Правописание местоимения 2 л. мн.ч. в Интернете / Correct spelling of 2nd pl. pronoun on the Internet

Question

Правильно ли написание "Вы" со строчной буквы в Интернете? Является ли подобное написание трендом?

Is it correct to spell Вы (you 2nd.p. pl.) with lower case letter on the Internet? Is it a trend?

Answer 1

This specific question has been formally answered by the Russian Language Institute in July of 2000. The recommendation is not to capitalize "вы" when writing for the Internet.

Вы, Ваш пишутся с прописной буквы при обращении к одному лицу в текстах следующих жанров:

• (а) личное письмо (адресат - конкретное лицо; факультативное написание - выбор определяет сам пишущий, выражая/ не выражая вежливое или уважительное отношение к адресату);
• (б) официальные документы (адресат - конкретное лицо, отношение пишущего к адресату не имеет значения);
• (в) анкеты (адресат - неконкретное лицо; отношение пишущего к адресату не имеет значения).

Поскольку большинство текстов Интернета не соответствуют условиям (а), (б), (в) написания Вы с прописной буквы (сообщения электронной почты не являются личными письмами в традиционном смысле слова), можно рекомендовать написание вы, ваш при обращении к читателям/ посетителям страницы в Интернете со строчной буквы.

"Вы" is capitalized in texts of these three genres:

• (а) Personal letters (addressed to a specific person; this is optional - the decision is up to the writer, who wishes or does not wish to express additional respect to the addressee)
• (б) Official documents (addressed to a specific person, regardless of whether or not the writer would like to express additional respect to the addressee)
• (в) Official forms (not addressed to anyone in particular, regardless of whether or not the writer would like to express additional respect to the addressee)

Since the majority of Internet texts do not meet the conditions (а), (б), (в) for capitalizing of "Вы" (e-mails are not personal correspondence in the traditional meaning of the word), we recommend writing "вы", "ваш" without capitalizing the first letter when referring to readers / visitors of your site.

Answer 2

When you are referring to an individual person to whom you are being polite or expressing respect, you should use an uppercase В regardless where you use it: in a book, in a letter, in an internet post, etc.

The reason you're seeing it often written in internet post starting with the lowercase в is quite simple: speed. People tend to shorten words and make shortcuts in order to express their thoughts quicker. It is (for some unknown to me reason) assumed that on the internet one should write as little as possible - using shorthand, abbreviations, etc. - just to get the thought is put across. This in turns translates into the desire to use as few as possible keystrokes. Writing Вы starting with a capital letter would mean to press [Shift] button one more time, which means more time taken to complete the post. Hence a lot of people don't do it.

The other simple reason is that many people simple disregard the fact that you should use capital В in this scenario and use lowercase letter everywhere, including hand-written texts.

So, to answer your question, it is not correct spelling, but it is a spelling that just came to be. People accept it, just as people accept others making other grammatical mistakes. As for it being a trend, I wouldn't say that it's a trend in itself, it's part of the trend to shorten everything, including the number of key presses.