Navy to drop ALL-CAPS communications

Luigi59

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(BTW - real story, not from The Onion)

THE NAVY NOTICE THAT LOWERCASE LETTERS COULD BE USED WAS IRONICALLY ISSUED IN ALL CAPS.

THE U.S. NAVY WILL NO LONGER COMMUNICATE EXCLUSIVELY IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.

OFFICIAL COMMUNICATIONS AND ORDERS HAVE BEEN IN ALL CAPS SINCE 19TH CENTURY.

YOUNG SAILORS ACCUSTOMED TO TEXTING SEE ALL-CAPS ORDERS AS A FORM OF SHOUTING!

NAVY WANTS ITS ORDERS AND OFFICIAL MESSAGES TO BE MORE READABLE AND LESS RUDE.

WHILE THIS DECISION WAS MADE TO SAVE MONEY AND GAIN EFFICIENCIES, IF AN ANCILLARY BENEFIT IS THAT SAILORS READING MESSAGE TRAFFIC NO LONGER FEEL THEY’RE BEING SCREAMED AT…THAT’S A GOOD THING TOO,” SAID A NAVY OFFICIAL.

OLD BULLS STILL PREFER SHOUTING ORDERS AND SENDING MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS. BUT THE NAVY OFFICIAL DENIES THAT DROPPING OF ALL-CAPS COMMUNICATION IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE SERVICE GOING SOFT.

TRADITION OF ALL-CAPS COMMUNICATION IS A LEGACY OF TELETYPE MACHINES OF 1850S THAT LACKED LOWERCASE LETTERS.

BUT ONLY NOW IS THE NAVY ACKNOWLEDGING THAT THE REST OF THE WORLD HAS EMBRACED LOWERCASE LETTERS AND THAT AND ALL-CAPS MESSAGES ARE DEEPLY ANNOYING.

“LOWERCASE MESSAGES ARE HERE TO STAY,” JAMES MCCARTY, THE NAVAL MESSAGING PROGRAM MANAGER AT FLEET CYBER COMMAND SAID IN A STATEMENT. OR, RATHER, AN UNDERSTATEMENT.

THE SCOOP WAS FIRST REPORTED BY NAVY TIMES.

MANY ARMY ORDERS ARE STILL ISSUED IN CAPS AND OFFICERS FROM OTHER SERVICES HOPE REST OF PENTAGON WILL FOLLOW THE NAVY’S LEAD.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/06/12/navy-to-drop-all-caps-communications/

Naval messages — from routine GENADMINs (general administration) and MOVREPs (movement report) all the way up to a Flash OPREP, sent to the nation’s leaders during a crisis — are the tidings of the fleet. Changing that age-old format has prompted plenty of feedback. Younger personnel like it because it’s more readable and is similar to an email. But there are holdouts — especially among the old guard who are accustomed to reading their messages only in uppercase.

“You have a lot of folks that have been around for a long time and are used to uppercase and they just prefer that it stay there because of the standardized look of it,” McCarty said. “But the truth of it is, as we move forward, it’s imminent.”
 
Oh good ole MOVREPs.... OPS would always make some change that would require me to do up a new MOVREP just as I was hopping into my rack for my 4-5 hours of sleep.

I forgot about MOVREPs.
 
YOUNG SAILORS ACCUSTOMED TO TEXTING SEE ALL-CAPS ORDERS AS A FORM OF SHOUTING!

NAVY WANTS ITS ORDERS AND OFFICIAL MESSAGES TO BE MORE READABLE AND LESS RUDE.

Sniff Sniff. Those poor little babies. They thought they were being "yelled at".

28184016.jpg
 
I'm not even sure why this is that big of a deal and why the Navy is trying to publicize it that much. Great....we are going from all uppercase to the regular way of writing and we need a whole PA stint for it?
 
I dunno... The skeptic in me says that while it's a trivial topic for sure, it's better press than all the harrassment/assualt cases concerning the military lately. And it shows the service as becoming more modern and in touch with today.

Might be part of what's behind the PR?
 
Might be part of what's behind the PR?

It's soft news. I'm guessing the Navy didn't push it too hard, but it was just picked up as fluff. CHINFO isn't sitting back saying "this is HUGE news."

It's like a skateboarding bulldog.
 
“WHILE THIS DECISION WAS MADE TO SAVE MONEY AND GAIN EFFICIENCIES, IF AN ANCILLARY BENEFIT IS THAT SAILORS READING MESSAGE TRAFFIC NO LONGER FEEL THEY’RE BEING SCREAMED AT…THAT’S A GOOD THING TOO,” SAID A NAVY OFFICIAL.

I heard that next year, the Navy will introduce phase two of this program whereby each sailor's mother will record the message over soothing background noise for personal delivery to her DS or DD.

For the life of me, I don't know how this change helps the Navy "save money" or "gain efficiencies." I also don't know if this story is just STUPID or FUNNY but it makes me not only lol but LOL!!!!
 
I heard that next year, the Navy will introduce phase two of this program whereby each sailor's mother will record the message over soothing background noise for personal delivery to her DS or DD.

For the life of me, I don't know how this change helps the Navy "save money" or "gain efficiencies." I also don't know if this story is just STUPID or FUNNY but it makes me not only lol but LOL!!!!

Isn't stage-3 where any orders given, must be preceeded with "PLEASE, would you do something for me?"
 
^saves money by using less ink per letter x zillions of letters on billions of forms, everything adds up

And yes, my generation really does read all caps as YELLING. Get with the times, old geezers
 
^saves money by using less ink per letter x zillions of letters on billions of forms, everything adds up

And yes, my generation really does read all caps as YELLING. Get with the times, old geezers

Whats wrong with YELLING...Cadet?
:smile:
 
^saves money by using less ink per letter x zillions of letters on billions of forms, everything adds up

And yes, my generation really does read all caps as YELLING. Get with the times, old geezers

Except that the entire federal government is supposed to be paperless....
 
Isn't stage-3 where any orders given, must be preceeded with "PLEASE, would you do something for me?"

It is stage-4, and 5 holding everything up

After the order is completed a "thankyou" is required followed by (this is the controversal part) by "you're welcome" Many PC pols feel it is too much to ask.:eek:
 
Let's all be a little smart about this, shall we?

For one, you have to know the background of the all caps. It's the same reason old Army OPORDs were often written like this:

I. SITUATION

I.A. ENEMY FORCES

I.A.1 WEATHER AND LIGHT DATA

I.A.2 TERRAIN

I.B. FRIENDLY FORCES

...

Now, they are all written as:

I. Situation

A. Enemy Forces​

1. Weather and Light Data​

2. Terrain​

B. Friendly Forces​

...

The former format is a result of needing orders to be broadcast using teletype machines. The Army often used these machines to transmit orders. The Navy, obviously, needed them even more because of ships being far apart. Teletype machines wrote in caps and did not indent. Hence the odd format. It was a necessity. It's also hard as **** to read.

Changing the format is a long overdue concession to a world that has moved beyond teletype. And yes, as goofy as it sounds, most everyone in the world equates all-caps writing with urgency and anger. It's not that feelings are being hurt. It's that the all-caps and the context are incongruent. Not every message is urgent.

Humans write in sentence case for a reason. This is a good step.
 
Maybe I just read, wrote messages far to often. I have nothing against changing it. It was a soft story that got more traction than I think any PAO would have expected. More power to them.

Any Coasties know if CGMS has done the same thing?
 
Except that the entire federal government is supposed to be paperless....

That was the biggest farce of them all. Prior to PC's on every desk and before AL gore invented the internet, if a letter or other paper was typed, a certain level of typos or mistakes were accepted so as to not have to do the entire typing all over again. When the military and civilian companies became excited about a paperless world with computers and all the time we would supposedly save, the lie was born. Now, management in all sectors have every little critiqued and corrected. After all, its on a computer and there for simple to fix. Unfortunately, management many times change their mind and require complete revisions. So the initial product actually takes more time to do than it did when things were hand written or typed. And because people have come to where they want to impress people more than just communicating, they spend hours more because they have to make and include spreadsheets and graphs to include. Again, a lot more time compared to the initial communication.

And then, when the communication is finally completed, they wind up printing it out as a presentation. And even if its just emails or a form or document, many times it is printed out and stored in a folder because individuals want faster access to it and/or they don't trust that the PC or storage device isn't going to crash, and they want a backup hard copy.

Computers have definitely enhanced our lives and inmany ways improved it. Especially when disseminating information to large groups at one time. But from an administrative point of view, in the creation of documents, it is much more time consuming. Basically, what took 20 minutes once to create, can take 2-3 hours because of corrections, revisions, and the despite to make it pretty for presentation. But in the end, most computer generated documents are still printed and filed some place. We will never be a truly paperless society.
 
I saw the law when DHS went into hard core "we're going to be green" mode. It wasn't something the Coast Guard had been complying with for years.
 
Scoutpilot ... This point I totally get and agree with.

The former format is a result of needing orders to be broadcast using teletype machines. The Army often used these machines to transmit orders. The Navy, obviously, needed them even more because of ships being far apart. Teletype machines wrote in caps and did not indent. Hence the odd format. It was a necessity. It's also hard as **** to read

Changing the format is a long overdue concession to a world that has moved beyond teletype.

But this is the part that I just think is completely silly for even entering the context of the story. I'm not sure if it was pitched as part of the story or if it's just the angle that the media jumped on. But I think it set the military up to take flack over an otherwise non-newsworthy change that makes common sense for the reason you highlighted. It's no wonder that people are poking fun about it. While I'm quite sure that the Unites States Navy has not been taken over by a bunch of sailors with paper feelings, this "story" is now great fodder for the late night talk show hosts.

And yes, as goofy as it sounds, most everyone in the world equates all-caps writing with urgency and anger. It's not that feelings are being hurt. It's that the all-caps and the context are incongruent. Not every message is urgent.
 
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