Mouseover definitions for acronyms (was Re: RFC: initialisms and FDP)

[Leonard Zettel]

On Sunday 18 July 2004 06:02 am, Marc Fonvieille wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 15, 2004 at 08:33:33AM +0000, Murray Stokely wrote:
> > Ok this is working now.  Thanks to Simon for explaining how to do the
> > mouseovers in HTML4.  I think that the little dotted underlines will
> > get distracting in a chapter filled with acronyms.
> >
> > For the advanced networking chapter anyway, it might look best if the
> > first occurence of an acronym is rendered with a link to the glossary,
> > and the first three are rendered with the mouseover.
> >
> > I'm not really sure, it's largely up to individual sense of
> > aesthetic.  What do others think?
>
> [...]
>

> Well for me "it looks weird", I mean I see too much dotted underlines :)
> just look at the 23.4.2 section for example... or some titles.  Many
> different acronyms in one text could lead to something "difficult" to
> read.
> I think rendering the first three ones should be enough, if one needs to
> know the meaning of NIS, it's at the beginning of the text not at the
> end.
>
In my opinion, the best thing to do with acronyms is minimize their use.
Remembering what NIS means puts an extra distracting burden on
the reader, especially if they are already struggling to assimilate a
lot of new concepts, which is likely the case, or they wouldn't
be reading the material in the first place.

I am willing to concede that in some cases usage has extended to
the point where the acronym *is* the word (ftp comes to mind).
Natheless, I think the best policy is to consider an acronym
guilty until proven innocent.
   -LenZ-

> Now an "innocent" question: if we use first four acronyms (1 for the
> glossary, the rest for the mouseover thing), do we need to tag the
> remaining ones (with an entity or <acronym> tags)?  I'm thinking about a
> section not a whole chapter.
>
> Marc
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