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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

Not to criticize but that is, or should be, bog standard in any writing. (Assuming the acronym isn't widely used and the words that it embodies essentially a trivia contest answer).

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> Assuming the acronym isn't widely used

I don't care how widely used the acronym for a noun is, first use should always be the full form.

Only time I don't think it should be applied is in the case of a standard/protocol, or policy (such as gif or VAT). Then the first use should be the concept explained, not what it stands for.

I do like their style-guide definition:

acronym: A pronounceable word, formed from the initials of other words, like radar, nimby or NATO. It is not a set of initials, like the BBC or the IMF.

I don't know. Spelling out the words that make up RADAR or SONAR would seem very pedantic to me. As would, in tech, something like SCSI when that was a common interface. In a general purpose magazine, I'd probably be inclined to given a context for NIMBY, NATO, and the IMF--but maybe not BBC (to a British audience).

Upon thinking about it further I agree. So I think, using their style-guide definition I would go with: acronym: not spelled out, function explained. initials: spelled out, function explained.

Agreed. And to the specific examples, it's arguably more important in an article to briefly explain what the function of NATO is and why it's important/relevant than to simply state it's the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which tells me zero if I don't know what NATO is.

We agree. To elaborate. I agree it should be. Unfortunately it is not. This is why I compliment the economist. They do it as I believe it should be.

One example is the amount on comments here on hn about some acronyms thrown without explanation. There are, for instance, 1200 matches for 'What is IC' (Individual Contributor)

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

I think most people still see Hackernews as a website for people in the software industry, where IC is common knowledge. Plus comments aren't written to educate or sell a subscription, rather they're to ask a question, continue a discussion, or contest some point, so it's natural for the writing style to lean towards the informal and be less patronizing. And of course the search you show is a great example of why this isn't too big a problem - since HN is a discussion board, if someone is confused and they can't find the answer on Google, they can just ask for clarification in the comments, often getting a reply from the person who made the original comment that confused them. With a newspaper you can't really do that - even in comment sections authors rarely answer questions, and other readers don't tend to engage with the comments unless they have reasons of their own.

Very fair points. I see now It was not an equivalent example.

I've been an IC for 10 years and never would have guessed that's what IC stands for.

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