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There are some acronyms which save time to those who write, but may not be known by few readers.
For example AFAICT, AFAIK, FWIK, IMHO. I think these are really widely known. And also widely used. If the reader doesn't know, she or he just a click away from looking it up, and will gain a knowledge he won't forget.
Should the posters avoid acronyms and write fully expanded words instead?
Note: This is not about auto-expanding. This is about expanding by posters.
Of course they should, but that doesn't mean they will. We can't reallyforce users to do anything, just like we can't force users to capitalize their "i" and type the full word "please" rather than "plz." I find myself often hitting up Google to figure out what on Earth someone was saying because of unfamiliar acronyms.
You should always assume that the person on the other end isn't familiar with the acronym you're using. Try to expand them as often as possible in your answers. Remember, this is a global audience. Just because all your friends you text with where you live know what it means doesn't mean someone half-way across the world does.
In the end, if you see an acronym somewhere that you think will confuse someone, feel free to edit it to what it means to make the post clearer (of course you can't edit them in comments). As usual, make sure you're fixing up any other issues with the post in the process.
The only real exception I can think of for this is acronyms specific to a certain technology that a question is based on, but it'd have to be something so common that you couldn't possibly not know about it. Even then, I'd much prefer users fully type it out once and then abbreviate it in the rest of the post, to be as clear as possible.
If the reader doesn't know, she or he just a click away from looking it up, and will gain a knowledge he won't forget.
I agree, so you are right, we should not do this.
In general I recommend against making a proposal on meta unless you can also make a cogent case for it. It's similar to doing research effort on your own question on SO. If you already disagree with a proposal, it's probably better not to bring up at all. See the resounding downvotes on this question, for example.
IMO since English is not the first language of everyone visiting the site this feature is at least somewhat useful. It could be a preference in user options. People could turn it off at their discretion. If you want them expanded they could be.
