What the heck.

"9. Do Not Abuse the English Language

This is a message board, not a chat room. Secondly, DO NOT use "Leet-Speak" in our forums. As such, you have all the time necessary to articulate your posts in a coherent matter. "You" is only two more letters than "u." It will not kill you to type them. Completely illegible posts are subject to moderation - and I can not guarantee their accuracy of 'translating' the author’s original message."

I really don't understand this rule.. is it a bannable offense to tlk lyk ths? I mean, i just talk like it would be written 'cos it looks good, but seriously, does this need to be a rule and why?

There's your answer. It's not bannable, but the posts may get "translated."

It doesn't look good, it looks like you're either incapable of using a keyboard or you are viewing this forum throught a mobile (if mobiles supported PHP of course). It's unnessesary and annoying... it also feels rude to me.

As someone who has been using computers since childhood (from the Amiga) I find it more difficult to actually type in such stupid "spk" anyways.

Please save that for chat rooms, where it is actually a must.

Forums are based on written communication. If you can't write in a way that can be understood easily then you fail to communicate. If you can't communicate there is no need to post and expect any kind of dialog. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to try. You should break out of the habit of l33t speak anyway, it will not serve you in your adult life.

We won't ban you for just one post in incomprehensible leetspeak, but they will be deleted, and if you were to continually post that way, you might get banned. It's like doing anything else repeatedly over and over that doesn't contribute. Once is just annoying, but keep it up and I can't say how far we'd go in response.

It could be a bannable offense because then come other useless posts with no orientation to the topic, saying how bad your grammar is and causing unwanted spam.

Also I view these forums on my psp though I never post on it. It takes at least 5mins to type what I just typed. I would probably change some words to make it easier for me to write but not enough to make it unreadable.

He hee, I started out on an Amiga as well, nice to meet someone similar

And I totally agree with you as well. Using shorthand or leet talk in a forum shows laziness and a total disrespect for other forum users...

Save it for mobiles and chat rooms ^ ^

Keep in mind that there are also people with english as a 2nd language and so using that form of communicating isn't going to do some of them a whole lotta good.

also this would have been better dicussed in the forum surggestions, or even pm-ing a Mod about it.

I think the rule is in place to keep from having posts like this a simular quote in just random threads.

"ta heros r just worthless they shud make them fight gooder."

I admit to just writing in all lower case exceot for here, since I do tend to have a few run on sentances.

I'm new here, and this rule was one of the reasons I ultimately decided to join. I hate going to chat rooms and seeing it filled with leet speak garbage.

I agree with the quoted statement, and I'd like to add that this rule won't work against those who don't speak english very well. There's a huge gap between not knowing the language, and just blatant lazyness.

leet speak is hard to understand for most people. now on the froums, i dont have perfect sentance structure, and i tend to write fast and make mistakes, as well as not capitalising some of the letters i should. i abreviate stuff too like lol, rotfl but thoes are normaly abreviated. you ususally dont see anyone saying "laughing out loud" but thats how we interpret it.

My Treo 650 is capable of surfing and posting at Guru. Half the posts I write are written while mobile. Of course, I can't use the drop downs for thread moderation while on my Treo, so all my mod work is done from a "real" PC.

I find second language speakers more easy to understand than someone who types in shorthand, most of the time its like "wow, english is your second language?". But yeah I agree with the rule posted by this site, communication is important, not the speed at which you present it.

Doesn't it cost alot to get online through a mobile network?

Most people aren't that jammy though XD

Leet speak is just plain annoying to read. Thats all there is to say about it

It takes a lot longer to make sense of someones stupid spelling, etc.

Besides, you look much more intelligible by writing proper posts.

Leet speak is sooo enoying to read yes!
And as most people says here, it just plain Enoying and impossible to read sometimes! And you seem less inteligent and childish by typing it. btw, what's wrong with proper Eng language typing ect!? atleast you get what people says then.

Less good Eng speaking people may use leet speaking look-a-likes, but bad Eng typing can't be that close to leet speak can it...
They do on the other hand see it as a mutch easier way to type, but, i suggest they spend thoes leet speaking lessons on propper Eng ones instead.

Bann Leet speak!

All valid points, but I don't see why this should be a rule, per se. Maybe a hint? Little pop-up when you first join?

"D0n7 74|k |1k3 7h15 0r y0u w1|| b3 b4nn3d!"
or even.
"[)0|\|+ +@||< |1|<3 +|-|1$ 0|2 `/0|_| \X/1|| |}3 |}@|\||\|3[)."

^^