Dear All,

Elisabeth has been very hard on developing the list of abbreviations, as can be seen above.
I have also made a small contribution.

Could I request all the forum users, especially the seniors, to kindly contribute to the list, so as to make more complete.

Thank you,

F H Mughal

I have been asked where the edit button is to edit this list of abbreviations in Wikipedia. To answer this question I have made a screenshot and marked the edit button with a red oval.
So, please go here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...iations_and_acronyms

and then click on the edit button that is in the red oval to add additional abbreviations.



You don't even need to get yourself a login for Wikipedia but can directly edit it (getting a login has other advantages but initially, feel free to just do it without a login).

And don't be scared to make a mistake: anyone who has put this page on his or her watchlist (like I have), will get an e-mail notification that something has been changed and can - if necessary - revert or correct the change.

I hope people will see this as a collaborative effort so that this list can be a joint product of many contributors.


Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S. Dear Harry,I've added WC to the list

Thanks Elizabeth
Do people still use WC - Water closet?
That is already quite a large list isn't it. I didn't know most of those.
Harry Tams
Tasmania

Hi all,

I have made a start with this list of abbreviations and acronyms. I have put it here on Wikipedia (as part of the WikiProject Sanitation page):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...iations_and_acronyms

This means that anyone can add new terms there, you don't even need a login, just click on the button called [edit source]. If you have seen an abbreviation lately and you didn't know what it meant, just put it in the list. Where there is a Wikipedia article for it, we can link to it. If there is no Wikipedia article we can link to an external page or just spell out the abbreviation with no link at all.

Let's make this a collaborative effort, so please do contribute! Should the list get very long, then it could still be moved to a new page.

The question is also where from this forum page we could link to it so that people will easily find the list when they need it. Does it need its own button (if yes, where?) or can it be grouped within the menu item "forum tools"? Or somehow integrated in the green question mark button at the top right, or next to it? What are your ideas? It could also go at the very bottom of the page.

Here is how it looks so far:

List of abbreviations and acronyms [edit source]

When an abbreviation or acronym is first used, it should be spelled out and the abbreviation put in brackets behind the long version. For longer articles, a repeat of the long version of the abbreviation every now and again is helfpul.

A list of commonly used abbreviations in sanitation articles is available here:
* note that of course when you view it in the Wikipedia page then (almost) each of these terms has a hyperlink!

ABR - Anaerobic baffled reactor
AD - Anaerobic digestion
BOD - Biological oxygen demand
BSFL - Black Soldier Fly Larvae
CCT - Conditional cash transfer
CLTS - Community-led total sanitation
COD - Chemical oxygen demand
CW - Constructed wetland
Ecosan - Ecological sanitation
EM - Effective microorganisms
FFS - Fit for School
hab. - habitant or user, used in design parameters of wastewater treatment, e.g. 60 g BOD/hab.
JMP - Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation
MDG - Millennium Development Goal
NGO - Non-governmental organization
OBA - Output based aid
OD - Open defecation
ODF - Open defecation free, i.e. a community without open defecation taking place
PPP - Public Private Partnership
RBF - Results-based financing, see also Output based aid or Payment by Results
SDG - Sustainable Development Goal
STP - Sewage treatment plant
SuSanA - Sustainable Sanitation Alliance
UASB - Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor
UDDT - Urine-diverting dry toilet
VIP - Ventilated Improved Pit latrine
WASH or WaSH - Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
WatSan - Water and sanitation, used in the same way as WASH
WC - Water closet
WinS - WASH in schools
WTO - World Toilet Organization
WWTP - Wastewater treatment plant

Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S. I have had some discussions with Joe about this today, who also contributed some of the abbreviations and acronyms to the list already. Joe suggested a full-blown "glossary", i.e. with an explanatory sentence for each of them. I personally felt that this would take up too much of our time, because each definition sentence would take a will to agree on, and a lot of the terms are anyway already covered with Wikipedia articles (Wikipedia acts as one giant glossary, doesn't it?). So I felt just doing up a list of abbreviations and acronyms would be an easy first step. But that's just my personal opinion.

P.P.S. Are there any countries where Wikipedia is banned? How is it looking with Wikipedia in Pakistan and China? Ah, this is what Wikipedia itself says about censorship of Wikipedia in different countries: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia - so it looks like in general the English Wikipedia is indeed accessible in most countries.

Hi Elisabeth
Thanks for moving that comment out of that topic. I was just having difficulty and I thought others might be as well. It may not even have been that particular post that I was responding to.
Harry Tams

Dear Harry,

I agree with you that it's important to avoid too many abbreviations (and to always explain them) in order to give newcomers to a topic a chance to follow and catch up.

However, in the particular post by Joe that you were referring to, I only found three abbreviations and they were all explained I thought.
I found these three:

• CLTS = Community-led total sanitation (see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community-led_total_sanitation)
• OD = Open defecation (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_defecation)
• LPP = Latrine Promotion Programme (this is not a commonly used abbreviation but specific for this article)

Which other abbreviations were there?

About Mughal's suggestion for a list of abbreviations, yes, that could be done. We had spoken about out it here in this forum thread:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/166-de...ns-on-the-forum#5413

Let's continue the conversation on how to set it up there in that thread. In the last post of that thread I had asked people to send me lists of commonly used abbreviations. I am thinking now that perhaps the easiest would be to set the list up on a Wikipedia page (as part of the WikiProject Sanitation ), because then anyone can easily add to it (and a link to that page can be placed somewhere in an obvious spot on this forum page, perhaps above under the menu itme of "forum tools").

Thanks for all your suggestions. It's really important to make the forum welcoming for people who are new or who are not (yet) very active on the forum. A list of abbreviations might be a small but helpful step in that direction.

Regards,
Elisabeth

P.S. Edit: I have now started such a list here, please check:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProj...iations_and_acronyms

Dear Elisabeth,

Harry Tams has a point. Too many acronyms and abbreviations may even confuse me, at times, let alone the new users.

It would be a good idea to have acronyms, abbreviations, and even a glossary, on this forum's setup. We have 7 logos at the top. Perhaps, you can add one more. This is one good way to attract new users!!

Smiles,

F H Mughal

(Note by moderator: this post was originally in this thread: forum.susana.org/forum/categories/5-clts...hout-subsidies#12958)


Acronyms, lots of them. My apologies for not understanding some of them. I've been reading SuSanA post for quite some time and so i'm not totally in the dark. I think new members and those from non English speaking backgrounds may have the same difficulty.
Harry Tams
Tasmania

Dear Chris,

I think that is a very good idea. The automated hover thing will not work (remember there is not a whole Google staff pool behind the forum...; also there are some abbreviations that have more than one meaning, for example WTO = World Trade Organisation; and World Toilet Organisation). But having a list located somewhere on the forum (where it is easy to find), which is dynamic and gets added on to by the users is a good idea.

(mind you, people will forget that such a list exists, or not know, so we will have to remind them frequently; also it won't hurt to frequenty repeat what the abbreviation means in one's own posts).

As a starting point, let's dig out existing lists of abbreviations and start with the best one (and then add to it). I have seen such lists in various documents and MSc or PhD theses but can't remember a really good one off the top of my head.

Who has got a good list of abbreviations used in sanitation, WASH or wastewater treatment which you would like to share?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear Chris,

You have a valid point there. I also get mixed up, when lots of abbreviations, not known or not popular, are used.

I have a modest suggestion. Why can't the SuSanA secretariat setup a tab, or a section, where all abbreviations, used by the colleagues, are grouped. Readers can use that for easy reference.

Regards,

F H Mughal

Hi everyone,

Just a general comment. Let's try to remind readers of what all the abbreviations mean, from time to time. For example, in this thread there is mention of ABRs made from GRP. OK, ABR is Anaerobic Baffled Reactor, but what is GRP? From a search of the internet, it seems that it is Glass-reinforced Plastic. How different would that be from conventional Fiberglass?

It would probably be too complicated to program, but the forum could be set up so that it identifies abbreviations when a reader hovers over them with the mouse. Much easier would be to have a list of abbreviations somewhere in the forum, which could also link to the most relevant threads. The content of this list could be build by the users themselves.

We do juggle lots of abbreviations and acronyms and it would be good to make this easier.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday