Talk:Na

Nursing Assistants

NA is also used to refer to nursing assistants. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.13.123 (talk) 14:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

And also it can mean "No" ~ bbglas007 11:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

its cool and good —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.179.116.60 (talk) 09:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The recent "DAB overhaul"

This major reduction seems to go far, far beyond WP:MOSDAB. What is the argument, exactly, for why this page should not clarify that in "Willemstad, N.A." the reference is to Netherland Antilles, whereas in "Barry Moser, NA" it is to the National Academy of Design (to name just two of the many deletions)? Wareh (talk) 01:13, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Each article must mention AND reference the reason "Na" is an associated with the subject of that article, all articles removed made no mention what-so-ever. There are several more that should also be deleted for having a mention, but that mention not being properly referenced. However, I wasn't trying to be mean about it. If you modify an article to comply with DAB policy, then by all means re-add it. But do not revert a page cleaning like that. Wikipedia is a knowledge base. If you say something means something else and it really doesn't, you're giving readers misinformation.  æronphonehome  01:25, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

In your final sentence, you seem to use "misinformation" to mean, "a proposition, quite possibly correct, that happens not to be documented in the current version of the Wikipedia article on a relevant subject." I gave you two examples where you removed correct information, not misinformation. It does turn out I was wrong in my unstated assumption that you did it without even thoroughly checking what the linked articles said; I made this error because I didn't realize that in one of the articles I cited as an example, someone came along on Sept. 28 and removed the correct explanation of the abbreviation N.A. So I will certainly give you the benefit of the doubt that you've checked every article carefully (for the mechanical question of mentioning the abbreviation). But I'd be more impressed if you both admitted that I've provided you with examples of correct information, of use to the reader, that you removed, and also that it is unlikely that the information was correct only in the two cases I looked at. If you go on from there to say that you believe "DAB policy" requires you to do this to the reader, I can understand that. Wareh (talk) 02:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

P.S. The abbreviation NA for Netherlands Antilles is used in English Wikipedia articles, e.g. at Vienna_Convention_on_Road_Traffic#Contracting_Parties. So, if the entry had read

• NA, Netherlands Antilles: see Vienna Convention on Road Traffic

then presumably your own rules would have left the entry unmolested. Do you see what might seem absurd to a pragmatist content editor, as opposed to a MOSDAB enthusiast? Wareh (talk) 02:08, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

The article National Academy of Design contains no not one mention of "NA", I searched the first time and I searched again just now, it's not even up for interpretation. Netherlands Antilles also contains no mention whatsoever (then and now) however the List of international vehicle registration codes does and I've retained that entry. However DAB entries can only have one active link so I wrote the only relevant article into prose and sorted it. That was in fact an oversite on my part. If those were the only two complaints you had with the complete rehabilitation of the page then you still should not have done a wholesale reversion. If you're unclear as to how DABs should be constructed and what is considered acceptable for them then you would be a good man to read up on that. If you have a problem with ME personally, which is evident by your last entry here, please take it up with me on our personal talk pages, not in an article talkpage. Cheers.  æronphonehome  08:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:AGF, and on National Academy of Design reading my comment and rechecking the page would show that when you, "searched again just now, it's not even up for interpretation," you made a mistake (or maybe your cache is causing you trouble) to remove the item again.

"Those were the only two complaints you had." Yes, those were the only two examples I examined. 0-for-2 for the overhaul by my measure, so I'm sure that the ideal form of this disambig page, fully compliant with MOSDAB (a somewhat inflexible guideline to which your "cardinal rule" could often be well applied), would include many of the removed items. Or maybe, as you suggest, I was just fantastically lucky in looking only at the two flawed removals. I don't consider it my job to try to conserve any other valuable content, but you would be a good man to consider making it your job.

Thank you for the tidying, but I hope in the future you will consider good-faith criticism (not an "evident" "problem with ME personally") as worth considering. Maybe it is possible or better for the tidying to be done without the loss of valid disambiguation content. Wareh (talk) 12:59, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit summaries are seeming too brief a space to sort out an issue which does pertain to improving this article, namely the question of whether and how to include a link to National Academy of Design. I'd like to clarify that I am not the editor who originally included the explanation of the post-nominal letters NA at that article. I simply restored what another editor removed six weeks ago (and, since, I've added a footnote with a source). Today, following my restoration, that same editor who removed the explanation of NA earlier not only tolerated the restoration but moved the explanation of the abbreviation meaning "National Academician" to the article's lead. So I'm really stumped by the idea that this does not meet the requirements for a dab entry by anyone's criteria and would like to sort it out on this talk page. Wareh (talk) 14:36, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Style guidelines

I just completed a series of smaller edits, to use the edit summaries to provide more detail as to which guidelines were being applied. Please read MOS:DABMENTION, WP:INTDABLINK, WP:PIPING (including the information about exceptions for piping and for redirects), and the rest of WP:MOSDAB and WP:D. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:07, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

There are a series of questions and clarifications sought in the talk history here, if anyone else would like to clarify the application of the guidelines to this article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:54, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing in question. JHunter is disputing a concise and exhaustive breakdown of his edits against standing DAB style guidelines. If this were a court case he's seeking an appeal.  æronphonehome  00:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

17 kilobytes is not concise. -- JHunterJ (talk) 02:48, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

stands for

We've got an "NA" in the "Na" section (Avogadro constant). Easily solved by replacing "may stand for" with "may refer to" and moving to that section. -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"N_A" is a symbol to designate the Avogadro constant, regardless of case. "may stands for" is appropriate for DABs with a large amount of abbreviations as per MOS:DABINT.  æronphonehome  20:22, 17 November 2010 (UTC)