Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms)

Convention: Avoid the use of acronyms in page naming unless the term you are naming is almost exclusively known only by its acryonm and is widely known and used in that form (NASA and radar are good examples) .

Many acronyms are used for several things, especially the three letter ones. Naming your article with the full name helps to avoid clashes.

Whether the acronym or the spelled-out phrase is preferable in many particular cases is debatable, but this can work itself out with the #REDIRECT [[new page name]] command. For instance, DMCA and Digital Millennium Copyright Act have oscillated as to which is primary and which page redirects. Other less controversial pairs are MPAA versus Motion Picture Association of America and IMDb versus Internet Movie Database. Usage in the language is also a factor. Radar is an acronym, but spelling it out only obfuscates the meaning. WYSIWYG is a newer example of an acronym that's crept into English usage on its own (Rowan and Martin[?] notwithstanding :-). At any rate, if the acronym and the full name are both in common use, both pages should certainly be created, and one should link to the other.