Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations/Archive 3

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MHO is that acronym pages should, in most cases, be mere pointers to other fully-spelled-out pages. APA means many different things, and many of those things will have encyclopedia articles, sure. (Some meanings of acronyms, however, won't, and in that case, there's no point in our listing those senses, because we aren't going to have encyclopedia pages about those senses. I shall explain on Larry Sanger soon, I think... --LMS

This seems right to me, although it is worth noting the exceptions. I think that WYSIWYG, for instance, has become a word unto itself. --Janet Davis
I agree with the "word unto itself" argument, especially for things like the programming languages Algol, COBOL, FORTRAN, perl, etc. Also the POSIX standard, and even Unix itself. Each of these have not simply become "words unto themselves" but are the official names of something. I doubt if one person in one hundred knows or cares that the names are acronyms. There are also a lot of jargon words which are acronyms; "modem", "radio", and "RADAR" come to mind. Further, just what kind of "main title" would you use. Most sensible thing seems to be to use the the acronym as the entry and include the expansion in the article (but not as a link).
OTOH, the link "Ada" should lead to a disambiguating page (as I write, it is about the Ada programming language. There are at least three things it should point to (not in any particular order). They are the Americans with disabilities act; the Ada programming language; "Ada" as a proper name (no link, possibly omitted); and the Lady Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, generally referred to as Lady Ada Lovelace. --buzco
Just for clarification, Ada and ADA are two different disambiguation pages. The Americans with Disabilities Act would only be refered to by the initialism ADA. -- Reinyday 06:05, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
It's possible, however, that someone might search for the Americans with Disabilities Act in lowercase — "ada" — so all definitions for "ADA" and "Ada" should be on the Ada page. Since a search for "ADA" is probably not ambiguous, the ADA page probably doesn't need the definitions for "Ada" — but does it really help to have two pages on the same thing? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 04:23, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I ran into this editing DMCA and Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I created a section above based on my own take of what's going on.
<>< tbc


Examples

It would be nice to see some examples for acronym naming conventions:

  • Inline text
  • Parenthetical
  • In titles

Thangalin 04:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Changing article titles from XXXXX (US) to XXXXX (United States)

This discussion is about the correct title for articles on subjects that are ambiguous, with one instance of the subject being in the United States. For example, Sierra Nevada (US), Glacier National Park (U.S.), Great Northern Railway (US).

On 26 Feb 2005, User:Eequor moved a large set of these articles to have "United States" in their title, rather than "US" or ("U.S."): Sierra Nevada (United States), Glacier National Park (United States), Great Northern Railway (United States).

The goal of this discussion is to come to a consensus about which usage is considered correct for Wikipedia. -- hike395

I'd like to argue in favor of "US" in the titles, for several reasons:
  1. Most importantly, it's easiest to type. I'm constantly adding Sierra Nevada (US) to infoboxes, etc.
  2. The article titles have been of the form XXXX (US) for years --- there was no compelling reason to move the articles: people know what "US" or "U.S." is.
  3. I don't find redirects from the form XXX (US) to XXXX (United States) to be acceptable, for two reasons:
    1. I believe that it breaks the "Related Changes" feature. Now, there are hundreds of pages that link to Sierra Nevada (US) where that feature may be broken.
    2. (minor point) The redirection notice at the top may be confusing for some people.
My position is to leave things as they were before 26 Feb. I don't see a need to enforce uniformity on the article titles --- "US", "U.S.", "United States" are all fine. If we do decide to make the policy "United States", I would suggest making it an optional style suggestion, rather than a full policy, so that people are encouraged to use it, but not required.
-- hike395 16:08, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Comments on the above points:
  1. You can still type [[Sierra Nevada (US)|]] if you like. The redirect will be adjusted later by somebody who likes to do such things.
  2. Search engines, however, are not very good at distinguishing between "US" and "us", and the results are generally better if they don't try to.
  3. Noted, however:
    1. If page moves do break "Related Changes", we should expect every page move to cause problems. Something like that ought to have been fixed by now. (Unfortunately, it hasn't... how obnoxious)
    2. The notice probably appears often enough from using the search box; most people may be used to it.
‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 17:15, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Google (the most common search engine) seems to distinguish between US and us. Take a look at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Aen.wikipedia.org+US&btnG=Google+Search ... The only articles that aren't USian are "All you base are belong to us" and "contact us", probably because both are strongly about "us". So, I don't believe that this move will substantially help search of Wikipedia. People won't likely type "United States" for searching anyway. They'll type the ambiguous article title ("Sierra Nevada"), end up at the disambiguation page, then select the right one from there.
  • I think that breaking "Related Changes" is pretty bad. In general, people don't expect well-linked-to articles to change names. The "move page" even has a warning:
WARNING! This can be a drastic and unexpected change for a popular page; please be sure you understand the consequences of this before proceeding.
and I think that breaking Related Changes is one of those drastic unexpected changes. If I use [[Sierra Nevada (US)]], I'll continue to break Related Changes, which is just plain bad.
So, I have a proposed compromise: make "(United States)" be the preferred article title going forward, but revert the changes on 26 Feb to not break Related Changes. -- hike395 17:59, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I would have to agree for much of the same reasoning. I don't think that too many people would confuse (US) with anything other than (United States). One other point is that of consistency. If we're going to make it Southern Railway (United States) instead of Southern Railway (US), then we'll also have to make it Southern Railway (United Kingdom) instead of Southern Railway (UK).
My reasons are really more for clarity and, hopefully, to make searching easier. A search engine will get confused by US, and may even ignore the word entirely (see stop word); on the other hand, "United States" is not ambiguous, and "U.S." probably not.
Consistency is a good ideal to strive for. Changing "UK" to "United Kingdom" for consistency seems reasonable, and if "(United States)" is the more common style, shouldn't that be preferred? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 16:49, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I dislike that all the articles I've been writing and contributing to (such as Pioneer Zephyr) now point to a redirect. Nearly four screenfuls of article names ([1]) now point to a redirect page. Who's going to update all those links to avoid the redirect? slambo 16:29, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)
There are bots written to do this, though I don't recall who runs them. ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 16:49, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Using (United States) instead of (US) is completely pointless. Nobody is going to confuse the difference and the search engine argument is bogus ; if these titles did not need disambiguation, then there were be neither (US) or (United States) and 'United States' should be linked in the article as a full term anyway. Thus the longer term just makes it more difficult to link to by adding needed letters.

I'm going to move all the pages Eequor moved, back to the (US) titles in 24 hours. And from this point forward, '(US)' should be used as the standard disambiguator when the natural disambiguators of 'U.S.', 'United States', or 'of the United States' don't make sense. --mav 01:09, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Done. --mav

Rethinking this decision

This decision seems to have been made a little hastily. "US" is generally considered to be a non-standard abbriviation; "U.S." is the common one. Perhaps we could hold a straw poll? Neutralitytalk 15:12, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure what criterion is required for going to a straw poll. I still stand by my preference for (US), because
  1. It's easy to type. I type Sierra Nevada (US) a great deal: periods or the full country name would be pretty annoying.
  2. Moving articles to conform to some standard breaks "Related Changes", unless links are also fixed. There are some articles (like Sierra Nevada (US) that have many in-links: a bot is required to fix all of the links.
  3. The exact disambiguation string usage does not seem to matter to readers --- they would understand that the articles are about the United States by reading the body.
  4. Search engines don't care, because they are largely case sensitive.
So, it seems that the benefits are minor, but there are definite costs. I would still be opposed to it. One compromise I had suggested, above, is use (United States) going forward, but not move existing articles. -- hike395 05:51, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Neutrality - this is about disambiguation, not the 'correct' title of things. When and where an abbreviation is used as part of an actual title, then U.S. is appropriate. But parenthetical disambiguation needs to be clean and easy, so US is best. --mav 10:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I would be more in favor of using (US) instead of (U.S.) because (US) is much easier to type. Typing (U.S.) slows me down considerably because I have to hold the shift key for the ( and the U then remember to let go of the shift for the . then press shift again for S then let go of shift again for . then hold shift again for ). Even if I turn on caps lock, I've still got to hold the shift key for the parentheses. It's much easier to just press shift once and hold it throughout the entire (US) than to jump on the key while typing. Besides, how many other common country abbreviations do we put periods in? What about UK (or GB), UAE or USSR? Are we going to insist that they use periods as well? This seems more trouble than it's worth. Keep it as (US). slambo 10:52, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
I'd favor "(US)" too. The situation is confused because we have articles like U.S. 1st Infantry Division, where spelling out "United States" puts articles in contention for longest title ever, but "US" is not so desirable because it's not the "official" abbreviation used by the article's subject. However, by definition, a "(foo)" disambiguator is something that we invent to work around limitations of the software - one could imagine a future generation of Wikimedia where disambiguation is done by, say, an additional field in the database, it displays at the top of the article but in in a different font, etc. So that says to me that we can pick the shortest and most convenient string to use in the meantime, which would be "US". Stan 12:27, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I also favor "(US)" without the periods for disambiguation purposes. I think that U.S. is appropriate as an abbreviation in a name such as U.S. Supreme Court. Keep it as it is. 17:20, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

FYI, I recently (June 2, 2005) moved one article and all its links to a U.S. from a US title. I will cease doing so since I have located this discussion. BUT, for the contents of an article, I will continue to follow the "Manual Style: U.S. not US" and continue editing articles to comply with that statement. I'll work on a different project.

…Guy M… L.V. (soapbox) 23:02, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
There are some interesting instructions here:
[9.9] United States must be spelled out when appearing in a sentence containing the name of another country. The abbreviation U.S. will be used... except in formal writing... and covers and title pages.
[9.10] With the exceptions in the preceding rule, the abbreviation U.S. is used in the adjective position, but is spelled out when used as a noun.
I don't see that they've used "US" at all except in longer acronyms such as USA (U.S. Army). Should Wikipedia follow this style guide? ‣ᓛᖁ♀ᑐ 02:09, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Just want to point out that the current Wikipedia style is to use (US) only for disambiguation headers, nowhere else. So, everything Guy did was just fine..
Notice the logic in this style --- Wikipedia disambiguation is a unique feature: the extra tag need only be long enough to disambiguate the article. Because it is constantly being typed, people (including myself) like the extra tag to be short and not have periods. So, Guy, did a good thing. Just please don't move XXXX (US) to XXXX (U.S.).
-- hike395 05:07, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Capitalizing Acronymed Titles (CAT)

Should Unmanned Aerial Vehicle be moved to Unmanned aerial vehicle? It's not a proper name like USA, but it's usually abbreviated UAV. - Omegatron 00:21, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Yes it should. --mav 10:46, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Add Head-Up Display to the confusion. Phil Harnish (Info | Talk) 08:23, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Policy for plural acronyms?

Is it CRT's or CRTs? I know that acronyms that are commonly lower case are made plural normally, like modems, but ones that are upper case seem inconsistent. Where is the Wikipedia policy on this? --A D Monroe III 03:35, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what WP policy is, but grammar would say CRTs. Apostrophes are not used to denote plurals. --Blackcap | talk 03:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Mount or Mt???

I am fairly sure that there is universal agreement on this, but nowhere can I find a style reference to how everyday shorthand such as Mt, St, Rd, Ave, is to be handled in article titles. I would propose adding a section to this article that spells it out for idiots like myself who are not sure.SauliH 05:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

NBC and PBS

Go to Talk:NBC and look at the proposed move to National Broadcasting Company. Go to Talk:Public Broadcasting Service and look at the proposed move to PBS. Is there any general rule on how articles like these should be named?? Georgia guy 01:39, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Based on the discussion a while ago at Talk:National Public Radio, the rule is to avoid acronyms if the full name is still official, even if the acronym is more well-known. How is this rule sensible?? Georgia guy 00:28, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Simple. Read this guideline: Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronyms and is widely known and used in that form. Neither PBS nor NPR are almost exclusively known only by the abbreviations. The proposal to move NBC to National Broadcasting Company was inappropriate since that is no longer the official name of the entity. older ≠ wiser 03:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Please note the phrase "almost exclusively", not simply "exclusively". Regarding PBS, anyone who knows it by its full name "Public Broadcasting Service" besides:
  1. People who remember its ident from long ago. (This is the second ident at PBS idents.) This ident has not been used since 1984 except on reruns of old shows, and 1984 was very long ago.
  2. The people who use corporate names at phrases such as "Copyright 1995-2006 Public Broadcasting Service, Inc."??

Georgia guy 14:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

US vs. U.S.

In reading this page, I completely missed the section specifically mentioning US is preferred to U.S., and I moved a bunch of articles from XXX (US) to XXX U.S. Personally, I prefer "United States" over an abbreviation (to be consistent with the general policy, and to improve the clarity of links and titles) and U.S. over US (for consistency with body-text style). For some of the articles, I used "U.S." instead of "United States" because the title was getting too long.

With regard to search engines, Google actually does a bad job with "U.S." because it strips the dots and is case-insensitive. Yahoo does a better job with "U.S.", finding only pages about the United States on the first page. With "US", it co-mingles American content with things like "All your base are belong to us" and "del.icio.us". I think there's a strong argument in favor of "U.S." to help current and future search engines disambiguate.

I also favor "United States" because there are just too many TLAs out there, and you don't always (instantly) realize the disambiguator is geographical. (And you aren't always looking at the article page itself when you read the title.)

Anyway, I thought it would be better to change the recommendation to be consistent with other recommendations, rather than change all the titles back. (That cleanup request had been sitting around since Dec 2004, and I had just gotten around to implementing it.) -- Beland 07:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed all of the titles back, sorry. If you look at the discussion, above, all of the arguments against changing are still valid:
  1. Moving the pages breaks "Related Changes", given the hundreds of articles that point to XXXX (US).
  2. People don't typically search for "Sierra Nevada United States". People almost always use short queries, like "Sierra Nevada", which sends them to the disambiguation page where they can select the correct article.
  3. As you point out, "XXX (United States)" makes for very long titles, which are very annoying to type in wikilinks.
  4. Disambiguators are purely Wikipedia-internal --- we can use whatever style we like.
Is there really a strong compelling reason to change? Out of courtesy, we should re-consult everyone who participated in the discussion above and see if they want to change. This would be the third time for this discussion --- the second time we re-visited this discussion. If you feel strongly, we can go ahead, but I hate to pester people about the same issue again and again.
-- hike395 07:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The moves likely accomplished one important thing—no matter which is used, there should be a redirect from the other. IMHO, they all should be at "U.S.", but it isn't going to matter much if somebody checks once in a while to see if the requisite redirects are there. Gene Nygaard 17:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. At the end of the day though, all that really matters is that we are consistent with any particular disambiguator. That said, I still have a preference for US vs anything else due to it being fast and easy to type. --mav 13:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Discussion continued below at #(US) vs. (U.S.) disambiguation: the final discussion?

Suggestion for change in acronym policy

I recently engaged in a discussion at Talk:NASA on whether NASA should be renamed and moved to National Aeronautics and Space Administration; I was a strong proponent of such a move. I made my case somewhat belligerently and thus not as convincingly as I could have, so here I will put forth my suggestion for a change in the acronym naming convention policy. (Note that I am using the NASA case as an example.)

What I suggested was that, since the name of the United States' space agency was set forth by a statute (the National Aeronautics and Space Act), and that name is in fact National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the article's title should be National Aeronautics and Space Administration as well. It is certainly true that NASA is used far more often, even in official documents, than National Aeronautics and Space Administration - engineers and scientists aren't going to use 14 syllables when two would suffice. This makes sense, and it is obviously this common usage that led to the article being called NASA rather than the long name. However, I feel that there are several problems with this. If you'll bear with me for a moment, I'll explain...

Even though NASA is a very, very well known acronym (since it stands for a very well known organization), it is somewhat U.S.-centric to expect that everybody knows what it stands for. In fact, I would imagine that quite a few people in the U.S. wouldn't know what it stands for, either. Thus, using an acronym short-changes readers right in the beginning of an article, which is the part of the article that should include the most general information. Yes, the full name is stated in the first paragraph, but to be consistent, the article's title should be the name that is first stated, and then acronyms can be used freely thereafter (once it is completely clear what they refer to.) Wikipedia should strive to provide the most information possible to readers, especially in the beginning of articles. Just as you wouldn't start the article by saying, "NASA works closely with the USAF and other elements of the DoD...," you shouldn't use an ambiguous acronym as its title (even an acronym that is widely known, because widely understood does not mean universally understood.)

Thus, for acronyms in article titles, I propose the following...

  1. Their use is unavoidable at times, but it should always be discouraged when possible.
  2. An entity named in law or other official form - such as a government agency or corporation - should always use the full name as the article title, regardless of how common the acronym for it is.
  3. Consistency should be encouraged at all times, especially in cases of abbreviating "United States" (where U.S. and US are both used.) This is not to say that periods should always be used or always be omitted. For example, the Wall Street Journal might have an article headline that reads, U.S., EU regulators agree to ban foo. Thus, the United States is always U.S. and the European Union is always EU. The important point is that whatever is used, be used consistently, which is not the current state of things.
  4. For use within an article's text, acronyms should never be linked, since a term is linked in its first usage in that article. If it is the first usage, an acronym should not be used (even acronyms that everybody knows, like NASA, CIA, etc.)
  5. Laser, radar, CD-ROM and other such acronyms - those that are not contained in a statute or otherwise officially defined - are acceptable when they are clearly the most common usage.

As it stands now, this policy is very inconsistent. While acronyms in article titles is really not Wikipedia's most pressing issue, it is something that can be made far more consistent with very little effort and thus would improve the appearance and clarity of the information presented. Yes, adding references and citations is far more important than whether to use the acronym or not, but for a simple task such as bringing all acronyms into line, the improvement in Wikipedia's aesthetics and ease of use would be, imho, great. Kthx Paul 19:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I frankly don't understand this whole "common usage" thing. It makes decisions on whether to move a page or not way to difficult. Why not simply use the expansion in all cases? It won't hurt anyone, would solve a lot of move debates, and improve consistency. I'd also like to add that people usually use acronyms just because they're lazy or ignorant, neither of which would make a good argument to accept it as the title of an encyclopaedic article. It also doesn't change the fact that the expansion is in fact the original and principal name. Shinobu 01:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


Guideline?

Was there a discussion before this was promoted to guideline? Rich Farmbrough, 18:06 18 November 2006 (GMT).


The great US/U.S. debate

I have raised this issue again at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations). Please contribute. Rich Farmbrough, 22:41 18 November 2006 (GMT).

Consensus not yet reached, please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations) for discussion. hike395 03:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I am concerned that the advice at the recently promoted to guideline page, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms) is that articles should be disambiguated as "blah (US)". This breaks conformity of the MoS in quite a big way. Looking at the history it appears that this was introduced not intending to conflict with MoS:

The reasons for various positions:- (US),(U.S.),(United States), don't change any names, be consistent

  1. to minimize typing.
    • Favouring US then U.S. (yes a significant number of people think that the two extra "."s are a killer!)
  2. to be clear
    • Favouring the longer solutions, mainly United States
  3. to be consistent with article content
    • Disfavouring US
  4. to be consistent with other titles
    • Disfavouring US
  5. to be able to be consistently used as a wikilink
    • Disfavouring US (The bracketed expressions are not always used as hidden disambiguators)
  6. to not create redirects
    • Should be irrelevant - clean up any doubles as ususal.
  7. affects related changes
    • (I.E. making changes is bad.) Don't quite understand this argument.
  8. affects google/yahoo searches
    • In favour of longer names.

I think that sums up all the arguments put forth, although doubtless there is something I've missed. As the US vs U.S. debate is probably the hoariest chestnut on this talk page, I apologise for bringing it back, but I think it deserves a slightly larger audience than it may have had before. (I will leave a note on WP:NCA's talk page.)

I favour allowing (U.S.), (United States) or (United States of America) as desired. I would be against any other abbreviation.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:35 18 November 2006 (GMT). P.S. "I would be against any other abbreviation." - Unless the main MoS changed. RF 10:57, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, this is the fourth time this debate has been opened (26 Feb 2005, 19 Apr 2005, 12 Feb 2006, 18 Nov 2006, see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (acronyms)). Must we debate this endlessly? (You can tell I'm somewhat tired of the debate, sorry).
A couple of times, people have been bold, and simply moved over pages over. Contrary to what Rich says above, double redirects were not fixed in those attempts. This left a mess.
Regarding Related Changes: Simply redirecting (e.g.) Sierra Nevada (US) to Sierra Nevada (U.S.) breaks "Related Changes" on the pages that contain the old link Sierra Nevada (US). A change at Sierra Nevada (U.S.) does not appear as a Related Change in a page that contains Sierra Nevada (U.S.). And this page is heavily linked to. I would be less concerned if a bot were used to substitute Sierra Nevada (U.S.) directly for Sierra Nevada (US) in all pages, rather than using redirection.
I'm one of those individuals who is often typing Sierra Nevada (US), and find the extra periods quite annoying.
You left out one point that mav made, which was that Wikipedia disambiguation is idiosyncratic to Wikipedia: it doesn't need to follow externally validated styles.
Sigh. I'll contact all of the main participants in the previous debates, and see if people still have the energy to continue the discussion. hike395 07:25, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Related changes: if it's a big deal, I'm happy to deal with the re-directs as well. (Has a bug been filed?)
  • You're right about missing Mav's point. Lets break that down
    • Wikipedia style does not need to follow external rules. Indeed.
    • As I understand it Mav also said that disambiguation qualifiers don't need to follow the same MoS rules. Here I disagree, for four fundamental reasons:
      1. The name of the article is there at the top of the article in big neon letters - it is not an invisible internal construct.
      2. Some links to the article are not piped through MoSifying placeholders, particularly but not exclusively
        1. "See also" links
        2. "Lists of"
        3. Diambiguation page entries (where disambiguation style currently discourages piped placeholders).
          What is more if piped MoSifying placeholders are used, then the saving from typing all thoise "."s is at least halved by a "|".
      3. There is no clear demarcation between titles withand without disambigution qualifiers.
      4. It encourages by example use of whichever abbreviation is chosen.

Rich Farmbrough, 10:48 19 November 2006 (GMT).
I think it should be abbreviated with the "A" included with it (USA) or (U.S.A.). The full name of the country is the United States of America. I think it's also relevant to note that the full name of Mexico is the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos). Mexico also has united states. America isn't the only country with united states. Adding the "A" to the abbreviation isn't very hard, it reflects the full name of the country, and it removes any ambiguity with Mexico and any other country named the "United States." Personally I prefer the format with periods over the format without. I'd much rather see the "A" in there though. Jecowa 10:21, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Jecowa. I understand your point. However I'd like to keep focussed on this question: "Do we use the same abbreviation as the rest of Wikipedia when it appears in brackets in an article title, or a different one. The debate over which to use has also been had many times (and I am agnostic about it, if anything preferring US), but could be resurrected if you wish. Rich Farmbrough, 10:37 19 November 2006 (GMT).

I'd prefer USA. – flamurai (t) 11:11, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I really don't like "U.S.". It's not very aesthetic on a computer screen. I'd prefer "United States" when in the title name, and "US" in the article text. Both are clear, aesthetic, and properly convey the information that it is intended should be conveyed. jguk 15:07, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I oppose changing the disambiguation standards. I have a hard time seeing any problem with using "(US)" as a disambiguator. Really, how many countries are known by this abbreviation? "(US)" is easier to type as I don't have to bounce on the shift key; yes, I can use caps lock, but that doesn't resolve the parenthesis like the letters. We've been using "(US)" for the two years that I've been editing, and it's been in use that way long before now. The reasons presented so far to change this practice do not seem ample justification for me to agree to it. Slambo (Speak) 16:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The title of the country article is established as "United States" because that is the most common name. We should retain the previous preference for this over "United States of America" and for the same reason U.S. over U.S.A. Personally, I prefer to see (United States) in article titles, because it's not always obvious what "US" stands for if you're not sure what the article is about (because you are only looking at the title). Some search engines (like Yahoo but not Google) don't know that United States is the same thing as U.S. or US, so it's important to use United States and U.S. because they are not going to get articles mixed in with the many others with "us" in the title. I think there should be redirects from "US" to "U.S." for the convenience of editors. A bot could change article links to fix the "related changes" problem by bypassing simple redirects. If people insist on US instead of U.S. for consistency with the rest of the alphabet soup (like UK and NASA), that's not the end of the world; smart search engines like Google can deal, and consistency is nice. Though it might also not be a bad idea to have consistency with the article text convention, which makes an exception that adds periods to U.S. unlike other initialisms, due to the search engine problem. -- Beland 18:45, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, that search engine problem is pretty much a myth. Also, regardless of what the MoS says, it's not difficult to find articles abbreviating to "US" rather than "U.S." (it's one of those things where the written guidelines have never conformed to what happens on the ground), jguk 19:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
Almost inevitably you get an article called "Foo (US)" which starts something like "Foo in the U.S. is a....." . To me this looks amateur. I am gob-smacked that people think typing two fullstops is burden. The amount of typing discussing the issue far outweighs that. What is more, as it is only a guideline, you can carry on using US and let other people put the fullstops in for you, if they so desire. Rich Farmbrough, 20:05 19 November 2006 (GMT).

Here's an example: 2nd Brigade (US 1st Infantry Division) but U.S. 1st Infantry Division. Rich Farmbrough, 20:41 19 November 2006 (GMT).

Not sure what "gob-smacked" is (sounds bad, though :-) )... I have not seen the "almost inevitably" happen, if you could find some examples of it, I would find it more convincing. I tried using Google, but I can't get it to find the literal string "(US)".
I appreciate the argument of MoS uniformity in lists, and think it has a fair amount of weight. A quick Google search of the string "Sierra Nevada (US)" shows 37 instances, so it does happen a lot.
However, I think several/many other people agree with me that there is something about constantly typing (U.S.) is incredibly annoying for editors. If you had a bot change all of the Sierra Nevada (US) to Sierra Nevada (U.S.) in the articles themselves, I would still be a weak oppose. Only weak, though, because of the strength of the MoS argument.
hike395 05:11, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
Some examples.
Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 10:52 21 November 2006 (GMT). P.S. wikt:gobsmacked.
OK, I guess I am now neutral, as long as a bot fixes the Sierra Nevada (US) links. I don't think we've reached consensus, though, since Slambo is still opposed? hike395 04:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Great. We'll see if Slambo has any more comments. Rich Farmbrough, 22:51 22 November 2006 (GMT).
I like the current standard of (US) - it nice and concise. --mav 02:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't understand. "U.S." is grammatically correct and is the policy within articles. Why should a different standard be set for article titles? To save individuals the trouble of typing in the extra periods? If that's the case, that's what redirects are for so that shouldn't be a problem. "US" strikes me as sloppy and unencyclopedic and I think the fact that we're talking about article titles offers more, not less, reason to make "U.S." the preferred abbreviation.
Jarfingle 09:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I am used to be one of the fanatic people in favor of "US", now I am neutral. I don't think we have reached consensus --- there is still a substantial set of people who want "US" not "U.S.". However, lots of editors do the "U.S." to "US" move: it seems that the people who like "US" are in a small minority --- can we come to some agreement about this, instead of having a chaotic mess? hike395 03:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Discussion continued below at #(US) vs. (U.S.) disambiguation: the final discussion?


The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:06, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms) → Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations) – I think that this page should be moved to eliminate any possible confusion about what the page covers. Acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. For example, assn is an abbreviation for association, but it is not an acronym. In addition, I believe that the page is meant to cover abbreviations because the beginning of the article says, "This is a naming conventions guideline regarding the use of abbreviations in article titles and in article text. There are two aspects: When to use an abbreviation/acronym; Spelling of the abbreviation when it is used." I added the bold. Finally, the corresponding page of the Manual of Style is called Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations). -- Kjkolb 09:35, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" or other opinion in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

  • Support --- this makes a lot of sense to me. hike395 16:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose It covers both; but acronyms are much more common than other abbreviations; why not just make the new name a redirect? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. It has to do with which is a subset of which: abbreviations subsume acronyms, but not the reverse. I don't see the problem in changing. --SigPig |SEND - OVER 16:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't this be "initialisms" rather than "abbreviations"? -Sean Curtin 01:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the conventions discussed in the guideline are all acronyms, not other abbreviations. Js farrar 03:05, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Dealing with acronyms that no longer officially stand for anything

There is one special case that is not covered by this guideline. It comes to corporations or items that do not have any official long form. I can think of certain articles which have acronyms as titles. However, they no longer officially stand for anything. Articles like SAT (formerly Scholastic Assessment Test) and ESPN (formerly Entertainment and Sports Programming Network). Therefore, those 2 items are really the title, and not a short form of anything.

I suggest that an extra guideline be added that states that if the subject of the article no longer has a long form, the "abbreviation" is acceptable for use as the article.--Kylohk 20:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

(US) vs. (U.S.) disambiguation: the final discussion?

Copying relevant discussion down here, to restart it.
Is there really a strong compelling reason to change? Out of courtesy, we should re-consult everyone who participated in the discussion above and see if they want to change. This would be the third time for this discussion --- the second time we re-visited this discussion. If you feel strongly, we can go ahead, but I hate to pester people about the same issue again and again.
-- hike395 07:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
The moves likely accomplished one important thing—no matter which is used, there should be a redirect from the other. IMHO, they all should be at "U.S.", but it isn't going to matter much if somebody checks once in a while to see if the requisite redirects are there. Gene Nygaard 17:42, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. At the end of the day though, all that really matters is that we are consistent with any particular disambiguator. That said, I still have a preference for US vs anything else due to it being fast and easy to type. --mav 13:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I guess I am now neutral, as long as a bot fixes the Sierra Nevada (US) links. I don't think we've reached consensus, though, since Slambo is still opposed? hike395 04:54, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Great. We'll see if Slambo has any more comments. Rich Farmbrough, 22:51 22 November 2006 (GMT).
I like the current standard of (US) - it nice and concise. --mav 02:22, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't understand. "U.S." is grammatically correct and is the policy within articles. Why should a different standard be set for article titles? To save individuals the trouble of typing in the extra periods? If that's the case, that's what redirects are for so that shouldn't be a problem. "US" strikes me as sloppy and unencyclopedic and I think the fact that we're talking about article titles offers more, not less, reason to make "U.S." the preferred abbreviation.
Jarfingle 09:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I am used to be one of the fanatic people in favor of "US", now I am neutral. I don't think we have reached consensus --- there is still a substantial set of people who want "US" not "U.S.". However, lots of editors do the "US" to "U.S." move: it seems that the people who like "US" are in a small minority --- can we come to some agreement about this, instead of having a chaotic mess? hike395 03:41, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Still in favour of U.S., and still prepared to do much of the fixing up. Rich Farmbrough, 07:47 15 April 2007 (GMT).
How about this as a compromise?
  1. The preferred disambiguator for article titles is (U.S.) or (U.K.) (to match standard MoS usage)
  2. Ask editors to have the (US) or (UK) form of title as a redirect (for convenience of typing).
  3. Rich runs a bot to change the (US) links to (U.S.) links for Sierra Nevada (US), Great Northern Railway (US), and any other highly linked article (to make related changes work).
I think this makes everyone sort of happy --- mav gets to type (US), Rich gets conformity in anchor text, I get related changes working. What do people think? hike395 13:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Loks good to me, except ....MoS says "UK". Rich Farmbrough, 12:49 16 April 2007 (GMT).
Restating (correctly this time):
  1. The preferred disambiguator for article titles follows the Manual of Style: (U.S.) and (UK).
  2. Ask editors to have the (US) or (U.K.) form of title as a redirect (for convenience of typing).
  3. Rich runs a bot to change the (US) links to (U.S.) links for Sierra Nevada (US), Great Northern Railway (US), and any other highly linked article (to make related changes work).
hike395 17:49, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm. How long do we wait before saying "Yay"? Rich Farmbrough, 08:07 19 April 2007 (GMT).
WP:BOLD: Yay! hike395 14:44, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

<de-indent>Under [Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28abbreviations%29#Acronyms_as_disambiguators], it says, "Abbreviations are preferred over full country names, for brevity." Is this for all countries, or just U.S./UK? Are we goung to have to go through the entire WP and change "Canada" to "Can", "North Korea" to "DPRK", etc? What exactly are you trying to say here? Tks. --SigPig |SEND - OVER 15:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so! Perhaps to means avoid things like "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" or "The Poeples Democratic Republic of... " Anyway this can be easily fixed. Rich Farmbrough, 15:08 24 April 2007 (GMT).
And indeed it has been... Well done Hike395. Rich Farmbrough, 15:11 24 April 2007 (GMT).

For the record, I much prefer U.S. - much better than US, and really is only used by a minority as far as I can see. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:23, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

A suggested wording change

From "Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronyms and is widely known and used in that form."

To "Acronyms can be used in page naming if the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acronyms and is widely known and used in that form."

The new one basically conveys the same message, but sound more positive. Any ideas?--Kylohk 08:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I've been bold and changed the wording. If there are any disagreements, please discuss it here.--Kylohk 20:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Another idea

I propose adding a method to determine the prominence of the abbreviation. The idea is to go and check secondary sources like public media and see how they mainly refer to the subject. An abbreviations.com test may also come in handy to check whether there are other notable groups with the same abbreviation.--Kylohk 10:27, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

you dot es dot

In view of the recent debate at MOS, in particular complaints about the awkwardness of using "U.S. and UK" in the same context, and disagreements about the applicability of Chicago's guideline on spelling out the United States in the presence of the names of other countries, I suggest that this:

There is no consistent rule about periods—in general, avoid them, unless the preferred usage is otherwise (for example, U.S., but UK).

be altered so as not to promote the assumption that the dots are mandatory. Many Americans disagree with this, or simply don't observe it, particularly when faced with USA, USAF and the fact that almost all other American initialisms are undotted. Tony (talk) 12:21, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguating acronyms that are also words

I started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Disambiguating acronyms that are also words. that might interest some people here.--Yannick (talk) 02:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

USA (no, no, calm down—not US vs. U.S. again)

The MoS abbreviations page shows "USA" as an abbreviation for "United States Army". Maybe it is, but I, for one, would invariable read "USA" as "United States of America". To put it more plainly, anybody who expects a reader to read "USA" as "United States Army" is living in a dream. There are some things that have no abbreviation, like "May" or "Cuba". The effort of typing the few extra characters necessary to make "U.S. Army" is far outweighed by the benefit of having it say what we mean. --Milkbreath 12:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I have never seen anyone use "USA" in reference to the army. It might happen if you are purely within a branches-of-the-military context, but in general, nobody does that. Ham Pastrami (talk) 21:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

US vs. U.S. again, a bot proposal

Because of a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people) about formatting initials in the titles of articles, I've proposed a bot to create redirects for all alternative styles. For example, for titles containing "U.S.", it would create corresponding redirects containing "US", "U. S.", and "U S". See the discussion at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Eubot 4. Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 02:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for acronyms that are not used as the title itself

I think acronyms should be acceptable, and indeed encouraged, where they do not represent the title of the subject itself, but rather just a part of the title. When you insist on expanding acronyms whenever possible, you get titles that are actually harder to read. Examples:

The argument that expansion is preferred due to built-in disambiguation is much weaker in these cases, because even when items have the same acronym, they usually do not have the same context. It is extremely unlikely that a Comparison of insulin degrading enzymes or a Gigantic Unmerciful Insect builder will be created with article scope. It's also exceedingly unlikely that longer acronyms and combinations of acronyms like MMORPG are ever going to stand for Mystery Meat On Rye Plus Gouda or anything else. MMO should be expanded and RPG should be expanded, but when you have both of them it isn't really necessary to establish context in the title. Ham Pastrami (talk) 17:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

  • It's a good idea. I believe some entities exist to be known as their abbreviated form rather than the full form. An explanation on what it stands for can be known by reading it.--Alasdair 19:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

SEA-ME-WE-4 article name

Could any editors with experience in naming conflicts please offer their insight on this article name at Talk:South_East_Asia-Middle_East-Western_Europe_4#Article_name? -- Chuq (talk) 02:01, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Merger

This page is an actual guideline on abbreviations; WP:MOSABBR is almost entirely a list of somebody's preferences. Why not merge them?

Perhaps we could move the result to WP:Abbreviations, which would end a few turfwars. (It now redirects to WP:Disambiguation and abbreviations, which should also coordinate here.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

  • I'm keen to see the ownership culture here end. Perhaps this could be achieved at the same time as merging. Tony (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm in favor of whatever consolidation we can achieve; I'm finding more and more samples of unnecessary pages, contradictions, and overlap. (By the way, why is there a weird section at the top with no section heading? Can someone put a heading on it?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Archived. I abstain from voting on the merge. hike395 (talk) 06:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a merger is desirable. Tony (talk) 12:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • So what's happening WRT this merger proposal? More input needed here. I'm posting a notice at the VP and the other page in question. Tony (talk) 14:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge, because having two contradictory guidelines on the same subject is a bad thing. The general subject of abbreviations is difficult, and this is an area that I'm going to stay out of for a little while. (Perhaps other people feel the same way, which is how this proposal got stuck.) - Dan (talk) 14:53, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I doubt it's stuck; it looks more like nobody has gotten out and busted electrons to do it. This discussion (and the vast silence from everybody else) should be enough consensus to be bold, and see if someone objects. (I'm not volunteering; I just got an ArbCom case. That looks like a pure content dispute, and may be dismissed on that ground, but my time may be limited.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge – I am not aware of any ownership wars, but making the Manual of Style more compact is a necessity, and having two pages for the same thing is a waste of space. Waltham, The Duke of 05:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge. Compact is good. One reference is good. Lightmouse (talk) 11:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good, Finell. I think we should just do it'. Do you know how to? It would be nice to have this to report in my monthly update of style and policy pages; meaningful change is thin on the ground this month. Tony (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
With support from several Wikipedians and no opposition, merge appears to be the consensus. I know how, but I don't have the time now or in the near future. Because of the current demands of my work, I have been limiting my Wikipedia time mostly to defending a few articles I care about from addition of random misinformation and subtle vandalism. I would if I had the time. Sorry. Finell (Talk) 19:39, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge simple = good ... but agree that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) is better since we're talking about abbr in general not just in titles. JIMp talk·cont 16:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
  • So who's able to do it? Any know someone? Does it have to be an admin? Tony (talk) 16:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
    • An admin is not required to merge articles. It has to be done by hand, so it is like adding information from one article to another. Gary King (talk) 02:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Merge completed. Discovered the request for this at WP:VPA. The associated page has been merged into Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) and now redirects there. All double redirects have been fixed, and an ambox has been left at the top of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations), informing of merge and directing people to the existence of this talk page.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:15, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

What happened to NASA vs. N.A.S.A.?

WP:COMMONNAME points to this guideline with this example:

But the guideline doesn't actually say anything about the use of periods in acronyms. I presume that it used to — what was changed, and why? Should WP:COMMONNAME be changed, or does something need to be restored to WP:ACRONYM? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:28, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

    • OMG, please let's not encourage people to dot dot dot and space space space everywhere. There is an overwhelming force in English to move to the neater, easier-to-read formatting. NASA. Tony (talk) 05:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes — I was just wondering why the guideline doesn't say anything about that, even though WP:COMMONNAME suggests that it does. (For the context of why I'm asking, see Talk:UNIT.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
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