Talk:List of energy abbreviations

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Scope

The scope of this list would be appropriate for an appendix of a book about power plants, but it is far too broad in one direction, and far too narrow in the other.

It is too narrow in that it does not include energy terms from other areas, such as energy conservation or efficiency related terms. I'm not too concerned about this because this kind of things get fixed over time. I may post a list of some 30 terms here shortly. However, before I put effort in this, I want to make sure that it will be effective. If the terms really are from one narrow area related to energy then I would propose that we create different sections for different areas, similar to some other comparable lists. That would make it easier to merge different areas.
It is too broad in the direction of general terms that have nothing to do with energy directly, such as Chief Executive Officer, chlorofluorocarbon, and American Indian Religious Freedom Act. As a rule of thumb, I would say that if we have an article about it, and the word "energy" (or "power") does not appear there, it should be removed from this list. (A more refined criterion would be: Is it somewhere under Category:Energy.) — Sebastian 05:50, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This list is a first cut merge of glossaries from various governmental energy documents from the EU and US. I have been hacking at it but have been too permissive and didn't eliminate the references you listed that really have no place in this article. My primary goal on the first pass is to reduce the mess- such as the auto generated links that don't make any sense.

I should be done with a first pass in a couple days. The purpose I had in mind was to have a one stop reference that people reading government and research papers on energy. Guilty as charged on the power systems terms, but only because they have been my most recent focus, so it is a bit weighted in favor of those at this time. My intention is to add pretty much all the terminology for non CO2 generation technologies with the exception of nukes which have a terminology so enormous I wouldn't junk up the list with anything more than the general acronyms.

I would also add regarding scope that we have some notability standard. There are a multitude of acronyms from provincial and state regulatory agencies that would just clutter up the list. For example don't need to have the acronym for the regulatory authority in Amarillo, Texas in this list. -J JMesserly (talk) 08:36, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that makes a lot of sense. I realize this is in competent hands, and I'm sorry that I was a bit impatient - of course it won't be perfect right away. So please take your time. I didn't notice the Amarillo acronym; I don't know how notable that organization is, but I wouldn't worry too much about that. If it's from a governmental document then it will have some notability. But I trust your judgment on that.

I will post my list in an appendix; once you got the links to the acronyms removed (if that's what you mean by "auto generated links"), it will be easy to sort them together. — Sebastian 10:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did that. I also included a few border line cases, such as "MVG". I won't mind if they get deleted; I just put them in because I thought it's easier to delete than to add. Also, I haven't added links yet. — Sebastian 11:43, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Back to scope discussion: The case that I described as unlikely on my talk page just happened: LEED has two different energy-related meanings. One of them I just entered, the other one is Low-energy electron diffraction. I assume, however, that that's not the kind of "energy" you had in mind for this page, correct? Maybe we should steal the nice wording from the top of WP:ENERGY: "This refers only to energy as used by humans to do daily practical things, not physics concepts of energy in theory. It is a technology not a science project and intersects with economics and ecology topics." - what do you think? — Sebastian 02:15, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Context; table or list

I ran across a power article that listed the context in which an acronym is found. Due to the breadth of the energy terminology, I think an indication of context may become imperative as this gets expanded with solar and wind mumbo jumbo. For example, without context, "Demand side management" could be taken to mean managing oil demand. The downside of this is that tables present horrifying wikitext to novices. -J JMesserly (talk) 09:27, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "horrifying" is the right word. It doesn't have to be a table. I just happened to have my list in one, and I experimented with the Excel macro that converts them ("Helferlein, found at Help:Table#External links, but I'm not sure if I should recommend it; it needs a lot of postprocessing). I now tend to think it would be better to keep it as a bulleted list, and add the context in parentheses after the explanation. Another alternative would be to split up the list in topical sections (which would make the "appendix", which was only meant as a temporary solution, one of them.) — Sebastian 16:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right. And there is a balance there. Once it is stable in a year or two then you, I or some other soldier can put the table(s) back in. It is trivial for me to rip them out or put them back using word macros I create, so let's just make it simple for people to contribute. This article has already gotten participation from multiple contributors in its first week alone. It would be a shame to see that fall off. My experience is that the barrier to participation is just too high for most folks. -J JMesserly (talk) 17:22, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Would it be easy for your macro to convert all tables on the page to bullet lists? If not, I can convert the appendix separately. Also, if you agree with what I said at User talk:SebastianHelm#List of energy abbreviations, could you please also remove the links from the abbreviations? Thanks! — Sebastian 20:18, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okeydokey- done. Not as pretty, but comprehensiveness due to more participation has a beauty all its own. -J JMesserly (talk) 22:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - it's a pleasure working with you. Once this is in a somewhat stable state, we could announce it at WP:Energy - they may want to slap their template on this talk page. — Sebastian 23:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

oh boy. -J JMesserly (talk) 03:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]