THIS IS WHY THEY NEED TO HIRE ME. Plus I just won buzzword bingo after reading two sentences in this document.
My whole life just flashed before my eyes! I gotta get me a life!
Xander ,'Dirty Girls'
Buffistechnology 3: "Press Some Buttons, See What Happens."
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Atropa - Mar 20, 2012 2:49:04 pm PDT #19697 of 25501
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
DCJensen - Mar 20, 2012 4:35:22 pm PDT #19698 of 25501
All is well that ends in pizza.
In Journalism school, they taught us to always spell out the first usage of any acronym. I wish that were the case for things that are to be read by people with a wide variety of experience.
Steph L. - Mar 20, 2012 4:42:59 pm PDT #19699 of 25501
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine
In Journalism school, they taught us to always spell out the first usage of any acronym.
We always do that. In large part it's because we have un-American readers, and acronyms/abbreviations aren't the same in other languages (e.g., "AIDS" is "SIDA" in Spanish, and "HIV" is "VIH").
Typo Boy - Mar 20, 2012 4:56:40 pm PDT #19700 of 25501
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Also many acronyms are acronyms for more than one term. In my recent book the same acronym stood for a technical terms I was using and a union I was writing about. Since neither term was used much, I skipped acronyms for both. Otherwise I would have use the acronyym for the term I used most.
Atropa - Mar 20, 2012 5:22:29 pm PDT #19701 of 25501
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
In Journalism school, they taught us to always spell out the first usage of any acronym.
That's what is SUPPOSED to be done in the tech industry. But I have found that many people creating documentation like to throw around acronyms and assume that everyone knows what they stand for. Like a team I worked with that was genuinely surprised to find out that most users didn't automatically parse "Commerce Server Staging" when they read "CSS".
javachik - Mar 20, 2012 5:26:55 pm PDT #19702 of 25501
Our wings are not tired.
Yeah that's cascading styles sheets to me!!
Jessica - Mar 20, 2012 5:41:37 pm PDT #19703 of 25501
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
Even within the same field, acronyms can be inconsistent. I learned MOS in film school to mean "motor only shot" (i.e., no sound). But on a news shot sheet MOS means Man On Street (as in interview). Took me ages to figure that out.
§ ita § - Mar 20, 2012 5:44:36 pm PDT #19704 of 25501
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
That's what is SUPPOSED to be done in the tech industry
I think some of the acronyms have reached the point where spelling them out doesn't help anyone. I mean, if I wrote out HyperText Markup Language or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, people would be all "What is she talking about?" where HTML or https would send them to their reflexive comfortable place.
Atropa - Mar 20, 2012 6:03:53 pm PDT #19705 of 25501
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
I think some of the acronyms have reached the point where spelling them out doesn't help anyone.
This is very true. But trying to figure out the balance between "Everyone knows what that means" and "Let's just assume everyone knows what that means and no one on the team wants to ask and possibly expose their ignorance" is frustrating.
Dana - Mar 20, 2012 6:10:36 pm PDT #19706 of 25501
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.
People are totally just lazy most of the time when they don't define acronyms.
(Yes, I am possibly a little biased.)