jabber jabber...

Chatting rules :

The new age of electronic communication is already here. This little blog is just an attempt of imparting some mannerism to fellow chatters & for general etiquettes of online text messaging. These are just some observations & common-sensical instructions jotted down for the reader to ponder over. These are based on my usage of "Yahoo! messenger" & "Google Talk".

First of all, people are invisible. I really detest them! Why would one like to be invisible? They say that other people disturb them. But you can always set your status message "Busy" or "Do Not Disturb" or something like that to avoid such unwanted people. What's the use of being online if you are invisible? You can buzz anyone, whenever you want ask whatever you need. But, you don't want anyone to buzz you, & ask you. Can you be more selfish? Even if I know someone to be invisible, it is very tedious for me to check "Show Invisible Buddies" & search the non-highlighted name from the big list of offline "buddies". Height is reached when the invisible expect us to buzz them.

Another thing I have that is against those who start off with "BUZZ!!!". That is a really nasty noise & irritates/startles the hell out of me. Sometimes, they'll give you a buzz & expect you to ask them "what is the matter". I don't think I should say any more.

One small etiquette to be followed is sayin' "brb" or "gtg" or "w8" or "sos" when you are gonna be unavailable for a while. But, one shouldn't use it to get away from an unwanted "buddy". That is your "buddy". You can always tell him/her not to disturb when you are busy.

I am not against usage of acronyms at all. In fact, they really smoothe the conversation & reduce the amount of typing. Just use appropriate ones, that's all! I mean, when you can use "tht" for "that", why to use "dat"? I really don't understand the point in using "dat". How much shorter are you getting by going from "tht" to "dat". (In my opinion it is slightly difficult to type "dat" than "tht". But, ditch my judgement! It may be partial)

Please don't make grammar mistakes!. As in, please use those auxiliary verbs!!! When you have to say that you had been there, for the love of ..., please don't type "i bin der".

Whenever you misspell, if your mistake is too obvious (and the other chatter is not an A'hole), u needn't correct it. Otherwise, correct it with "*" on the message.

When you get disconnected (gt dc), inform so to your previous chatter when you reconnect. It is rude otherwise. This is not needed for GTalk, as it promptly shows other person being disconnected; but our dear Yahoo! msnger seems to send those messages which eventually don't reach destination & also not stored as "offliners". Keep in mind, with yahoo, it is always possible that some messages of both parties can be "lost" without reaching. Just ask other person which message was received last and avoid all confusions!

Using k/hmmm:

"k" is a very good & powerful technique for a chatter, as it is just a single letter acknowledgment/receipt for something the other person said. Don't make a habit of typing "k" to every sentence read. It may be irritating to other chatter & might enforce him/her to type faster or indicate that you are being inattentive & are just blindly giving a "k" for everything said.
"hmmm" should be used when you want to indicate that you are pondering over something said by the other chatter. Please don't use "hmmm" instead of "k". And never use it when the other person has asked you any question or opinion. It just shows your impolite, inattentive disinterest. Then again, using "hmmm" against a really unwanted, uninteresting chatter can come to use to sarcastically indicate him/her that he/she is rambling too much!


Finally, just a disclaimer: I may not use all of these rules every time! Nothing personal & follow chat etiquettes!