I’ve never understood this idea that people can’t resist clicking to see who it is that why’re ignoring. I can, just fine. “Oh, that’s one of the idjits that bothers me. Thanks, Discourse!”
I’ve never felt the least need to click on an “ignored” post.
As for the acronyms you’re using, I don’t know what they mean, so I don’t understand your post.
If the purpose of a message board is to communicate, including lots of acronyms reduces your value as a poster.
ETA: all of that was addressed to “Acronym poster guy”.
I’m firmly in the Esplain Yo’ Bad Se’f camp, but if a thread started out “Question for firefly-class pilots”, then I’d expect a lot of aeronautic lingo, and wouldn’t begrudge them their acronyms. As soon as I saw:
“AMRAAM was used at BVR range”
I’d say to myself “WHY did I open this?”
Then I’d either close it, or spend a quick six months educating myself… and then close it.
The whole discussion was pretty technical because dogfighting in the modern era is technical. It’s silly to complain about acronyms in those discussions because even if they get spelled out, it’s not really going to help you that much.
This certainly applies to specialty-oriented forums like a airline pilots forum e.g. IMO, it does not apply to a general-purpose forum like the Dope.
I wouldn’t ask what ABCDEFG or any other jargon means on a pilots forum. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to just drop that into a SDMB thread without explanation.
It has never been important to me that the actual words of an acronym be explained, just that posters use understandable terms. It doesn’t tell you anything if the words represented by the initials are just as unknown so who cares?
I could write about reading a WFM while editing. You don’t know what that is. OK, I could tell you it means “Waveform Monitor”. You don’t know what that is either but at least it’s the actual term instead or a jargony code.
This thread pretty much just discusses acronyms and indeed that is a good portion of what I’ve been concerned with. But its not just about acronyms and initialisms; it’s about using any term that most Dopers can’t be expected to be familiar with.
Who is the arbiter? Not me. It’s the author, ideally, but he/she must consider the reader’s needs in order to “arbite” effectively.
I appreciate this. Actually, I never even really minded you pitting me because I understand why. It’s my fault that I have never been able to really present my issue in a effective way. I think that many, if not most, Dopers would agree with the thrust of my complaint. We have seen evidence of that in this thread.
There’s kinda a split into two things here:
is there something to the issue I’ve raised? (many have agreed)
have I been raising the issue in a negative way? (many have agreed)
Early on I agreed that I have at times been obnoxious about it.
“OK. He admitted it!!!11! Let’s pile on and scream jerk!!!”
Fine. This is the Pit. But by owning up to being jerky SOMETIMES I didn’t mean to open the floodgates to heap insults on me. I prefer Dopers consider the meat of the topic. This is why a Pit thread can sometimes be positive. It can raise awareness, and I don’t mean awareness of my jerkitude.
If you want to do that it’s fine: again, it’s the Pit. But I have hope that as sometimes happens, a Pit thread can lead to constructive changes in Board style if we agree that we want that.
And if other people sometimes want to open a thread on SDMB with a more technical focus where the conversation assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge, you’re welcome to fuck off with your opinion that it’s not appropriate for them to do that.
I can’t speak for anyone else but I never get upset when I encounter an acronym I don’t know.
When I see that someone has posted an acronym or word that they should not reasonably expect their audience to know I might point that out to the writer because it lowers the level of discourse here.
I am NOT the Deciderer, I am reasonably intelligent and experience using this Board. If someone posts some initialism like “IWNEAY” out of the blue it’s a good guess that they had some phrase they were just too lazy to finger-type on their phone so they initialized it (I Will Not Eat Anymore Yams).
One can reasonably assume that this is not some shopworn acronym.
I am very careful to consider that before I have ever posted anything. If anyone doubts that I invite you to observe my oevre.
See, folks don’t understand (and I can’t entirely blame them) I am not some nut yelling at clouds. I haven’t written all this stuff (that I know won’t win me any friends) for shits and giggles. I never had anything personal toward the authors I call out who I barely even noticed.
These things are problems that other posters have said in this thread also bother them. Not everybody wants to be the guy who points out poor form–it ain’t popular to do so.
Don’t condone these behaviors. They lower the level of conversation on this board. They move us slowly but surely toward becoming Yahoo! Questions.
The forums may be general-purpose, but specific threads can be as technical as the active participants like.
Which generally doesn’t include you, since you love dropping these turds into threads you’re not actively participating in, and by your own admission don’t actually care about.
This is tantamount to an admission of trolling, really.
These days, I’m sure the SDMB and the Sun-Times want to be seen as more inclusive, not less. Why be exclusionary? Does the SDMB hope to have threads started that can only be understood by one vocation? By one gender? By one race, one religion?
Of course not. The SDMB should not, IMO, endeavor to become more exclusive by limiting participation in any thread to those that can present the proper shibboleth.
Don’t use jargon to exclude others from your conversations.
The thread in question was in General Questions. That’s the place that we all try to keep the most normal and official-like, right? GQ is certainly not the place for jargon-based grabass.
