I" and the repeated lack of full stops in your sentences.
Why thank you kind sir.
Damn you DGN! (Dakka Grammar Nazi right ) i am too used to texting and therefore apologise profusely for the lack of correct punctuation. However, 'I' is spelt correctly, i just havent used the correct grammatical case
This is also an amazing read on how to ask questions of knowledgeable people online and get them to respond to you in the manner you'd prefer. I feel its somehow appropriate.
Revenent Reiko wrote:@Darko, i know dude see my edit
Your ninja skills are strong.
But as the DGN, I must point out your incorrect spelling of the word "I" and the repeated lack of full stops in your sentences.
Why thank you kind sir. Damn you DGN! (Dakka Grammar Nazi right ) i am too used to texting and therefore apologise profusely for the lack of correct punctuation. However, 'I' is spelt correctly, i just havent used the correct grammatical case
All my texting is done properly. But it costs me more money. *shrug* I stand by my principles.
Revenent Reiko wrote:@Darko, i know dude see my edit
Your ninja skills are strong.
But as the DGN, I must point out your incorrect spelling of the word "I" and the repeated lack of full stops in your sentences.
Why thank you kind sir.
Damn you DGN! (Dakka Grammar Nazi right ) i am too used to texting and therefore apologise profusely for the lack of correct punctuation. However, 'I' is spelt correctly, i just havent used the correct grammatical case
All my texting is done properly. But it costs me more money. *shrug* I stand by my principles.
haha unlimited texts FTW! (kind of, it has had serious detrimental consequences for my typing apparently :()
Thats a really interesting read daedalus, Thanks!
Not on Forums, although I have seen people post things on the internet with horrendous spelling. The point of chatspeak or whatever should be to abbreviate a short message, not make yourself look stupid.
Meh,if I can understand the idea that is being conveyed in the forums then I've no problem,I've bigger things to concern myself with than picking at peoples spelling...
As for L337 and Txt ,I'd rather not have to try to decipher it in the forums,but really don't care enough to rage about it.
Hate it. For the sake of speed (I guess? How much time does it save?) people render their posts unintelligible. Most forums are international too, show some respect to people who are not communicating in their first language. What does L337 mean anyway? feth me.
Howard A Treesong wrote:Hate it. For the sake of speed (I guess? How much time does it save?) people render their posts unintelligible. Most forums are international too, show some respect to people who are not communicating in their first language. What does L337 mean anyway? feth me.
L337 means 'leet' as in 'elite', though the social degenerates who use such terrible grammar and shorthand abbreviations are anything but elite.
Leet stopped being clever about the time everyone realized that all of the letters you need to type actual words are just underneath your fingertips. 80085 on a calculator, with a posher calculator. We all did it at school, its not all that clever. Text speak is a ball-ache in texts. There's no real reason for it in this particular manner of communication.
Back in the days of 300/1200 and 2400, it was a necessary part of chat boards. You had to type quickly to get your point across.
On a message board, where you can edit and spell-check, and take your time posting, it's no so important and mainly practised by those with a lack of patience or the years to learn it.
I don't even use txtspk in texts unless doing conversations of irony humor amongst my friends. If I can't take the time to articulate what I'm typing with proper grammar and (mostly, unless I honestly typo or blank on the spelling) correct spelling, it's not worth sending. No reason to assault someone's eyes.
That said, I'll occasionally indulge in 1337 speak if I'm in a quirky mood or I know it annoys someone. However, it's still generally grammatically correct and spelled correctly(unless it's an "acceptable" leet misspelling) as much as possible.
L33t speak weren't created for forums, and it is dying so fast so i do not see it kinda anywhere. But chatspeak is okay, if not overloaded in message, for me.
Unlike texts, where space is limited (although I strive to maintain good grammar and spelling when I text), a forum does not usually force you to say what you want to in a handful of characters. If you're in a rush, then it's somewhat understandable, but other than that it just makes you come across as lazy and it ruins the cleanliness of the forum.
When you're reading a thread and suddenly find a post that is 99.9% "L0L!!11 Z0MFG ur3 r1t3!!!111 R0tf1!!!!!!!!!!1", it really doesn't make you want to read any further.
I don't hate what facebook is and all that social media stuff, but I hate the company itself and their "Whatevah, I do what I want!" philosophy.
Like just last week... we have to have the "like" button on all of our web pages, but their awesome programmers decided to change the back end code for how it works, and then not tell anyone.. so I spent a whole 2 days trying to get their crappy code working again, while our pages had big red error messages on em the whole time. And then there's the face that their documentation is vague probably on purpose. it was a nightmare for me who's a designer, not a coder.
And then there's my girlfriend who's a software company's contracts lawyer, and she's got all kinds of horror stories about working with their legal dept, saying they've got the meanest and most self righteous lawyers she's ever had to work with. I bet they'd put GW's IP Inquisitors to shame.
When I see people constantly talking in chatspeak, or not even bothering to use a capital letter for the beginning of thier sentence in a thread I am a part of, I feel a little insulted, in a way.
Now of course I know they may not be an idiot, or somebody with less grammarical capability, but it comes across that they are incapable of typing properly, and that they are a total idiot.
I seriously don't think it should be allowed. I look on Dakka as a haven for people who like reading proper, grammatically correct posts, and I find people like that ruining it for me.
The purpose of communication is to be understood. It is on the speaker (here, the poster) to speak (post) in a manner that clearly gets your point across. To do less is lazy and shows you really have no concern that people understand you, but rather you just want to be heard and attention be given to you.
I have no problem with typos, they are honest mistakes. Though a little patience in typing and reading your post before submitting it should really take care of most of that.
Typing in a lazy fashion basically says "I have no care for you the reader".
Pretty much anyone that posts in a forum using chat or L337 gets ignored by me. If you have something worthwhile to post, post it in a way that doesn't insult your audience.
But yes, this is exactly why I can't stand it. I would go crazy if someone wrote all their posts in 1337. Using it occasionally as a joke? Fair enough. But please oh please don't treat this board like 4chan.
But yes, this is exactly why I can't stand it. I would go crazy if someone wrote all their posts in 1337. Using it occasionally as a joke? Fair enough. But please oh please don't treat this board like 4chan.
Writing a post in the style of the first line of the quote would take far longer than learning how to spell or feeding some ducks or something else that's as equally majorly beneficial to the British society.
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Jkjkjk, looool, I don't care if people use it
I figured someone would post in it in response to my post and you pretty much proved my point. You had no care that people would understand you, just wanted the attention.
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Jkjkjk, looool, I don't care if people use it
I figured someone would post in it in response to my post and you pretty much proved my point. You had no care that people would understand you, just wanted the attention.
Cracked.com sums my feelings up on this subject perfectly.
#5. Don't Look Like an Idiot When Communicating Via Text
Kids, never forget that anything you type on the internet can wind up etched in granite for the rest of eternity, for all to see. One impulsive post on Facebook can get screengrabbed and saved and passed around until long after you're in your grave. Keep this in mind when you are posting anything online, anywhere.
If later in life an employer decides to Google your name to find some free background on you, he or she has access to every little slowed thing you ever posted on Facebook or Twitter. It's not like having a conversation in Meatworld, where everybody will forget what you said by next month, or remember that you were drunk when you said it. Once it's in text, on the internet, every last word is there to read by anyone on the planet with a computer. There are even websites that archive web pages that have long since been deleted from their hosting servers years ago.
I've already broken my own rule here by cursing so much, and using the word "slowed" above. Uh, don't do that.
But curse words aside, learn your own goddamn language. Once upon a time you could get away with not knowing the difference between "their" and "they're" because in spoken conversation they sound the same. Online, everybody can see that you weren't paying attention in fourth grade when you mix up "your" and "you're."
Remember that text is going to be how you make your first impression over the internet; if every third word you type is misspelled, people will automatically assume that you're a moron. Even if the public school system fails you, there are browsers that come with spellcheck built-in. Me, I used Microsoft Word to type this article, simply because it checks my spelling as I type.
Also, keep texting shortcuts confined to your cell phone. Everybody understands when you use "2" instead of "too" because you were typing with your thumbs on a number pad. But you cannot let that habit sneak into your work or school emails or even message boards. And there's no reason for it, you have all the time in the world to construct and proofread your message. If you are so pressed for time that you can't spend the extra quarter of a second to type out the full word, you need to get up right away and finish your responsibilities. Don't even worry about closing the window - that would take almost a full second.
It matters. Once you type it, it's there forever.
Oh, and if you use "lol" in every sentence you type (and I've seen people who use it multiple times, ie, "lol I like dolphins because they're cute lol") I'm picturing you as this cackling moron. If you're really laughing out loud that much you need to be on some kind of medication.
I should state that, while I voted "its not good" I only believe that relative to Dakka. In a context where its understood, there is nothing wrong with it. I see it as being similar to speaking English in Japan, or Spanish in the US, as though everyone will understand you. There's nothing wrong with communicating in a certain way insofar as people can be reasonably expected to understand.
Melissia wrote:Chatspeak and 1337speak are not for intelligent people.
>implying using it as a joke makes you stupid,
>implying that you're superior to those who use 1337 and chatspeak
Nope.avi
I also say that about gangsta-speak too, and if you connect education with intelligence, that one's certifiably true.
Hearing "an I axe you a question" makes me want to punch someone in the face. YMMV.
I would love to see what would happen if you were my age, shared a similar mentality and learned what "experts" (as of Jan 2010) thought of 'Teenage Speak' and how it worked..
blood reaper wrote:What are you're thoughts on people using chatspeak or L337 on the Dakka Forums , I'm fine with stuff like LOL or ROFL but sometimes its just stupid. When people constantly use numbers and don't even try to write out their words can be annoying and difficult to understand. What do you think?
They are second against the wall when the WeinerTime comes.
blood reaper wrote:What are you're thoughts on people using chatspeak or L337 on the Dakka Forums , I'm fine with stuff like LOL or ROFL but sometimes its just stupid. When people constantly use numbers and don't even try to write out their words can be annoying and difficult to understand. What do you think?
They are second against the wall when the WeinerTime comes.
I, however, take issue with you typing like that on the forum and expecting us to be able to understand it perfectly. Is it really so hard to type in proper English?
I would argue that both sides of the coin become equally annoying .
No one really want's to wade through a post filled with "1337" speak..and on the flipside,soap boxing about how "very well educated you are ..as opposed to the unwashed masses" comes across like a load of jackasserys.
Just my two cents.
FITZZ wrote: I would argue that both sides of the coin become equally annoying .
No one really want's to wade through a post filled with "1337" speak..and on the flipside,soap boxing about how "very well educated you are ..as opposed to the unwashed masses" comes across like a load of jackasserys.
Just my two cents.
So have good grammar, but don't use it as a point of vanity. That's the best course of action.
see my edit
) i am too used to texting and therefore apologise profusely for the lack of correct punctuation. However, 'I' is spelt correctly, i just havent used the correct grammatical case 
But it costs me more money. 
