Each time I cannot remember what OP stands for, I think it would be more kind to use asker, poster, question author or anything that would be easier to understand without a trip to the glossary and/or without a search on the internet.
We should discourage using such acronyms:
It would lower ...
Maybe I should have asked that any pretty widely used term should not get used. It might be that someone who is not a native internet citizen or someone from another mother tongue visits any SE site (maybe one not related to computers at all) and gets discouraged to join the discussion.
I did that search too and found this: OP acronym. Dozens of meanings like your linked article. It doesn't make it any clearer or easier to understand for anyone who doesn't know that upfront. I think such acronyms should be avoided not only in comments - but if you avoid them in questions and answers as @DavidZ suggests it is a good start.
@5pike please post it as an answer if you think we should use such acronyms and under which conditions. I think the question by itself is more than valid.
@downvoters - is the question itself so bad? Please suggest corrections or edit it. I think the topic is important.. if any of you has a good answer please provide it.
@flob votes on meta sites often indicate agreement or disagreement with the post. People are probably downvoting because they don't agree that this policy should be implemented, not because they think your question is bad. (I've seen a lot of bad questions and this is not one.)
@DavidZ that's sad. Downvoting reduces visibility and it feels like those people don't want this question to be visible. Like they want to stay in their cosy community without any newcomers welcome. I would rather prefer a 'You are so dumb, just google it' as an answer - you could argue about it and vote upon it...
Ok, I rephrased the question to be more open and not so biased.. hope this helps for its topic.
@flob (2 comments up) I don't think so. If most people disagree with a feature request then it makes sense not to give it much visibility, in my opinion. I don't see at all how it's justified to conclude from this behavior that people want to stay in their cosy community and exclude newcomers (nor do I see the point of an answer that says "you're so dumb, just Google it" - note that such answers and comments are actually banned or highly discouraged).
@DavidZ My intend was to start a discussion, not a feature-request. If someone thinks we should not discuss this topic, you are right. But a comment with any kind of opinion would be more helpful. Seems like I got carried away with my suggested answer and the alleged motivation.
@flob sorry, I misspoke. What I said applies for suggestions of any sort, not just actual feature requests. In this case, you were originally suggesting that we discourage people from using these acronyms; people evidently disagreed, and they downvoted accordingly. In its current form, the question is a better prompt for discussion (although you've changed it so much that the existing answers don't entirely make sense anymore, which is somewhat frowned upon). I'm just saying, you can't conclude from the downvotes that people don't think this topic should be discussed.
I would add, though, that if avoiding downvotes is your goal, you're going to find participation in any meta site rather discouraging. It's the nature of meta sites that downvotes are used liberally.
@DavidZ (2 comments up) I tried to change the question to be more open and not so biased towards a direction without invalidating existing answers - Seems like I did not do the best job and I am sorry about that. But letting it go or submitting the question again with another point of view seemed worse... ?
It was not about not letting it get downvoted, I just wanted to get the issue to be discussed and was interested in some opinions.. but if downvotes are some kind of expression of opinions, maybe thats the common opinion ..
It sounds like you may have wanted to have the kind of discussion that really should take place in chat.
The discussion tag is a little misleading in that way; we tend to use it as a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit into one of the other required tags. But even discussion questions, if they are good, tend to be suggesting something that people may agree or disagree with.
@flob by the way, don't worry, I'm not personally offended or anything. But what I would have suggested is: don't incorporate the answers into the question.
The way in which you rewrote the question not to ask "should we do this" is fine.
