Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (abbreviations)

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[edit] Guideline?

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


[edit] 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:

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] (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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)