Talk:Leet/Archive 3

You all are morons who can't think outside the box
I apologize for my language, but after reading 2 archived pages of nothing less than kiddie bs, and futile attempts to "find" the origins of the actual language 1337, I'm convinced that wikipedia is full of kids and morons. The origins are simple. So simple that only somebody using a computer would find it impossible to discover. Now quick, I want you to grab your 10-40 pound screen and stare at this word and then I want you to TURN IT UPSIDE DOWN: 1337

Right now you might be saying Aha!, or you may just think I'm bsing, or you may have broken your screen (or you neck), and I apologize for that, but 133t was spelled by computer users because nobody wanted to read UPSIDE DOWN CALCULATOR CODE on a computer screen.

1 does not stand for L, and 7 does not stand for T. 7=L 3=E 3=E 1=T. Personal calculators were available from the 70's in america calculator, and this is what started "leetspeak", which probably originated from 8008 or 58008, which evolved into 55378008. That's BOOB, BOOBS, and BOOBLESS List_of_calculator_words. Do you see why 13375p34k is the stupidest title ever? It is a combination, and a disgusting mutant creation. It's ass-backwards. The internet was made in the 80's, the personal calculator was made in the 70's. Do you honestly think that kids spent 10 years not messing around with the calculator? The saddest thing about this whole article is that nobody dare questions why 1337 doesn't look like LEET. Some claim that it's because there is a lowercase l, but honestly that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Lowercase l, Uppercase EET. It should be noted that the term leet probably wasn't written 1337 on a calculator, since the term didn't gain popularity till later on, with the explosion of BBS, the internet, and gaming, which each evolved Leetspeak into something else entirely. I find this supposed "history", and every n00b user's comments to be disgusting, ill-informed, and I'm not even sure anybody will care. Nobody uses calculators and computers together. Anyone feel free to take out all my insulting comments. I had to let one other person know. God Bless the world. One last thing, as a non-historical document, the main page of leet is well written out. I would change the main page, but I have no backup, and very little proof of what I'm saying, and I believe in Wiki's Three rules. --SpydyrMan 19:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * According to your myspace page, you would have been 10 tops when BBSes reached their peak. You would not have been born in the days when every kid in school started to have a calculator. I don't think you quite have a grasp of the era you are describing, and you're totally out to lunch. Oh, and the actual "Internet" wasn't really used by the public until after the 80s - in the early 90s in fact. It was in the 80s that things like Fidonet began to permeate BBSes, relaying only text-based information via modem from BBS to BBS. So, you're really good at making crap up in your head but you have incomplete information. Try starting with the wikipedia article Internet. --CokeBear 19:34, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

That's I always thought.I didn't have a link or anything and I didn't want to put it in without one.--Scott3 20:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Out of pure curiosity (because we would need sources for this information to be useful in practice), I have a few questions: EldKatt (Talk) 13:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why is 1 used to represent T? They don't look alike. Not even upside down.
 * Why did people start using calculator words in a context where their whole point is lost?
 * Why should I regard this as any more likely than the explanations on the main page? I'm not asking for good sources, but merely some sort of explanation of why you know this to be true.

As a native speaker of 1337(and proud of it) I will try to answear you questions
 * Sometimes 1 can have the a hortizontal line at the bottom(just look at what the one looks like on the edit page). If you turn  this upside down you get a "t".  Why would a "7" be a "t"
 * I'am not to sure if I uderstand your question but isn't that 1337 is about,useing numbers to repersent letters that is almost the same thing as caculator words.
 * It could put in the article as a theory of the explaniton of where 1337 came form. I don't noone really knows where 1337 came form.   I think most n4t1\/3 speaker of 1337(including me) think that the upside down caclutor orgin of 1337 is the most likely.--Scott3 03:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * To answer your first question, a cursive T often looks exactly like a 7.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * 3x(us3 /\/\3, |3u7 7|-|3 f1rs7 |o0s7 1|\| 7|-|1s s3(710|\| s33/\/\s \/3|o\y 0|o1|\|10|\|473|). -that is 1337.  It does strike me as odd that whoever wrote this article didn't mention the calculator 1337 (at least at the time the first post was made on this section).  But your constant usage of abusive language is quite apalling.  BTW, internet leet can't (and shouldn't) be read upside down, so people had to compensate.  Just wanted to say something. -69.29.149.11


 * Wow, the original poster doesn't really know what he's talking about (IMNSHO). Sure, kids played with their calculators, but the term 1337 did not come from the calculator. Pure evidence of this is Sure, some representations of the number 1 have a large serif on the bottom, and it kinda looks like a T, but not until the 90s. The graphing calculators of the TI and HP variety actually had an LCD matrix which enabled them to display the serifs, but the calculators that were around "before the Internet" were all made of 7 segment displays, and the 1 was merely two vertical bars, it did *not* represent a T. List_of_calculator_words makes this clear. 1 was used for i, and that's really about it. (okay, it occasionally was used for L) Never T. Leet came about as a polymorphic language to allow inapropriate discussions on Bulliten boards with excessive filters. That's the history. Oh, and while "Personal Calculators" were out in the 70s, they really didn't drop below the $100 mark until the mid seventies. And it wasn't until the early 80s that they were in the price range where kids could play with them. Strangely enough, it was the early 80s where BBSs became popular, so Kids playing with Personal Calculators doesn't actually predate "Kids" on BBSs. McKay 17:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Heavens help us all, we are getting history lessons on 'Leet' from people who were not born until the 90s. Look, as a former operator of a BBS, and a child of the 70s, I can tell you right now that you are talking out of your arse. Leet-speak has nothing to do with calculators. The original intent was twofold - to obfuscate text so that it was not easily filtered by black lists and the like on BBS software, and to "look cool" so that you cold claim you were "elite". Most people who had to claim they were "elite" were in fact, not at all, and simply stole stuff from other people and passed it along acting like they were the crackers and hackers and phreakers when they in fact were what would later become AOLers. Most people who actually were programmers, myself included, didn't feel the need to announce anything by using leet-speek. So, we used it to circumvent filters - usually bad ones that were set to be overly intolerant of even the simplest things (when a BBS censors association because it has ass in it, it has problems). There are no NATIVE SPEAKERS of 'Leet, since it wouldn't mean anything to speak it. It is a quirk of the modern era because of the ability to send messages by text to people using a typewriter or keypad instead of handwriting. It will likely endure for years to come because it does come in handy for certain things. But unless your parents only sent you text messages from the day you were born, you aren't a "native speaker". You are one of those people I mentioned above - an attention-seeking "too cool for school" dork. You are not in any way an authority on the subject just because you understand it. Get over yourself, you 58008.--CokeBear 19:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Archived due to length
I apologize if I interupted any discussion, feel free to copypaste back what you need. -- Dragoonmac - If there was a problem yo I'll solve it 21:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Noticed this article was shown on the video of this news article. -- Thorpe | talk 12:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoever made this had a WHOLE lot of time on their hands... BTW How do I sign shit?
 * Use four tildes ( ~ ) &bull; TheTrueSora 20:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to let you folks know..leet speak is not about replacing letters with all the symbols and numbers as you can...it's about making fun of commonly mispelt words. A good example is: Omg j00 r t3h hax0rz. A bad one which everyone think is leet speak..which really isn't, is: 0/\/\g 1 |</\/0\/\/ u |-|4<|<.

This article is missing a lot of the history of l33t, and wrongly attributes it's creation to counter-strike, which really only popularised it. 'l33t speak' originated from BBS users using horribly slow modems, who found ways to abbreviate text to shorten transfer times, much simmilar to how abbreviations are used on mobile phone messages to speed up the time it takes to type them. 'l33t' originated from the common BBS abbreviation for elite - 'Leet', pronounced ell-eet. When faster modems became cheaper, BBS networks were flooded with new users who didnt understand the leet lingo, hence the abbreviation 'newB' for 'newbie' (new-bee). This lingo was later taken and perverted by popular internet culture, by people who took the liked it for the novelty, not the original functional purpose, and changed abbreviations such as 'Leet' and 'newB', into more cryptic abbreviations such as 'L337'. This caused the original simplicity of pronounciation (L ett, new B, etc..) to be lost by most users, and abbreviations were further perverted in ways that made them have no relation to the pronounced sound, such as '1337' or 'n00b'. This then continued into the form of leet speak constructed from symbols such as /\|<> as shown above. I would really like this article to be revised to show the real history and evolution of the lingo, as it was once a functional tool, not just a novelty.

guys guys guys 1337 speak is thew way to live on teh INTRANET'zOr   go away P00B b3f0r3 I PWNz0r Joo'r Ass

Loan words
I've tagged with the template ("art" for artificial languages) the Leet words and phrases. However, I'm not sure what to do with slang. Some of those terms are Leet, and therefore non-English words should be tagged with that template (see the Template talk:lang). However, if some of the common ones can be considered slang, therefore they are English and shouldn't be tagged with the lang template. Where is the boundary? --surue&ntilde;a 20:18, 22 May 2006 (UTC)


 * There's been plenty of discussion about it, and there's really no consensus (and more importantly no sources) to say that Leet is a language at all, much less an artificial language (whatever it is, it isn't artificial). I'm a bit doubtful about using the lang template. EldKatt (Talk) 06:25, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I understand. So, do you think all those lang occurrences should be removed?
 * I don't know much about artificial languages, but it seems that Leet can be seen as a secret language. I added it to the list of constructed languages yesterday in that section, but if this wasn't a good idea remove it from the list (or better, comment out that line and explain why it shouldn't be added). Thanks --surue&ntilde;a 11:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I had apparently forgotten about this talk discussion until I stumbled upon it now, but as you'll see I have removed the lang in the article (for reasons explained in great detail in archives of this talk page).
 * I'm removing it from the list of constructed languages as well. I very much doubt the labeling of the other "language games" in that list as artificial as well, though, (who invented Pig Latin?) but this is a problem to be dealt with elsewhere. EldKatt (Talk) 09:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Online Language Leaves Parents In The Dark Article
Im not sure why this article is included in the page. It is not informative and is extremely biased. I think it should be removed. Anyone else agree? Here: 'Online Language Leaves Parents In The Dark SIGURD42 22:43, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree--it's not very informative--just basically a little warning to parents. I think it should be removed. authraw 00:58, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

No objections so its history. SIGURD42 16:03, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The template at the top
I think Infobox Writing system would be better than Infobox Language. At best L337 is a cryptolect of english, not a proper language. There are about a dozen words unique to it, but much of its variation is in the realm of puncuation and encoding, characteristics of a writing system. Anyone disagree?-- The ikiroid  18:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)


 * If you look at the archived parts of this talk page, you'll find a great deal of discussion about this. I still don't understand why it shouldn't be perfectly clear to everyone that we have no right to call Leet a language, if nothing else because there are no reliable sources that indicate that it is widely considered to be one. (And I don't understand at all how the idea of an artifical language came up. It's not in any way artificial.) In summary, Infobox Language should certainly not be used. I'm currently not sure of my opinion regarding Infobox Writing system, but it's less far-fetched than a language box. EldKatt (Talk) 11:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm changing it. We can discuss it here afterword.-- The ikiroid  16:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

7331 stemmed from halo
7331 language actually stemmed from Halo online playing using xbox connect. it was used in game discussion and chat.
 * Yeah, right. Halo is what, 4 years old? l337 has been around for far longer than that. you also appear to have written "teel" or something, twice. As the article says, l337 has been about since the Commodore 64, far before the Xbox was even a twinkle in Microsoft's eye. Setokaiba✌≝ 20:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

lol... halo does nothing original at all.... halo deserves credit for having sort of fun singleplayer thats it.

My god, no kidding. "l33t" is "lamerized" text, which was a visual encryption that I can remember using in the early 90s on BBSes. There were also lamerizing filters for IRC clients. Most of the time, you'd write some fake message then below your signature put your real message lamerized, and most people just assumed it was some type of error. People would also post their messages lamerized hoping people would assume it was some sort of (non-visual) encryption. But I'm only 37, I would bet this was being done in the 80s and maybe even 70s.

Written very well
Though some people here consider the origins of leetspeak listed here dubious, I do not. Even if they are, this article explains everything very well. It is extremely difficult not to laugh at the incredibly detailed explanation and dissection of "r0x0rz j00r b0x0rs" and so forth. xD --Ihmhi 06:52, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Should we delete this Page?
This thing isnt a language its more of a extreme version of internet talk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Synthe (talk • contribs) 10:41, 25 June 2006
 * It's obviously notable though. It will most certainly survive WP:AfD. -- Ec5618 06:52, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If anything, we should delete this page, which exists mainly for people to quibble about the history of 1337, engage in flame wars, and forget about getting this article back to featured article status. Bibliomaniac15 00:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * But at the end of the day, it does help people like me learn about what L337 actually is, as it did for me 3 years ago. Maybe it'll help someone else too. We shouldn't let the jade produced by annoying edit wars blind our judgement about what the article is actually for&mdash;teaching someone about L337 who doesn't know what it is. You wouldn't delete an article about a religion simply because we have a conflict of definition, because we need to inform the world about the topic at hand. Sorry about the confusing soliliquy, but I need to get my point across.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:17, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You'd be laughed out of AfD for listing a former feature article under the assumption that it is "not notable". --DavidHOzAu 12:14, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think we should delete it. If it needs get back feature article stautus lets start working on it.--Scott3 19:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * It may be annoying, but it's something that people still ask about, so it should stay... I doubt it's going to bring more converts to leetspeak or anything dangerous like that... WhateverTS 01:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

leet is just an abbreviation for elite
When you write text-messages on your mobile phone (SMS) not only do you have limited characters, but its frustrating to type, so people (or ppl) use abbreviations.

"I've got to go down town, see you later." -> Becomes -> "I gtg dwn twn cya l8r"

This is the origin of "l33t speek"! No not mobile phones, but abbreviating typed messages due to constraints. In the case of phone text messages, the constraints are limited characters and stupid keypads. The original constraints that caused elite to be abbreviated to leet was a 1200 baud modem! It took forever to send a single sentance to someone, so you wanted to convey your message in as few characters as possible.

Hence these so called "1337 speek" sentances consisting of cyphers such as N = |\| are just plain wrong, and a perversion and corruption of the original concept.

Hence there are two forms of leet - the functional form, consisting of common abbreviations, and the lame 'underground' form just used to show off your ASCII skillz. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.2.182.254 (talk • contribs)

Example paragraph.
"I will take this opportunity to remind you that you should always get you kids pet spayed or neutered. Never leave home without a towel. And no matter what the say, there is no cow level." If we're going to have an example paragraph (which seems kind of stupid in my opinion anyway) can it at least make sense and not be a few nonsense sentences incoherantly stringed together? This is wikipedia after all. tmopkisn tlka 00:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The towel sentence is from HHGG, and the Cow level is a reference to Diablo - both of which seem to be Geek canon. --220.237.67.125 14:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Couldn't the towel reference also be from South Park's Towelie character, whose tagline is "don't forget to bring a towel"?


 * I think the example paragraph is fine, but I think it would make more sense to have a generic, common example sentance, such as teh one provided at the top of the discussion page: “The quick red fox…” In fact, I'm going to be bold and make it so now. —Ragdoll 01:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed from article
Possible origin of kekeke is from Tokusatsu shows made in Japan during the 70's (though were broadcast in other asian countries, like China, Vietnam, Korea, etc.), particularly the show "Kamen Rider".

The evil organization "Shocker", the antagonist organization in the show had henchman who dressed all in black with a skeletal pattern of white on their uniforms. The masks on their uniforms were reminiscent of mexican wrestling masks. Whenever a group of Shocker henchmen would gang up on Kamen Rider, they would either chirp "Ki ki!" or " Ke ke!", as the henchmen rarely ever spoke, alluding to the posibility that they may have not been human, or at least weren't anymore. -- Ec5618 01:03, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Regulation
There is no "official" way for leetspeak to be spoken, yet this article is labeling their way to be the standard.
 * No it's not. It's identifying common patterns. Ragdoll 21:31, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Very Anglo-centric post
Despite the article on L33T trying to be ironically non-elitist (tongue-in-cheek; smart aleck) no one has pointed out how Anglo-centric this whole article is. There is one little phrase that says L33T is also used in other languages but the whole article focuses solely on English. Who's actually "Elitist" now?
 * It is the English language version of Wikipedia. Ragdoll 17:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Only Anglophones would be dumb enough to come up with that kind of idea anyway.

This article sucks!
Okay, so I added some "this page sucks" templates to the top of the article. I think all of it is valid.

Thehaus.net is not a reputable source. Google "link:thehaus.net" Even when simimlar results are included, There are a total of 22 links, 14 of which are internal. That leaves 8 sites linking to thehaus. Original Research?

Well, I'm going to go through this article, prolly make massive changes? McKay 06:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * okay, apparently, my changes were reverted, so now all the chagnes that I was in the middle of making are now invalidated because I now no longer have an updated version of the page :( McKay 06:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, so it's been a few months, and a several thousand edits since I really spent some time on the leet article, and I finally traced the big change that I'm not so happy with: Avriette's big change on the leet page. He referencedthis talk entry.

The main reason I went on this hunt was with regards to the history of the language. I have always understood that it (and remember *someone* retell the story) came to get past BBS filters. I think that that might be verifiable, but admittedly, I don't have any references to cite. But I notice that the replacement "forming exclusive cliques" doesn't have any verifiable information either.
 * Also, people have expressed dissatisfaction as to my leaving "this page sucks" templates on the page. I believe each of them is valid, and here's why.
 * Fiction, Unreferenced: "Most simply, it has evolved as a way of forming exclusive cliques in on-line communities". Sure that may have been where it became widespread, but that wasn't where it originated from. Can we get a real origin?
 * Not verified: same previously mentioned statement, and a bajillion other statements on the page
 * Primary sources, Unreliable:thehause.net mentioned above.
 * So, that's my general feeling. Some of them may be a bit redundant, but I think all apply. McKay 07:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Underassumption
I read through this article, and it talks down to you as if you were a little child who had never heard of the internet before. It also resembles a animal-planet-like documentary about a underdeveloped foriegn culture. ("Here we approach the small tribe of Internet, or 1337 in their native language.") However, if you are reading the page, you already know SOMETHING about the internet, and, most likely, Leet/l33t/1337. Can someone help fix this?Chwoka

Too subjective a topic?
From reading this page and the discussion, it has become clear that it is difficult to discern what is fact and what is merely opinion. I believe that everything here, my currest post included, is based on personal bias and experience. For example, the note at the top of the page, is, in my opinion, complete garbage. I have seen the characters 1,3, and 7 used to represent l, e, and t respectively on countless websites, so I KNOW that 1337 meaning leet does not have it's origin in "upside down calculator code" as the poster suggested, but I cannot prove that I am correct. There is an argument to delete this article entirely because we cannot prove that anything here is fact. However, at the very least I would like to point out that the order of the article makes it so that people who only read the openning paragraphs will think that leet is still only used among the hacker elite. While, quite on the contrary, in my experience, I have found that the true geek elite have abandoned leet-speak as the non-elite have learned it, and the people that use it today are looked down upon as wanna-be's.

"LEEB" merge?
Ah... I most certainly vote an emphatic "no". The Leeb article looks more like someone came up with it off the top of their head and decided to try to make it official by putting it on Wikipedia (because everything on the intarweb is true). The Leet page is, in my opinion, actually quite well fleshed out and deserves to stay that way. Any other opinions? - 69.130.43.203 03:59, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Leeb would most definitely be merged into Leet and not the other way around, but I vote to delete Leeb altogether. —Ragdoll 01:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Would anyone object is the merger request was just removed? Crimson Shadow 16:53, 31 August 2006 (UTC)