Talk:Smoke testing (mechanical)

message: Does it make any sense to have the plumbing article included with the electronics and software articles? This sounds like really there should be two articles: plumbing smoke tests and electronics smoke tests, with the latter including a short note on the software usage. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.193.2.136 (talk • contribs) .
:Speaking as an electrical engineer/software engineer and a homeowner who has done some plumbing, I'd say that the concept of the "smoke test" is sufficiently general to be discussed the way the article is doing it today; I wouldn't support the splitting of the article.
:Atlant 13:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The articles should be split. There are no general statements made about "smoke testing" that apply to smoke testing that cannot apply to almost any kind of "testing". I.e. there is almost nothing in common with electrical, software and woodwind smoke testing other than the name. Woodwind and plumbing (and automotive) are the only ones that actually use the same methodology and can have general statements made. This should be split into at least 3 articles. —Pengo 12:28, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any purpose would be served by splitting the article.  The software usage is arguably derived from all the others (though mostly electronics).  Randall Bart    Talk   19:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plumbing with electronics and software? 

message: I merged the list of short descriptions for 'smoke tests' in various fields into the longer description of each field, and put all of the descriptions into H3 headers. Hopefully this helps us have a more clear and understandable intro section, and makes the article easier to read. I have also added and cleaned up the references. Since the term 'smoke test' originates with electronics and hardware testing I have moved that section to the top. Feedback is welcome. --Culix (talk) 21:15, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article cleanup 

message: Both Microsoft's MSDN article "How to: Configure and Run Build Verification Tests (BVTs)" and the book "Lessons Learned in Software Testing" say that smoke tests are the same thing as Build Verification Tests. I suppose you could argue that BVTs might test more broadly and have more scope. But since we have two references from good sources I propose we merge the article Build_verification_test into this article on smoke testing.
Agree or disagree? I'll leave this proposal up for a few days for feedback. --Culix (talk) 21:18, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Comment: Room to grow? It's the same thing as a smoke test. There is no room to grow. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: merge BVT into Smoke Test 

message: My personal understanding is that while the article calls smoke tests a type of "functional testing", in fact, smoke tests are generic in nature and not focused on the functionality itself. Therefore, the classification "functional test" is probably misleading to downright wrong.
A BVT may be too narrow, as a smoke test might include parameters of the installation which are not part of the build itself. Example: Environment parameters, interface accessibility etc. 193.254.155.48 (talk) 11:26, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a distinction between functional testing vs. non-functional testing. I don't have any idea what you're talking about. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not functional? 

message: In searching Google Books for the phrase "smoke test", there are some early 20th and even late 19th century references, clearly in a plumbing context.  For example.  I think there's a strong possibility that someone in early electronics development was familiar with this usage and made up a joke about letting smoke out in an electronics context. --Rpresser 23:24, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plumbing usage is very, very old 

message: Qwertyus took this issue to WP:DRN (see above). The outcome is repeated below for convenience. Op47 (talk) 10:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split Dispute Resolution Process 

message: The editor placed a merge discussion and then removed the section without consensus. The topic does not have enough weight to stand on its own and it doesn't make sense to split the article. Walter Görlitz (talk) 02:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of dispute by  Walter Görlitz 

message: Please keep it brief - less than 2000 characters if possible, it helps us help you quicker.
I came to this article because I try to keep the split tag backlog under control. In this case, I found a discussion that had apparantly gone cold. I saw no compelling reason to split the article. My previous experience in these situations is it is best not to split and hence thought the best action would be to remove the tags. Obviously that won't work. There are a number if factors to consider:
:1) The lede seems to imply concensus that both the mechanical and electrical use is to be included in the article by concensus.
:2) The split tag chosen is probably not the best way to go anyway. We have a number of definitions of smoke test. If the article is to be split up then it should form a disambiguation page and the content of the article be split into the sub pages of the disambiguation page.
:3) The elctrical and software use of the term are very small and possibly would not make viable separate articles. WP:IAR needs to be considered.
Op47 (talk) 19:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary of dispute by  Op47 

message: Please only place votes in this section. Any discussion in the Threaded discussion section.
* Support Without necessarily arguing about the precise split, I think a split of that nature would be beneficial. My main reservation is about the current status of the concept of the disambiguation page. The AR attitude to limiting disambiguation pages to lists should be limited to cases where what is wanted is a list and nothing but. (Eg names of people. The user of a list of names of people usually does not need a covering article though in some cases even there, there could be an article on one or more families of that name, thigh that could be a slightly different matter) When there is a topic relevant to separate subsets of which the members or various subsets deserve separate articles, then IMAO what amounts to the disambiguation page should be a disambiguation article, concisely indicating the nature of each article and their interrelationships as well as simply their links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JonRichfield (talk • contribs) 
* Support with the reservation that Smoke testing (theater) may not have enough content to warrant a separate article, so it might end up as a single entry in the dab page. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 12:26, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I too agree that consensus has been reached even though I am in opposition to it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:50, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey

message: It's been a few days with no further comment on the RfC. At the risk of throwing yet more chaos into this process, I'd like to make the preferences I  into a concrete proposal:
* Move all software-related testing information to Software testing#Smoke and sanity testing. (I'd suggest merging Build verification test into the same section, but that's a discussion for another day.)
* Move all electronics-related smoke testing information elsewhere. I haven't found a suitable destination, but frankly I'd be fine with it going into the bit bucket. Just because it's a common term doesn't mean that it is notable (what encyclopedic information would the article have? "keep a fire extinguisher handy"?)
* Move all theater smoke testing information into Fog machine, probably as part of a new section on the use of such machines.
* Add the following header to the remaining Smoke testing article: This article is about the use of smoke in an enclosed area to trace airflow and to detect leaks. For software smoke testing, see Software testing. For testing smoke machines in a theater, see Fog machine.
If there are objections, I'll bow out, as I don't have anything else to offer. Otherwise, I'll make the changes myself in a few weeks. -- Dan Griscom (talk) 03:02, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  The default time for an RfC is 30 days. It may be that every one who has an opinion has stated their opinion, but we should allow for latecomers, or for someone independent to close early. To my mind, I don't think things have stalled. If you feel strongly that we are going in the wrong direction then the right thing to do is to oppose in the survey section and state why. If there is clear support then no doubt the closing admin will say so. Op47 (talk) 22:51, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks: you're right on the money. I'll do as you suggest. (No hurry.) -- Dan Griscom (talk) 02:05, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  An alternative to the above RfC: move non-[[smoke]]-related content to existing articles