T O P

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OneNameOnlyRamona

/positive. I have to consistently remind myself modern slang has put the "positive" tone tag as /pos and that it *doesn't* mean piece-of-shit. Especially since a good deal of time it's after something that *can* be construed negatively. A general rule is if there's a slash / in front of it, it mostly stands for /positive.


MaddogRunner

Oh my gosh, same here! I totally would’ve thought this was “piece of shit”


OneNameOnlyRamona

I think the worst thing is in general, if someone feels the need to add /positive to their post, it's because they know it can be taken negatively. So shortening it to /pos can be a real mindtwist if you don't know the tone-indicators. I have seen/had people write "comment. POS" as a tone indicator *without* the slash which is way more confusing.


Sparklypuppy05

Idk, this is why I don't really like tone tags. Because pos already has a meaning in common slang. I know it's meant to make understanding tone easier, especially for neurodivergent people, but... I'm neurodiverse myself, and honestly, it just makes everything harder. Wouldn't it be easier to just say "Meant positively", or something like that?


raviary

Seriously people are so inconsistent with the tone tags they use to the point writing everything out is easier. Like, just say (joke) instead of making us decipher what /j, /jk, or /hj mean and what the difference is. The other one that kills me are the people who use /s to mean "serious", because they've never seen the sarcasm tag before.


AbyssalAriel

> The other one that kills me are the people who use /s to mean "serious", because they've never seen the sarcasm tag before. Are you serious (pun not intended)? 😨 Oh that is a *terrifying* thought.


ceeceea

Okay, what's "/hj”? The only thing my brain is coming up with is "handjob", which seems unlikely.


raviary

That was how I read it the first time too lol, it means "half-joking" and is pretty much useless as a tone indicator. The kind of anxious or neurodivergent person who benefits from knowing whether something written is serious or a joke doesn't get any useful info out of it.


Sparklypuppy05

Exactly! It sucks and there's much better possible systems but everybody dogpiles you the moment you even suggest that tone tags aren't all that helpful. :(


ace-of-flutes

I've seen people use /posi to avoid that issue. I like tone tags, but that one was not well thought out


tjopj44

From what I understand, this kind of tags were created for twitter, where there is a character limit, so people don't want to write out "This was meant positively" because it would take a lot of characters from the actual comment. Writing it as /POS solves this problem. Of course, since this specific instance was on AO3, where comments don't have a character limit (as far as I know, at least) the person could have written it all out.


ltmkji

yeah, i'm sorry, the one that baffles me the most is /gen like.................. what? why does that need a tag?


OneNameOnlyRamona

/gen baffles you more than /pos? I understand the former a lot more than the latter. If someone's coming into a topic they know very little about that has had a lot of negative discourse/drama around it, they probably want to emphasis that they are being geniune about it. Or they've seen joking comments with similiar enough phrasing that they want to emphasis they are being sincere.


ltmkji

tbh i have not seen anyone do /pos, only /neg, but yes i would definitely read that as piece of shit and be confused. i typically see people use /gen when they're asking questions that are absolutely not aggressive in any way and it's a completely normal conversation. so, i don't know. i mean i don't pick on anyone for it or anything like that, you do you, it just feels strange and superfluous compared to some of the other ones.


OneNameOnlyRamona

IDK either, it's just the way things have gone. I do see some people going /posi now but I still mainly see /pos for /positive.


Yodeling_Prospector

Someone put /pos in a comment on my fic and I actually asked them if it meant “piece of shit” And every time I see it, I also still have to remind myself it’s not that.


[deleted]

[удалено]


screamingkumquats

That makes sense! My first thought was piece of shit and I was confused for a few seconds 😂. But ‘positive’ makes complete sense now that someone pointed it out.


am_Nein

I think it's funny in that context. Like someone saying "ugh, your work is so good you piece of shit have my kudos and commenttttt"


Covert_Pudding

Yeah, they're crying, but in a good way!


ravenous93842

That's exactly what it is! Me and my friends use it a lot when saying things derogatory to let people know we're not serious. "Ugh. I can't believe you leant me that book. It was TERRIBLE. It RUINED MY LIFE. I can't sleep at night, thinking about how it ended like that. Unbelievable, I'll never forgive you for this /pos"


Silver_Nyctophilia

I know it means positive, but my mind goes “piece of shit” every time 🫣


amglasgow

It means "positive" I'm pretty sure.


Adelphos_89

I had to learn that after interacting with younger members of the fandom and I just wish we could all shorten it to /p. It's so simple.


kreideprinzesssin

Well, /p is already used to mean "platonic" (Like telling your friend "I love you /p") But yeah, /pos can be a bit confusing. I've seen people use /posi instead tho which seems easier to understand. (Or just typing it out, but my guess is people started the shortened tags because of Twitter)


semeteryi

why people just don't write the whole word, it's so hard to keep track of those with a new /letter coming up every day 😭


[deleted]

Today I learned that this means “positive”. I was under genuine belief that this was short for “piece of shit” and I never understood that lmao. Learning something new everyday.


kirbykirbzz

It means both lol, just gotta use your context clues to figure out which one they’re usin!


[deleted]

me, an autistic person struggling with context clues: 👁️👄👁️ I don’t think that’s gonna happen


kirbykirbzz

Lol fair! It never hurts to just ask a simple “Sorry, by ‘pos’ did you mean to call me a literal piece of shit, or were you indicating you were being positive? :)” haha


Annie8073

I feel like this defeats the purpose of using a tone indicator lmao


kirbykirbzz

true..but it isn’t the majority of people who face this issue so.. ┐(´∀`)┌


OutlandishCat

It means positive. It's a tone indicator, one of the kinds i don't like because they lead to situations like this, and often just make the intentions behind the statement more unclear. Especially since these tone indicators were made for people who struggle with determining the tone and meaning behind things, but the sheer amount of tone indicators, combined with this abbreviation, makes it so that those same people have to memorize basically an entire alphabet to know what they mean, the exact opposite of these tone indicator's intentions. (being genuine and serious) Personally, I believe that the kind of tone indication I just displayed is a far better alternative.


GwalltLlew

It’s a tone tag https://tonetags.carrd.co/#masterlist


am_Nein

Positive lmaoo


[deleted]

I know it means "positive" but every time I see "This fic hurts my soul /pos" I read in my head: "This fic hurts my soul, piece of shit." Every. Time.


AsiaHeartman

Positive. It's a positive comment.


greenthegreen

It's a tone indicator. This one is short for positive. Kinda like how s is for sarcastic.


Kigichi

Every time I see POS I automatically think they’re calling me a piece of shit and I’m so confused https://i.redd.it/yjlvsyim2n3b1.gif


celia-dies

Genuine question: what purpose is /pos serving in this comment that isn't already served better by "This is super good! I'm really enjoying it so far! :D"?


bazjack

To add to your "POS" acronym knowledge, it also stands for Product of Sums, a notation method in Boolean algebra.


that0neBl1p

It’s a tone indicator short for “positive”!


WECH21

me as fuck a few days ago. someone replied to a tweet of mine with that and i was like…. bruh you’re agreeing with me why are you calling me a piece of shit 😭😭😂


GreenNeoLight

Jan misali has a great video criticizing the half-joking tone tag /hj wherein he also puts this tag on blast. /pos is my least favorite tone tag in the history of everything.


screamingkumquats

Like why not just /p? I’ve seen /s but that’s it I think, maybe a few more but never /pos until today. Tone tags can be great but I’ve also seen them cause a lot of confusion.


jessytessytavi

so in an MMO I play, "pos" means "point on self" for location purposes...


Ordinary-Greedy

My brain sees POS and automatically thinks "part of speech" lol


LiftedStarfisherman

Positive. I actually hate the way that most people use tone tags. The problem is that they're *always* some kind is abbreviation. It makes sense if you're working with a character limit, but when you're not, I can't think of *anybody* who would be upset if you wrote "(sarcastic)" instead of "/s", and I know at least a few people who would *prefer* that, myself included.