# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 391
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8191 "2026-09-18T16:30:38Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > As with so many things, it depends. I’m not going to type out a page of stuff for them to probably not read, but I am often willing to provide an explanatory link (which whey will also probably not read). Or if a sentence or two will do the job, I’ll do that. I agree it’s often not worth the effort for a comprehensive explanation. My point is we should put in at least a little effort to explain something, instead of a lazy snark back. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8192 "2026-09-18T16:36:14Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > And yet we’ve had multiple threads about whether or not people should spend the extra few seconds explaining what an acronym means before using it. I’m always surprised when people come right out and say that the reader should go look it up on their own (and IIRC some posters even went further to say that if you don’t know what it means, you shouldn’t be participating in the thread). If a group of us are having a highly technical discussion we are going to use acronyms. Anyone who doesn’t know those acronyms aren’t going to have anything useful to add nor will knowing the acronym help then understand the topic. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8193 "2026-09-18T16:40:00Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Anyone who doesn’t know those acronyms aren’t going to have anything useful to add nor will knowing the acronym help then understand the topic. Not every reader needs to post. This is a general purpose message board whose goal is teach. Gate-keeping does not fulfill that goal. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8194 "2026-09-18T16:40:49Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > There’s a difference between “I don’t know about that topic” and “I don’t care about that topic. And what I said was the former; and I said it to clarify that I wasn’t skipping the poll because I didn’t think Gaza, antisemitism, or free speech are important. If I had thought they weren’t important, I would have just skipped it and not commented. I grant that when I think about it that wasn’t clear. > [@Pleonast](#): > > If someone doesn’t know about something, the correct response is to teach them about it. It’s silly to complain that another poster is too lazy to look up something while we are too lazy to just tell them. To give enough information to properly answer that question you,d have to write a treatise about everything he’s said on the subjects over a period of multiple years. Again, the question wasn’t just about one incident. That treatise would make an interesting thread starter, but the comments thread for the polls thread really isn’t the place for it. Anybody who does have that info, want to start it? I’ll read it. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8195 "2026-09-18T16:42:32Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > To give enough information to properly answer that question False dichotomy. Partial answers are still helpful. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8196 "2026-09-18T16:45:42Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > False dichotomy. Partial answers are still helpful The poll didn’t offer me any partial answer that I thought would be accurate. I went back and double checked. It didn’t offer me any partial answer at all. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8197 "2026-09-18T16:54:26Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Not every reader needs to post. This is a general purpose message board whose goal is teach. Gate-keeping does not fulfill that goal. It’s not gatekeeping. Its efficiency. One of the goals is to teach of course. Teaching someone about a narrow arcane technical topic is best addressed by answering the question. Teaching about a general topic is handled differently ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8198 "2026-09-18T17:00:33Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And what I said was the former; and I said it to clarify that I wasn’t skipping the poll because I didn’t think Gaza, antisemitism, or free speech are important. If I had thought they weren’t important, I would have just skipped it and not commented. I grant that when I think about it that wasn’t clear. In my initial post, I lumped everyone in together in my frustration, which isn’t fair. Apologies for that. Your comment in the thread was fine; I honestly didn’t even think about it when I posted here because you gave an appropriate response. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8199 "2026-09-18T17:04:09Z")
Thanks! There do seem to be some in this thread who think that the only reason to confess ignorance of a subject is to brag about said ignorance. I agree that I’ve occasionally seen it done that way, but that isn’t always what’s going on. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8200 "2026-09-18T17:12:35Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > If a group of us are having a highly technical discussion we are going to use acronyms. Anyone who doesn’t know those acronyms aren’t going to have anything useful to add nor will knowing the acronym help then understand the topic. Exactly. If, for instance, someone is asking how to find the SSID for their router, there is a 100% chance that someone who doesn’t know what “SSID” is has absolutely nothing useful to contribute to that thread. If you don’t even know what is being asked, you don’t have the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8201 "2026-09-18T17:15:25Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > The poll didn’t offer me any partial answer that I thought would be accurate. Agreed, that’s a problem with the poll. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8202 "2026-09-18T17:18:06Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > > [@Pleonast](#): > > > > Not every reader needs to post. This is a general purpose message board whose goal is teach. Gate-keeping does not fulfill that goal. > > It’s not gatekeeping. Its efficiency. One of the goals is to teach of course. Teaching someone about a narrow arcane technical topic is best addressed by answering the question. Teaching about a general topic is handled differently Sure, and a single thread can do both. Telling posters that they can’t ask basic questions is not helpful. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8203 "2026-09-18T17:22:38Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > I’ve done IT support for years, and I could tell stories. “My printer doesn’t print” or “My internet is down” can mean anything from a loose cable, a burning office up to global thermonuclear war. Long ago I used to be the sysadmin and IT support guy for a smallish company. When someone had a computer problem they always just said “my computer’s down”, which could mean any one of these: - My computer does not power on at all. - My computer has the blue screen of death. - My computer is frozen, and I haven’t tried rebooting it. - A program keeps crashing, and I haven’t tried rebooting it. - My computer works fine, but I can’t access the internet. - My computer and internet work fine, but I can’t access our accounting and inventory software system. One time a dept. manager came to me in a panic because he said an important Excel file had disappeared from his hard drive. I asked him what its name was. He didn’t remember. I asked him how he accessed the file. Turns out the only way he knew to get to it was by going to ‘recent files’ in Excel, and some other more recent files had booted it out of the top 5. I opened his ‘Documents’ folder, asked “is it in here?”. He replies “there it is, thanks!”. Desktop IT support is as much detective work as it is hardware and software knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8204 "2026-09-18T17:27:48Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Desktop IT support is as much detective work as it is hardware and software knowledge. Amen. I have been saying this for years. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8205 "2026-09-18T17:28:44Z")
As a person who likes to categorize things, I’m going to say that I can think of three general categories of acronyms/initialisms (A/Is) that might be found on this board: 1. Technical, as in your example, where the subject matter is arcane enough not to be in general knowledge, and are being used in a technical thread. 2. Newer, especially those in cultural rather than technical use. For these cases, good practice is to spell out the meaning the first time, along with the A/I, and then use the A/I by itself going forward. This also applies to newer meanings to A/Is that already had a common meaning. 3. Longstanding, general knowledge, like LOL or WTF. It should be possible to use these without explanation or comment. Even then, however, I recommend patience, because you don’t know the background experience of other posters (eta: or readers, as noted by @LSLGuy below). ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8206 "2026-09-18T17:30:31Z")
Agree. But … There are two very different things happening in every thread. - The participants are conversing w one another. - The audience, who may be 10 or 100x as large as the participants, are learning by reading along. IMO as a very much non-lurker, it’s wrong to converse on an expert-level topic using “Explain it like I’m 5” rules. But it’s useful to remember your audience is mostly lurkers, not the other participants. They deserve some consideration in your posts too. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8207 "2026-09-18T17:34:08Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > To me, the relevant question to poll would have been “Is it OK for billionaires to have veto power over the free speech rights of artists?” and the correct answer is “hell no”. That is not a question at all relevant. The performer has complete freedom of speech; and the owner of the venue is under no obligation to provide the stage and the literal amplifier for the speech. A relevant question might be whether it was _stupid_ for the billionaire to pull the plug on their amplifier. It only amplified the performer’s message, and the performer being a Jew hater was not something previously hidden. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8208 "2026-09-18T17:36:18Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > > [@Joey\_P](#): > > > > And yet we’ve had multiple threads about whether or not people should spend the extra few seconds explaining what an acronym means before using it. I’m always surprised when people come right out and say that the reader should go look it up on their own (and IIRC some posters even went further to say that if you don’t know what it means, you shouldn’t be participating in the thread). > > If a group of us are having a highly technical discussion we are going to use acronyms. Anyone who doesn’t know those acronyms aren’t going to have anything useful to add nor will knowing the acronym help then understand the topic. Very minor disagreement. When it comes to our IMHO-style “How do I fix this”, then yes, I agree - someone is seeking advice or help, so people who don’t know the terminology are extremely unlikely to be helpful. BUT We often have more general discussions that touch on specialist knowledge, and since we have a lot of well read, well experienced specialists on hand, they may respond to a general discussion with jargon and terminology that isn’t immediately understandable. At which point I think it’s helpful to define the terms _once_ (with or without links) and then not do so downthread. I admit to a snarky grumpiness when someone asks for a term to be defined when it was done upthread. Though I’m a weirdo that reads every post in a thread before responding. Again, minor disagreement, or maybe just a slightly different scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8209 "2026-09-18T17:38:33Z")
It is absolutely relevant. Sure, Kraft has the _legal_ right to do this under American law, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a completely un-American thing to do. It’s virtually unprecedented for the owner of a stadium to personally interfere with his management company’s booking decisions, and I for one want to howl in protest as loudly as possible to make sure nobody sees this as setting a precedent. I would feel exactly the same way if was Matisyahu being censored. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2026, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8210 "2026-09-18T17:39:41Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Very minor disagreement. When it comes to our IMHO-style “How do I fix this”, then yes, I agree - someone is seeking advice or help, so people who don’t know the terminology are extremely unlikely to be helpful. Tangentally, this reminds me of one of my favorite bits of succinct advice in the settings options for an app: [![](https://i.ibb.co/mrHDQ5KV/Screenshot-20260918-133259.png) ](https://i.ibb.co/mrHDQ5KV/Screenshot-20260918-133259.png) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=390) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=392)