Silly Season 2015

[nafpaktos]

I also don't like acronyms at all for the drivers(I don't remember if I have ever used them),but I see drivers to use them,PET (pre event test)for example for videos.

[EightGear]

There's a difference between the use of acronyms and the pure rape of drivers names, like 'Mikleson.'

[nafpaktos]

I think this is due to the speed of writing,especially when you write from smartphone.i dont think this is a disrespect to the drivers or the members of the forum,of course I don't think is right.

[Mintexmemory]

For me personally, apart from it is little difficult to decode, it shows little disrespect to the main characters involved to write their initials instead of at least first name, last name is preferred of course.

As I said before Jari-Matti has actuallly embraced JML as his title and now includes it in his autograph (only happened this year sometime as his autograph at Monte was just J M Latvala.) Mikkelsen always signs AM with a smiley in the A.
If the drivers use their initials to refer to themselves I can't see how it can be disrespectful for fans to do so. In fact in British and American culture the use of initials to refer to someone is usually an indication of respectful familiarity, an alternative to a nickname. RK is a whole lot different to Crashy Bob, which despite being accurate and (to some) amusing, actually is disrespectful.
Part of the problem is the adoption of english as the communication medium without the mindset that allows colloquial understanding. As a mod I frequently resist the temptation to edit bad english as I'm not here to be patronising - just occasionally it is necessary as the original poster's meaning isn't clear or being correctly conveyed. Case in point, Stefan's statement above is missing 'a' before 'little' which completely changes the meaning to something he doesn't intend.
Can I suggest we argue about the sport and not get hung up about communication style - as ever tolerance is one of the greatest attributes of civilised people
Here endeth the lesson!

[bluuford]

This is major disrespect. Kinderkarten and elementary school pupils who are most probably the only remaining big fan base in F1 may use all kind of abbreviations and acronyms as they like. It is normal as many of them are not very strong in spelling and writing, yet. Soon they discover how pointless is F1 and only a few fans remain for some reason. Drivers are anyway almost nothing in F1 series. Couple of hours of racing per weekend and then just some chilling and training. Sometimes a few hours testing.

WRC Driver has a major impact in the final result of the rally and their effort of driving 3-4 days on and between the stages + 2 days of recce is worth some kind of respect. You should also mention the work of co-driver and what they do with the notes during the evening/night time etc. I am always thinking about it before posting my replay and if I have some doubt about the correct writing of some names, then I use internet. When I have no time to chcek it fom interet, then I prefere not to replay to the topic at all.

[stefanvv]

As I said before Jari-Matti has actuallly embraced JML as his title and now includes it in his autograph (only happened this year sometime as his autograph at Monte was just J M Latvala.) Mikkelsen always signs AM with a smiley in the A.
If the drivers use their initials to refer to themselves I can't see how it can be disrespectful for fans to do so. In fact in British and American culture the use of initials to refer to someone is usually an indication of respectful familiarity, an alternative to a nickname. RK is a whole lot different to Crashy Bob, which despite being accurate and (to some) amusing, actually is disrespectful.
Part of the problem is the adoption of english as the communication medium without the mindset that allows colloquial understanding. As a mod I frequently resist the temptation to edit bad english as I'm not here to be patronising - just occasionally it is necessary as the original poster's meaning isn't clear or being correctly conveyed. Case in point, Stefan's statement above is missing 'a' before 'little' which completely changes the meaning to something he doesn't intend.
Can I suggest we argue about the sport and not get hung up about communication style - as ever tolerance is one of the greatest attributes of civilised people
Here endeth the lesson!

As I said, it is personal opinion. I think wrc (and other) drivers are doing more for the "fans" than be just 2 letters in some forum post. Not to mention sometimes might be some duplications of the initials, so this leads to confusion (it happened also here AFAIR, but don't remember the exact case) and seem like full ignorance on either of the persons. Anyway, personal opinion.
Familiarity is fine when You know very well the person and may speak freely with him, but on public forum seems little awkward. I'm well aware of the "American" style of naming someone, JR, CJ, etc., but don't know how to comment this TBH.

[Franky]

Here endeth the lesson!

Move the name posts to another thread? Tried to find the pub thread last night, but didn't seem to find it.

[Fast Eddie WRC]

I think its appropriate that this 'initials not names' issue should be brought up in the Silly Season thread !

Get a life people.

[Jack4688`]

Am I the only one who finds it a little disrespectful when certain publications refer to 'Rally Germany' not 'Rallye Deutschland' for example? There's abbreviating someone's name and then there's just pure bastardisation of an event name. I mean how difficult is it to type 'Rallye de France' instead of 'Rally of France'.

In a time when so many aspects of the WRC are homogenised/standardised & with the FIA wanting rallies to add their own individual flair to their events why can't we embrace to proper event titles like Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo, Rajd Polski, Rally de Catalunya etc? Granted most of those events still hold such titles, it's just lazy journalists anglicising the words, but I for one lament the loss of events such as 1000 Lakes Rally, RAC Rally etc.

Rant over, now I'm going to yell at the neighbour kids to turn their music down and to get off my front garden

[dodge33cymru]

And sometimes people keep writing 'VW'. I mean, how hard is it to type 'Volkswagen Polo R WRC'?

And it makes it impossible to tell the difference between the car, 'Volkswagen Motorsport', 'Volkswagen R Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung', 'Volkswagen Passenger Cars' and 'Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft' (let's not be having any of this 'AG' nonsense).

Wonder what the 'PH' in 'PH Sport' refers to. Going to need to find that out.

Really good news about Meeke, hope Ostberg is signed up full time as there's no obvious better option around. Would be good to see the third car emerge at a few rallies for Citroen. Sorry, I mean at Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team.