Talk:DSL (disambiguation)
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Unnecessary disambiguation (imo)
[edit]The setup for this disambiguation page seems a bit odd & unnecessary:
- If a reader searches for "DSL" then they'll land at Digital Subscriber Line, which states that "DSL" redirects there and includes the link to the disambiguation page.
- If the reader accidentally used mixed-case or (as many do) lower-case, they land at the disambiguation page even though all of the alternatives there are also acronyms and thus should likely use capital letters.
Even if we ignore the important point that "DSL" is universally recognized in English as referring to broadband Internet, I feel its usefulness to readers is questionable at best. The most 'relevant' links are small-niche uses where the capitalization is haphazard, and people aware of them will also know what "DSL" normally means in English:
- Danish Sign Language is a stub consisting only of speculation on which other sign languages it's close to. People that actually use Danish Sign refer to it as DDL, and likely wouldn't be using English Wikipedia.
- Damn Small Linux is about a Linux distro that hasn't had a stable release since ’08. As a longtime Linux user, I haven't seen people use the acronym in several years, and then it was only after using the full name.
- Definitive software library is a tiny stub consisting of a definition that states it was renamed "definitive media library" by a standards org.
- Design Science License is a stub that doesn't use the acronym, which only appears once in the 13-year-old lone reference as part of the author's email address.
- Domain-specific language is the closest to a real alternative, but anybody with the advanced technical knowledge needed to be aware of the article itself will definitely know what "DSL" normally means.
Most of the other articles listed on the page are stubs; regardless of length, they all either don't use the acronym themselves, or use it for brevity without indicating anywhere in the text or reference descriptions that the acronym is normally used outside Wikipedia. I'd be very surprised if fewer than 99% of visitors were there for the Digital Subscriber Line article. (I edited the above for clarity after I cross-posted at talk:disambiguation as it had no replies yet.) —xyzzy 12:50, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
Shouldn't DSL redirect to this disambiguation page? We can highlight the common usage (Digital Subscriber Line) but I've just spent too long trying to work out what DSL means when mentioned on stackoverflow, before I remembered Domain-specific Languages Dumbledad (talk) 16:21, 17 January 2016 (UTC)