Having the first appearance of every acronym expanded helps newer people.

But it adds a lot of extra words if we make sure that the first instance of every acronym in each post is expanded. We really don't need to see , "Local Area Network (LAN)" in every post.

I'm suggesting a standard way of marking up acronyms. Editors can swing by and tweak existing posts.

**Why use the link markup `(BGP)[...]`?**

Just to get the mouse-over effect of acronym expansion without having the extra words always there.

I'm suggesting linking to our NE tag's page, (which never 404s, just gives a tag search and tag info if it's been edited to exist,) so that the general link markup would be valid.

If a reader needs more information on LAN, BGP, etc, they can open a tab and go search the Internet.

**Why not TAG them?**

(aside: `[tag:BGP]` leads to automatic tag treatment like [bgp](https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bgp "show questions tagged 'bgp'").)

* They don't look like capitalized acronyms; `[tag:...]` downcases.
* They visually stand out more than simply "BGP" would when linked.

**Which acronyms?**

Ok, not *every* acronym.

Of course, there's no harm in linking every acronym -- it's just a link when you read. But we don't want the trivial edits of people editing in a link for the IP acronym.

**For example:**

OP innocently writes:

```
I have a problem with GRE.

```

an editors swings by and adds a link:

```
I have a problem with [GRE](/tags/gre "Generic Routing Encapsulation").

```

Markdown renders that as:

> 
> I have a problem with [GRE](https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/tags/gre "Generic Routing Encapsulation").
> 
> 
> 

If you hover over the anchor, the title attribute of the link pops up to reveal the acronym.

Also notice if you click on it, the [gre](https://networkengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/gre "show questions tagged 'gre'") tag has some relevant posts, but doesn't (at the moment) have a tag wiki; So it's a good example of an editors dropping in an acronym link to a lightly used tag.

(aside: Because this post is on Meta, I had to put a full URL in the example just above. Out on Main the link url is simply `/tags/gre`.)