As a Citizen Detective, your work will be online, and chatrooms, message boards, and Reddit threads are the perfect place to find leads and meet others working on the same case—or others who may be connected.
Here is a list of acronyms that you may find helpful in your online sleuthing:
AFAIK
“As far as I know”
AMA
“Ask me anything”
CMV
“Change my view”
DAE
“Does anybody else” or “Does anyone else”
ELI5
“Explain like I’m 5 (years old)”
FTFY
“Fixed that for you”
IAMA
“I am a”
IANAD
“I am not a doctor”
IANAL
“I am not a lawyer”
ICYMI
“In case you missed It”
IIRC
“If I recall correctly”
IKR
“I know, right?”
IMMD
“It made my day”
IMO/IMHO
“In my opinion” and “In my humble/honest opinion”
ITT
“In this thread”
IRL
“In real life”
MRW/MFW
“My reaction when” and “My face when”, respectively
NSFL
“Not safe for life” (gory or gross content)
NSFW
“Not safe for work” (sexual content)
OP
“Original poster” (the person who started the thread)
[Serious]
“Serious responses only” (commonly used in /r/askreddit and other subreddits now)
PSA
“Public service announcement”
TIL
“Today I learned”
TL;DR
“Too long; didn’t read”
YSK
“You should know”
Now we know this isn’t exhaustive. Heck, we were just in a My Favorite Murder–I mean, MFM, Facebook Group the other day, and ‘NMR’ kept popping up in posts. Not Murder Related: was an opportunity for posters to share life updates and other content that helps build a community around a shared passion. Keep it up, Murderinos!
And on that note, help us build the Uncovered community. Do you know someone who should be part of our community? Maybe it’s your theory-building friends, cold-case-obsessed family members, crime casts coworkers, either way, invite them to join us! We know it takes a village to build a community, so let’s do it together.