Talk:Cell phone

message: I removed the following sentence from culture:
: According to a survey conducted by Merryl Lynch in September 2004, subscribers in the US talk 619 minutes a month on their phones.
I think we should have this kind of info in this section.  I would like to see a source reference first though so we can check and potentially expand with other related info ChrisUK 21:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  mobile phone culture 

message: I think that the name of the article "Cell Phone" ought to be changed to "Cellular Telephone." As it is, "Cell Phone" sounds un-professional and depthless. The telephone is cellular in its operation--which isn't quite as clear from the word cell. Further, telephones are designed to send long-distance messages, which is what tele means (far in Greek).
*I think a more relevant issue is that the accepted name to most English speakers (outside the US at any rate) is "mobile phone", and that cellular phones are logically a subset of mobile phones anyway. Haikupoet 03:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Rename Article

message: 12-Jan-2009: Currently Formerly, the name "cell phone" redirects redirected to article "mobile phone" which is often viciously hacked. The term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism. Of course, multiple editors could not cope with the stampede of vandalism, and on 23Dec08, the article "mobile phone" was hacked and botched by an IP address, in a series of edits, to omit 6 whole sections of text about the features, applications and setup of cell phones. Next, additional hackings and advert-links were reverted for another 2 weeks. However, the prior vandalism went uncorrected for 20 days, as people could no longer cope with daily corrections to long complex articles. It is not always obvious how to merge old hacked text into an article with 3 weeks of new changes.  -Wikid77 (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have converted name "cell phone" into a short article, see below: #Cell-phone article as overview. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia have multiple ways of dealing with vandalism. There is absolutely no need for creating new article, protect old one from vandals. There is procedure for that. And multiplying articles do more harm then good - primarily by confusing readers and editors. Vitall (talk) 11:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Mobile-phone article botched 20 days

message: 12-Jan-2009: The term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism (similar to "search engine").  To limit the complexities of embedded vandalism, any target-name articles should be kept to a brief overview of the subject, which can be easily reverted & checked when vandalism is detected.  For indepth coverage, spin-off articles should be linked as "see-also" entries, which can contain more detail without hiding frequent vandalism.  Much like the total chaos of the search-engine articles, the redirection article "mobile phone" has become hideously hacked with numerous embedded problems by the stampede of vandalism, buried in a mass of detailed text. Although many people attempt to revert vandalism, it is easy to become overwhelmed trying to merge 3 weeks of changes with large sections of hacked text.  Consequently, most broad-scale vandalism in large articles is fought by simply removing the whole sections of hacked text, period.
Instead, the article name "Cell phone" should be was re-converted from a redirection into an actual article, but as a short overview, to introduce the subject, with links to article "mobile phone" as low-profile links found by serious readers.  Hacking of the article "cell phone" could continue, endlessly, but be more easily reverted by containing less text to scan & verify. Meanwhile, other spin-off articles, under less targeted names, could contain the massive details about the various cell-phone topics. With less (daily) vandalism to the large articles, then hackings can be more easily reverted, without the problem of cross-merging for all the other rapid vandalism.  Simply put: Wikipedia can have large articles, and Wikipedia can have multi-vandalized articles, but Wikipedia cannot cope with large, multi-vandalized articles.  The two must be kept separate: a vandalized target-name should be limited to containing a small article, not redirected into a large article. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know what you mean by saying [t]he term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism. There were no edits of any kind to [[cell phone] for almost an entire year! What vandalism are you referring to? older ≠ wiser 20:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Limiting vandalism target-name

message: 12-Jan-2008: Although, in conversations, more people might be saying "cell phone" rather than "mobile phone", when counting Wikipedia readership data, the extreme reverse is the case: during 2008, nearly 91% of phone readers read article "Mobile phone" versus 9% reading article "cell phone" (even though they were directed to the same article text). As of 12Jan2009, the articles have been separated now, so readers will see 2 different pages. Perhaps people who say "mobile phone" are more likely to read Wikipedia, or perhaps some navboxes are directing most people to click for "mobile phone" while "cell phone" is not in those navboxes.  The readership levels are based on massive data: during 2008, article "mobile phone" was read about 5,000 times every day, while "cell phone" was read nearly 500 times every day: the ratio is basically 10x to 1.  So, some major factors are keeping "mobile phone" as being the Wikipedia favorite, 91% of the time. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:58, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This seems to be a US/UK thing (see List of words having different meanings in British and American English).  "Cell phone" is now almost never used in the UK – everyone here just says "mobile", and "cell" on its own would not be understood.  As I said above, I don't care what the article is called, but it should stick where it is, as per WP convention.  Richard New Forest (talk) 21:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: People read Mobile-phone 91% Cell-phone 9%

message: 13-Jan-2009: Several times, on talk-page Talk:Mobile_phone, people have mentioned concerns over calling all "mobile phones" as "cellular".  Someone even noted the article "Mobile phone" has apparently been kludged (or twisted) into re-wording cellular phrasing by word-replacement, just putting "mobile" for former word "cell" regardless of actual meaning. Others have predicted that "cellular will become dead technology", with the implication that "cell phone" will become like "galleon" compared to a modern "battleship", possibly with a consumer-driven preference to rapidly migrate to new technology. Anyway, there are numerous, impending factors that seem to prefer separating article "Cell phone" from "Mobile phone" in the near future. I had just wanted to compare vandalism between the 2 articles, as separated for a few weeks, to see if "cell phone" attracted significantly more daily hacking or not. However, this is a great time, for Wikipedia organization, to help determine if "Cell phone" should become a spin-off article of "Mobile phone" as it becomes broadened to cover more technologies. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It is pracitularly nice how "mobile phone" article contradicts this one while calling mobile phone a cell phone too. I think both articles should be merged and the difference should be made clear in some history section or so (if there is a difference at all).--Kozuch (talk) 09:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Studying vandalism is not an appropriate reason to fork an article, nor should vandalism ever affect how we organize material. This article should be redirected back to mobile phone, in the absence of a clear rationale for a separate article.--Srleffler (talk) 23:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Not all mobile phones are cell

message: 11-Feb-2009: After 30 days of being a separate page, the article "Cell phone" was attracting daily vandalism or spamlinks in February 2009.  The term "cell phone" had been suspected as being a major target-name for vandalism, and the evidence shows, absolutely, that was still the case in February. The average rate in January 2009 had been hackings (or vandalism) made about once every 2 days.  The article had not been protected against IP-user or new-user edits, so the data reflects worldwide editing of the article "Cell phone" with daily hacking. Because the article is so short, corrections have been easy to make, most within one minute or some in 3 hours, never lasting for 20 days as happened with "Mobile phone". -Wikid77 (talk) 12:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rate of vandalism

message: This won't fly. Wikid77, please give an exceptionally good reason as to how a month's worth of changes didn't improve the article. Far as I can tell, your edit was bordering WP:VANDALISM, pure and simple. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikid77's unconstructive revert 

message: Wikid77 and all, 
As a reader who stumbled on this, quite frankly splitting off cell phone into an article separate from mobile phone is ridiculous, particularly as a "solution" to vandalism. The thing to do, if an article is getting a lot of vandalism, is request semiprotection for it -- not start another "magnet page"! What about all the readers who go to this article and don't realize that we have a much better article on the topic under a different name? I appreciate your trying to be helpful, but this is not the way to go and is unhelpful for the encyclopedia. I'm requesting comments on a merge of this page back into mobile phone. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 06:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I really do appreciate your enthusiasm in trying to protect the articles. But splitting is not and has never been a solution to vandalism problems. (See the Manual of Style for more on this). Semi-protection, on the other hand, is quite common -- in fact, the mobile phone article is currently semiprotected. We do try to keep topics together; duplicate articles are not considered a good thing. Best, -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to support Phoebe on this one -- Wikipedia's defense against single point of failure is the page history, not having duplicate content.  Semi-protection can aid against drive-by issues, and warning and blocking individual troublesome users from continuing to cause problems.  Forks of content inevitably cause more problems than they solve.  :)  — Catherine\talk 00:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: * Forks are not really a problem any longer, with the use of search-engine lookup in modern times; see below: "How redundant content survives vandalism". -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I still don't get why this page may be better off as a redirect to mobile phone. Who uses "mobile phone" nowadays? The common terminology for the device is "cell phone". Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: * The term "mobile phone" seems to be a British preference; see above #People read Mobile-phone 91% Cell-phone 9%. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

text: As I believe I've said already above, I don't understand why two articles on what is basically the same topic is better than one. As for which title is better, that would need a bit more discussion, but in my experience cell and mobile are both in common use. older ≠ wiser 02:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

text: For most cases there are NOT separate articles for regional/national spelling variations that treat the same subject. For instance, To use your example, there are not separate articles for lift and elevator. However, linguistic variants for the same or very similar topics are a different issue than whether differing technologies should be treated in separate articles -- and both are different issues than whether having separate articles in some way helps prevent vandalism. By jumping about from one rationale to another, it rather gives the impression of grasping at straws. older ≠ wiser 16:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Splitting this off as a separate article, and merge

message: 16-Feb-2009: Unfortunately, when a lone article gets hacked, there is no other article containing the lost information, and few people scan the history page back through 20 days of revisions to recover the hacked 6 sections about mobile-phone features. So yes, duplication is better, such as an overview of features in one article, then detailed features in another. That type of duplication is very common in Wikipedia. A search-engine or wiki-search lookup will list 2 articles formerly describing handset features; one article will still be okay, while the other article will have been hacked (or vandalized) as the 6 sections about handset features will be gone.  However, that's okay to the reader, because the search-results listed the other article which can be read (because it did not get vandalized during the same period as the first article), and so, still describes handset features. Although in the past, forking of text often led to outdated variations, with the "advent" of search-engine technology (during the past 20 years), more people are learning to scan for similar content, and update all variations to reflect current information. In reality, information is forked hundreds or thousands of times in Wikipedia, as in every time someone mentions a similar phrase about a topic or event: such as the September 11 attacks occurred in year "2001" or Albert Einstein was a "theoretical physicist" as duplicate data. Plus, that redundant content survives vandalism, as well as providing direct information in the sections where it is duplicated. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Content forks are not a useful method for fighting vandalism. Summary style splits between main articles and sub-articles or related topics is not the same as forking. While good summary style may duplicate a few salient points, it should not reproduce substantial content. Excessive duplicate content is inherently more difficult to maintain and should be avoided. older ≠ wiser 14:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: How redundant content survives vandalism

message: 19-Feb-2009: Many people have expressed an idealistic standard for avoiding forked content in articles, but unfortunately, far more than 500,000 Wikipedia articles already contain forked content. The forked-content "horse has already left the barn", and currently, vast herds of articles contain forked content. The situation now requires a more realistic approach, as to how forked content can be kept within manageable limits.
Although many paragraphs are duplicated between some articles, the most common forking is to duplicate navboxes in every article conceivable. The navbox acts as the "boxified contents" of an overview article, appended repeatedly, over and over (and over and over) to every possible article, over and over. This problem should be kept limited in phone articles.
To understand the impact, consider the baseball article "Adrian Burnside" (Australian baseball player). That article had only 9 typical wikilinks in early 2008, but 2 baseball-team navboxes were appended to increase the wikilinks to about 75, expanding the wikilinks by a factor of 8x times more wikilinks by duplicating the content. Those navboxes link over 50 articles, generating about 50x65 or 3,250 wikilinks where, formerly, only 2*50=100 wikilinks were needed.  To indicate a player is a member, of a team, requires only one wikilink to that team article, not a "boxified version" of that team-article appended to every team member and their brothers. The impact is enormous: those articles generate more than 3,250 wikilinks where 100 had been sufficient to link the team articles: that's a factor of 32x times more wikilinks (3250/100) generated for Wikipedia to store, format and display on an article page.  It's like saying a family was comfortable in a 3-bedroom house, but now they've moved up to the navbox-lifestyle as 32x better, in a 96-bedroom house.
When splitting "cell phone" from "WiFi phone" and "mobile phone" or "mobile device", avoid creating those monster navboxes as forked content in every possible phone article. Keep the duplication of information limited to just a few copies, not a 150-item navbox appended to 200 articles. I think a navbox of perhaps 30 links would be sufficient in most cases. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: unfortunately, far more than 500,000 Wikipedia articles already contain forked content.  Your discussion of the possible impact of navaboxes is interesting, but this article's talk page is not the appropriate forum to address issues that are much larger than this article. older ≠ wiser 12:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes: please post on the village pump if you want to talk about infoboxes in general. This page is not the place to do it. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Limiting forked content about phones