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Discussion in 'Forum Feedback' started by Pecheur, Jun 9, 2004.

  1. Pecheur

    Pecheur Regular Member

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    r w3 or shud we continue 2 fight aganest da use of n3tsp3ak on this forum? da incr3aes of n3tspeak usaeg iz almost ienvitabl3 gievn da changng demographic of usars much liek da use of marican anglish ;p and ive notiecd a r3duction in ppl complaneng about it! teh question iz r us old tiemrs adaptng or shud der b an at3mpt 2 curb it? y m i so ups3t by this? b/c readng da post by cocoa_buter on teh malaysian open thraad gaev me a h3adache!

    issit important 2 u oso? mayb we cud haev a pol on teh subject ;P

    Or maybe the kids could provide translations into English for what they write?

    Are we, or should we continue to fight against the use of netspeak on this forum? The increase of netspeak usage is almost inevitable given the changing demographic of users, much like the use of American English ;P and I've noticed a reduction in people complaining about it. The question is, are us old timers adapting, or should there be an attempt to curb it? Why am I so upset by this? Because reading the post by cocoa_butter on the Malaysian Open thread gave me a headache.

    Is this important to you? Maybe we could have a poll on the subject ;P
     
    #1 Pecheur, Jun 9, 2004
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2004
  2. yonexfanatic

    yonexfanatic Regular Member

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    i agree, it is annoying. i am a teen myself, but i don't like to use such "netspeak." from my point of view, it takes too much time to type (unless you're used to it i guess) and it just takes viewers like me and the others a while to figure out what you're talking about.
     
  3. wood_22_chuck

    wood_22_chuck Regular Member

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    Annoying. But there's a balance to be struck, as said posters do contribute entertaining material related to badminton.

    -dave
     
  4. yonexfanatic

    yonexfanatic Regular Member

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    sometimes there's entertaining material.. but sometimes there are useless things said too. these include the excessive 'who's hot and who's not' threads.
     
  5. Neil Nicholls

    Neil Nicholls Regular Member

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    My opinion is that txt speak has it's place, and that is in a write-once/read-once environment like SMS. A forum like this is not one of those places. This is a write-once/read-many environment.
    A post may have hundreds or thousands of views, and all the people reading it have to translate it back into English.
     
  6. wilfredlgf

    wilfredlgf Regular Member

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    I'd give the thumbs up to go against netspeak here. Just reading Pecheur's version of netspeak is enough to make my head spin.

    I think BF has a social obligation to help push for proper usage of English ie understandable English as the audience is worldwide. Netspeak will do nothing but save that little time that would go to waste anyway while promoting decay of language.

    This, however, does not include the lack of mastery in the language as this is very subjective depending on demography and background. As mentioned before, perfect English not required, understandable English compulsary.
    Netspeak is hardly understandable, even to so-called modern yuppies like me.

    Even in chats I don't use netspeak : I type full.
    But then again, it could be because I type fast enough...:cool:
    Also, chatting by typing full helps improve my typing skills.
     
  7. Brave_Turtle

    Brave_Turtle Regular Member

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    Yeah but how can we go against it? Ban people who use it?
     
  8. bigredlemon

    bigredlemon Regular Member

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    yes.

    press shift every 3 seconds while keeping a few fingers on the numberpad isn't exactly easy to do. there's no reason to allow it. I can understand if there's they're trying to few short-forms to save time, but acting "cute" shouldn't be allowed if it means making a thread less useful to its visitors. A lot of people have a hard enough time with english as it is, trying to make them guess what l33t tytpRs mean is just rude
     
  9. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    i tend to agree with everybody here. however, what would be the appropriate action to control it?

    the mods usually send a reminder telling them to write in proper (better?) english. many times it works. but sometimes it is not as effective as we can see.

    banning the user is too harsh.

    deleting the post is a possibility, perhaps after warnings.

    may be a automatic netspeak->english converter? that kinda defeat the purpose though.

    i am supposed to be writing a set of forum rules. but been bugged by tons of work load lately. i will try to get one draft out by the end of the week.
     
  10. viver

    viver Regular Member

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    Would say, delete the post if that not too much work for the moderators. It would make the life of many readers easier.
     
  11. wilfredlgf

    wilfredlgf Regular Member

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    A reminder will be all right, I'd say. If you do have time though, which I doubt you do, maybe you could go and correct the entire text if it's short. But then again if it's the entire thing, well, might as well ask the user to refrain from netspeak in the future and delete with recurring 'offence'.

    But this is sticky business we have here - some may get offended no matter how good your intention is as they may think that it's an insult to their level of English.

    How about weighing the actions taken based on the importance of the thread? If we're dicussing Indonesia's downfall in men's doubles events, then we can be more rigid. If it's about introduction or "I love <insert name>" threads, maybe it should be all right since it'll be mostly "cute, handsome, hot, pretty" kind of inputs anyway.

    By the way, what does 'l33t' mean?
     
  12. Pecheur

    Pecheur Regular Member

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    ur uber l33t!!!1!!!111!! ;)

    im uber n00bxxrs!!!111!!! ;)

    ur -> u're -> You are
    l33t -> leet -> elite
    n00bxxrs -> noob suxors -> newbie that sucks -> beginner that sucks
    uber -> German for super (probably the best translation for this context).
     
  13. ynexfan2003

    ynexfan2003 Regular Member

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    "Netspeak" is a deeply worrying linguistic phenomenon, not only because it encourages a lazy form of English, but also because its vocabulary is so limited that those constructing sentences in "Netspeak" become accustomed to expressing themselves in a way which is both imprecise and which, inevitably, has a limited range of meaning.

    I'm glad to learn that others are similarly concerned (although we might soon be in an age where its prevalence is inescapable), and I encourage the moderators to take whatever measures they can to mitigate its use here in the forum.
     
  14. BoboTheBadder

    BoboTheBadder Regular Member

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    It derives from "elite." It used to be a language made up by hackers so that only hackers can understand but somehow it made its way to mainstream netspeak. I think it's pretty troublesome to read and it gives me a headache, even though I've had plenty of experience with that kind of stuff with the gaming community and all.
     
  15. bluejeff

    bluejeff Regular Member

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    lol, that's too much of bad English :(

    I think, as long as the person's thread is "readable", I am OK with it.

    Definition of "readable":
    1. Less than 20% of mis-spelled words
    2. Less than 50% of errors in grammars
    3. Minimal slang if possible.
    4. No "codes" (example: like above, the "l33t".)
    5. Space between words; Appropriate punctuations.
     
  16. Pecheur

    Pecheur Regular Member

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    How do you define 50% of errors in grammar? I can count eight errors in that post between spelling and grammar.

    I think no codes is also too harsh, where do we draw the line? Is "lol" acceptable, or "btw" or "roflmao" or even "ok"?
     
  17. bluejeff

    bluejeff Regular Member

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    Well, I was saying, if you see post with lots of errors in grammar, you will not be able to tell what the original poster is talking about. Especially, if errors are in time indications, it would be even harder sometimes. (ie: present/past/future)

    Codes are like general people don't know and don't use in daily life.
    lol, btw, roflmao, ok are used in daily life, even on TV, so I assume that many people knows them already. "l33t" is not. Come on, I think you know what I mean.
     
  18. Pecheur

    Pecheur Regular Member

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    Really? I'm willing to bet a lot of people here don't know what roflmao really means. The problem with imposing rules is, where does one draw the line, there's no point specifying something that you can't evaluate.
     
  19. wilfredlgf

    wilfredlgf Regular Member

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    'rolfmao' is understood as 'roll on the floor laughing' but I can't make out the 'mao' part. I still think such sentence can be represented a simple ':D', don't you think so?

    'Asap', 'rsvp', 'sos' are well understood but they too are abbreviations and are widely accepted. The only difference is that these abbreviations are formal and had been used for centuries in everyday transactions.

    The internet had only seen major revolution of the past two decades, so I doubt it is acceptable worldwide yet, else you'd see Microsoft memos written in netspeak.
     
  20. wood_22_chuck

    wood_22_chuck Regular Member

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    rolling on the floor, laughing my a*$ off.

    -dave
     

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