Someone mentioned in a post I was reading that it is advisable to remove the word "plz" because it is offensive. Other posts here on meta seem to suggest the same thing, but I'm not entirely sure why. Why is this word considered so offensive?
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8It isn't considered offensive. Greetings, thanks, and other taglines are considered clutter though and shouldn't be included in questions or answers. Feel free to read through this page for more information.– RenCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 13:57
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36It's not offensive; it's just noise. And at least, "please" should be spelled properly, if one insists.– Andrew Barber ModCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 13:58
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8It's not really considered offensive - more just "noise". Although, it's quite often a good indicator (along with other "txt spk") of the effort (normally lack there of) made to formulate a post.– Jon ClementsCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 13:58
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23Also a good idea to avoid text speak if you don't want people to make snap judgements about your intelligence and the worth of your post. I'll freely admit that if I see a post with "u", "plz", or any of those other shortenings in it I assume that the poster is less intelligent than the average user and, by extension, that their post probably isn't worth reading.– Anthony GristCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 14:01
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16plz dear give me teh codez i am beggin u. It's lazy, noisy, and shows sheer lack of effort on the users bart.– tombull89Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 14:06
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2"Plz...to" is an automatic turnoff for a lot of people– Mike BCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 14:13
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11Offensive? No. Do I want to gouge out my eyes when I see it? You betcha. To me, it's the word equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard.– LittleBobbyTables - Au RevoirCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 14:15
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11@tombull89 Leave me out of it, will you. :)– BartCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 14:34
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7Write in English, not txt-speak. Show something that resembles respect to people who are trying to help you.– user164207Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:19
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5It’s difficult to resist the temptation to kneejerkly closevote and/or downvote “plz help me!” questions, especially when you see a lot of them in a row. But really, the best thing to do is to first edit that crud out, then reassess.– tchristCommented Jul 27, 2013 at 17:40
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1@LBT What would gouging out your eyes accomplish? As a SO member with a 16k rep and 10 gold badges, I assume you're all about helping the community. So in the spirit of helping the community, you should chop off the poster's fingers instead.– Adi InbarCommented Jul 28, 2013 at 5:07
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@AdiInbar- I didn't say it was a rational response, that's just how much it irritates me. You do have an interesting proposal though...– LittleBobbyTables - Au RevoirCommented Jul 28, 2013 at 11:19
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2 Answers
Plz is slang, especially used by an immature younger person.
Often when having a formal conversation people do not like the use of slang in the conversation.
Also, to me, someone not taking the time to write out something as simple as please feels disrespectful to me; like I was not important enough to make our conversation formal. So things like Plz discourage me from helping you, because I feel you don't care what people say, you just want the quick answer and are not willing to take the time to learn.
answered Apr 23, 2013 at 13:58
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2Disrespectful...seriously? Welcome to an informal communication medium known as the Internets. You are (probably) not a member of Parliament or a guest at The White House. In this case using slang falls under the wheelhouse of, "didn't realize they were in the big kids' sandbox." If you see it as a sign of disrespect you are assigning far too much pomp and circumstance to the network.– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:18
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14@sixlettervariables Do you take issue with the faq saying this is a site for professionals?– Mike BCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:20
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3@MikeB: perhaps you misread my statement. Misunderstanding the accepted community norms w.r.t. grammar and language requirements should be expected when using a communication medium which requires nothing more than a means of inputting characters into a text box. Some folks will likely miss that part of the FAQ, and it seems dubious to claim that this was an act intended to disrespect the network's users.– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:24
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15@sixlettervariables it's a matter of readability.
plz, u no i need sum help w disis far less readable thanPlease, you know I need some help with this.Typing it like that saves you a handful of extra keystrokes, but takes many others a significantly longer time to decipher. You're coming somewhere asking for free help. You should do it in a way that is most readable to users trying to help you. I also considerplz hlpand related shorthand to be rude and immature in this arena. This isn't a text message.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:27 -
2@MDMarra: I don't believe I've defended that practice. I've asked that we not assign malice to inappropriate word choice (see Hanlon's razor).– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:31
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6@sixlettervariables I don't see why is matters. Superfluous taglines, signatures, greetings, and salutations don't belong in questions or answers anyway. If a few people construe it as rude in meta, what's the difference? They don't belong in any case.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:34
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2@MDMarra: enough folks wrongly construe it as rude and thus we end up with extraneous questions on Meta about it. They don't belong because they don't meet our quality standards; fin.– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:40
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1@sixlettervariables Well, what's your proposal to "fix" that "problem"? Are you going to go through every meta on the network searching for
plzdiscussions and leave comments asking people to edit their Q&As on the topic so that no one thinks it's rude? Are you proposing that we ban questions on meta withplzandrudein it? I know that these are ridiculous suggestions, but I fail to see how there's a solution to the problem that you're talking about. Actually, I don't even see it as a problem. Is one or two extraneous questions on mSO really a big deal? At least this one was coherent.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:01 -
4Actually, banning questions containing some txt-speak words ("u", "plz", etc) would be a good idea.– user164207Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:22
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1@MDMarra I see what sixlettervariables is saying, though. It just sounds strange to me that we would characterize such misunderstandings of the format of the site as "rude" or "disrespectful". It almost seems similar to calling it "rude" to ask a math question on the SO site. I don't think we're so elite that such a mistake is anything more than a misunderstanding of the rules of the site,"disrespectful" implies that it's something that they should have already known. Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:23
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4Not to belabor the point any more than it actually has been, but using slang and shorthand when asking for help from strangers is considered rude by many people, as evidenced by the upvotes on this answer and others like it on other questions. Whether you specifically agree with it or not is immaterial.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:27
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1@JackManey then you get legitimate edge cases where they are real phrases in a different context. "Problem" is banned from titles, but the other day on Server Fault, a user was trying to create a question about a FreeBSD log message. The title he was trying to create was
What does this log message mean? "Problem: blah blah blah"Unfortunately, the problem-police filter made him spell the title Pro-blem as a workaround. It did nothing except make a legitimate message less googleable.plzanduas standalone entities could very well be used in alternate context elsewhere in the universe.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:33 -
1@MDMarra: you're right and it is apparent that folks enjoy being up on their high horse; it paints our network in a poor light.– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:39
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6If you go to How to Ask on any SE, there are links to resources on how to ask a good question. The first two links both make reference to "u" and "plz" in shorthand and both say not to use it. Also, there's nothing in the Summer of Love blog post about asking people to spell using whole words, it was about snarky responses, not about demanding a basic amount of grammatical effort from askers. I fail to see how the Summer of Love post applies here at all.– MDMarraCommented Apr 23, 2013 at 16:52
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5There is also the argument that maybe for a non English native speaker, these acronyms/abbreviations sometimes are not so trivial to understand (plz, imo, btw, ain't, etc). Commented Jul 28, 2013 at 3:20
To say that "plz" is offensive sounds like somewhat of a stretch to me, but everyone has their own limits. In my case I do lose some of my motivation to help out with an answer or comment for mainly three reasons:
From a personal standpoint, I tend to see SO and the other SE sites as professional communities. People who use slang and textspeak unfortunately send just the opposite message, hence implicitly saying that they don't see it as a professional place. Due to this difference of views - we are not here for the same reasons - it is a bit less likely that I will consider answering.
The use of "please" (however it is spelled) creates a strange difference of position in the conversation: It can be used by a person in power (say, a boss) to politely, but firmly ask someone to do a small job for them ("could you please...") or it can be used by someone in a lower position to ask (or beg, rather) for aid (I don't understand how this works, please help me...). In my mind the poster by using "please" is saying that we are not really peers, and again I lose a bit of interest in helping on an anonymous Q&A site.
It's textspeak, which does take me a short while longer to decipher, so I deduce that the poster prefers to save themselves some effort at the cost of me having to spend more effort to decode their text. That earns the poster a point on my twat scale, and also for this reason it becomes less likely that I will bother to answer the question or otherwise help out.
I am fully aware that SO is directed at "Professional and enthusiast" programmers, but I don't see a conflict with the community adopting a relaxed but professional culture.
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Considering "plz" to be offensive is a stretch of the imagination, much like "thanks in advance".– user7116Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:20
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11Fully agree with more 'off-putting' than 'offensive'. My natural reaction to 'plz' is 'whipper snapper' (and something about getting off my lawn) :)– user50049Commented Apr 23, 2013 at 15:32
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I agree with this 100%, but you get my +1 for "That earns the poster a point on my twat scale".– HerbertCommented Jul 28, 2013 at 3:43