Good. Thank you. Had some unpleasant experiences in the past, so, as they say, better safe than sorry. So, carry on old-timers, I'm going to the newbie forum to see if I can help someone today.

Normally whenever I see that sort of "language," I don't even bother trying to decipher it...... So what did you say again?

I am getting a headache

no kidding

I figure if the post looks like my 13 year old nephew typed the post on his phone then...

But mostly seeing as this is a multi lingual forum . Posts should be able to be translated ( google or bablefish).

Common acronyms should translate . Things like IMHO and WTF or RTFM are common

now a post like say
the above supplanted leet 1337
also would not be fine


now i am a VERY bad speller ( like many) so that i do not care about much .
BUT if a nun would hit your hand with a ruler for the post then -- something IS wrong with it .

There are 57 DEAs, like Heinz' number of varieties.

Correct! MrCode wins a free copy of "TLA for Dummies", when and if (WAI) it ever gets written and published (WAP).

No of course not :-] One second worth of searching LQ, either using our own search engine or one of the popular ones, should show hits in excess of 500 so that establishes use of the TLA as common enough to not be offended by it.

WTF doesn't mean "where is the fire" as I learned it.

What's The Fuss?
Wear Tight Frocks
We've Tried Fedora

Can't think what else it could mean.

1 members found this post helpful.

Maybe its a Viking oath: Woden Thor Frigg!

Yeah, that's it! Solved.

And I thought this whole time, it meant "What The Fsck...." I guess I was wrong?

1 members found this post helpful.

All in all, I believe this is a question about opinion. What is text speak garbage to one person, will be completely readable to another, and that person might *not even realize* that they had raed something that was cmopleltey undecipherable to oterhs. If the text is actually urnedalbe to you, then you have no incentive to interact with the person that posted it, and that in itself is a powerful deterrent to text or leet speak. Perhaps a reminder above the edit box for new members would help here.

However, If this really were a big problem, the owner LQ would have installed an auto-text filter that expands "pls" into "please" and "nvm" into "nevermind" OR would have a detection mechanism that would have the posts kicked back to the poster with a message "Please do not use text-speak, swearing or abbreviations. Your message was not posted. Try again."

But he hasn't. He has left it in the capable hands of the moderators to decide on a case by case basis what is and isn't a readable message. And I for one think that is fine.

As a suggestion: I think it should *only* be the moderators to tell a member that their message is unreadable and please try again, rather than regular members sending a barrage of "speak correctly" and "spell out your words" messages that quickly fill up a thread. My advice: If you can't read it, don't answer it. Don't fill up a thread with put downs and "speak correctly" messages which quickly derail an already hard to understand post.

0 members found this post helpful.

The problem here is that the thread most likely will not only be read by the members participating in the thread, but also by people with a similar problem searching the net for a solution. It would be a pity if that person can't decipher the solution to his problems due to text-speak.

It would be a pity if an OP was too afraid to ask for clarification of terms/acronyms they don't understand. That kind of fear will likely keep them from every being good at what they do. Sure there is the occasional troll that will attack a newbie as if the troll was born knowing everything but for the most part those of us that respond do so because we want to help so a request for clarification usually works. (The occasions where it doesn't work are often when a newbie has been told the same thing at least twice and was asked for more information but instead chooses to ignore posts and ask something completely new.)