Young Writers Society

Yea! finally.

The no chat-speak rule has always been a rule, and you have to violate it pretty egregiously in order for a moderator to warn you. Common slip-ups aren't chat-speak, and most of the questions being asked are fairly absurd. If you're worried, stop asking silly questions and think about it. For instance:

Hi! My name is Lee and Ive just joined YWS and can't wait to meet you all hear! My favourite colour is gray!

Is not chat-speak, and it should be pretty clear why despite the mixing of American & British spellings, lack of apostrophe in one word, and the misspelling of 'here.'

On the other hand, this is chat-speak:

hi!!! my name is lee and ive just joned yws and cant wait 2 meet u all here!!!!! my fav color is gray!!!!

Note the excessive use of exclamation marks, total disregard for capitalization, the abbreviation of words into numbers, and absolute lack of apostrophes.

There are of course some absurd examples people will bring up, and such examples are indeed absurd. If you're worried, then just proofread your posts. If it's chat-speak, you'll receive a message from a mod or JM. You only get banned when you repeatedly break the rule.

...or are totally disrespectful to the mods or JMs.

By the way, when a mod or JM warns you, it's best to be as civil as you can be, in general. XD

This is total crap. Language is what people make of it, it's not really fair to impose. You can tell people, hey, you're doing it wrong but banning them is just going overboard. Someone who writes good, but is too lazy to write "well" in the other sections of the site isn't necessarily a bad member. In fact, most people who come here already enjoy, you know, commas and good spelling and apostrophes, so it's not like a little flexibility in the rules will mean we will get an invasion of ppl who speek leik dis.

But, you know, whatever.

Actually, Icaruss, you would be surprised. I've seen some pretty bad chat-speak in my days here, and I must say that there is nothing wrong to ask that on a website where we are supposed to be improving and growing in our writing, that people use the basic rules of writing all the time. Practice makes perfect after all.

I think it's a splendid thing, all in all. Besides, I'd hate to get a critique from somebody telling me that they thought it was bad like this: ur the worst. dis sucked y dont u read it again and make the language stronger

I would just find it hard to respect a critique like that. *shrugs*

I do have a few questions: Does lol count? (well, I'm sure it does, but will we get in trouble for it?), and if it were supposed to be in a peice of literature, would it still be allowed?

[s]tnx[/s] Thanks.

-JC

I don't think lol will kill anyone. At least I won't bust anyone for it. I think literature with chat speak is really silly, but I think that's not something else you'll get in trouble for, unless you're just being lazy. If it is actually part of the story (a chatroom transcript, for example) then that shouldn't be a problem.

But I'm not Nate.

Also, people use r for our? >_> That's gross.

Oh, and actually Icaruss, it is fair to impose because this is Nate's site and if he makes it a rule, he can kick people out for it too. YWS =/= America. ^^

Icaruss ->> You're right; language is what you make of it, and what's great about the Internet are all the choices one has. YWS is a distinctive community, and to remain that way, we chose four years ago to include a rule that bans chat-speak. Now, if you wish to dispute this rule, you may of course do so, but please keep in mind that if you don't like it, you may leave. No one is making you stay.

It's also quite clear to me either that you're misunderstanding something or you didn't read any of the prior posts. As I stated, people get two warnings before they get banned, and that ban will only last for a week. Chat-speak is also not merely a failure to write well, but a failure to write at all. If you disagree, I request that you do so in a respectful and civil manner rather than "This is total crap."

I've seen mods use leet-speak, what then?

Reyu wrote:I've seen mods use leet-speak, what then?

If you're going to ask "what then" then you have to provide an example.

Reyu, your question and the intent behind it is absurd. This has always been a rule, and you knew it was a rule. In the four years it has been in place, not one person has been banned as a result of the rule. I made an announcement about it because it's been growing in prevalence owing to YWS' growth. I am sure that you and others also agree that you rather not see people saying "2nite" or "omg!!!! idk!!1!!" So please, don't ask another silly question.

Lee wrote:

Reyu wrote:I've seen mods use leet-speak, what then?

If you're going to ask "what then" then you have to provide an example.

Reyu, your question and the intent behind it is absurd. This has always been a rule, and you knew it was a rule. In the four years it has been in place, not one person has been banned as a result of the rule. I made an announcement about it because it's been growing in prevalence owing to YWS' growth. I am sure that you and others also agree that you rather not see people saying "2nite" or "omg!!!! idk!!1!!" So please, don't ask another silly question.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving. Nice dodge :) Are you questioning my honesty? I'm just wondering if mods fall under the same dogma.

If you provide an example, it'd be nice. Mods do fall under the same dogma, but obviously there are instances where people are clearly joking around. One would expect the rules on chat-speak to be more lax in Randomness than in the Literary area. Use common-sense.

And if anything, the rules are much more strict for mods.

The only time I've ever used chat language, or seen another JM/mod use it, has been in an intentionally ironic manner. That's hardly the same as making 80% of your posts unreadable by being too lazy to type words such as "you".

Yeah, that's good. I do have to make sure I'm more careful about that now. I've probably slipped up before. But as overeasy said, do we have to write "Haha" instead of "lol" now?

I probably will just in case. It's only one more letter to be typed, and it's not worth risking being banned!!

Haha and lol are both perfectly acceptable. Just use common-sense

Haha, yes, the sort of chat-speak we're talking about is the completely unreadable stuff that nobody can understand. This is not "lol" but rather something written so unintelligibly that only the illiterate, really, understand what you're talking about. Remember, leet-speak and chat-speak were designed so that it wouldn't be well-understood. That's why we frown upon it on YWS. We're supposed to be making sense with our writing, after all.

I would like to mention that if you want to do leet-speak or chat-speak in your blog, you won't get banned or anything about that--blogs are personal. But when communicating around in the forums, we expect you to be able to communicate. And that means communicating in a way generally understood.

Mind you, this rule has been here since basically the foundation of YWS, so this isn't anything new in the least. The moderating staff will generally talk with new users so they understand that wrtng lyk dis isn't acceptable around the forums, and they're usually really lovely about it. They won't be banned. In general, the ones that get banned are the ones who not only write like that but, when asked repeatedly to stop writing in chat-speak by the moderating staff, they are rude and basically to tell us to fudge off. And that's not nice.

So the main reason why this is an announcement is because there's an influx of rude members talking back at us unintelligibly.

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense.