A really good idea for abbreviations in Forums!

[xMax]

Have you ever had to google an abbreviation found in a forum in order to know what its short for?

I have. And countless times too.

So this got me thinking...Why don't forums, or the entire web for that matter, have some kind of a feature where the user simply has to place the mouse over the abbreviation in order to see what it stands for. That simple. And if its not supposed to be an abbreviation, maybe the initials of a company that conflicts with an abbreviation, then it doesn't show you anything when placing the mouse over the letters. This means, of course, that the user would have to put a slash or some symbol before or after the abbreviation to make the browser understand that it is an abbreviation.

Again, this could apply to forums or the entire web. But forums especially.

For that matter, as an option to the user, the abbreviations can be written as letters but appear as the full sentence in the post of a thread.

Thats all.

What do you guys think?

I mean, maybe someone who has seen all of them would think its stupid, but a newbie would surely find it handy.

 

[Matthias99]

Why don't forums, or the entire web for that matter, have some kind of a feature where the user simply has to place the mouse over the abbreviation in order to see what it stands for.

You'll have to take that one up with the W3C. And/or the suggestion box for FuseTalk.

That simple. And if its not supposed to be an abbreviation, maybe the initials of a company that conflicts with an abbreviation, then it doesn't show you anything when placing the mouse over the letters. This means, of course, that the user would have to put a slash or some symbol before or after the abbreviation to make the browser understand that it is an abbreviation.

That sounds more like 'absurdly complicated' than 'simple' to me. And who's going to maintain this centralized list of all the abbreviations that should be recognized?

Maybe people could take three seconds and use one of the dozens of acronym finders on the web if they don't know what it means?

 

[xMax]

I think your retarted Matthias99.

Truly though...I think your smart, but your pessimistic attitude is whats absurd.

You said it yourself, there are countless acronym finders which have a massive library of all the abbreviations.

With a company like google, how difficult do you think it woudl be for them to have a server of all the acronyms or abbreviations available. I dont know much about server operations, but i do know that an entire encyclopedia can fit on a single CD or DVD.

The only issue that i found was that there are numerous representations for a single abbreviation. But i also found, through the acronym finders, that they are actually sorted out in relevance. Point being is that when you place your mouse over the abbreviation, all the dozen or so representations could be displayed in order of relevance. Or, as the user types in the abbreviation, he is instantly given a floating list of all available representations that he or she could choose from. That takes about 2 seconds. Using an acronym finder requires the opening of a new window or tab and then opening the acronym finder page and the searching it. Why go through all that trouble when you can just place your mouse over the abbreviation or have the browser automatically display the full name for you.

Sure, you can start throwing all kinds of arguements, but it would be so stupid of you to do that. Why? Because any idea has to be planed out and worked on properly before its fully implemented, as my suggestion was just a quick simple brainstorm like idea whose described implementation was just a basic form to work with.

The whole purpose of computers and software is to make operations and tasks as simple and quick as possible, as this idea does just that!

So with all due respect, i think your smart, but your PA is absurd!

 

[Drakkon]

this might be an idea to suggest to google toolbar(oi program your own). If you use their autoLink feature it can turn addresses, ISBN's, VIN's into links to common websites. If you could start doing that for abbreviations and link to say urbandictionary your idea would be golden. The only problem is urbandictionary db grows day to day so it oculd be absurd searching throuhg all text on a page each time to check if the abbrv exists

 

[xMax]

But why would it take so long to search this urbanddictionary db when using the acronym finder takes a split second to retrieve all the listings of possible representations for the searched abbreviation? Unless there is something i dont understand, i just dont see how the search time would be a problem.

But anyhow, its nice to see somebody thinks its a good idea. Of course, its not exactly a revolutionary idea, but it sure would be nice to have, as i would certainly use it.

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: xMax
I think your retarted Matthias99.

:shocked:

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: xMax
But why would it take so long to search this urbanddictionary db when using the acronym finder takes a split second to retrieve all the listings of possible representations for the searched abbreviation? Unless there is something i dont understand, i just dont see how the search time would be a problem.

Except you have to do that search for every word you potentially think is an acronym. Multiply that by a few million browsers doing this all at once and you have an incredible bottleneck on the server side.

If it's only for 'tagged' acronyms, it will probably not be that useful, since few people would bother to tag them all manually. If you try to have your forum software 'tag' them automatically, that's a lot of extra CPU cycles, again on the server side. I suppose you could have the browser try to pick out the words it thinks are probably acronyms and then not actually try to look them up until you click on or mouseover them -- but then this starts getting back into the 'absurdly complicated' realm. I also despise 'intellitext' like things in general (where 'normal' words magically become hyperlinks or mouse-over ads), but that's a personal preference.

The whole purpose of computers and software is to make operations and tasks as simple and quick as possible, as this idea does just that!

I appreciate that, but this is just not a huge problem for most people. There are probably only a few dozen 'chat' acronyms in common usage, and once you've learned them you are pretty much set. It could be somewhat more useful for technical acronyms, but I don't really need something to tell me what "CPU" or "RAM" stands for every time someone types it. Implementing some Rube Goldberg-esque solution to this perceived problem doesn't really seem very worthwhile.

The idea is not totally without merit -- but consider something simpler and less invasive. Say, having a browser plugin that lets you highlight text and hit a shortcut key or button to run it through an existing acronym finder. Or something like Google's toolbar that would let you paste in text and have it do a lookup on urbandictionary.

I think your (sic) retarted (sic) Matthias99.

It's more effective if you spell "you're" and "retarded" correctly...

 

[compuwiz1]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: xMax
But why would it take so long to search this urbanddictionary db when using the acronym finder takes a split second to retrieve all the listings of possible representations for the searched abbreviation? Unless there is something i dont understand, i just dont see how the search time would be a problem.

Except you have to do that search for every word you potentially think is an acronym. Multiply that by a few million browsers doing this all at once and you have an incredible bottleneck on the server side.

If it's only for 'tagged' acronyms, it will probably not be that useful, since few people would bother to tag them all manually. If you try to have your forum software 'tag' them automatically, that's a lot of extra CPU cycles, again on the server side. I suppose you could have the browser try to pick out the words it thinks are probably acronyms and then not actually try to look them up until you click on or mouseover them -- but then this starts getting back into the 'absurdly complicated' realm. I also despise 'intellitext' like things in general (where 'normal' words magically become hyperlinks or mouse-over ads), but that's a personal preference.

The whole purpose of computers and software is to make operations and tasks as simple and quick as possible, as this idea does just that!

I appreciate that, but this is just not a huge problem for most people. There are probably only a few dozen 'chat' acronyms in common usage, and once you've learned them you are pretty much set. It could be somewhat more useful for technical acronyms, but I don't really need something to tell me what "CPU" or "RAM" stands for every time someone types it. Implementing some Rube Goldberg-esque solution to this perceived problem doesn't really seem very worthwhile.

The idea is not totally without merit -- but consider something simpler and less invasive. Say, having a browser plugin that lets you highlight text and hit a shortcut key or button to run it through an existing acronym finder. Or something like Google's toolbar that would let you paste in text and have it do a lookup on urbandictionary.

I think your (sic) retarted (sic) Matthias99.

It's more effective if you spell "you're" and "retarded" correctly...

No, when you're posting, it's actually, E-Tarded

 

[xMax]

Hmm..I dont know...I guess all i can say is that im no expert at understanding cost efficiency and programming, but i also cant see how some brilliant programmers wouldn't be able to implement the idea in a rational simplified manner.

I say this because firefox, and probably explorer, allows the user to double click on a word in a text that follows through with a right click which allows the user to search the web for that particular word. So utilizing this same concept but for searching the web for the representations of abbreviations would work and would not be demanding on anything. Of course, the more evolved and more appropriate solution would be to have the representations displayed in an intellitext rather than a new tab or window. To me, this would make sense.

The only difficult part would be searching and displaying the content in an intellitext rather than a new tab or window. But maybe that isn't so difficult.

So in conclusion, i still think its a pretty good idea, not just for basic forum abbreviations, but for all abbreviations.

But i do agree with you with respect to the abbreviations in forums being only about a dozen or so. But im sure there is about two dozens if one looked hard enough, as just having those two dozens handled by the forum in some way that would enable the user to just put their mouse over the word would still be a nice little feature, especially for newbies.

But IMO, i have no idea why im waisting my time on this nonsense. Actually, i do. My PSU broke down on me as i am waiting for a new one.

 

[Wreckage]

Here is a short glossary of forum terms.

http://www.techforumwatch.com/glossary.html

 

[xMax]

I guess that simple link may be all thats needed for a forum!

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: xMax
Hmm..I dont know...I guess all i can say is that im no expert at understanding cost efficiency and programming

i have no idea why im waisting my time on this nonsense.

/thread