New features: Acronym translation and content linking

[JanineMumsnet]

We often get feedback from new users to say that they are bamboozled by all the weird and wonderful acronyms you use used on the boards. With this in mind we have now enabled a feature whereby a 'translation' will be shown next to an acronym. This will be set to 'on by default' for logged out users of the site, and for new users who sign up from this point forward. For existing logged in users of the site, the feature will be off as a default. You can turn this feature on or off at any time by going to your talk preferences here. At the moment we are only testing this in a few specific areas: conception, pregnancy and antenatal clubs, so you shouldn't see this across the entire site yet.

The second feature will hopefully help users to find useful content on a specific topic as and when they need it. For example, if a user posts about heartburn or SPD the tool will highlight this word and link to useful content about this topic. Again, for now this feature will only appear in the conception, pregnancy and antenatal clubs topics and you can turn this feature off at any time by going to your talk preferences here.

We hope you find these new features useful, but as ever we appreciate your candid feedback, so please let us know in the comments what you think.

Thanks
MNHQ

@Weathergirl1 oops! Have asked for that translation to be updated.

@NicciLovesSundays that's really useful feedback. I wonder if there's anything we can do here with the we identify as acronyms.

@JanineMumsnet
I think it is probably more about individual users changing their behaviour, the more people who do it, the more accepted it seems to become.

Hi, it appears that a lowercase oh is automatically converted to uppercase OH (other half).

E.g. someone might write oh my god and it will be converted to OH (other half) my god, changing the meaning of the sentence.

Also DC is always explained as Dear Child when it should probably be Dear Child(ren).

I think it's a good idea for boards with more newbies on them. Just needs tweaking.

@GoldenTrumpets Thanks for the feedback. Will add in these changes

Hi

When I untick mine, and then click save, the page refreshes and the boxes are ticked, so the changes are not saved.

Am accessing on a Samsung S8 on the internet app.

Thank you

Some incorrect ones I've seen multiple times:

Oh (as in oh dear) translated as Other Half

Op (as in operation) translated as Original Poster

Salt (as in pinch of salt) as Speech and language therapist - this one is very odd, I've seen it upwards of 10 times this week

NT meaning nuchal translucency on the pregnancy boards, translated as neurologically typical. Bit confusing.

I also dislike that MN comes up as "Mumsnet of course! :-)" - this kind of thing ruins the flow of the sentence.

I'm really unsure about the whole feature honestly.

Perhaps fix the other problems before adding to them.
HTH (hope that helps)

How are you going to teach it about context?

For instance FTM is used both for First-Time Mum & for Female-to-Male and there’s quite a big difference.

For instance FTM is used both for First-Time Mum & for Female-to-Male and there’s quite a big difference.

IINW, it'll probably follow this list (for now), which means those two probably aren't being translated in the first place.

As a lurker for months and a member for a few more, the use of so many impenetrable Acronyms all over the site is still really frustrating and such a waste of time trying to work out what the hell people are talking about. As in "Life is too short!" waste of time, obviously the content is worthwhile, it's the time going backwards and forwards through threads trying to "decode" comments that is the waste of time.

The problem is partly that "specialist jargon" Acronyms are interspersed with "internet jargon" Acronyms and it is often impossible to know which one it is. (Speaking as someone who has just wasted time trying to find out what "medical condition" or Mumsnet Topic "AMA" refers to, only to finally discover that was being being referred to was a general "Ask Me Anything!" type of Thread.)

My first port of call is always the Mumsnet Acronyms Page. Could @Mumsnet please make it easier to request additions to the Acronyms page?

Here now having waded through loads of possibly relevant posts to see if this has been covered somewhere already and this seems the most relevant thread.

Incidentally, I am not an "internet newbie". I have been moderating forums and email lists since the late 1990's, am active on several social media/networking platforms and have set up and manage a specialist Hashtag dictionary to help new users on a different platform. Mumsnet is without doubt one of the BEST forums I have come across - but also the hardest work and most time-consuming to use because of the proliferation of "Internet Jargon Acronyms".

I haven't seen how the trial "Acronym auto-expander" works so cannot comment on that. In the meantime, please would you consider adding any extra definitions in the "Acronym auto-expander" to the Acronym Definitions Page?
www.mumsnet.com/info/acronyms