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Is it desirable that people use specialised abbreviations in question titles (example.

Only after a few Google searches I get an understanding of what the question is about. I think that (at least) the question title should be understandable to anyone as this site is not only for people who already feel at home with travelling, but also for new people who just start learning about it.

Therefore I think that non-regular abbreviations should be avoided in questions. Could we somehow encourage using the full word/name/description in titles? A FAQ entry or a short notification when posting a question?

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    We've generally considered that 3-letter IATA airport codes are only as specialised as our webiste is specialized. As such they've always been regarded as regular. Now it is a good idea that if an abbreviation is used in one place that the airport be used somewhere else. This improved clarity and search engine hit likelyhood. Also airport codes are used for tags and all of them should have tag wiki excerpts when your mouse is over them. – hippietrail Apr 6 '13 at 7:39
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    Even if they are admitted in posts, I think it is poor style to use airport codes in titles. Even when using them in the text, it doesn't cost a lot to make it a bit more explicit. The benfit anyway outweighs the cost – user3470 Apr 6 '13 at 7:55
  • @hippietrail The airport tags were pushed more by SE staff than by the Travel.SE community. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Apr 6 '13 at 12:10
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    I agree that it's poor style but I've tolerated it so far under the assumption that it seemed to be a common way travel "experts" using the site liked to write. Other advantages of codes are they're very short and unambiguous whereas there can be two or more airports with very similar names or with several names. Just playing devil's advocate though ... – hippietrail Apr 6 '13 at 22:07
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Good, understandable title which doesn't require much context is a feature of a good question, so making it clear what the question is about to non-specialists is valuable.

We do use the airport codes (our airport tags all use three-letter IATA designations anyway), but not all users are familiar with them (and indeed don't have to be).

As for encouraging.. I'm not sure we could do much. Users (particularly new ones) generally don't read FAQ's, and it's easier to just edit the post and clarify it than add a note for the user to do it.

  • That's a very sensible approach. – user3470 Apr 6 '13 at 7:53

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