How to deal with text speak in a question (or answer)?
 

To what extent should we police text speak? I have just read a question whose content is very valid and that is written in fluent English, but the style gives me a rash. Full of plz, cuz, ofc, ur, plus a good dosis of space-commas and other weird punctuations.

This is not pleasant to read. Yes, I could just ignore it. I was already writing a comment about this aspect but didn't want to look petty, giving more importance to rules than actual technical problems.

So, how would you react? Ignore such a thread, write a comment about ugly language, report it, privately message the OP, anything else?

My practice has been to attempt to answer the Linux question, if I can, and then to politely point out that text speak is frowned on at LQ.

If it seems warranted (usually if the amount of text speak is over the top), I sometimes add that, for many LQ users, English may be a second or even a third language, so that using standard English makes for better communication.

I probably wouldn't do anything public...that seems to escalate more often than not.

PM is not an option if the member is too new...and, hopefully, if they've posted enough so that PM will work, they've also learned to type whole words instead of those obnoxious short cuts.

I suppose they result from typing with thumbs -- and it's even possible that they're posting from a phone, where the shortcuts are (almost) acceptable. That doesn't excuse their use here, however, IMO. I appreciate the use of please and thank you, but they lose a bit when presented as plz and ty.

Reporting them, I suppose. I did consider quoting one such and then "correcting" the quoted copy.

Or starting a thread like this one so others can express their opinions :) :thumbsup:

You should just ignore it ( the fact not the thread )
I do dislike u and ur , but I'm not going to get offended by it.

imo, imho, tbh, ofc, idk, fyi, etc.
all valid
I really would be upset if you insisted that I type et cetera.

dvd, cd, raid, lan, pots, net, mem, ram

The more you think about it, the more you come up with.

you need to consider the persons background

ty can mean so much more, it is almost instinctive to a WoW ( World of Warcraft ) gamer, or any social game with "emotes"

For me, it depends on how much "text-speak" they've used, and more to the point, if what they wrote is understandable. If I can still understand their question, and say for example the only "text-speak" they've used is say a "thx for your help" at the end of their post/OP, but their question was still clear; then I don't agree that's a big deal worth flaming someone over, big deal, get over it.

If on the other hand, their post looks something like "can u plz hlp me with ...", then that could be very hard to read (and answer) for not only members, but also for others visiting LQ. So I can understand the frustration in that case.

But, I also agree with Firerat in that; most people here have been guilty of using at least a little bit of "text-speak" here and there (myself included), so do you really expect people to always say for example "operating system" as opposed to OS? Well, you still know what their referring to don't you?

It's not a "perfect English forum"...

I take your point, but it’s a challenge to consider something I don’t know…Thank you for interpreting WoW, BTW* :). I would not have understood that otherwise. I’m pretty old...
I certainly get frustrated when typing on glass, as I’m doing now, but I’ve not picked up the habit of abbreviating most words which is what the OP* is discussing. Acronyms are something else entirely...

*See what I did there?? ;)

I don't think text speech is near as bad as...

Using the present tense for everything. Even if talking about something that happened 100 years ago.

Not knowing the difference between there, their, they're. Or two, too, to.

Using the word "like" every few words in a sentence. And trying to get them to understand that like means similar to.

Speaking valley girl english. Where one raises the accent on the end of every sentence, so that you can't tell if they are asking a question or making a statement.

And that's nothing. There are people who think that there are 20 different genders. Have you read about that? Can't wait for those made up pronouns.

That's doesn't all apply to text speech. Just wanted to add it.

I'm not the only person who think that these are non-English speakers who only know text-speak. They're the equivalents of non-Japanese who learned Japanese from manga.

Yes, that's what I mean. Fluent English ,but hard 2 read cuz ur eyes glaze over. Did you notice my beautiful space-comma?

Perhaps I was just venting. From now on, I will ignore such questions and keep my righteous wrath to myself or yell at my wife.

Fluent English can be a problem too, because sometimes hard to understand the bolted language.
Anyway, if I can't understand the post or need a lot of time to understand I will simply skip it.

I figured that's u you meant. Yes, nice space-comma, seems to be quite popular with our non-english speakers here.

Well, it's better to get it out, than bottle it up I guess ;)

But seriously, I would also likely just ignore the question if it's not understandable. Although, sometimes I ignore questions for other reasons, like I just can't be bothered helping with a particular problem. Be that, it's not something I'm very familiar with, or I just haven't got the energy, or patience for a particular problem, or the OP hasn't put any effort of their own into what is still their problem. The OP of the "someone is following me to other forums" thread here in S&F is a classic example of the latter...

It is not a problem with posting rules. If people cannot understand what is typed they cannot help.
Perhaps ask for clarification? "What does that jibberish mean?"
However the query is worded, the OP should quickly learn the shorthand they use with their friends is not universal.

I think it always depends on the overall quality of the thread:
- did OP put in some effort or are they just asking for a handout?
- are they actually describing a problem or is this some tweet-like micro rant?
Unfortunately the use of txtspk often reflects the overall laziness of the OP - not putting in any (initial) effort, resorting to rant when asked to do research/troubleshooting etc.

That said, I have nothing against it per se - as long as what is said is still understandable - which often cannot be said for acronyms like afaiu, ymmv ... yet those seem to be accepted :shrugs:

Regarding "fluent English," my belief is that fluency is not the issue. "Standard English" and fluent English are not necessarily the same thing.

If persons make good faith efforts to communicate in standard English, even if that means Google Translate or the like, I think we can meet them halfway.