So are u going to ban me if I use “u” instead of you ?
I’m not a moderator. Also, this is a polite forum, so I will end this conversation here.
Sorry if u felt insulted or offended, I just asked a question.
Well, I can sense that I am not welcomed in this Board not due to ethnicity, sex, age, religious beliefs, veteran staus, political preferences or culture, but simply because I say “u” instead of “you” and “ur” instead of “your”.
Cheif, you might consider the more formal use of spelling and grammar here as being invited to a black tie party by a close friend. What does showing up in jeans show about how much you value that friendship?
We do have different forums here, though. Informal word use in Great Debates or General Questions will cause your points to be dismissed, usually, even if they are valid points. The forum protocols demand a consistant use of rules for spelling and grammar. Mistakes can be overlooked, attitude isn’t.
The less formal settings, like Cafe Society & MPSIMS allow for much more leeway. It would still be a good idea to use mostly good form.
The Pit is a strange animal. Individual threads determine their own rules of use.
You do seem able to express yourself well. Stick around. Look around. Post your thoughts and have coversations. The #1 rule here is, Don’t be a jerk.
Enjoy ;j
Ok Ok if you people insit on it, I will say “you”. But don’t blame me if I unconsciously typed “u” once or twice., I am so used to it.
Nobody is going to blame you for slipping up, but you will get a gold star for volunteering to change. 
Welcome to the board MasterChief.
Ice Wolf, hitting Preview may or may not work when the hamsters are feeling a bit punkish, but it doesn’t submit the post. I’m not sure what you’re saying a preview would have accomplished in the situation where the board hangs when you submit a post .
Can someone explain me who or what are the Hamsters ?
Actually, that exact thing happened to me yesterday. I posted, got a “cannot find server” screen, hit “back” and everything I had typed (quite a lengthy post, mind you) was gone (and not posted). That isn’t usually the case, but it does happen.
It’s a running joke. The servers that run the boards are so slow, and presumably so out-dated, that the Dopers have taken to imagining that they’re powered by hamsters running on wheels. When the server has a hiccough or does something quirky or unexpected, you might see someone comment that
“The hamsters ate my post.”
“Looks the the hampster fell off his wheel.”
Out-numbered, maybe.
The hamsters.
Well, way back in the beginning, the board ran on a coal-fired server. That was kludgy (and a bit smokey), but it worked for the nascent community of Dopers.
But the board grew in popularity, and staggered along through fits and stalls. There were outages, one lasting months. As a.) the board is provided pro bono by the Reader, b.) coal costs money and c.) the board’s growing popularity threatened to suffocate it, it became necessary to upgrade the server.
Alternatives were investigated. Squirrels were investigated for motive power, but many here detest the little tree rats. Finally, Jerry the Tech-God harnessed a dedicated crew of ham§sters[sub]©[/sub] to our upgraded server. Little did we know how much we’d tax the little buggers. Try as they might, sometimes those itty-bitty legs just can’t keep up with the digital flood.
Definitely hampsters. We take care here to only recruit those hampsters with extensive dance experience, since the cardiovascular workout prepares them as well as can be for the strains of running the server.
No, I know that Preview doesn’t submit the post (if it did, it would then be called “submit” – :)). But it allows you to see what posts are in the thread if you scroll below the posting area. Unless a combination of the browser and the hamsters have snaffled your text away – you’d be able to see if your post had gone through.
OK, I’m with you now. But it really won’t alter the outcome if the post is in a 20 minute “hang” and hasn’t shown up yet when I preview.
You’re a hard man to please, Ringo. 
It’s another option, is all. It doesn’t sort out every conceivable possiblility when it comes to the hamster having a snack of your opus. I just find it better than trusting the view of another open window onto the thread, is all.
As has been suggested, copy to your clipboard, WordPad, NotePad, whatever. If things start looking like the traffic’s building, that’s a wise move.
Short of that – dust off that hamster icon, and start offering tokens of obedience to it, I guess.
I didn’t mean to sound snarky Ice Wolf - thanks for the suggestion; I may find myself using it.
Nah, mate, no snarkiness seen at all. I was just giving you a bit of gentle ribbing with the “hard man to please” bit. Good discussion!