Q. Is alphabetizing abbreviations based on the letters in the abbreviation or the letters in the spelled-out word? For example, does wthr (weather) come before wiki (Wikipedia)? Which is “correcter,” by the abbreviations or by the words?
A. By the abbreviations. If someone is consulting the list, it’s probably because he wants to learn what an abbreviation stands for. It would be perverse to make him guess in order to find it.