mouseover abbreviations/initialisms

[Greenwhy]

I've seen forums which have this feature. Basically, anytime somebody uses an abbreviation such as sorc, sacdag, execs or an initialism such as PoK, COK, BoHG it is highlighted in the post and anybody can mouse over to see what it stands for. That would be a great addition to D.net imo.

[Mr. anderson]

No. For using sacdag, you'll get an electronic slap in the face and will be banned for life.

Generally, I'm not sure it's worth it. You pick up on the abbreviations very quickly if you stick around for a few weeks, and everyone is happy to explain them to you if you ask. It's probably a lot of effort for little gain. But that's just me.

[Malus99]

sounds like it would be a little tricky to program, and there would have to be loads of different variations etc, for instance, you have as an example COK, where as I use the abbreviation CoK and if I was typing in a hurry I might use cok, aside from which we have some abbreviations which are the same for two different things, such as Look out Sir and Line of Site, Blood Armour and Black Amulet or Shield of Ghrond and Seal of Ghrond (yes, I know this wouldn't be very common but it would be confusing when it does happen). I think if it could be programmed in easily and would happen automatically so that we don't for instance have to code it into our posts as we do for giving url links, then it might be handy.

[Tarbo]

everyone is happy to explain them to you if you ask

What's GoP?

On the topic, though, the bottom of the FAQ/Rules of the site has a list of common abbreviations. I'm not sure how current it is, but it should help newbies. Or forgetful people like myself.

[Dalamar]

Gauntlet of Power

[Layne]

That's what I found when I've seen this sort of thing used, at Warseer. Too many double-ups, and Warseer being what it is, most double-ups gave you the 40k acronym. I also wonder if such a thing would affect our bandwidth any. We already lost the joob [remember that thing?].

[Greenwhy]

fair points.

[Noble korhedron]

For a second there I read double-ups as double-entendres, L.O.L!! :-P

[Daeron]

This seems to have mixed reactions. I have mixed feelings about it as well. Part of me likes the idea to make our 'slang' more accessible for new members. But generally hovers such as these tend to annoy me after a while.

Perhaps if we combine it with a setting in the user profile to turn them off? It's set to "show popups" as default for new members, but can be turned off once a member feels confident enough. Or some way to control it..

I'll have a browse around to see if this requires a lot of manual work or whether this can easily be supported with existing mods.

[Tarbo]

Should you choose to implement/activate it, perhaps some thoughts from someone in the nay camp:

My personal preference goes to use of the abbr/acronym tags for this. I find them both easily recognizable and easily ignored.

As noted (some years) earlier, some abbreviations are context-sensitive or ambiguous. Giving a list of possible meanings could still make this useful: AoE -> Area of Effect / Aglet of Expedience / Aroma of Effigy.

If possible, restrict the feature to forums such as tactics, and/or allow us to override it for individual posts. Most of my own posts are stories or other prose, and I'd like some method to keep them free of false positives.

We already have a swear filter that automagically 'corrects' certain words. If we can add an abbr/acronym tag through this, (perhaps only in the first occurrence in a post?) the hardest work might already be done.

[Daeron]

That sounds interesting, but I must honestly admit I'm not sure I understand what you mean

You mean a tag like so?

Code: Select all

[abbrev]CoK[/abbrev]

This is an interesting line of thought, but wouldn't that make it more cumbersome to use abbreviations than to work without them?

[Red...]

LOL. IMHO TLAS R OMG L33T. HAHA NOOBS. J/K.

HTH, TY. L8R!

(Sry 4 Trollage)

[Red...]

On a serious note - I've seen auto correct for abbreviations used on other forums sites and I don't think it works very well. It removes power from the writer of the message (it is irksome to have a machine autocorrect a deliberately intended acronym without even asking my permission) and can lead to mix ups (inserting the wrong acronym for example).

I think the current system works well. The most common acronyms are outlined in the FAQ file and in the DRAICH. Folks are also usually happy to explain when asked if someone doesn't understand something. Finally, forum dwellers can often google acronyms for their meaning if all else fails. The thought behind the idea is a good one, but in all honesty this seems like a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Tarbo]

Daeron, I meant the HTML tags, as in: <abbr title="Cold Old Knights / Cooties of Khaine / Cabbage of Karnage">CoK</abbr>. It'd have to be an automatic system; having to add them manually would indeed defeat the purpose.

Alternatively, we can add a linked pop-up to a small dictionary in the thread views.

Or just leave it as is, as Red also suggests. How often is this jargon an actual problem?

[Daeron]

Ahh, I see what you mean Tarbo. But then, perhaps that would go unnoticed.. unless... Hmm. A simple way might be to tag abbreviations and then add a simple button "explain abbreviations" for it to highlight each abbreviation in a page, each having a mouseover or something.
The information is available only on demand, never forced on someone.

That would require some coding... and thus time.

[Calisson]

The easiest would be to have a button on the top, next to FAQ, named "Acronyms", linking to there.

[Daeron]

But that would make it .. too.. simple!