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It's also used sometimes because the poster wants to give the impression they feel a particular way or because the poster think it's the "cool" thing to do. (I'm not just talking about 13 year olds either, "grown-ups" do it, too.)
In either case, it can be ignored or it can be used by other readers to better determine the content of the message and the state of the poster. You can use it as an indicator of a bad day, ignorance, a hasty post, wisdom :), or just plain idiocy depending on your experience.
If folks depend on these to pass summary judgements on posts/users**, how will they function in the absence of these indicators? I suppose they'd either find new indicators to separate the wheat from the chaff or they'd spend more time reading posts and judging them by their individual merits. (The latter is perhaps a case for automatically reformatting the dollar signs, but...)
If it was automatically removed, posters would just add other shorthand indicators about those companies. Like maybe a :P after the abbreviation. As the shorthands were filtered, they would just flat out speak their opinion "G sucks" or "MS sucks." I'd think that would be worse for the signal to noise ratio than an unusually placed "$."
Of course, if the use of a dollar sign in the wrong place is a sufficiently reliable indicator that the poster's comments have no value, then shouldn't the posts just be deleted? Or the user banned?
My $.02. :)
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** I use misplaced dollar signs in case you need that info to judge this post. :)
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My $.02.
Another of my pet peeves :D - often attached to great posts when the poster reaches the end of the message and starts to lack the courage of his convictions. Be bold, and just say it! Why devalue your thoughts?
whether someone thinks that Google or Microsoft "sucks" is both irrelevant and harmful to the poster
They've chosen to include that subtext, for whatever reason. If that level of subtext was filtered because of a perceived irrelevance then I see a slippery slope in that decision.
Posters do a lot of irrelevant and harmful to themselves things, to filter them all would condense everyone's messages to an inhuman level. We all have our own filters anyways ranging from very common "1337 speak" blockers to more stringent and less common "misspeelings indicate ignorance" flags.
To deny the value we attach to being able to think we better understand the poster because of the quirks of their message is to deny the inferential power of these hunks of grey matter floating in our skulls.
My $.02
When I use it other times it's to remind people who might otherwise get a rise out of what I say that it's simply the voice of one person. I'm here to contribute, so I intentionally devalue my message on a regular basis. Demagoguery is outside the scope of my participation at WW. :)
if you use terms like these in a post, my eyes glaze overMine too, encyclo, I can't seem to help it.
In either case, it can be ignored or it can be used by other readers to better determine the content of the message and the state of the poster. You can use it as an indicator of a bad day, ignorance, a hasty post, wisdom :), or just plain idiocy depending on your experience.
Hmmm..never thought about that way, whoisgreg. So maybe it's be better if they did stick around.
To deny the value we attach to being able to think we better understand the poster because of the quirks of their message is to deny the inferential power of these hunks of grey matter floating in our skulls.
True, but I just don't have the time or patience to read through so many posts. I need to use some kind of filter and this is jsut one of them. Maybe if it's used only once in a post, I can try to not let it bug me;-)
To deny the value we attach to being able to think we better understand the poster because of the quirks of their message is to deny the inferential power of these hunks of grey matter floating in our skulls.
I meant this to mean that the indicators are useful because they increase how the amount of information available. Now that I read it again, it seems awfully cryptic.
I think I'll plant myself in the middle of the road: 'M$' doesn't really bother me, Microsoft however, is a real pain in the proverbial backside
My 2p ;)
Google search: microsoft <issue> result: won't produce micro$oft or M$ <issue> discussed on webmasterworld.
I originally found webmasterworld by searching a very specific thing that I discovered related to SEO. If people used different lingo that I wasn't aware of, I wouldn't have found webmasterworld for quite a while.
