Thanks for the clarification. I wouldn't argue against abbreviations per se. Was just in the mood for a whimsy post.

And, in defense of WP, W would not be a better option really, except for URLs.

Ironically, my locale's WP edition has failed to or didn't want to adopt /w/ instead of /wiki/ as the leading path segment for Wikipedia articles, as opposed to the English edition.

Also, thinking about this makes me want to search for edit wars and discussion about US vs British spelling on Wikipedia.