UniWiki:Manual of Style/Abbreviations: Difference between revisions

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{{See also|Wikipedia:Article titles#Article title format}}

Acronyms should be used in a page name if the subject is known primarily by its abbreviation and that abbreviation is primarily associated with the subject (e.g. [[NASA]]; in contrast, consensus has rejected moving [[Central Intelligence Agency]] to its acronym, in view of arguments that the full name is used in professional and academic publications). In general, if readers somewhat familiar with the subject are likely to only recognise the name by its acronym, then the acronym should be used as a title.

One general exception to this rule deals with our strong preference for [[WP:NATURAL|natural disambiguation]]. Many acronyms are used for several things; naming a page with the full name helps to avoid clashes. For instance, multiple TV/radio broadcasting companies share the initials [[ABC (disambiguation)|ABC]]; even though some may be far better known by that acronym, our articles on those companies are found at, for example, [[American Broadcasting Company]] rather than [[ABC (U.S. TV network)]]. A useful test to determine what an abbreviation usually refers to can be done by checking [http://acronymfinder.com/ Acronym Finder] or [http://www.abbreviations.com/ Abbreviations.com] and finding the relative usage. If it is found that a particular subject is overwhelmingly denoted by an unambiguous acronym, the article title on that subject can be expressed as the acronym and a [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation|disambiguation]] page can be used for the other subjects.

In many cases, no decision is necessary because a given acronym has several expansions, none of which is the most prominent. Under such circumstances, an article should be named with the spelled-out phrase and the acronym should be a disambiguation page providing descriptive links to all of them. See, for example, "[[AJAR]]", which disambiguates between "''[[African Journal of AIDS Research]]''" and "''[[Australian Journal of Agricultural Research]]''". A title like [[AJAR (African journal)]] should be avoided if at all possible. If the acronym and the full name are both in common use, both pages should exist, with one redirecting to the other (or as a disambiguation page).