Talk:POA

COuld it be Plan of Action

Verifiability

There are many unverifiable items in the list at present. The following is a list of items that I can verify. I propose that we remove the others under the Verifiability policy.

Phylogenetic Oligonucleotide Array, an oligonucleotide microarray [1]
Power of attorney, legal authorization to act on someone else's behalf [2]
Portable Object Adapter, part of the CORBA specification [3]
Salgado Filho International Airport, IATA airport code [4]
Pacific Ocean Areas, area of the Pacific theater of operations assigned to Admiral Chester Nimitz during World War II [5]
Pony of the Americas, horse breed [6]
Prison Officers' Association [7]
Property Owners Association, frequently referred in legal documents to property associations [8] [9] [10]
Plan Of Action [11]
Principles of Accounts, a subject that is taken for GCE O levels or certain university courses. [12] [13] [14]

"Price on Application" ought to be verifiable too but I cannot find a reliable source for it. --Tony Sidaway 11:08, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with the assertion that all entries on disambiguation pages must be used in mainstream press publications. Disambigs exist for convenience, and POA is relatively often used as "Prisoner of Azkaban", so there's a reason to list it. Disambiguation pages aren't actual article content, and aren't covered by WP:V. Melsaran (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just discovered this after a little googling, is it considered a reliable source that can "verify" the use of the abbreviation? Melsaran (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, that isn't enough verification. We'd need to see multiple uses of the term in a public context, rather than fandom. A good example would be if the term appeared in newspaper headlines, with the obvious expectation that the reader would understand POA to mean "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" without further hints. --Tony Sidaway 17:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why verifiability is important

Melsaran has reverted the removal of an entry for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, saying "where does WP:V say "all abbreviations listed on disambiguation pages must have been used in the mainstream press"? disambigs exist for convenience, they aren't actual article content."

Verifiability applies to all main space content. It's important here because for any three letter alphabetic sequence there are hundreds, probably thousands of book titles that contain that sequence as the letters beginning the words, there are probably dozens more people, companies and products that also satisfy that qualification. We should not list all those titles, only those that are widely known by the three-letter abbreviation.

And finally it does not serve convenience at all if we list items that are not widely known by their letters, because listing them all willy nilly, without reference to whether the letters are verifiably used, obscures the few that are. The more clutter a disambiguation page contains, the less use it is.

On this specific case, I only see fan sites and the like, which understandably adopt abbreviations for subjects that are commonly discussed in the context of fandom. PoA has not, however, entered the mainstream as an abbreviation for that novel. --Tony Sidaway 17:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Public Order Act

This act is often referred to as POA. Would it be listed? Calvin 11:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]