Talk:Virtual Path Identifier

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Merge to Asynchronous Transfer Mode per the discussion here and closing feedback on my talk page. I'll add that the target for the merge actually was more complete then the material in the stub here. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:43, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Virtual Path Identifier → Virtual path identifier — Relisted. Discussion is ongoing. If the discussion results in a merge leave a note on my talk page to close this. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC) This is not a proper noun. I suspect it is capitalized because it is usually referred to by its acronym and most technical literature up-cases terms that have acronyms. However, Wikipedia MoS does not use that style. I propose we combine moving Virtual Channel Identifier → Virtual channel identifier in this same discussion, since I think both pages should use the same style, whatever we decide. Jojalozzo 21:01, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Support. Just another article that was named with meaningless caps. Time to fix all these, to accord with WP:MOSCAPS and normal publishing standards. Noetica^Tea? 22:48, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is a proper noun as it refers to a specific and standardized information element from the ATM standard, not a general class of identifiers related to virtual paths. — Dgtsyb (talk) 04:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

By my reading it's a class of entities in an ATM implementation. There will be many VPIs, some VPIs, but not the VPI, in an implementation of the spec. Each time a path is allocated, a VPI will be assigned to it, not the VPI. Jojalozzo 21:15, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

In fact there is only one VPI, that of the ATM header: a specific field named Virtual Path Identifier in a specific protocol named Asynchronous Transfer Mode. It is used nowhere else. A virtual path is a general concept, but the VPI is not. — Dgtsyb (talk) 10:27, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The same is true for Virtual Channel Identifier. VCI is used nowhere else except the field in the ATM header. (Right beside the VPI). A virtual channel is a general concept (and it has its own article), but the VCI is not. It is a proper name. — Dgtsyb (talk) 10:33, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Still, it is not unique as such. There may be other protocols defining a virtual path/channel identifier field even though this article discusses only that of ATM. Anyway, I don't understand why this article restricts itself to the ATM protocol and that information could not be provided in the main ATM article. Nageh (talk) 10:38, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

It only talks about ATM because VPI only appears in the header of the ATM protocol an no other. I'll rephrase that: there is no other protocol that has a VPI field. Once more: no protocol known to man other than ATM has a VPI header field. Again, the same is true of VCI. — Dgtsyb (talk) 10:55, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

The concept is certainly generic but I guess other protocols use different names. For example, the label field in MPLS may be understood as a VPI (although I admit that it is more generic). Nageh (talk) 11:10, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. Virtual path identifier is a generic concept, and even when ATM is the only protocol that uses that name for one of its protocol fields a protocol field name may generally only be uniquely identified within the context of a specific protocol. Thus, while VPI as discussed in this article is a specific property of a specific protocol I don't see why this would be a proper name – there is just no (globally) unique entity referred to as the Virtual Path Identifier. You may compare this to other common protocol fields, such as address, time-to-live, label, etc., which are specific within a specific protocol but not unique. I think the best solution is either to rename this article to Virtual path identifier (ATM) or merge the content into the main ATM article, where it belongs to IMO. Nageh (talk) 12:18, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

A merge sounds even better than a move to me. These are really small stub articles and there is already more information about virtual paths and channels in the main ATM article. — Dgtsyb (talk) 12:53, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.