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WA is the state code for Washington in the US, by the way. Is WA commonly thought of as "Western Australia" worldwide outside of the US? If not, maybe consider
by starttoaster 2y ago
WA is the state code for Washington in the US, by the way. Is WA commonly thought of as "Western Australia" worldwide outside of the US? If not, maybe consider using less overloaded abbreviations in your titles.
- kube-system 2y agoIt looks like the article was written by and for Guardian Australia. Local abbreviations are frequently used in news written with a local audience in mind, and when syndicated to a larger audience, this situation frequently pops up.
- eterm 2y agoI'm sure you wouldn't be making this complaint if it were the other way around. Rather than demanding the rest of the world avoid abbreviations that coincide with US states, perhaps just accept others can use their own abbreviations.
- textlapse 2y agoIn fairness, this site skews super US/SV-centric, so a majority of people might read it as Washington :) Nothing against local abbreviations. The ramifications of hijacking the wifi used by frequent flyers/tech workers between Seattle <-> SJC/NYC/etc have a very different 'vibe' to it than the actual one in the article.
- starttoaster 2y agoI understand you being offended. I'm sure internet users outside of the US are annoyed by US posters using terms/abbreviations that mean different things to different countries. However, I did purposefully add the question "Is WA commonly thought of as \"Western Australia\" worldwide outside of the US?" as a form of olive branch to people outside of the US, in case I'm the one being ignorant here. So in this case, I kind of think your inflammatory comment is unwarranted though.
- Rygian 2y agoI don't think WA is commonly thought of as anything worldwide.
- OJFord 2y agoMy first reading is 'WhatsApp', which just makes him sound like a pretty lame superhero. My second reading was an assumption that it was a US state code (maybe I could have arrived at Washington if I thought for long enough about it) and that there'd be a comment here very much like yours but complaining about 'US defaultism'. So no, it probably isn't that common outside of Australia, but this is so so common, and bear in mind it's usually a US thing. (Anything 'national' or talking about 'the nation' generally means 'the US' on HN, for example.)
- cyberlimerence 2y agoI can see how that would confusing. I did submit with the original title "WA man set up fake free wifi at Australian airports ...", but I think edit by a moderator removed Australian part. In hindsight, the title should have been "Australian man ...", but I can't edit the submission now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]