Wikipedia talk:Technical terms and definitions

message: I am not sure where this should be discussed, but we have an computer technical issue that needs to be resolved as it is generating confusion. In particular the use of the terms of KB and MB, or kilobyte and megabyte which currently most manufacturers use inaccurately to define the memory capacity of devices. The technically correct term to use is KiB and MiB for memory as it is described using base 2 instead of base 10. The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that few more people use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
http://www.iec.ch/zone/si/si_bytes.htm
It isn't feasible to have related pages intermix these terms. --Thax 5 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)
:Do we want to move this to Village Pump (Policy)? Also, I think that we should use the terms that the company itself uses. For example, Microsoft released the specs in MB and GB, so I think it should be that way in the page. — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 5 July 2005 21:19 (UTC)
::Yes, lets move it there, since you seem to have a better idea of where things should go could you find a spot for it?--Thax 5 July 2005 22:44 (UTC)
:::"The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that more people use." -- Corrected. -- uberpenguin July 6, 2005 00:30 (UTC)
:::: What I wrote was much funnier though.--Thax 6 July 2005 03:06 (UTC)
::::: Okay, I moved this to the village pump as I was not getting any activity in it's current location. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Unit_Disagreement.2C_MiB_vs._MB --Thax 8 July 2005 03:02 (UTC)
See here for the discussion. — Omegatron 16:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unit Disagreement, MiB vs MB 

message: This page seems to be implying that the  HTML element stands for technical term. I'm pretty certain it stands for teletype, and that is why text that occurs in  elements appears in a monospaced font—because it is supposed to look like it came from a teletype. I may be wrong (I haven't checked the W3.org specs) but I'm pretty sure this is the case. Was the author confused or is there something else going on with  that I'm not understanding? Nohat 07:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: What you say makes sense, although I've never seen it called "teletype".  If you are pretty sure, then make the change.  The article does not put any stock in using  for anything. - Marshman 17:03, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  &lt;tt&gt; 

message: There needs to be some sort of policy on whether or not it is appropriate to have technical terms redirect to related but distinct technical terms.  It's certainly very easy to do, and it allows the discussion of any particular topic to be consoldiated in one place, but it leads people to believe that the two terms are synonymous. --Smack (talk) 02:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stubs vs. redirects 

message: I think this should be merged with Wikipedia:Explain jargon and Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the merge suggestion. This is very confusing. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge

message: It's not at all clear what is meant by this. And the example that is given doesn't seem to illustrate this guideline. If it refers to the way conventional current is formatted, it is in italics, not bold as suggested by the guideline. --Itub 11:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Rare technical term" test? 

message: Is this true?
:"Higher taxonomic levels are not italicized."
In school, I was taught that Latin was italicized, so "ungulate" ought not to be, and "Ungulata" should. This is in agreement with what I find in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (The Unabridged Edition) Library of Congress number 67-12237, which italicizes (and capitalizes) "Ungulata," but not "ungulate."
Also, is the word "title" used properly in the following sentence?
:"When both the classification term and its name form a unified title, they are both first-letter capitalized: 'Family Poaceae'; when they do not form a title, only the name is capitalized: 'the family Poaceae.'"
If so, the rule for titles ought to apply.
Also, I don't understand what the "name" of a term means in this context.  Evidently, the "classification term" is meant to be "family," and the "name" is "Poaceae," but "Poaceae" isn't the classification term's name.
Except for the convention about capitalizing a genus, but not a species, I don't consider these rules necessary. They are already covered by broader rules, namely, those about foreign words and titles. Unfree (talk) 21:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Foreign words

message: This is a brief suggestion for a style change regarding the language used to describe the internment of people's bodies. Comments are appreciated. (Crossposted at WT:EJ, WT:MOSB, WT:TTD, WT:EJ, and WT:WTA) -Stevertigo 21:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Burials]] 

message: I'd like to propose a change that came up during a review of a computer science-related article. We seem to be completely lacking any guideline stating how to write about keywords and identifiers. Most journal articles use Monospace font to distinguish these terms (you can make a cursory verification of this by browsing the references at Aspect weaver, for example). Wikipedia enables this functionality with the use of  tags. The GAs Python (programming language) and Forth (programming language) (the only relevant articles out of all of WikiProject Computer Science's GAs and FAs) both use this formatting for keywords and identfiers, so there at least seems to be some agreement for this. So, I'd like to propose a formalization for this as a new section below the 'bold text section:
I think this proposal falls well in-line with what Wikipedia readers interested in Computer science articles would be expecting, and thus it makes sense for us to cater to that audience. This would also help clarify formatting constraints during GA and FA reviews for those that are less familiar with the subject domain. I welcome any comments on this proposal or proposed adjustments. Thanks. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 19:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. I agree that that would look odd. Which reminds me of Stroustrup's approach in The C++ Programming Language: "At first glance, this presentation style will seem 'unnatural' to programmers accustomed to seeing code in constant-width fonts. However, proportional-width fonts are generally regarded as better than constant-width fonts for presentation of text. Using a proportional-width font also allows me to present code with fewer illogical line breaks. Furthermore, my experiments show that most people find the new style more readable after a short while." (Not that I necessarily agree). decltype (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a good point. My intention is not to override anything already specified by WP:MOSMATH. Unfortunately I do not have my TC++PL book with me right now so I can't see exactly what Stroustrup said to disambiguate between variables in italics and other identifiers. I'll take a look at that when I can. Any suggestions on exactly where the line should be drawn? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 20:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Literate program also aren’t typeset in monospace. I don’t like the idea, preferring to be allowed to write (and read) about while-loops instead of while-loops in running text, and see code or pseudo-code typeset just as beautifully as everything else. Thore Husfeldt (talk) 20:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think what the problem is the above proposal is too aggressive in the change, that is, it encompasses more than what we want. Peronally, I think keywords, in passing, should be in a monospace font, and this is fairly common. However, an entire article on while loops which has half of the article in monospace would be quite distracting, I agree. But in cases like Aspect weaver#Performance where the keyword does not make up for a major concept in the article, but rather just something that needs to be referenced, there should be some standard way of identifying it. Currently, the guideline seems to suggest italics, but that seems awkward. Maybe the appropriate approach is that only the first use of the keyword be formatted in monospace? --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 21:09, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: I do like decltype's example (which I missed since I only checked WP:WPCS) of Allocator (C++)#Requirements where the necessary distinction between italics and monospace exists. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 21:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Guess I'll put my two cents in seeing as I sparked this somewhat in the peer review. Contrary to my original belief that they should be in italics, I'm seeing quite the opposite view now. The MoS and Technical terms I original stated are based on words that are still meant to be read as part of the sentence while these programming terms tend to have to be read differently. I believe if they are in italics or normal font, then it's just going to confuse people reading due to some programming terms being words that easily fit into sentences so their meaning may be misconstrued. Especially the use of terms like "IF", rather than looking like a code example, it'll look like emphasis on the word "if". But then again, this may depend solely on the writing and how it portrays the word in the first place. My main point, I think there should be a way of distinguishing these terms aside from italics, whether it be a different font or something else. CrimsonFox talk 15:00, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

text: I find that a lot more pleasant, and see no reason to outlaw it. In particular, it often meshes much better with what is going on in the body text, where you want to talk about the array a or the variable i. Thore Husfeldt (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's acceptable for pseudocode and personally wouldn't oppose a proviso exempting pseudocode from being monospaced. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the provision for pseudocode, but I think when you start to try to discuss keywords in-line in text it becomes difficult to comprehend if they don't stand out in some manner, and bold isn't really an option in my opinion because that already has several other meanings and gives an undue strength to the word that offsets the other text. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 05:30, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: CS keywords and identifiers