[obol] Four letter codes - Or - Why do we post?

[Bill Clemons]

Bird watchers who use four letter codes, do so for
more then one reason, some of which have already been
mentioned.

1)  Easier to take personel notes. Granted.

2)  Relatively straight forward formatting using
"three simple rules."  Granted, though YWAR = Yellow
Warbler violates rule #2 (it is not YEWA for valid
reason, I am sure).  Rule #2: "If the bird name has
two words, use the first two letters of each (RED
CROSSBILL = RECR)." 
YWAR to me is a question I would like to ask our
President, but that is for some other forum.

3)  Less paper used in writing field notes.  Granted
again, although my computerized notes use even less
paper, and without the need to memorize or look up any
codes.  I simply come home from the field, make check
marks on my Excel based checklist in the column next
to the bird name, sort, copy, and then past into a
Word doc for any notes I wish to add.

Where four letter codes fall short for OBOL email
postings in my mind is:

A)  Any post to OBOL, verbose (like most of mine) or
concise, has as its primary goal, the communication of
some information to some group of people in this
public forum.  

What group(s) are we trying to reach?  

Only those who can readily translate our shorthand
codes into the names of the birds we have something to
say about?  

Only those who are willing to take the time to learn
the codes?

Scrabble players?

Every reader?

All readers who are interested in the location
mentioned by the author?

B) Four letter codes are equivalent to a
stenographer's "shorthand" which in effect, is a
foreign language to those who do not read that
shorthand (most OBOL readers and posters).  If we all
spoke the language (the four letter codes), it would
be a non-issue, but we do not, and we very likely
never will.  

I know of no fluent shorthand user, or person who
writes fluently in any foreign language that would
ever post to OBOL in their other language, be it
"shorthand", Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Mandarin,
etc.  They would all write their post in English in
order to reach the widest audience.

Continuing to play Scrabble,

Bill Clemons




       
____________________________________________________________________________________
Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting