GLA, GLD and a possible GSM

[Anonymoose]

WARNING TO AHRIMAN AND PHURBLES (love the new look, Em):
INCOMING WASTE OF YOUR VALUABLE TIME. You have my express, advance apologies - but hey, if the discussion is going on, why not make it complete? Keep in mind, the questions here aren't necessarily my way of saying, "This should be done," but more or less putting any curiosity about it to rest.

INB4 any dev-expected fan b*tching; let's just lay out the facts and ask + answer the proper questions.

Activity names differ from the class names, but Gladiator isn't SWD and Weaver isn't CTH, so Leatherworker being TAN had to go; it was just an oversight. (LTW doesn't exactly fit what looks to be the pattern, either, but more on that later). Let's move on.

Simply put:
If we're going to fix a few, anyway, why not just standardize it so it's not so convoluted?

We've seen "Use the first three letters,"
We've seen "Drop the vowels and use the first three letters,"
We've seen "Drop the vowels and skip some letters."
And until 1.19, we've seen "Use the abbreviation for the activity instead."

Currently, we have:

Pugilist - PGLST - PGL
Marauder - MRDR - MRD
Lancer - LNCR - LNC
Thaumaturge - THMTRG - THM
Archer (Leave the initial letter for identification) ARCHR - ARC
--------------------------------------------------
Alchemist (Leave the initial letter for identification) ALCHMST - ALC
Armorer (Leave the initial letter for identification) ARMR - ARM
Carpenter - CRPNTR - CRP
Weaver - WVR - WVR
--------------------------------------------------
Fisher - FSHR - FSH
Botanist - BTNST - BTN


Wunderbar. But then, our outliers:


CONjurer
GLAdiator
MINer
LeaTherWorker

If we're fixing the first one, why not just fix them all? Most of all, why stick with GLA? Is it because Gladiator suddenly becoming GLD when it's been Goldsmith for so long might cause some confusion, at first? Or is it just easier on the spreadsheet editing? I understand both approaches, but in the long run it seems to be less than ideal, like we're settling.

If we fixed everything, we'd end up with some pretty big differences. Are they not for the better? For instance, we'd see:

Conjurer - CNJRR - CNJ
Gladiator - GLDTR - GLD
Miner - MNR - MNR
Leatherworker - LTHRWRKR - LTH

Is there a problem with this, so far? If so, can we throw it out there so people stop asking? Moving onto the final, and most challenging, aspect: Our justifiable exceptions.

CULinarian
CLN looks like Cleaner. CLR looks like Clear, CNN is a television network, and none of them look like they know how to make a decent sammitch. Fine. CUL (Unless we can go with Chef. Can we go with Chef? CHF anyone? The guy at the guild can even be like, "Hello there, Children!" -- No? Alright.)

BlackSMith
BLK would have been vague. Black what? Blackmailer? Blackjack? Blackberry? What? Smith? Oh. Fine. BSM

GoLDsmith
GLA and GLD causes too much confusion; it's why we're here in the first place. But hey, we just solved that Blacksmith problem the same way so GSM it is!

That even paves the way for Gladiator to take it's rightful place upon the Throne of ...GLA? --- Wait, what? I know it'd be a rough start, but we ALL called it GLD before we were trained to call it GLA - we can do it again.

What is Sentinel's anyway? SNT? It's SEN isn't it. You're going to make me edit-storm this whole thing; I can feel it.

[hits the button on the clock]
Discuss. (Sorry, probably too late anyway ><)

[Archadius]

Anonymoose makes some great points, I think you should strongly consider his proposal.