Purpose of the Acronym Proposal

The OASIS DITA Translation Sub-committee has spent some time working on a requirement to support Acronyms in DITA. At this point we are trying to step back and understand the exact requirements behind this proposal. If you have a need for something that you expect should be covered by the acronym proposal, please add it to this list. Any item is valid in the list at this point, but please make sure that it expresses a goal or a need. Do not propose solutions yet. Once we have a list of requirements, we will determine which ones we are able to meet in DITA 1.2, and which will have to be left for later. Only at that point, after we know the requirements we expect to meet, should we begin working on the solution.

Background: a few general notes about acronyms:

Some acronyms are never translated, especially those that are intended for a knowledgeable, technical audience.
Some acronyms represent a brand name for which the original expanded form is no longer used or is secondary to the acronym.
Acronyms such as xml, jpg, html, and so on are typically used in their original form.
Acronyms that have equivalent expressions in other languages are typically translated. United Nations (UN) and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) have equivalents in other languages besides English.
Some acronyms are translated for clarity and also referred to in their original untranslated form. OASIS will be translated so that readers understand its significance in their native languages but the original acronym will be retained in the translation. The acronym is used, for example, to locate the organization in an electronic search.
Some acronyms (e.g., laser) are so naturalized that they might not be considered acronyms by some.

The acronym proposal is intended to meet the following requirements:

If you see anything from this list, please add it. This list should include every need that must be met by the Acronym proposal. Please do not propose technical solutions. If your set of requirements are complex enough, you may add another section, as with the Term Variant suggestions below. Either way, it would be a good idea to add your name to any requirement, in case the TC needs more input to understand it.

The DITA acronym proposal is intended to provide a mechanism to identify an acronym in DITA content
It should be possible to identify both the expanded and short forms of an acronym
Both short and long forms should be translatable as needed
It should be possible to conref the acronym into ordinary discourse
It should be possible to use the expanded form as a "mouse over" of the acronym in an electronic document
Fallback should be graceful when an acronym is conreffed into a context where acronyms are not allowed (e.g., because of included domains)
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Term Variant proposal - addendum / alternate proposal from Kara Warburton at IBM

Comment from Robert Anderson: This broader proposal came about after Kara's recognition that acronyms are just one aspect of several related terms. This is an attempt to cover all of those terms with one proposal, rather than doing one now and doing the rest differently at a later date. As with the requirements list above, these requirements are not yet part of the proposal, they are simply on the table for discussion.

Note: For the purpose of this requirement, the term "term variant" or "variant" includes the following:

a non-preferred synonym (a non-preferred synonym is a term that has the same meaning as another term, but the other term is preferred for controlled authoring purposes)
an acronym (initialism, such as "ACL" for "access control list"). We may also want to distinguish acronyms that are pronounced, such as AIDS, and acronyms that are not pronounced, such as ACL.
an abbreviation (clipped term, such as "abend" for "abnormal end of task")
a short form (a multi-word term that has had one or more words dropped)

Each "variant" has a corresponding "main term". In the case of acronyms and abbreviations, the "main term" is the corresponding full form. In the case of non-preferred synonyms, the "main term" is the preferred synonym.

TheTerm Variant proposal is intended to meet the following requirements:

identify variants in DITA content
distinguish between the different types of variants (synonyms, acronyms, abbreviations, etc.)
identify the main term corresponding to the variant
both the variant and its main term should be translatable as needed
store variants and their main terms in a separate file, and use the conref mechanism inline in text to automatically insert either the variant or the main term from the separate file into a DITA document
the conreffed file should allow other metadata to be stored, specifically, the part of speech, the definition, and context sentences
identify the inline definition of the variant/main term (note: the variant and the main term must share the same definition)
identify an inline context sentence of the variant
identify an inline context sentence of the main term
specify a separate surface form for translation that differs from the actual variant or main term