# Talk:Missed call

What is the significance of the statement "In Oman, there is a pop song based on missed calls." in relation to this topic? Micmac95 (talk) 11:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

@[[User:Micmac95 2001:44C8:4622:62A9:1872:2541:BBF7:9476 (talk) 10:16, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

"A missed call is a telephone call that is deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient, appearing as a 'missed call' on the receiver's cellphone."
Since when has this been the definition?  In my experience a missed call is any phone call that is terminated without being answered by the callee, whether it was deliberate on anybody's part or not.  OK, so to "give [someone] a missed call" is to make a call to someone and then hang up without them answering.  But if the caller actually intended to speak to the callee but the callee wasn't there to answer the phone, that is more accurately a missed call.  Of course, handsets have no way of knowing for certain whether

the caller just wanted to "ping" you rather than actually talk to you
the caller accidentally started phoning you and so realised the mistake and hung up
you just decided to let it ring for whatever reason
you just weren't there to answer
so they use the term "missed call" for all four scenarios.
On another note, I'm surprised to see no mention of what is probably the most common purpose of the first of these types in my experience: a way of giving somebody your number.  Is this because the people who write these articles think this use case is common knowledge and so don't bother mentioning it? — Smjg (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

This opening sentence is intended to define the scope of the article rather than provide a catch-all definition of the phrase "missed call". If there was another article about missing phone calls we can and should make a disambiguation link to it from the top of this one, but I can't find any such article. --McGeddon (talk) 10:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
Hmm.  This is rather like saying "a fruit is that which comes from the tree Malus domestica" and then developing an article about "fruit" on this premise.
Moreover, I can't see much sense in using a disambiguation link to distinguish between "a telephone call that is deliberately terminated by the caller before being answered by its intended recipient" and "a telephone call that the recipient wasn't there to answer", at least as long as the article is at this title.  At the moment, it's an article about an arbitrary proper subset of the concept denoted by its title.  As such, either the article should be expanded to cover the whole concept, or the title should be "Deliberately missed call" or similar.  I'll think about how best to tackle the issue. — Smjg (talk) 16:36, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
I agree with with Smjg. The phrase "missed call" covers at least three things: accidentally missed calls, deliberate missed calls to give someone your number, and deliberate missed calls to send a pre-agreed message. The first two are too small to require articles on their own, but should be mentioned in an article about "Missed call"s. I don't think we should have a disambiguation page and then a separate article for deliberate missed calls to send a pre-agreed message. The best solution is just to cover all usages in the "Missed call" article. If no one objects, I'll make this change in the next few days. cagliost (talk) 13:19, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Missing calls to communicate a phone number seems within scope of the current article (deliberately missing calls to communicate information), but is there much to say about accidentally missed calls? If all we've got is a one line "it's when you miss a call, accidentally" and 99% of the article is then about the interesting abuses of that system, we're not doing the reader any favours if we present this article as being about both subjects.
I wasn't suggesting a full disambiguation page, just a hatnote of "This article is about deliberately missing calls to communicate information. For accidentally missed calls, see X." - where X is a suitable article for mentioning accidentally missed calls in passing (perhaps Telephone call#Placing a call).
Renaming the article to "deliberately missed call" seems like it might be a good idea. --McGeddon (talk) 13:54, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure why you object to my original solution, which is to move the word "deliberately" to the second sentence. This elegantly deals with case where calls are missed accidentally in a single sentence -- it acknowledges it and moves on. At present, the article states "A missed call is a telephone call that is deliberately terminated", which is simply false.
I think we want to avoid creating any more articles, since accidentally missed calls don't merit their own article.
You say "99% of the article is then about the interesting abuses of that system, we're not doing the reader any favours if we present this article as being about both subjects." I agree, but acknowledging the existence of accidentally missed calls doesn't do this.
I don't think we ought to rename the article to "Deliberately missed call" -- we want people to be able to type in "Missed call" and find the article first time. Neither do we want more than one article. Therefore, I think the best solution is to have one article deal with all cases.
See Literary estate for an article which successfully deals with two concepts (literary estates and literary executors)  in the same page. cagliost (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
I thought that moving the word "deliberately" risked wrong-footing the reader - the WP:LEADSENTENCE is there to tell them what the article they're about to read is actually about, before they read it. If we haven't got anything to say about accidentally missed calls, we're not helping the reader to suggest that we might do. Changing the lead sentence and scope also means that the rest of the article has to be rewritten to be in line with it - the second paragraph's "In Bangladesh, missed calls make up 70% of cellular network traffic." takes on a very different meaning if we're now telling the reader that "missed call" means "any call that is missed for any reason".
Literary estate seems okay for dealing with two closely-related subjects that both merit explanation. I'm just not sure that both the subjects here need exploring in the same amount of depth. If a "deliberately missed call" was instead called a fnord, we wouldn't open the article with "A missed call is when a call is ended prior to answering. A fnord is a type of missed call where...", we'd just define a fnord in terms of being a missed call. And if everybody called graffiti wall painting, we wouldn't feel we had to open that article with "Wall painting is when you paint a wall. Wall painting is also writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface..." - we'd disambiguate somewhere else, or if there was nowhere to point to, we might conclude that "painting a wall" was such a prosaic concept that it didn't need explaining.
The subject matter of people deliberately subverting a phone system seems an interesting and well-documented one, and I think it merits being the clear focus of the article. I don't think we should dilute it simply because the common name for the practice happens to be a clunkingly literal one. --McGeddon (talk) 18:24, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
"Missed call" is not the common name for the practice.  It's the common name for a generic concept of which the deliberately missed call is just one kind. — Smjg (talk) 23:52, 16 January 2016 (UTC)
The sources plainly show that "missed call" is a commonly understood term for the practice in India and the Phillipines. --McGeddon (talk) 10:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
This ambiguousness remains an issue in the GAN draft. The fundamental concept of using a missed call notification to impart information (similar to collect call "fraud") is narrower than the simple term "missed call". Per the article titles naming criteria, the title should be a balance of what is most recognizable (the name most people will call it), natural (reflecting what it's usually called), precise (unambiguously identified), and concise (not longer than necessary to identify), but in this case, "missed call" presents too much ambiguity and might need to be either longer or rescoped. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 17:36, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Missed call/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Epicgenius (talk · contribs) 02:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

@ViperSnake151:  I will be reviewing this article over the next few days. I don't see any edit warring and the only image is appropriately licensed. I'll take a look at the rest soon. My initial comments are below: epicgenius (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Lead

Could you briefly describe one-bit messaging? I know it's already linked, but a brief description would obviate the need to go to the link to look up its definition.
The practice is referred to as beeping in some part of Africa, flashing in Nigeria, and a miskol in the Philippines. - It should be "...some parts of Africa...". Incidentally, should there be a specific section or paragraph in the body referring to the different names for a missed call? In the section "Justification and impact", there is the text Also in 2007, "miskol", a Tagalog loanword for "miss call", which seems related.
More later. epicgenius (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, the wikilink is sufficient for context, plus the latter, which is mentioned in both the lead and body, demonstrates that the term had been specifically recognized by scholars. ViperSnake151  Talk   03:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Regarding one-bit messaging, you have a point - it's self explanatory. No comment about the other one, as it was just a suggestion. Anyway, onto the review of the rest of the article. epicgenius (talk) 15:22, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Unrelated, but Ref 4 "Why 'Missed Call' Marketing Has Taken Hold in India" mentions that missed calls are called "memancing in Indonesia; and flashcall in Pakistan". epicgenius (talk) 21:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
Justification and impact

In emerging markets, prepaid mobile phone services are popular due to their relatively lower cost in comparison to post-paid services; in India, at least 90% of all cellular phone users are on prepaid services. - This is a very long sentence. I think the semicolon should be changed to a period.
relatively lower cost - One of the first two words is redundant. It is either a lower cost or a relatively low cost.
in India, at least 90% of all cellular phone users are on prepaid services - Since this is an example, you should denote as such.
feature phones - Many people know this as a "dumb phone" but in the context of the article, it's unclear. Arguably, the image shows an example of a feature phone, but what sets this off from smartphones? Why is this important in the context of a missed call?
Missed calls also lack a language barrier - This is awkward, since calls in themselves don't have languages, they convey languages. How about "Missed calls also bypass language barriers"?
Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode professor of marketing management Keyoor Purani - Is mentioning this person's name important? If not, we can just mention the professor's institute and specialty.
in countries where it is common - Grammatically, "it" may refer to cellular service or missed calls. You should clarify that this refers to missed calls.
In August 2005 [...] In 2006 [...] In 2007 [...] - There are three consecutive sentences like this, which makes it seem like you are just converting a bullet-point timeline in prose. This is just an observation, not an actual thing you need to change.
Also in 2007, "miskol", a Tagalog loanword for "miss call", was declared the "word of the year" - including "Also" makes it sound like this should be appended to the previous paragraph, which it should not. How about something like '"Miskol", a Tagalog loanword for "miss call", was declared the 2007 "word of the year"'.
Use cases

As a heading, "Uses" should be fine.
Social usage

there are established norms for how missed calls are used, such as indicating who should call back with a voice call - "Such as indicating" should be "such as for indicating" because it fits in the grammatical structure of "missed calls are used ... for indicating who should call back with a voice call".
Despite the lack of established culture for missed calls in the United States, smartphone apps such as the Israeli-American startup Yo—a mobile messaging app which is only capable of sending the word "Yo" to other contacts, have been compared to the concept of missed calls - I'm assuming "a mobile [...] other contacts" is a parenthetical phrase. But you have a dash at the beginning and a comma at the end. You need to change one of these so that the punctuation matches.
Marketing and services

known as missed call marketing (MCM). Missed call marketing - Spelling the whole phrase out at the end of the sentence (albeit with abbreviation), then immediately starting a new sentence with the exact phrase is pretty repetitive. However, the first sentence of the section's first paragraph is already a run-on sentence. This is because "known as missed call marketing (MCM)" doesn't directly relate to the rest of the sentence because it is placed after the parenthetical phrase "especially within India". It would be even better to have the first mention of missed call marketing be in the second sentence, like this: Missed calls have also been adopted as a method of permission marketing communications, especially within India. This method, known as missed call marketing (MCM), takes advantage of how phone services may offer unlimited incoming calls and text messaging ... etc.
automatically configured to automatically hang up - This is definitely repetitive. Remove one "automatically".
such as information, advertising (such as product information, offers, and sponsored celebrity messages), or other pre-recorded messages - Too many "such as"es make it awkward. This is already a list and you're putting another list in the middle. How about replacing "advertising" with the list of specific types of advertising, or integrating it into the main list like this: "such as information, product offers, sponsored celebrity messages, or other pre-recorded messages".
A number of vendors have emerged with a specific focus on providing solutions for MCM, including Flashcall, VivaConnect (who exclusively partnered with Facebook to offer missed call advertising units on the social networking service), and Zipdial - This is an awkwardly worded sentence because of the presence of the VivaConnect parenthetical. Consider rewording, condensing, or splitting.
Zipdial first achieved prominence during the 2010 Indian Premier League and 2011 Cricket World Cup, when it offered a service that texted news updates from the events to callers and collected demographic information. During the Indian anti-corruption movement, a Zipdial number advertised for pledging support for Anna Hazare's campaign received 4.5 million calls—significantly outpacing the amount of Facebook likes and Twitter retweets that posts relating to the campaign received online. Zipdial served over 415 million calls in its first three years of operation, and was acquired by Twitter in 2015 for a value reported to be between US$20-40 million - So the rest of the paragraph goes on a tangent about one specific MCM vendor. The way this page reads, it starts to devolve into a discussion of Zipdial and the benefits, and thus, falls short of meeting GA criterion 3B. Either clarify that this is an example, or add more information about the other vendors to balance the paragraph out.
Also, shouldn't the info about Hazare's campaign be moved to the "Activism" section? It is, after all, a form of activism to show support or opposition for a movement.
as of 2015, it had achieved 200 million impressions, and also expanded to allow advertising from third-party companies that do not compete in Unilever product segments, as well as interactive features - The second sentence of the fourth paragraph is a run-on sentence, despite the presence of a semicolon, particularly due to the number of intermediate punctuation in that sentence. The part after the semicolon should be a new sentence.
some Indian banks allow customers to conduct services such as checking balances or money transfers by placing missed calls to designated numbers - Although grammatically correct, this is really cumbersome to read. The first sentence of the fifth paragraph should probably be two sentences because of this.
While Flashcall initially focused on offering its services in Pakistan and the United States - You have another "While" toward the end of the sentence, which makes it grammatically awkward. How about replacing the first "While" with "Although"?
High-end brands have also been hesitant to engage in MCM, perceiving the practice as inappropriate - This is probably grammatically incorrect and definitely awkward. This should be "since they perceive the practice as inappropriate".
As activism

In January 2013, a protest was organized against high mobile internet data rates in Bangladesh, in which protestors simultaneously exchanged millions of missed calls, aiming to overload the cellular network - So what happened afterward? Was it successful?
More later. epicgenius (talk) 15:22, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
I will get back to the references by Monday. epicgenius (talk) 05:36, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
References
Now to the references, and I do realize it's Tuesday.

Many of these references are incomplete: they are missing publication dates and authorship information. You should check each ref to see if they need authorship info. Here are the list of refs that need publication dates:
Refs 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22.
Ref 3 "Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World" needs a page number.
Ref 9 "'FLASHING' REPORT IDENTIFIES FOUR MILLION FLASH CALLS ON MOBILE NETWORK" is all caps. Preferably, it should be lowercased.
Ref 15 "This Missed Call Got The Right Number For Zipdial"  and Ref 20  "#LikeABoss: Rural India plugged in, now HUL's Kan Khajura looks at bringing other brands on board" use YMD date format, but the rest of the article uses DMY format.
Ref 28 "Bangladesh: Missed Call – A Tool For Protest?" - is "USA" part of the author's name?
The references seem to support the cited material, so I don't have a problem with that.
Article title

Several editors have pointed out on the talk page that "missed call" may be a misleading title. This isn't an issue that will pass/fail this GAN per se, but I think that thread should be discussed.
Putting on hold for 7 days. epicgenius (talk) 21:52, 30 January 2018 (UTC)

I've been doing copyedits based on these findings. Also, mentioning the name of the professor is relevant, because he is actually quoted later as offering a criticism of MCM as being a form of spam. ViperSnake151  Talk   16:42, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
​OK. Just let me know when you're finished. epicgenius (talk) 19:02, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
I like the improvements made so far. However, I do have one issue: On 31 January 2016, Mann Ki Baat—the monthly radio address by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has unbalanced punctuation. There is an emdash to open the parenthetical phrase, and then a comma to close it. Either make them both commas, or both emdashes. epicgenius (talk) 22:14, 6 February 2018 (UTC)
​I apologize for the delay. Have you gotten a chance to finish making the changes, or note which ones you can't or don't want to fix? I see you have made some revisions. epicgenius (talk) 02:27, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
You can go over it again. ViperSnake151  Talk   02:33, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
All right. I'll probably have a look tomorrow or over the weekend. epicgenius (talk) 03:54, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
@ViperSnake151: OK. Here are the things I still think need to be fixed:
Prepaid mobile phones are popular in emerging markets due to their lower cost in comparison to post-paid contracts; - This sentence should not end with a semicolon.
Missed call services are especially prominent in India, where they appeal to the country's cultural and economic environment; - This sentence is too long for just a semicolon.
In comparison, smartphones and mobile broadband are widely-available in the United States, and missed calls are not an established social practice. - This would work best at the end of the paragraph, not between two paragraphs about India.
widely-available does not need a hyphen.
Many references are still lacking publication dates, especially those that refer to events happening on certain dates.
You may want to review some of the comments I posted above. I know it has been more than 7 days, but there are some things going on in real life that I have to attend to. If you can't or don't want to resolve them, just say so.
epicgenius (talk) 23:50, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

I've done these changes. Additionally, on citations; usually the access date is more important for articles, but I was also using the automatic citation generator in the new editor, so it may not have picked up on the publication dates for all of them. Is there any sort of tool for automating that? ViperSnake151  Talk   01:41, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
The |access-date= is fine, but from what I've seen, references usually show both the access-date and |date= if a date is provided, and the access-date on its own would only be used if no date is provided. Just my observation, though.As to your question about automating the filling-in of the URLs, Help:Citation tools has a list of tools where you can fill in the URL and it gives you a properly formatted citation. I personally like Citer and the VisualEditor citation tool. epicgenius (talk) 01:29, 18 February 2018 (UTC)
This review has gone on for a month, and there's not really that many problems that I can see. Although I still have some concerns, I don't think any of them would preclude a GA pass per se. So I declare this nomination a pass. epicgenius (talk) 23:30, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

I am surprised this article has no illustration ... certainly there are plenty of screenshot possibilities, and indeed it may not even be necessary to make one, or even a free equivalent, since some of the most commonly used, like the iPhone version, have no copyrightable elements (well, maybe the phone icon, but that's de minimis here) and could thus be free images by themselves. Daniel Case (talk) 16:49, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I found one icon on Commons that will do, although I still think we could use a real screenshot. Daniel Case (talk) 16:53, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

This article should do a lot more to distinguish this specific terminology from what everyone knows "missed call" to be.  Nixinova   T   C   22:32, 9 August 2025 (UTC)