User:Wafulz/Acronyms

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This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.
This page in a nutshell: Avoid using WP:ACRONYMS

As Wikipedia grows, the tendency to use dozens of acronyms grows as well. While there are some situations where this is alright, it's usually better to avoid such jargon and use a piped link. Imagine you're a newbie, and you're trying to save an article from deletion. You ask why it's being deleted, and the response you get is:

"Subject is WP:NN, needs more WP:RS for WP:V and to avoid WP:OR."

While this may seem perfectly clear to the author of the statement, to a new editor, this is simply a presentation of four walls of text. If you're new, you might not even know that those words are hyperlinked.

[edit] Reasons to avoid excessive acronyms

  1. Acronyms are exclusive, and make Wikipedia seem like an inner circle of privileged editors.
  2. Acronyms are confusing. You may think that by simply typing out the acronyms you've saved yourself some time, but oftentimes, you'll end up simply explaining what they actually mean later on.
  3. New users may not click the links provided. Some users either don't know to click on hyperlinks, or simply don't care to. Not using the acronyms still gives the user the gist of the idea. Take the previous example: Say you ask the question again, and you get this answer:

"Subject is not notable, needs more reliable sources for verification and to avoid original research."

While you may not know exactly what the terms mean, you've now at least got the basic idea- there are no sources, and there's no verification, and the subject might not be notable.

Wikipedia's size and success are due in large part to the openness of the community, and if people feel intimidated or confused when they're swarmed by jargon, they'll often rather leave than work in a hostile community.