Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (acronyms)

One approach would handle them like this

      Entry: CPU
      +- - - - - - -
      |CPU - central processing unit

      |

Another would be to

      Entry: CPU
      +- - - - - - -
      |#REDIRECT central processing unit

      Entry: Central_processing_unit
      +- - - - - - -
      |Central Processing Unit (CPU)

that is, the acronym redirects to the main page, and is displayed in an on-page title; in this scenerio, only acronyms with multiple definitions would be handled as in the first case:

      Entry: CPU
      +- - - - - - -
      |CPU - central processing unit
      |
      |cpu - cerebrially pleasant ungent

Finally, should it be that all (but horribly complex) acronyms simply define the expansion and link to a main page? For example, right now "GUI" is the main page and "graphical user interface" links back to it.

--loh

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

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