My A1 speedy deletion tagging of this article was declined, so you're my next hope of determining what this (apparently machine-translated) article is about. Does anyone recognise the concept? The text references encryption, but I can't tell whether it is supposed to be a method, a tool, or something else. Googling the title has produced nothing apparently relevant. Gonzonoir (talk) 13:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Having had a quick look at it the next step is WP:AfD. Notability hasn't been established and it looks unlikely it ever will be. Dmcq (talk) 14:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
That would be my hunch; I just don't want to write an AfD rationale that boils down to "I don't understand what this article is on about" if that's a function of my ignorance rather than of the article's lack of clarity.
If anyone here is able to write (at least) a one-sentence lead explaining what this subject is, we can at least use that to check for notability and sources more effectively than is possible from the title alone. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Translation says "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing", which various discussions on the village pump confirms. The onus is on someone to establish it is worth keeping if they want it, not on other editors to prove it should be removed. Dmcq (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Sure. Well, consider this part of my compliance with WP:BEFORE. I'll go to AfD with the article if nothing we could use to salvage it is forthcoming soon. Gonzonoir (talk) 14:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Oh yes sorry that's what I should have said. I normally do a prod instead of asking for a quick deletion but yes this one does look like quick deletion was appropriate. Dmcq (talk) 15:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to edit the Operator-precedence grammar article. It seems to me that the "References" and "External links" sections should be at the bottom of the page, and the section that now follows them should be wikified (section headings and such). If the material is from external sources, those should be acknowledged. Also, something could be done about the introductory sentence.
I'm not sure how to go about editing the article, since it's in the scope of WikiProject Computing and WikiProject Computer science. I'm a computer scientist with a special interest in parsing. Should I just go ahead and start editing, or would you prefer to edit it yourselves? -- UKoch (talk) 15:08, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
Welcome to Wikipedia! You are now a member of the "yourselves" to which you refer. The article definitely needs improvement. Please edit away. --Kvng (talk) 15:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification; I've started editing. Remaining issues are being discussed on the talk page of WikiProject Computer science. -- UKoch (talk) 20:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
I know it sounds crazy, but that's precisely what we need to do here. "Argus" is an obvious name for network monitoring software, so it's no surprise that it was used (probably independently) for two completely independent applications:
Argus (1) is a GPLed network monitoring application written in C. It is discussed in a number of reliable sources but does not have a Wikipedia article.
Argus (2) is a free network monitoring application written in Perl, distributed under a licence that does not permit redistribution of modified software. Last time I looked it was not discussed in a single reliable source. That's what our article is about, and it survived an AfD in 2009 due to confusion with (1).
I don't have the time to rewrite the article right now, and anyway, it should be easier for someone who is experienced with writing software or who knows this software. If nobody wants to rewrite the article, it should simply go to AfD again. But I would like to avoid this because it's bound to lead to confusion. HansAdler22:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Your explanation sounds perfectly clear to me, so I would suggest just renominating it for deletion. —Ruud17:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
In fact, it seems you were to only person proposing to keep the article the previous time causing the non-consensus? —Ruud17:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Apologies for jumping the gun on this, rather than following the methodical process which had begun. With hindsight, I should have posted on here back in Dec 2010, when the parent project was identified. Please accept my apologies for not making members of this project aware. On to the project... It's evident that the user base is small. Despite this usenet thread, few RISC OS users seemed confident enough to join the discussion on Talk:RISC OS. As Flibble says, "if we hadn't moved forward any momentum in doing this work would be lost." However, if necessary, the project can be taken down and considered for creation again in the future. However, if retrospective approval could please be granted, that would be a considerate response from the members of WP:COMP. Thanks. --trevj (talk) 10:53, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't think that's an absolute requirement, but probably just a wise idea to get some more input from the community. WikiProjects tend to "die" unless there is reasonably sized group of very active participants and many more which participate once in while. As even the Computing project is not a particularity active one, it's probably better to do the RISC OS work from with this project. That's probably going to give you more visibility than keeping the discussion on another page. —Ruud13:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
You're right, the discussion could be moved here. I agree that it would then have more visibility. There should be more interest from other RISC OS users once the word has been spread a bit more in the press [1], [2], [3] and online. Regarding the lack of a proposal, we could seek to recover from the failure to follow good practice. Is there anyone here who's previously been involved in applying the adopted policies for establishing a new project? Thanks. --trevj (talk) 14:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for my confusion, that should read just good practice as the page is referring to Wikipedia policies! --trevj (talk) 14:24, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm working towards getting the Crash Bandicoot (video game) page to Good Article status and have been using recently released information by programmer Andy Gavin here: http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/04/making-crash-bandicoot-part-3/ I came to this WikiProject for assistance because the linked page mainly consists of the computing aspect of the game's production, an area that I'm rather not familiar with. I was hoping that with your help, we could build the Graphics section of the article to a reasonable length and level of comprehensibility. I've already gotten a decent start on the section, but I didn't know what else from the page to add to it out of fear of the section becoming overlong or hard to understand. Thank you for your time. Cat's Tuxedo (talk) 05:08, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
It would be helpful if someone familiar with computer programing could take a look at this article. The primary author has been copy-pasting from sources and adding links that are a bit advert or spammy. I did some clean up earlier, but most of my edits were undone. I'm not even sure if the article is notable and wonder if it belongs at AfD or should be merged/redirected. Any input would be helpful! Regards, P. D. CookTalk to me!04:20, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Z3 first working computer dispute
There is a disagreement at Talk:IEEE 754-1985#Z3 first working compute. One editor wants to keep 'The Zuse Z3, the first working computer,' in the history section and another has put 'The Zuse Z3, a computing machine built ca 1941,' in. Could someone come and give their thoughts one way or the other and resolve please. Dmcq (talk) 13:11, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I think I have demonstrated that the two main planks of the argument against the Z3 are bogus (ie that Turing-completeness does not require either conditional branching or a writeable program store). However, the WP:NOR folks will be all over that - and we need some references to prove that what I'm saying (which is logically entirely obvious) can be backed up. SteveBaker (talk) 14:45, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
After reading some sections of "Konrad Zuse’s Legacy: The Architecture of the Z1 and Z3", I would have to agree with the editor who favours "computing machine". Especially as the Z3 is only mentioned in passing in this article, I would follow the lead sentence "This paper provides a detailed description of the architecture of the Z1 and Z3 computing machines that Konrad Zuse designed in Berlin between 1936 and 1941." and not go into the many issues described in the section "The Invention of the Computer" here. —Ruud22:26, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
Avoiding the use of "first" is critical as especially in trying to name "the first computer" unless all the appropriae modifiers preceed it. Historians of technology, have pretty much agreed about the difficulty and thus avoid "first." To many of us, it wasn't a computer, until its instructions were stored in primary memory along with data as described in the EDVAC Draft Report by Von Neumann describing the stored program computer we all know and love. A computer was built by this or similar recipe at Manchester and ran the first 16 word program from its memory in this fashion 6/21/48.[1]. Please, please, please reserve the word "computer" to be what is known by the general public as a "computer". Harvard architecture is sometimes used to mean the data and program were in separate and independent stores. Z3, was an impressive relay, tape controlled, calculating device. Most of the early computing devices were calculators with varying methods of control e.g. ENIAC was programmed with wiring, like IBM card equipment, but eventually someeone, Clippinger I believe, figured out how to control it by putting the operations in the constants memory. Some of us don't consider ENIAC a computer, but that's our problem. Cgordonbell (talk) 03:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
I'd appreciate more input on this merge discussion. It began in 2006 and I'd like to get it closed, but there isn't consensus for a merge or a rationale for disambiguating the topics. --Pnm (talk) 18:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Individual hackerspace articles nominated for deletion
A number of hackerspace articles were nominated for deletion February 8:
Well, I'm new to the project. I just joined a few days ago :). I was just looking for a good place to start. Anything that's a good starter would work.
Also, just if it may help, as for known skills. I am a CompTIA A+ and Network+ Certified Student, studying for Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator, so I have at least average knowledge in general computing and networking hardware, and networking protocols. If that helps.
There are currently a number of articles on programming languages up for deletion (WP:AFD) and deltion review (WP:DRV). I don't have an opinmion yet on whether they should be kept or deleted, but participants of this project might be interested. —Ruud10:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Now, for real-time OS, Wikipedia has only these "entries" (taken from at the end of "VxWorks" entry, and I think it is very
insufficient. It doesn't seem to have all the names in the "list of real-time operating systems." even.
I don't completely understand what you're trying to do. I have reviewed and improved your article draft. It seems like it is ready to go into the wiki as a stub or start class article. I'm not sure why someone thought it was spam. --Kvng (talk) 19:02, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
Use of {{Italic title}} for creative works incl. software
Following a recent edit, I've been questioned regarding the italicizing of titles. WP:ITALICTITLE states:
Use italics when italics would be used in running text; for example, taxonomic names, the names of ships, the titles of books, films, and other creative works, and foreign phrases are italicized both in ordinary text and in article titles. [my italic emphasis]
I note that the Doom game titles are italicized, but web browsers generally don't seem to be. The italics decision was made in Jul-Sep 2010, so if it applies to software, does it need retrospective application? --trevj (talk) 13:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC) (That was supposed to read "web browsers generally don't seem to be.") --trevj (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Good question. Comparing a game to a movie, one should italicize them, comparing it to a regular piece of software, it should not. I think the difference if between a name and a title. Software has name, a movie has a title. Do games have a name or a title? I think this differs per game, but that would lead to inconsistencies. In conclusion, I do not know. —Ruud14:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
In general, video games are considered to be equivalent to litterary works like books or movies. Even games that have very little to no story content and are based on real-life things such as sports, like Pong. Now minigames - games within games - are different.陣内Jinnai15:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
What about board and card games? (Settlers of Catan vs. Poker) Intutively I'd say the first could be italicized, while the second should probably not be, but giving a rational explanation for that could be more difficult. —Ruud16:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
At the outset, I would like to note that I am the CTO of Magnolia and therefore closely associated with the CMS project. The above page was originally tagged with a COI/advertising notice, and I'd like to rewrite it to remove these tags. I've already confirmed with other editors (refer talk page above for thread) that the sources cited in the revised draft satisfy Wikipedia's notability requirements, and I was directed here to WikiProject Computing for further advice.
I'd like advice from Computing project editors on what further changes should be made to the article draft to have the COI/ad tags removed. Please feel free to edit the draft directly or to post your suggestion to the article talk page as listed above. Your feedback and advice will be very much appreciated.
I would like to request editorial assistance in arriving at consensus on the appropriate state of the article Comparison of platform virtual machines. Please see the discussion so far. Psuedonym 03:54, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
This seems to be a clueless editor at work (not the poster of the comment above, but the other editor). Some additional assistance to convince him of fail to comprehend what is being discussed here would be appreciated. —Ruud20:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Logo licensing for OS infobox and WikiProject Computing template
In connection with the RISC OS coordination, a non-free bitmap logo has been uploaded for use within RISC OS. Because non-free content isn't allowed outside of Main Namespace, can anyone please recommend a suitable licensing arrangement whereby the logo author can retain rights against inappropriate use but permit inclusion within {{WikiProject Computing}} (or direct me elsewhere to ask this)? Note also that, in disussion with the logo designer/copyright holder, the draft wording for a revised SVG logo for the RISC OS article is in this userspace draft. Thanks. --trevj (talk) 00:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
If the copyright holder is not willing to release it under a free licence, such as CC-BY-SA, it will not be possible to use the image outside of a very small number of main space articles. Now depending on your definition of "inappropriate use" CC-BY-SA + moral rights might be acceptable to the copyright holder. —Ruud00:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your advice on this. I'd considered a derivative image and that may be one way forward. Anyway, I've made User:Richard Hallas aware of this thread, so we'll see what happens. Thanks. --trevj (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
In that case it might also be good to already be aware that CC-NC (non-commercial use only) and CC-ND (no-derivatives) are not considered free licenses on Wikipedia. —Ruud01:33, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Reading those articles, I can't tell the difference between those types of computers. Can you describe it? (in those articles, of course, not here) --190.135.47.43 (talk) 14:52, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
A netbook is a cheap low power small portable computer, a subnotebook is a small portable computer which tries to approach the power of a notebook or laptop, an ultraportable is an attempt at a high power small portable computer that is quite expensive. So... you could say that a netbook is a low-end cheap subnotebook, and an ultraportable is a lighter-smaller-much more expensive subnotebook. 65.93.15.125 (talk) 21:27, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
There's a good referenced and hard-to-miss description of the situation in the lead of the Netbook article, "In the short period since their appearance, netbooks have grown in size and features, now converging with new smaller, lighter notebooks and subnotebooks..." --Kvng (talk) 21:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
MicroSD and miniSD have been proposed to be merged into Secure Digital, see Talk:Secure Digital. There's been little discussion about it (only two editors commented), but MiniSD has already been redirected to that article, so it's a WP:BOLD merge.
NOTE: The redirects of microSD have already been retargetted to Secure Digital (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), without having actually merging the article first. (I think it should be done after the article has been merged... since the article still exists)
I'm wondering if moving/retitling .rdo to Raster Document Object would raise any flags with the folks here? Seems like most file format articles are not titled as their filename extension -- e.g. Wikiredirects for .swf, .bat, .xls, etc. Or I guess maybe RDO (file format) might also be appropriate? Thanks ... Woodshed (talk) 23:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I have nominated Cryptography for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here.Smallman12q (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Device driver: Do we want a section on "Device Driver installation help — end user"?
I'd like some eyes and opinions on Device driver, please.
On 8 February 2011, user Matt8163 added a section to this article on "Device Driver installation help — end user".
This section looks kind of spammy to me. It was immediately removed by user 78.105.12.233 , with the note "this was advertising, and deceptive at that", and then immediately restored by Matt8163.
I just removed it again, and Matt8163 immediately restored it again.
Could people please take a look at this? Discussion at [[4]].
I have been editing Chorded keyboard recently (I'm doing WikiGnoming - I'm not an expert in these things - but I do happen to own one and used a photo of it in the lede of the article).
There is an IP editor there who admits to being the 'inventor' of one of the keyboards described there (the "Chordite"). I have carefully explained our conflict of interest guidelines and I hoped that he'd be reasonable and back-off from editing the article henceforth.
The device he's been working on seems pretty non-notable to me (less than 500 ghits, no RS's)...so when combined with COI concerns, I removed the section describing it - leaving a note on the Talk page to explain why. He put it back - I re-removed it...you know the story! I fear it's not going to end well!
However, he quite reasonably points out that a number of the other keyboards described in the article are just as non-notable as his. It seems really unfair to remove references to his keyboard solely because of his COI. But WP:NOTE and WP:RS also apply here - so there is ample reason.
I could use some backup from other editors - both to add gravitas to my pleas for him to steer clear of the article, and to go through the devices listed in the article establishing notability and reliable sources for each - and removing the obviously non-notable ones.
It is in the nature of chording keyboards that these are often somewhat experimental devices - only a few have ever made commercial inroads and it is clear that many of those described there are not commercially manufactured.
(In reading the following, it should be borne in mind that I'm relatively new to Wikipedia policies.)
Your statment on the Chorded keyboard talk page about "WP:COI says that you mustn't edit articles in which you have a "conflict of interest" [...]" isn't exactly true. It currently states "[...] if you have a conflict of interest avoid, or exercise great caution when [...]" My understanding is therefore that those with a potential conflict of interest are not prohibited from editing. If their potential COI is declared, then their edits should be treated in good faith. WP:PROMO, also referred to on that talk page, is perhaps more relevant.
And when you state "Additionally, since you invented the thing - you fall foul of "original research" restrictions (WP:NOR being the relevant policy)", again I don't think this is quite correct. The original research is referring to new material or conclusions, etc. In this case, it could be something like citing sales figures for a product, where such figures have not been published elsewhere.
I think the best course of action for the editor in question would be to propose an edit for review, as suggested at WP:AVOIDCOI. Such an edit should contain a number of cited references which can be verified as per WP:SOURCE. In doing this, the editor will possibly elevate the quality of this section of the article. (But for inclusion in Wikipedia, the product would still also be required to be notable under WP:NOTE.)
So in summary, perhaps the following could be done (in order to appear less biased against the inventor of this product):
Put a note on the talk page stating your intention to move all products of questionable notability to the talk page (within a reasonable time period).
Do so, unless such sections have been improved by the inclusion of verifiable references which demonstrate their notability.
Systematically research notability for each such product, adding references and reinstating within the article page if/when suitable sources are found. --trevj (talk) 15:37, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm "the editor in question." As I explained to Steve Baker, the policy page on notability makes clear that all editing of CONTENT for notability is wrong and wrong headed. The notability criterion is to be applied only to whole pages. You can argue "this page should be deleted entirely" but you can't properly argue that this or that content within the page should be deleted. Also, as you point out, Steve Baker has misread several other policy pages which matter I will address in detail when I get time" 15:15, 22 March 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.186.204 (talk)
The full list of supported identifiers is given here (with dummy values):
{{cite journal
|author=John Smith
|year=2000
|title=How to Put Things into Other Things
|journal=Journal of Foobar
|volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=3–4
|arxiv=0123456789
|asin=0123456789
|bibcode=0123456789
|doi=0123456789
|jfm=0123456789
|jstor=0123456789
|lccn=0123456789
|isbn=0123456789
|issn=0123456789
|mr=0123456789
|oclc=0123456789
|ol=0123456789
|osti=0123456789
|rfc=0123456789
|pmc=0123456789
|pmid=0123456789
|ssrn=0123456789
|zbl=0123456789
|id={{para|id|____}}
}}
Obviously not all citations needs all parameters, but this streamlines the most popular ones and gives both better metadata and better appearances when printed. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books}02:39, 8 March 2011 (UTC)
I want to add an article for a piece of software somewhat like SurveyMonkey, that collects, stores and summarises surveys and their results. I can find no general software category labelled, say, Data Collection. Since the expanded list of software categories is not easily accessible as HTML using the edit tab can someone please tell me where to find the list, so that I can verify that what I need is not already present. Assuming that a category is not present how can one add it? Thanks for your help. SewerCat (talk) 20:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Is the inclusion of this article (See: Talk:Alex Barnett) under the auspices of WikiProject Computing a mistake? He's a cricketer. Maybe his name is similar to someone else? --SelketTalk16:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
X38/X48 chipsets do support 16 GB RAM, shall we add a note to the table?
Hi folks,
I´m using my Intel Q9550S in an X38 chipset based motherboard (Asus PEE3 Deluxe - BIOS: 1502) with 16 GB of RAM. The PC runs Win 7 Ultimate mostly, but it dual boots to PC-BSD.
With this mobo I´m using four 4GB Corsair XMS3 sticks (CMX8GX3M2A1333C9). DRam freq.: 533MHz, FSB-DRAM: 5:8, CL: 7, tRCD: 7, tRP: 7, tRAS: 20, tRFC: 86, CR: 2T. With tweaking I can increase the memory performance to 666MHz, but I do not do that as I use this PC to run several Virtual Machines and I prefer stability.
So the important fact is that Intel X38 Chipsets unofficially supports up to 16GB RAM. Should we update the “Core 2 chipsets” table to add unofficial amount of RAM supported by certain chipsets? For a fact I know X38 and X48 are happy with 16 GB of RAM.
I imagine that back on 1997 Intel only had 2GB DDR3 memory modules, so they tested and certified this chipset for up to 8GB configurations only.
WP:HEAD recommends use of {{anchor}}'to avoid breaking section links [...] within the same article and from other articles.' A quick look at some articles using this template seems to indicate sporadic usage (I've only inspected a handful of articles with 'system' in their title). What do people here think about the use of anchors? Note: the talk archives here don't reveal much relevant discussion, although some other Projects have discussed them.
There's further info at WP:ANCHOR, including WP:TARGET, which recommends leaving a hidden comment.
Is the use of anchors something we think worthy of recommendation?
Would the use of TLAs (or slightly longer abbreviations) be suitable?
Use of {{visible anchor}} seems potentially useful, perhaps in combination with including an informal or abbreviated description within the section heading
I know it would all be a bit of a hassle, but if it reduces the likelihood of broken links developing over time, perhaps it could be worthwhile.
The disadvantage of anchors is that they very easily get broken, I haven't looked at {{visible anchor}} yet though. They can be very useful for redirects, I certainly create redirects to to a section instead of the whole/top of the article on a regular basis. In article text itself I would only use anchor links if they naturally fit into the text (e.g. no "click here to..." or "see below" links). —Ruud16:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I'm thinking more of targeted redirects than to other sections within the same article. (And I agree wholeheartedly with your "click here" comment: perhaps HTML containing this should be completely ignored by HTML.next!) Redirects to a named section heading are no less easily broken than anchors created using templates. In either case, a comment on the target page should ideally be added when creating a link to it from elsewhere. This is something which is probably unrealistic to expect the majority of editors to do (and I don't actually think I've ever done it myself). Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any way of listing targeted redirects, i.e. which articles link to sections (or anchors); which means it's difficult to check if an edit breaks anything. Anyway, I just thought that including anchors (with comments) within articles may assist in edits involving the renaming of sections, i.e. the anchor names mustn't change, and links to them wouldn't break as long as they used the defined anchors rather than the section headings. Please note that I'm not proposing any radical policy here but wanted to toss the idea around amongst a wider audience than just WP:RISCOS. Thanks. --trevj (talk) 18:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
ouch, that certainly needs work, if not a complete rewrite, but would at least be suitable as a redirect target for the discussion. There are also floating point number, binary notation etc. etc. that all discuss something related, but don't do the overview. Thanks for the help. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
I have written a basic bio of Eldad Matityahu, the founder of Net Optics. Other editors have now twice added a notability flag, without commenting on the talk page. I removed the flag myself the first time, after increasing the number of references from 2 to 11, with an explanation on the article's talk page.
I'm reluctant to remove the flag myself again without any discussion or input from others, but I believe notability is not a problem. The article is based on 11 independent citations. Several are general profiles about Eldad. Coverage also ranges beyond his role as an entrepreneur -- including his interest in classic cars and his philanthropic endeavors.
Could somebody take a look and remove the notability flag if you agree, or else share your views in the thread I started on the article's talk page? Thanks, -RonnyG1 (talk) 21:14, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
For such an 'abandoned' article, it's had more activity in the past year than any of those other three. Actually, they're all in need of attention. —Sowlos (talk) 16:36, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
Request expansion of doubly linked list article
I looked up doubly linked list, expecting to find at least a section on time complexity and perhaps a section discussing the benefits and drawbacks compared to alternative datastructures. Instead it's a long stretch of pseudocode for all the operations, in marked contrast to the more descriptive style of the other datastructure articles I've looked at. Anyway, I feel that this article needs some work, and as I'm not qualified to do it, I thought I'd let you know.
The article F_connector is listed under the Wikiproject:Computing along ComputerGraphics. This article is unrelated to both projects and I am going to remove it unless anyone objects to it. NECRATSpeak to me05:07, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
As you many of you have probably noticed, there is a huge backlog of unassessed articles. Most of them should probably be marked as Stub or Start-class and Low importance, but of course a human has to at least skim over it. To ease the work, I made this: User:Kephir/gadgets/rater. It massively speeds up assessment by 1) adding a "Rate" dialog which can fill the assessment templates with pre-defined values and 2) changing links in unassessed articles' categories from talkpages to articles themselves. The user interface needs a bit polishing, but it's quite usable now. All you need to do is install it, jump into Category:Unassessed Computing articles or Category:Unknown-importance Computing articles, and assess, tag issues, or nominate for deletion if necessary. Maybe the backlog will disappear eventually. (On a related note, does every one of you get 403 when following any link to the toolserver script?). Keφr (talk) 12:29, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Question: can I use a semi-automatic tool to automatically assess the article as a Stub if the article contained a Stub tag? In other words, would everyone be all right if the WikiProject tag in an article's Talk page contained |class=Stub if the article contained a Stub tag? At least for this WikiProject, I want to make sure that the two are compatible. I believe they are, but I just wanted to confirm. • Jesse V.(talk)05:12, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
I think some bots do this already; but |auto=yes needs to be set in this case. If you want to do this, go ahead; automatic assessment is better than none. However, it would be much better if actual humans looked through these articles, identified issues, tried to judge notability and dealt with them as appropriate. Keφr (talk)11:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Any more participants from here? There are already 3 users favouring, by various degrees, a reconstruction of the "article", and one user fervently opposing it. Not still an overwhelming majority, given some disagreements between "reconstructors". I am tired to deal with demagogy alone, trying to reach a mutually acceptable solution. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I've been presenting new information to add to computing-related articles using The Mobile Wave as a reference. I think the book has some useful info to add to articles or can be used as a reference to support existing info and I'm searching for help to do this. I'm here on behalf of MicroStrategy, which is a company founded by the book's author and where I work. If anyone is interested, I've posted requests at the iOS, iPad and Cloud computing pages. Also, I'm keen to hear any ideas of where the book might be useful to add new information that isn't otherwise included in Wikipedia pages. Thanks, --Rkrueger (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Adding information from reliable sources is always appreciated. I thank you for declaring your background, though be careful to avoid a conflict of interest. Be sure to write encyclopedically and from a neutral point of view. Just be sure to familiarize yourself with WP:RELIABLESOURCES, WP:NPOV, WP:COI, and WP:VERIFY. Other than that, feel free to look around and see what other articles you can improve (see WP:BOLD). If you have any questions please let us know. Thanks. • Jesse V.(talk)17:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Also see WP:REFSPAM. I have removed the references from ENIAC. After taking look at the referenced pages on Amazon, it didn't seem provide any substantial coverage compared to the references already present in the article. —Ruud19:40, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
Because that would be a lot of edits, and the interested people watch this page already? The list ends on articles that have not been edited in two years, and the talk page report is even worse (bots, vandals, vandal bots, casual contributors and casual vandal bots probably skew the statistics in the article space). Keφr (talk)14:02, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Some time ago I've suggested merging several tens of articles on Unix signals into one parent page (Unix signal). All of these articles are mostly composed of redundant trivia that would benefit from the merge by being mentioned only once, and stuff that probably should not really be here (see WP:NOTMANUAL and WP:N). So far, I've got mostly negative feedback for this idea, though there was very little discussion about whether the articles actually infringe the Wikipedia guidelines - the responses were mostly 'I don't like it, don't touch'.
Well, like I said it already in the linked discussion: I agree that the merge should happen for the reasons stated. I think that if the content is to stay, it should be probably put into a list article, like List of Unix signals. Keφr (talk)04:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, I do see a reason for a standalone list: article length. Notice that these signal articles do not contain just the signal name and description, but also some explanation of context in which they are typically sent. I think that if this information is trimmed down to the most essential bits and properly sourced, it may be argued that it should be kept. But that would take some space (in the visual, if not the data size sense). Keφr (talk)13:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
The table in Unix signal doesn't unduly increase article length and the article already provides context for the signals. As said above, most of the context provided in each article is redundant (only being provided to recreate the context of the main article). Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of separate articles for each Unix signal, but that's due to my own bias for Unix. Objectively speaking, there's not enough content to justify stand alone articles nor enough third party sources to meet WP requirements for stand alone articles. Much of what I see in those articles are WP:OR, depending on header files for citation. —Sowlos (talk) 04:53, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Looking at one signal SIGBUS it looks a little too long to be merged into a table, you could make an article with one section per signal.--Salix (talk): 06:14, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
But first, it is sourced only with a Usenet post, and second, that would create a lot of short sections, and these are evil. A definition list would be more appropriate. I suggest:
Take the content from the articles;
Trim it down to properly sourced material and compile a list;
After thoroughly analysing all the articles I can only say that the amount of material that doesn't violate WP:OR, WP:N or WP:NOT is extremely low. Actually, if we went by the letter of the guidelines, we'd need to delete all these articles and just leave the table at Unix signal. Of course, I'm not saying that this is appropriate solution. I've compiled a list of the signals here. The list is not long - it could perfectly replace the List of signals section at Unix signal. A separate article is not needed in my opinion. Any opinions? 1exec1 (talk) 11:21, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Exactly what I had in mind. I think I have seen shorter standalone lists, but right now a separate article does not seem necessary; though it may become if the list is expanded (with sources, hopefully). As for having a table, I can see a point here; the default action taken could be put into a column, but numbers probably should not, as they are very platform specific (for all I know). Though tables do not appeal to me visually very much… Keφr (talk)14:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
After some though, I agree with Sowlos that having table is worthwhile. Even not counting the signal numbers, we have enough tabular information for 3 columns. We could include the standard in which a signal is defined as the fourth column. An unrelated benefit of a table is that it would use less space compared to a list in this case.
Anyway, it seems that there's clear consensus on the primary question about whether the Unix signals should be merged into single article. For now, I'll use definition list for the signals as this is more convenient. The list could be converted into a table later. 1exec1 (talk) 14:57, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
By the way, the page currently has size of less than 15k characters. The Wikipedia guideline on article size quotes 30k-50k as the size when part of the content should be moved into a separate article. Thus I don't think doing this for the list of signals would be worthwhile even if the list was expanded several times. 1exec1 (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
Is nested virtualization a notable topic?
Based on a cursory Google search, I think nested virtualization (running a VM inside a VM/hypervisor on top of a hypervisor) is notable enough for a section in the virtualization article, but what about an individual article?--Jasper Deng(talk)01:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
It's quite a tough call; I can probably find various reliable sources that mention it at least in passing. However, the amount of weight in the sources I found given to this topic is borderline.--Jasper Deng(talk)03:30, 12 October 2012 (UTC)
House style for pseudocode?
Do we have any house style for pseudocode? As an example take the following from linked list
function insertAfter(Node node, Node newNode)
if node = null
newNode.next := newNode
else
newNode.next := node.next
node.next := newNode
This is less than ideal, in particular the ifcondition action aspect. This seems to follow quirks of C and C-derived languages (the missing then and fi or endif) but without the similar grammatical fences (the parentheses around the condition and compound statements) that C uses. As such the two are merged together. I'm tempted to re-write it in a clearer manner but surely that is something standardised by now? Crispmuncher (talk) 02:29, 22 October 2012 (UTC).
See MOS:PSEUDOCODE. My personal preference it to write pseudocode in a form that is—within reason—grammatically correct, i.e., by including the then, but omitting the fi or end if if it doesn't impair readability (especially the latter could be considered strange without an accompanying begin.) —Ruud03:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
Our article on Chuck Colby confuses me. If he really did invent all this stuff, why is his BLP unsourced? If he's faking it, it's an elaborate hoax, since his personal web site contains images of real-looking contemporary coverage of his supposed inventions. Either he's one of the greatest innovators of our time, or someone who's very good at faking it. Can anyone enlighten me, and/or fix the article? Gigs (talk) 02:08, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Notability question
Hi! Would anyone mind checking into the notability of MacPaw and CleanMyMac? Does it meet GNG? Even if it meets GNG, is it still notable? Have similar articles actually established a precedent, or do they merely exist (regarding OTHERSTUFF)? Also the reviews at CleanMyMac#Critical reception need to be elaborated so it's not merely a directory/praise list. What did they say about them?
If MacPaw is deemed notable on EN then I would like to request for articles on it to be made on the Ukranian and Russian Wikipedias, but if not then I will not.
WhisperToMe (talk) 21:30, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
World's first high-level language?
The article on the Address programming language claims that it is the world's first high-level programming language. If true, this would an important distinction. However, all of the sources I can find are in Russian; and the article itself was probably translated from the Russian or Ukranian articles (unattributed). Are there any English-language publications that address this claim? RockMagnetist (talk) 23:35, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to introduce the Template:Version template to Wikipedia with the goal to establish one standard for version history tables (or lists). It simplifies creation of release histories, standardizes release stages and makes the content more accessible.
Choosing a feature set in software comparison articles
Comparison of BitTorrent clients (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
There's an edit warring in the referenced article about whether to include a certain feature into the comparison. I advised them to seek consensus but am unsure of how to seek it in this case. The feature is of course covered in RS'es. And there doesn't appear to be any policies, guidelines or even prior discussions on how to decide whether a feature is "notable" to be comparing on. — Vano22:17, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
it depends on how far you take the article content, if just covering the above it probably just meet notability guidelines but if you extend it to include other emulators it would pass notability but it best to decided what emulators would be included before creating the article, to be hones ti say this might suit better under virtualization, in essence that is what emulators are virtualization of a specif system but doing it within itself rather than in virtual machineAndrewcrawford (talk - contrib) 12:44, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
In support of the Wikipedia Improvement by Supported Expert Revision Project - NJIT Workgroup on Information Literacy and Learning (WILL), I am proposing a revision to a stub article on Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM) in which the current definition needs improvement beyond its rudimentary information, supported by reliable sources.
Current Definition:
“Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM) is the techniques involved in continuously monitoring and auditing an IT system. Typically CCM solutions will be applied to Enterprise Resource Planning systems such as SAP."
I am proposing a significant re-write by eliminating the use of same word references, expanding upon the lack of explanation of what controls and continuous terms are, and referencing industry expert published content.
In developing my definition, I plan on referring to industry expert reference literature such as:
1. ISACA (2010, October 1). Monitoring Internal Control Systems and IT. Rolling Meadows, IL. ISACA.
2. Senft, Sandra. Gallegos, Frederick. Davis, Aleksandra. (2013, July 18). Information Technology Control and Audit. Boca Raton, FL. CRC Press
A proper definition should highlight the importance for organizations to operate and monitor IT system controls, helping readers by improving their understanding of the topic, and potentially give them a good starting point when researching ways to improve their organization's IT governance.
It is not necessary to ask permission to edit - see WP:BOLD. Your contribution was definitely an improvement. Thanks. I have made some further minor improvements. -—Kvng16:09, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
There is an ongoing debate on the Northern Ireland Talk Page about what Top Level country domains should be listed. At present the infobox lists .uk, .ie and .eu, but this is disputed. The infobox also has a note saying ".uk is assigned to the United Kingdom of which Northern Ireland is a part, .ie is assigned to Ireland of which Northern Ireland is a part, and .eu is assigned to the European Union of which Northern Ireland is a part. ISO 3166-1 is GB, but .gb is unused"
I would like to ask if anyone has any knowledge of matters relating to Internet top level country domains and if they could please add their insights to the ongoing discussion. Myself and a few others believe it is inappropriate to claim that .ie is Northern Irelands internet domain, because .ie was assigned to a different country (the Republic of Ireland), whilst others say it was assigned to the whole island and point to the fact that the organisation that runs the domain, does welcome people from Northern Ireland to purchase domains too.
My question is: I connected the HDMI to TV and to computer about a week ago and was able to see computer screen on TV screen, also to connect to Internet and watch Netflix. Since about 2 to 3 days ago it is not connecting...Why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.55.235.99 (talk) 15:50, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
This page is for discussing the project that helps improve computing articles on Wikipedia. You probably won't find anyone on Wikipedia who can answer your question. Find a knowledgeable friend or a local dealer. --Ritchie333(talk)(cont)17:04, 15 January 2013 (UTC)
Someone put a {{Advert}} tag on Cray XK7, an article I wrote. I won't remove it since I was the one who created the article, could someone please take a look and provide a second opinion or suggestions of what sounds like advertising? Thanks, James086Talk16:32, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
FWIW, I don't think that reads like an ad, though the person who put that notice there probably balked at all the "This company has this configuration" sections. To my eye, the article is awfully technical and your average reader would have a hard time understanding it. But I don't think it looks like an ad. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 19:01, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Hello, Please note that Home page, which is within this project's scope, has been selected to become a Today's Article for Improvement. The article is currently in the TAFI Holding Area, where comments are welcome about ideas to improve it. After the article is moved from the holding area to the TAFI schedule, it will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Today's Article for Improvement" section for one week. Everyone is invited to participate in the discussion and encouraged to collaborate to improve the article.
Thank you, TheOriginalSoni (talk) 07:42, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
(From the TAFI team)
About three years ago I created a small series Wikipedia articles on IDEF modelling languages from IDEF0, IDEF1X, IDEF3, IDEF4, IDEF5 to IDEF6. Two days ago without any discussion a new user changed all names, claiming Original name is just an acronym. However, in my opinion these original names are the real names; both in the original documents and in third party sources. Now I have requested to restore the original names, and would like to ask for your expert opinion on this matter at Talk:Integration_DEFinition#Requested_move. Thank you. -- Mdd (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Since there is some confusion over what the acronyms stand for and therefore I presume these things a primarily known by their acronyms, I support using the acronyms as titles. The recent change to titles that include a parenthetical acronym is definitely not an improvement (see MOS:TITLES). I suggest you revert the moves and direct further discussion here. -—Kvng23:20, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
the hardware articles under this project are really starting to suffer. the hardware task force is semi-inactive, and most articles haven't been touched in months!!! there have been major advances, and additionally, some look like people just backed a dump truck full of specs, and dropped them into the article, whether the article needs them or not! i'm slowly getting some fixed up, but there is alot of work to do, and i'm only one wikipedian. Aunva6 (talk) 05:16, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Ivy Bridge (microarchitecture): Missing Mobile Processors
In the main article titled "Ivy Bridge (microarchitecture)"
the specifications of some new Ivy Bridge mobile processors
released in Q1'13 are missing from the "Mobile" table - viz:
I realise it is difficult to keep up with new Intel
releases, but I notice that Dell is now offering these
processors as standard in its M4700/M6700 Workstations.
The title of the page List of XML schemas is wrong. It's the same thing as List of XML markup languages, only grouped by purpose. Also, the title "List of XML markup languages" is iffy because it can be read as "list of extensible markup language markup languages" which makes little sense. A better title would be e.g. "List of XML-based markup languages", possibly omitting the word markup. I don't have the time to work on these right now (if ever), so feel free to be BOLD should you be inclined so. Wipe (talk) 02:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
merge is desirable but name of final article is not that clear.
user Andy Dingley in Discussion 'List of XML Schemas' pointed that language is only one: XML.
I do agree. Mostly in the list there are 'applications (projects) using XML schemas', I believe.
66.234.210.208 (talk) 05:17, 26 February 2013 (UTC)MS
Including company names in Backend as a Service article
Hello. I recently worked on behalf of Kinvey, a Backend as a service (BaaS) provider, to update the BaaS article. My original draft of the article included a list of prominent BaaS providers, which became a bit of a spam magnet and was subsequently removed (background on this here). I still think there are good grounds for including the largest providers, however, and have provided my rationale here.
There's been quite a bit of discussion, but we've yet to reach a consensus on how to deal with this situation. I'm hoping that some editors from WP:Computing might be able to take a look, and see if they have any thoughts about how to handle this. Thanks! ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 20:44, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
I've proposed a split of the TRS-80 article; one covering the original-architecture machines (Model I, III and 4) and one for the history and use of the brand, which was subsequently applied to many unrelated architectures.
I'd appreciate any feedback before going ahead with anything, and WikiProject Computing seemed like a good place to get an interested cross-section of opinion.
(Originally posted here by Martijn Hoekstra) Hi folks, I came across Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Network Interface Layer Security, and was wondering what you think (and if you think something strongly, remember to be bold). The format as it stands seems to be less than ideal. I think this might best take place as List of data-link vulnerabilities, which we don't have yet, and creating a separate article for each vulnerability (like the ARP spoofing we already have). I'm far from a network specialist, and the taskforce here might be better equipped to decide what's best here. ZaminaminaEh EhWaka WakaEh Eh20:35, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
after a style change of {{LSR}} there's a discussion on wether to keep the change and use it for {{LPR}} too, revert it or develop an alternative design for both. Some constructive feedback for the discussion would be welcome.
I like LSR because it is clear, simple and puts the page name in by default if none is entered. I will vote, too. Synergee (talk) 02:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Agenda Microwriter
There seems to be no mention of the Agenda Microwriter in the text on personal digital assistants I have seen to date. This British invention was a bulky but pocketable machine with very useful software and twenty six folders each nominated to a letter of the alphabet. It was made in Mitcham, Surrey, England and was very robust. Its key feature was a seven key "shorthand" keypad (not qwerty) that claimed (largely justifiably) to be learnt in two hours. The keypad allowed a full character set (I believe the full ASCII set but I would need to dig in my garage to be sure)and built-in software included a very competent word processor with mailmerge and letter layout, tabs etc, a spreadsheet and the capacity to make rapid notes in the dark for those competent with the keyboard. The screen was small and monochromatic showing only characters. The battery was capable of business use with only one charge a week in my experience. I have two dead ones in my garage and miss them terribly. The total onboard memory was (I believe) 32 kilobytes but cards added a further 64 or 128 kilobytes of memory. The 64 kilobyte version was capable of holding around 1000 notes and addresses and was fully operational as a pda except for the lack of telephone utility. I do not have records of when I bought these machines, but they were certainly roughly contemporary with the Psion Organiser.
As a general comment on what we have lost in the rush to mobile telephony I would suggest that many of the characteristics of a good pda (general search facility, proper word processing, direct printing, functioning spreadsheets) are only now being recovered (ref perhaps the Note II) but reviewers seem obsessed with the colour, Facebook, HDTV capabilities of these machines at the expense of telling us whether good facilities exist on them for serious business use. The staff in telephone shops are largely unable to indicate the capabilities of the machines they sell unless they personally have that machine in their pocket. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.31.246.220 (talk) 11:33, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
"Computer" begins with this definition "A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a finite set of arithmetic or logical operations. Since a sequence of operations can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem."
The Wikipedians controlling the Slide rule page think that a slide rule is a "mechanical analog computer". That claim, of course, fails to meet the programmable definition.
Then looking at Category:Analog computers there would seem to be a number of difficulties. Not only the many that cannot be programmed (Astrolabe for example, but also those specific to one kind problem (fire control computers such as the Torpedo Data Computer for example).
If the Antikythera mechanism (listed as an analog computer), which models some part of the cosmos, is a computer, then my wrist watch, which models a very small part of the cosmos, must be a computer.
There is also in Computing#History of Computing the very odd claim that the Jacquard loom was "one of the first programmable devices". Programmable devices have existed for thousands of years - generally referred to as "automata". See, for example Hero of Alexandria#Inventions and achievements. A 10 minute mechanical play is executing a program; his cart is specifically described as "programmable". The loom should be replaced with the cart!
Besides definitions, a taxonomy is needed. There are not that many objects - all should be listed in a taxonomy - thus ending computer/calculator debates for individual items. All too hard for me -- I'll check in again next year! — 50.136.247.190 (talk) 03:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
OS field in infobox
I posted this over at Template talk:Infobox information appliance, but I don't imagine too many people watch that page. I ask because there's been some back-and-forth about this at ThinkPad. Any advice or opinions?
Is the OS field intended to reflect the OS the computer was sold with, the one the vendor supports, or all OSes the box is capable of running? I ask because many (most?) computers are sold with MS Windows, the vendor only supports MS Windows, but they are capable of running linux, various flavors of bsd, etc. I would lean toward only listing the OS the vendor supplies, otherwise it's a lengthy list, but then what about computers that are sold with no OS? Kendall-K1 (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Relisted here. The redirect isn't interesting any more, but there could be a better use based on comments and history so comments are welcome. ~ Amory(u • t • c)13:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_April_8#Category:Apps
Documenting the 1980s, an information "black hole"
According to GNG and NOTE, Wikipedians generally look for references in 3rd party materials. As we go back in time, such mentions were increasingly expensive to product, print and archive. I recently heard that the entire recorded history of mankind prior to 2002 is equal to 2 years of current output.
I bring this up because it seems we repeatedly come up against examples of things that are very well know and widely used, yet are almost undocumented. The early history of video games is a good example. Many games that were widely played do not appear to have ever been documented in a form that meets normal GNG. Many of these are documented today, but only on self-hosted pages. These too fail GNG.
In the current era of rampant deletionism, this presents a problem. The net is alight with examples from this era in history being brought to AfD and killed off by bureaucrats who are unaware of the history (nor should they be) and apply the letter of the law. I ran into this myself with the Star Trek (text game) article, which quickly turned sour for no apparent reason. In that case I was able to find mentions in snippets in magazine ads, but had that not happened, the article would have been deleted. This is a game that ran on millions of computers and is know to practically anyone that used a computer from about 1975 to 1985.
Has anyone put any thought into this issue? I am vaguely aware of efforts to allow a wider selection of materials in support, ones that would otherwise fail GNG, but I am unaware of the specifics or whether or not they have been successful. Are there any mainstream efforts in this area? Any other advice that might be offered?
I was going to blow this off Kvng, but in practice this appears to be entirely practical. The list on tech, for instance, was only a few pages long. Maury Markowitz (talk) 14:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I've run into this myself and can sympathize. I think third party materials are important and it is reasonable to require independent sources, but as long as they are independent, the sources don't necessarily have to top-tier like Byte or Dr. Dobbs Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia. Gamer's magazines will sometimes run articles on historical video games. Role-playing mags can have articles on RPG video games. Institutions like the Smithsonian and the Computer history museum have had retrospectives on the most popular games and sometimes amass a good archive in the process of creating these retrospectives. I know in the late 70's and 80, there were a whole host of hobbyist magazines and newspapers, like the Silicon Gulch Gazette, that reported on hardware and software topics. But where those hoobyist pubs would be archived, I have no idea. Thoroughly searching those self hosted sites will sometimes reveal scans of magazine articles on the game in question. --Mark viking (talk) 20:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
But the problem is that AfD is policed by bureaucrats who tend to strictly apply book requirements for meeting GNG. The rule of thumb I've always used, and you espouse above, is never good enough. What do we do in those cases? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
I have sympathy with the issues, one particular related discussion being Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cyber Chess. This is a '90s game but on a minority platform. Obviously there were plenty of RSes available in the day but getting archived copies isn't always easy. I think that Mark viking's suggestion of scans on WP:SPSes is useful. There's always the risk that such sites won't be available in the future, but if an editor has read and incorporated (as a source) content in a reliable source then others should assume good faith and not question such inclusion from printed sources without good reason. -- Trevj (talk) 00:25, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
I certainly don't mind the SPS's as a solution, but I've actually seen them argued for rejection because they are copyvio! Maury Markowitz (talk) 00:59, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
That sounds like nonsense! I don't see how a copyvio on Wikimedia servers would be caused by an external link to a site including a scanned magazine article. Are editors rejecting such citations able to link to a policy showing that such linking is unacceptable? -- Trevj (talk) 13:05, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
VisualEditor is coming
The WP:VisualEditor is designed to let people edit without needing to learn wikitext syntax. The articles will look (nearly) the same in the new edit "window" as when you read them (aka WYSIWYG), and changes will show up as you type them, very much like writing a document in a modern word processor. The devs currently expect to deploy the VisualEditor as the new site-wide default editing system in early July 2013.
About 2,000 editors have tried out this early test version so far, and feedback overall has been positive. Right now, the VisualEditor is available only to registered users who opt-in, and it's a bit slow and limited in features. You can do all the basic things like writing or changing sentences, creating or changing section headings, and editing simple bulleted lists. It currently can't either add or remove templates (like fact tags), ref tags, images, categories, or tables (and it will not be turned on for new users until common reference styles and citation templates are supported). These more complex features are being worked on, and the code will be updated as things are worked out. Also, right now you can only use it for articles and user pages. When it's deployed in July, the old editor will still be available and, in fact, the old edit window will be the only option for talk pages (I believe that WP:Notifications (aka Echo) is ultimately supposed to deal with talk pages).
The developers are asking editors like you to join the alpha testing for the VisualEditor. Please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and tick the box at the end of the page, where it says "Enable VisualEditor (only in the main namespace and the User namespace)". Save the preferences, and then try fixing a few typos or copyediting a few articles by using the new "Edit" tab instead of the section [Edit] buttons or the old editing window (which will still be present and still work for you, but which will be renamed "Edit source"). Fix a typo or make some changes, and then click the 'save and review' button (at the top of the page). See what works and what doesn't. We really need people who will try this out on 10 or 15 pages and then leave a note Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback about their experiences, especially if something mission-critical isn't working and doesn't seem to be on anyone's radar.
Also, if any of you are involved in template maintenance or documentation about how to edit pages, the VisualEditor will require some extra attention. The devs want to incorporate things like citation templates directly into the editor, which means that they need to know what information goes in which fields. Obviously, the screenshots and instructions for basic editing will need to be completely updated. The old edit window is not going away, so help pages will likely need to cover both the old and the new.
If you have questions and can't find a better place to ask them, then please feel free to leave a message on my user talk page, and perhaps together we'll be able to figure it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:10, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
The WikiProject Report would like to focus on WikiProject Computing for a Signpost article. This is an excellent opportunity to draw attention to your efforts and attract new members to the project. Would you be willing to participate in an interview? If so, here are the questions for the interview. Just add your response below each question and feel free to skip any questions that you don't feel comfortable answering. Multiple editors will have an opportunity to respond to the interview questions, so be sure to sign your answers. If you know anyone else who would like to participate in the interview, please share this with them. Have a great day. –Mabeenot (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
liblogging article
Hello, I am relatively new to Wikipedia and wanted to help improve the information on Computer data logging. I had written an article on liblogging, but it is not sure if it meets the notability requirements. User Deb helps me avoid creating a bad article, but he is not sure on the references I could provide. So he suggested I try asking here. As usual for logging-related projects, there is not much public discussion and mentioning of them, even though the drive very important applications. Liblogging is the only active project providing a simple API for RFC 3195 logging and is included in all major distros. There are some other BEEP libraries (RFC 3195 is based on BEEP), but they offer a much larger scope and support RFC 3195 as an "example", which means they are heavy for someone just interested in implementing RFC 3195. This as some quick background. I have listed some of the more important references to it at User_talk:Deb#liblogging_deletion (the posting with the URLs). I would appreciate if you could tell us what you think. Many thanks in advance! Logfreak4712 (talk) 11:11, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
First of all, thanks for your efforts in adding material about computer logging infrastructures. Logging is not considered 'exciting' by many, but it is essential. I took a look at the references you mentioned. The osdir link is a dead link; the content was apparently deleted. The beepcore link just lists liblogging, and following the link gives a short description. The comments on RFC 3195 lists liblogging. The M. Schuette presentation lists liblogging. I consider the M. Schuette presentation, the comments on RFC page and possibly the beepcore.org page as reliable sources. But unfortunately none of them go into any detail about the library. Given the general notability guidelines, per WP:GNG, for an article to survive AfD, multiple in-depth independent reliable sources are needed. Thus my best guess is that these sources would not be enough, because they are not in-depth.
However, the library is verifiable and the fact that it is listed as an example implementation in comments for RFC 3195 makes it somewhat notable. I'd suggest adding liblogging to the Implementations section of the article Reliable Event Logging Protocol as a useful open-source example of an RFC 3195 implementation. I agree that BEEP is not a good fit. For what it is worth, I think this is a worthy library and agree that infrastructure projects like this don't get much press, which leads to systemic bias against inclusion in WP. Still, those are the notability rules these days and we have to work with them. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 17:04, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
I went to the page Touch user interface, expecting to see content about, say, touchscreen oriented interfaces (such as say, Android, iOS, Windows 8), but instead see this strange article about haptic feedback that seems disjointed and all over the place.
Given how important these types of interfaces are becoming, am I the only one thinking that this clould be a candidate for a total re-write, with your help of course? ViperSnake151 Talk 18:58, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
The article seems to cover a different concept: interfaces that communicate with users using touch, rather than interfaces which use touchscreens as an input method. Having said that, it does seem to be a bit short on references, and a bit all over the place. The TUI concept isn't really covered all that well. — daranz [ t ] 19:37, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
An important concept which definitely needs more eyes. I have an impression that I talk mainly with myself and IPs at talk: Machine code for last three years. But I actually did not deal with the topic for about twenty years. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 07:30, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Some of your edits are of this type and are within policy, but none of your recent edits have any edit summary, and that is not OK. Please explain your edits in each article you change. And as Incnis Mrsi pointed out, you made an obvious error in Operating system shell. In writing an edit summary, you could have likely caught this bug. Thanks, --Mark viking (talk) 16:01, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
I know what is over-categorization and cope with it frequently at Wikimedia Commons, as well as (formerly) in Russian Wikipedia as early as in 2006. The important word is is not normally placed. You should think, not push, in such cases as https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Device_driver&diff=556850846. Even if it is included to category:Linux drivers which is a sub-sub-subcategory of category:Operating system technology, “driver” is a part of the latter on its own right. Not because some driver are Linux drivers, which is a subcat of Linux kernel, one type of kernels, which finally is a subcat of “technology”. Just think whether do you improve things or break them. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Oops, I missed that. As Mark viking said, edit summaries could avoid this misconception. HotCat has the manual save mode, activated with (++) link, where you can add an own text to the (precomposed) edit summary. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 05:33, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
A while back Cisco ASA got deleted. I followed the rabbit hole of suspicious AfD participants and found a somewhat large conspiracy to reduce, discredit, and eliminate coverage of Cisco products and boost Avaya/Nortel products. Some of you might have followed the controversy at the time I made my findings public, which resulted in the deletion of the mostly-defunct Wikiproject Nortel. In any case, I have a userfied draft at User:Gigs/Cisco ASA. One of the issues with a product such as this is that even though it's a very popular and important flagship product for Cisco in the SMB space, there isn't a whole lot of in-depth coverage that's easy to find on the web. Anyway, help would be appreciated bringing that draft back to article space, with improvements in its scope and coverage. Gigs (talk) 15:29, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for willing to help, although I would say the proposed article is borderline. Most of the proposed article is a table of detailed product specs sourced to a Cisco promotional web page listed as retrieved in 2008. Wikipedia is not a buying guide. One can always get the latest specs directly from the company site, so these product litanies are either just redundant or out of date. Have they really not improved in five years? And stating that it is "popular" "important" or "flagship" is an opinion, which generally does not comply with Wikipedia guidelines (and "flagship" is idiomatic, to be avoided). Cisco is a public company, so if these products really are so important, then you should be able to, say, dig out some of the annual reports from Edgar and say "this product line accounted for $37 bazillion in revenues in 2008 and $47 bazillion in 20012" <ref>{{Cite ...}}</ref> What we need more in my opinion, is the historical narrative saying how the products evolved over time. Those go best in an article of a combined product line, which can always be split apart when it gets too big. One approach would be to do this with the Cisco PIX article, updating the ASA section there and adding citations until it needs to be spun out. Although that article itself could use much help with the inline links and uncited assertions.
Also not sure of the exact events to which you refer, but perhaps what some might call a "conspiracy" might be called "consensus". There was indeed some fans of Avaya and those pages still could use some cleanup. And yes, gaps in other coverage also need filling in. Need to get as much collaboration as we can, thanks. W Nowicki (talk) 17:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
iOS 7
Hi! I know it's not really in your remit, but I'd appreciate a little extra input into what is now becoming an edit war on the iOS 7 article regarding the inclusion of a proportionally large criticism section. I have opened a talk discussion there, yet IP editors keep re-adding the section despite a lack of reliable sources, and the fact that it causes extreme bias. I don't know whether semi-protection is warranted, but it'd be good if some people could help back me up; I don't want to fall foul of 3RR, so I can't protect it myself any more. Thanks! drewmunntalk10:24, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
I work in the marketing department at TeamQuest Corporation and our profile is out of date. Would someone be able to update our page with current information? I can provide the necessary edits - no marketing, sales, or promotions - just getting the facts correct. Thanks! Trixie321 (talk) 13:38, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
The page references obsolete ASHRAE Thermal Guidelines. The guidelines stated are from the 2004 version (68 - 77deg F and 40 -55%Rh). The current version is dated 2011 and the recommended ranges are now 64.4 - 80.6 degF and 41.9 degF dewpoint - 59 degF dewpoint capped at 60% Rh.
RFO - leads to maze of links, no useful information
Apologies in advance if this is unreadable; it appears that my attempt to disable "visual editor" didn't work....
I attempted to look up RFO and guessed that the second to last meaning was relevant. The text of this is "Reason for Outage, a term related to network outage in system administration." Both of the terms I've italicized were links; both turned out to be redirects to the same place, which was Downtime. This page did not even use the term "reason for outage", which I suspect of being a semi-technical term in the context of analyzing system uptime. I checked the two redirects. It appears that Network outage used to be a real page, but was merged into downtime on 30 Dec 2007. Looking at the Downtime page it appears to say very little specific about network outages. And as for what I really wanted - nothing except the expansion of the TLA on the disambiguation page.
I hope someone knowledgeable would like to write this. I can't volunteer; if I knew what the client who wanted an RFO wanted, I wouldn't have been looking it up. Kobnach (talk) 04:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
I made a promise to myself to never nominate an article twice for WP:AFD, but I fail to see anything redeeming for this one. The topic is trivial, there are barely any sources available (only to confirm its existence, and only in Windows Vista). IPs keep adding rumours, original research and unsourced "personified fear" bullshit while admins and regulars stand still and watch it degenerate into a pile of unreferenced trivia. Please, someone put this page out of its misery. Keφr18:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
For half a year now, the article section Smoke testing#Software development has had a {{split section}} tag on it, because it doesn't really fit into the rest of the article (which is about blowing smoke through pipes to see if they leak). Any input is welcome. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 09:40, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
Please give feedback there, on whether or how this information should be kept (and if so in what form it should be standardised), or whether it falls afoul of WP:NOTHOWTO (or other guidelines) and must be deleted (or moved). Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 05:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Announcing WikiProject Open, and an invitation
Hi, I'd like to let members of this WikiProject know about WikiProject Open, a currently-forming project dedicated to the concept of openness. Thus far, members are mainly interested in content, e.g. open education and open access publishing, more than software. But we would love to have some input and involvement from the F/OSS community as well. Please check out our WikiProject pages, especially the planning page. There you will find info about two webinar online meetings we're holding this week. In addition to editing our pages or commenting on the project's talk page, I hope you're able to join in and chat with us in person. -Pete (talk) 04:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps some of you can have a look at the set of articles associated with this--see Template:Rocket Software. It's a whole bunch of articles, all of them in need of serious improvement. Drmies (talk) 02:18, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
Help on Passive optical network
Is there an active editor that could help with Passive optical network? I tried to start converting some at-large web links into citations and removing some uncited assertions. An anonymous user keeps changing it back, and has not responded on the talk page. Do not want to edit-war, so should we propose a semi-protect or something? Thanks. W Nowicki (talk) 22:13, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
Hi, Requested Articles is encouraging WikiProjects to have a look at their relevant section at RA. For this WikiProject, that is here. Thanks, Matty.00719:25, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Timeline of computing: A great way to do computing history. Some additions.[
This is one of my favorite ways to understand history. I like the timeline and want to help. Olson is misspelled-- it is Ken Olsen. The quote date is unclear. Teletype is a trade name and trademarked. There are a lot of other minor errors, but this is probably the best form to do history so that every item on it will point to a Wikipedia entry.
Don't make it any smaller... make it bigger. Scrolling horizontally for more time would be nice. Scrolling vertically for more categories is also necessary.
I'm asking here too, in order to get the discussion going. I have to take issue with the current state of the category Category:Retrocomputing. It includes Wikipedia articles for several computing systems that were in use from the 1970s to the 1990s, but are not in use any more. The reason for this issue is that the computing systems themselves are not "retrocomputing" - they were the cutting edge of technology when they were released, and the vendors did not think "people will fondly remember these half a century in the future", they sold them as new products. Labelling them as "retrocomputing" retcons their entire lifetime as hobbyist toys rather than actual computers, and retconning itself should be avoided. With this logic, every computer a couple of decades old becomes "retrocomputing". In my opinion, "retrocomputing" should be specifically used to mean running software for old, legacy, obsolete computing systems today (or old, legacy, obsolete software for modern computing systems today), not for the systems themselves. Is this the right place to ask? What are your thoughts about this? JIP | Talk19:55, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree. A list could potentially be made of "Systems often used by retro-computing-people" or something like that, with sources attached, but tagging an old computer system with "retrocomputing" as a category doesn't work IMHO.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Good, thanks. I'll allow more time for discussion, and if a consensus is reached that the category is improperly applied, I'll start removing the category links from the computer articles. JIP | Talk20:10, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Having had no other replies for two days, I went out and removed the category "Retrocomputing" for all articles not specifically about retrocomputing, i.e. running software on legacy hardware today. Legacy hardware itself doesn't count as "retrocomputing". JIP | Talk20:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Image question
Have a look at this image I added to the article Emulator. It's a screenshot of a modern Fedora PC running UAE, which in turn is running Wzonka-Lad, which in turn is running Tetris. I have lately started to feel that the image doesn't really show off nested emulation that much. The reason is that the emulated AmigaOS desktop occupies less than one-fifth of the real Linux desktop (although the Game Boy screen occupies almost a third of the AmigaOS desktop). This is particularly problematic in the thumbnail. What are your opinions? I haven't found a way in E-UAE to make the emulated pixels double-size (or quadruple-size in fact, as it's a two-dimensional image), so should I crop the picture to better show off the AmigaOS desktop? JIP | Talk19:53, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
I agree that there's room for improvement in that image. In the context of the article with other screenshots, I think it is still useful. The AmigaOS window is probably small because it is a lower-resolution display. If you want to balance it out better, you will need to retake it using a lower display resolution setting for the host system.
In my opinion, no, it should not. Software doesn't just vanish off the Earth when it becomes no longer supported or downloadable. JIP | Talk11:04, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
At some point we do use past tense. For instance, MS-DOS is discussed in the present tense but 86-DOS is in past tense. I don't know that there's a clean rule for knowing where that point is. ~KvnG15:51, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Mac Pro, an article that you or your project may be interested in, has been nominated for a community good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:02, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Framework Benchmarks
Seems like the comparison article on web frameworks should include information from here:
Would somebody care to write a page about the *.qgs file format used by QGIS. I would be interested in what is hidden in that file and I can't find any information anywhere. There are similar pages for Shapefile, which is used by a few GIS programs. --Tobias1984 (talk) 17:50, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Information on this file format is hard to find. There is a dtd that may or may not be current and gives the XML structure, but for the full semantics of the elements and attributes, one probably needs to browse the source. But for the purposes of a WP article or a section in QGIS, these are both primary sources (no pun intended) and if using them one would need to be careful about original research. --Mark viking (talk) 18:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! I also couldn't find any easily digestible information. I will just wait until somebody makes a blog post or something. --Tobias1984 (talk) 18:44, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
Wikidata
We just started a new project over at Wikidata: d:Wikidata:WikiProject Informatics. I hope some of you will take the time to visit or participate! For those of you that haven't heard: We are trying to centralize data about everything that is on Wikipedia. That way all languages benefit from accurate information and we can provide dynamic pages based on what the user is interested in (e.g. List of all CPUs build between 1991 and 1993) --Tobias1984 (talk) 19:50, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Focused Project (Proposal) for Cloud Computing
A new project proposal has been created for Cloud Computing; in addition to bringing the Proposal here to the larger WikiProject Computing group, I would love feedback and opinion from the group as to the viability of such a (new) Project. In my opinion the massive topic of Cloud Computing requires larger focus and organization by a committed set of editors beyond just a Task Force within "Computing" but admittedly I am a "WikiNewbie" - thoughts and opinion appreciated! JohnWooten (talk) 12:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
I would support and participate in a cloud computing task force. I don't think a new WikiProject on this is warranted. ~KvnG14:24, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
"Comparison of..."
I see we have numerous list articles that are not properly titled in my opinion. Take for example Comparison of Nvidia graphics processing units. It's lead only says "This page contains general information about Nvidia's GPUs and videocards based on official Nvidia specifications." That's not really an explicit comparison is it? Sure the reader can compare them after looking at the specs, but that's not the same as Wikipedia providing some comparison. I'm guessing such pages were titled "comparison" because there is this typical web convention out there that putting products in a table is more or less comparison, e.g. the http://ark.intel.com database allows the user to select multiple similar products it will provide a comparison by diffing the spec tables (i.e. it highlights what's different) (See example). But Wikipedia "comparison" lists don't really provide such a service, they're really: here's a [big] list/database of products together with their main specs (which you can use to compare individual items yourself if you want to and are prepared to do some footwork of your own). So I think all of these should renamed to just "List of ..." I'll add some move requests to the affected articles with pointers to this centralized discussion shortly. Someone not using his real name (talk) 16:30, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Procedural NOTICE discussion spread over 4 talk pages. If you want a multimove discussion, please use the appropriate template and close the 3 separate discussions on the article talkpages, if you want separate discussions, please close your centralized discussion -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 06:56, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
I've moved all three of these, as there were no substantial objections to the moves in any of these discussions. You may treat the others as uncontroversial. The IP is correct, however, that the best approach would have been to simply make a multimove and notify WikiProjects of that discussion. --BDD (talk) 18:02, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Review of Article Rating
Hey Folks,
I don't if this is the right place, but since we reworked the Article for OpenMediaVault I think its time to rethink the rating. Where do I request that the rating is checked again? As of now its only rated start-class which clearly shouldn't be anymore since the rewrite. --Davidh2k (talk) 14:33, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Would you be interested in participating in a user study? We are a team at University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within a Wikipedia community. We are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visualization tool. All you need to do is to prepare for your laptop/desktop, web camera, and speaker for video communication with Google Hangout. We will provide you with a Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2014 (UTC).
Reader feedback: Question in Greek.Μπορ...
Question in Greek. Μπορώ να συμβάλλω μεταφράζοντας άρθρα που έχουν σχέση με τεχνολογία και τους υπολογιστές; Γιατί γνωρίζω για υπολογιστές και τεχνολογία. Η πηγή μου θα είναι η Αγγλική και η Ελληνική wikipedia. Να κάνω μεταφράσεις από την Αγγλική στην Ελληνική σαν συνεισφορά. Same Question in English May I contribute in articles that relate with technology and computer? Βecause I know a few about computers and technology. My Source will be English and Greek wikipedia. I would like to contribute by translating from English to Greek. I’m a native Greek Speaker and Lower of Cambridge Certificate in English.@Dimkalgr: Great, you're welcome! --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 13:35, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
Heise just broke all links to h-online.com - link archive.org versions as archiveurl=
Heise just took down the H Online archive (the English-language version of Heise). This has broken a pile of reference links. I've just fixed OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice, about to fix Apache OpenOffice ... This is the search for links there's thirty-odd. This does NOT cover links inside reference templates ... may have to go through Google.
Er, this link is a little less scary, 131 results: [5]. I'm going through these ... slowly and tediously ... To fix {{cite web}}, you need to add archiveurl= and archivedate= - don't forget to preview - David Gerard (talk) 00:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
... and evidently I didn't get them all, as I've found more since. Can anyone think of a search (on Wikipedia or an external search engine) that will reveal links the above searches didn't? - David Gerard (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
... And now the old h-online article links are all working again. Cheers to Heise :-) At least we have the archive copies linked ... - David Gerard (talk) 21:55, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
Popular pages tool update
As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).
Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.
If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:00, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Network traffic is currently a disambiguation page, but it appears to be a WP:DABCONCEPT situation. I propose that there should be an article at this location on the broad concept of network traffic, summarizing the relationship between the different aspects of network traffic linked on the page. I would also suggest merging the stub article on network traffic control to that title, unless or until enough material exists to justify a distinct article. bd2412T03:28, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
The article on thunks was at some point split into three articles, each on a different narrow application of thunks, apparently on the belief that they were unrelated concepts. This was wrong. What should have been done, IMO, was to add the missing historical background that showed how they were related. During the next week I would like to recombine the articles, trim some detail, and add this missing explanation. 50.136.204.132 (talk) 10:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
I have no idea what a "boutique computer" is, but I found the term in five Wikipedia articles, and now they are all red links. Google reveals that many pages use the term and presume that the reader knows what it means. Can the links be made blue links? Michael Hardy (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
(I am amazed when I look at a WikiProject's talk page's edit history and find it edited only once or twice a week rather than hourly like the one I often post to. Maybe the world will end before anyone sees this posting. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC))
A boutique computer is broadly one where the price and performance or performance/price ratio are seen as taking second place to fashion statements, such as exotic case materials, fashionable names or gimmick features. Sometimes unusually high performance (especially graphics) can be seen as "boutique", where such a feature is added in excess of anything that would be credibly needed in a small machine used in the typically mobile laptop scenario.
Some makers (Apple, Sony) have traditionally catered to the boutique market. Others, Dell for one, have mostly sold "mainstream" kit, with a boutique range on top. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:45, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Debian RfC
There is a request for comments that may be of interest on the Debian talk page. Opinions from uninvolved editors would be very much welcome. Please note that this has been to the Dispute resolution noticeboard (DRN)[7] and the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom).[8]. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:29, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Definition of Graph database
I was referred to this page by Talk:Graph database. I have the following suggestion to improve the article. But I am not sure, if I'm supposed to write it here or at the Talk:Graph database page.
In my opinion the definition of "graph database" is slightly biased. The line "A graph database is any storage system that provides index-free adjacency." is referenced from a marketing web-side. Most of the graph databases listed later do not fulfil this definition, i.e. Titan is undoubtedly a graph databases, but uses a different storage with indexes. I more fitting description can be found [9]. I think the term was coined in
Graph Databases
Adrian Silvescu, Doina Caragea, Anna Atramentov Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory Department of Computer Science
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011
I have nominated Microsoft for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Indrian (talk) 04:56, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
i am a Liberian in my country cassava is highly produce but much is not done with it because the ideas needed to make into another thing is lacking.
i really want to know what can possibly be produce out of cassava — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.191.107.39 (talk) 09:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
That is not an ASR-33. The configuration is different. But thanks for the term "teleprinter", I'd quite forgotten that.
In any case, there are a large number of images in the category I linked that could use better ID; as always in a wiki, if you know the details on something, it's probably more useful to edit it than to reply here. - Jmabel | Talk23:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that (and the picture Mark added) are both ASR-33s. The picture I linked (but did not show, and will now show for comparison) is rather different. - Jmabel | Talk17:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, well that one is an ASR-35. I don't have an RS, but Google images quickly verifies that guess. The other teleprinter in that LCM collection is the ASR 33--Mark viking (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I spent many hours on ASR 33s. These are my hands on one. The knob on the lower right had three positions. IIRC, the center position (up) was off, to the right connected it to a dedicated phone line to the mainframe, and to the left was to use it offline. The blank panel on the right of some had equipment to dial a phone to make a modem connection, but I don't remember if those were ASR 33s or a different model number. Bubba73You talkin' to me?23:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Tagging talk pages of ISO 3166-1 country code TLDs
A few moments before this posting I read the .co article's talk page and found the WikiProject Computing template. After visiting the talk pages of .ph, .sg, and a few more articles without the said tag, I tagged them with the template. Can I be permitted to tag all other articles under the ISO 3166-1 navbox whose talk pages have none of this tag yet? Thanks, Japanese Rail Fan (talk) 14:33, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Real thing, or non-notable neologism
Hello, I happened upon the article on Autojay today and was hoping an eagle-eyed member of WikiProject Computing could determine whether or not this is a real concept, or just a non-notable neologism. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 22:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.
Coupling (computer programming) vs Cohesion (computer science)
It seems to me that as Coupling and Cohesion are closely related terms, they should be categorized the same way. It seems odd, then, that Coupling is titled "Coupling (computer programming)" while the Cohesion article is titled "Cohesion (computer science)". I see an edit in the Coupling article changing the title from "Coupling (computer science)" to "Coupling (computer programming)", citing that 'programming' represents a "more accurate parenthetical disambiguation". I don't see any name changes for Cohesion's article, except for the change from "Cohesion" to "Cohesion (computer science)", although the talk page does contain a suggestion that "computer science" be changed (to "software engineering"). This seems a fair change, as I must agree that the "computer science" classification is probably not the best. Then, should Cohesion be changed to "Cohesion (computer programming)" to match the Coupling article, or should both be changed to disambiguate as "(software engineering)"?
--128.238.232.109 (talk) 10:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder
Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC).
At the bottom of pages such as IBM 7030 Stretch there is a navigation box, and a link to World's most powerful computer, but it just goes to Mainframe computer. As far as I know, there is no article detailing the record most powerful computer through history. I think such an article would be good - give the timeline, details, and comparisons of the machines. With references to why it was the most powerful at the time. Bubba73You talkin' to me?03:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Leaflet For Wikiproject Computing At Wikimania 2014
Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets Adikhajuria (talk) 14:47, 22 May 2014 (UTC)
Here's the information that we need to provide if we want a WP:COMP leaflet. Please feel free to fill stuff in if you have time. I will volunteer as point of contact if there is some help from other WikiProject members towards bringing this together. ~KvnG15:17, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Your contact details
If we need any clarification about your project - won't go in the leaflet.
Project name
Short Description
50 words. Must be intelligible to non-Wikimedians.
Longer description
150 words. Why should they help? How can they get involved? Should include key links.
Logo
(image from commons, ideally in svg, if not at least 800px width by 500px height)
Could someone take a look at KoodibooK. It has been marked as an orphan & I'm wondering if it meets the notability requirements - but I'm not very familiar with this area.— Rodtalk13:07, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
The project page has a list of articles for deletion. If I have nominated a computing-related article for deletion, should I update the project page, or will a bot update the page? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
I have started a short article about SiSense, the company I work for. I am working to stay well inside the boundaries of Wikipedia's policies, and have consulted a number of independent reliable sources, and have worked to keep the article neutral. If anybody has feedback, suggestions, or concerns about the article, please let me know, or improve the article as you see fit. I also expect to add short sections about SiSense's history and technology in the coming week. -82.166.16.70 (talk) 09:55, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Listing Open Source as a sub-topic of free software
I declined it: all secondary sources are self-published. Actually, I am not entirely sure they are secondary – they might as well be from language's developers. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 00:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Can someone help me with the GDDR5 page? I am not an extremely proficient Wikipedian, but I have a passion for computer hardware. I'm trying to improve the page but my edits are being reverted and I don't understand why. Thanks for any assistance, Jchap1590 (talk) 00:36, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
UDIMMs are not simply unbuffered DIMMs. They are ECC memory that is unbuffered. Registered (same as saying "buffered") are called RDIMMs. As the article says, "In normal registered/buffered memory, only the control lines are buffered, whereas in fully buffered memory, the data lines are buffered as well." unbuffered non-ECC memory are simply called "DIMM" and are identified by the number of pins (240-pin DIMM for DDR3 SDRAM, for example). Here is a useful source: http://www.servethehome.com/unbuffered-registered-ecc-memory-difference-ecc-udimms-rdimms/Jchap1590 (talk) 01:10, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
iBeacon is not a physical product. It is part of Apple's iOS 7 mobile device operating system. iBeacon is a collection of protocols that tells the device what to do with incoming BLE signals, and it also allows the device to wake up any apps to which that signal is relevant.
The article claims that iBeacons are the same thing as BLE beacons, which is false. Although they have similar names, iBeacon and BLE beacons are different things. BLE beacons are wireless transmitters that send out BLE signals within an approximately 200-foot radius.
Suggested correction: Update the iBeacon article to be factually correct, and make a second article for BLE beacons that is also factually correct.
There are other sources that can confirm this information. The iBeacon = beacon misconception is very common given the non-expert coverage from the business media, and it's very important that Wikipedia be factually correct in addressing each thing.
"Orange Boxes" for sending false CID (Caller ID) Information and the use of "*69" to retrieve CID
If I receive spoof or false CID information from an "Orange Box" or other device at home (Verizon) and then were to dial *69 after the calling party, and I, had both hung up, would the information I received be the genuine name and phone number, or would this *69 information also be false? *69 is a feature that Verizon (land-line) offers for retrieving name and number information for the call most recently received by me. RFRules (talk) 16:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
Windows 9
I'm not hardly ever a computing editor, mainly stick around baseball and pro wrestling, with occasional edits to gaming. So, I don't know this project's precedent on creating new articles for new OS's, in particular for new Windows OS's. But I thought I'd point out that Windows 9 is starting to get significant coverage by CNET, PC Gamer, ZDNet. All talking about an upcoming preview for Windows 9 (codenamed "Threshold") set for release this fall (Sept. 30 is the date I keep seeing), ahead of a full release set for Spring 2015. These facts considered, it seems weird to me that no Windows related article makes mention of this. The Windows 9 article doesn't exist, even as a redirect. Can someone that has more knowledge from this project figure out if an article is warranted and if so start it? Thanks. CRRaysHead90 | #RaysUp18:44, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
I've just created a batch request for a few hi-res US Army images relating to ENIAC. It may come to nothing because there are so few, but I thought those here might have some useful comments to make over at Commons. Cheers. -- Trevj (talk) 12:09, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
Done. ChrisPond (Talk · COI) 13:41, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_April_8#Category:Apps. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 07:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
