I was tempted to title this "PP-CTA" just to prove my point.

It can be quit difficult to follow some threads because of peoples' overuse of abbreviations. This isn't exclusive to the forum, it's a big problem (for me) on Facebook groups, too. Ambiguity is antithetical to effective communication; if I'm looking at a bunch of letters, even with context, it can be incredibly difficult to know what y'all're talking about. Maybe many are using phones, and things like "Hisu Mori Toride" isn't exactly part of predictive text dictionaries, I get that. But still.

Am I alone in this? I fear I may be.

It's unfortunate but probably a normal progression of language when it comes to "long" names. I personally prefer that than pet/meme names that people might come up with that's entirely an inside joke. Like, if they were to call HMT the "Magical Bouncy Castle", I'd have a problem with that. It's no exactly approachable.

@tsbmc

Wtharta?

Abbreviations are what all the kids are doing these days. Get with the times

Seriously, I use them mostly because auto correct in l5r cards is generally worse than the abbreviations. I try to avoid the ones that are easy to mix up and stick to the ones that have become part of the general lexicon of l5r lingo.

L5R for example. FGG is one I'm still not sure about because it's clearly For GreTer Glory and not similar to any other card abbreviations, but, it's close to FFG and could lead to some misreads.

It's more about when and how they are used than if they are used at all. Imo

Perphaps we should have a thread woth the abbreviation index for all new people and us old timers to use as reference?

2 hours ago, Hordeoverseer said:

It's unfortunate but probably a normal progression of language when it comes to "long" names. I personally prefer that than pet/meme names that people might come up with that's entirely an inside joke. Like, if they were to call HMT the "Magical Bouncy Castle", I'd have a problem with that. It's no exactly approachable.

Don't be absurd. Clearly Mountain's Anvil Castle is "Magical Bouncy Castle". 😆

Oh my god, I thought I was the only one.

We should not police how people communicate, but at times those card abbreviations are indeed painful. It has happened a few times that I was unable to reverse-engineer one as I tried searching for potential answers on fiveringsdb.

Were I a developer (actually I am) with enough time (actually... I haven't) I would implement a first letter search on fiveringsdb. Would be useful.

I still have no idea why Stronghold's are called "Box" so you aren't alone....

The box goes back to o5r where your stronghold was on the back of your deck box.

Thanks Goshiu! I've just adopted it as my lingo since everyone uses it, but had no clue where it came from until now.

Anytime!

13 hours ago, Goshiu said:

The box goes back to o5r where your stronghold was on the back of your deck box.

The old days of the CCG, even. When I started, strongholds no longer came that way.

I hate abbreviations too. So hard for me to understand. Especially when I don't use English card, lol

8 hours ago, Victarion13 said:

I hate abbreviations too. So hard for me to understand. Especially when I don't use English card, lol

This is a concern I hadn't even considered, being an entitled American, and this is an excellent point! Clearly you can read and write English, but if it's not your native language, how the heck are these seemingly random letters supposed to mean anything to you?

8 hours ago, twinstarbmc said:

This is a concern I hadn't even considered, being an entitled American, and this is an excellent point! Clearly you can read and write English, but if it's not your native language, how the heck are these seemingly random letters supposed to mean anything to you?

Well... I have to ask. Not a big problem, but sometimes I really feel like a child: always ask what and why

You mean you don’t know faetwdsq and the totally op kdgfi?? Urgh, noobs.

But yeah, totally with you some threads get a bit daft when shortening things down. Barriers to entry guys