This article is an outline, a type of article that presents a list of articles or sub-topics related to its subject in a hierarchical form. For the standardized set of outlines on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Contents/Outlines. Outlines are within the scope of WikiProject Outlines, a collaborative effort to improve outlines on Wikipedia. For guidance on building and maintaining outlines, see Wikipedia:Outlines.OutlinesWikipedia:WikiProject OutlinesTemplate:WikiProject OutlinesOutlines articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Apple Inc., a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Apple, Mac, iOS and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Apple Inc.Wikipedia:WikiProject Apple Inc.Template:WikiProject Apple Inc.Apple Inc. articles
This was already discussed in the AFD from a week or so ago (when I tried to remove both iOS and Apple outline pages), where it was pretty much agreed upon to redirect this to the Apple outline, as all the content from this could be put under it, and this topic is not big enough in itself to command an outline to itself. Especially given the massive amount of iOS-related pages pre-existing on the site which already give massive amounts of clear info on them about iOS software/devices/etc. Another side point of reasoning here, is that this is likely to be somewhat short-lived, topic-wise —so page not enlarged following it happening— when Apple do the obvious thing and merge iOS with Mac OS into "Apple OS" (or whatever they decide to call it!), over the next couple of years. --Jimthing (talk) 04:57, 26 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No merge was made, just a redirect. Which has the same effect as deletion. So I reverted it.
Note that the community has not reached a consensus on the issue of a merge. Only half of the six participants in the AfD spoke of merging, and one of those said he thought it should be considered (which means further discussed). So only 2 agreed that a merge should actually be done. The consensus in the AfD was to keep.
The closing admin stated: "If editors wish to pursue a merger into Outline of Apple Inc. then that can be the subject of a subsequent merge discussion." Since the merge was not subsequently discussed, I reverted it.
I oppose a merge, and here's why:
The Apple outline is already huge, and clogged with tables (which are not an outline format). We should not add to that mess – a major clean up effort is needed over there. Speaking of size, note that outlines are subject to splitting just as articles are. So why make the Apple outline even bigger when it is already ripe for splitting?
Another factor that contributes to an outline's size (byte count) are annotations. Once this outline is annotated, it will much larger. But the Apple Outline is likely to grow much much larger as it becomes fully annotated.
Concerning the historical aspect you mentioned, the outline will simply shift to covering a historical subject. See also Outline of prehistoric technology.
Hang-on, first you say "Note that the community has not reached a consensus" vs. then saying "The consensus in the AfD was to keep"/"As decided in the AfD, I agree we should keep it" — it can't possibly be both, so which is it? And we both need to be fully upfront on the nature of the AfD's extremely brief discussion (it lasted a whole 2 days; wow, hardly long enough for a true consensus!). The first part of the discussion was to keep, then a later user (who was actually doing both these outlines pages in the first place) raised the concept of merging the article into the Apple outline. But before that could be pursued or even argued for/against, someone closed the AfD early.
Anyway, as you quoted from closing admin "If editors wish to pursue a merger into Outline of Apple Inc. then that can be the subject of a subsequent merge discussion." — count this as that discussion. I'm open to swaying, so lets have others comment.
My view —in addition to my first comments reasoning my opposition— is that just because a clean-up's needed on the Apple outline (sure, if those tables are inappropriate they can be removed, no problem) doesn't also mean this iOS info couldn't easily be put on there. Doing one does not preclude doing the other. Outside of those tables (and I disagree, adding properly columnised cites really won't add much in my experience) that page really isn't that big anyway, so shouldn't stop the fairly little info likely to end up on here, to easily fit there with some ease (remember most of this page is actually already on there anyway, and anything new added here will end-up also being added on there anyway). Hence WP:SPLIT is therefore irrelevant here, as there's not enough info for this page to warrant it's existence; if there actually was, I'd be the first to accept it. --Jimthing (talk) 01:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What I meant was: there is no consensus to merge. That is, a consensus to merge has not been developed or reached. Consensus to keep was reached, because it started as the default consensus. The outline exists. Until a new position is reached, it will naturally continue to exist. In general, in order to change something on Wikipedia in the face of opposition, it is required to build a new consensus. Per WP:BRD, deletion policy, etc. The proposal to delete failed to overcome the standing consensus, and so the page still stands. Ditto with the proposal to merge. It's an interesting decision making process, but effective, because it avoids the anarchy of edit warring. It's WP:CIVIL.
If the subject is merely blended into Apple, it isn't in the context of the iOS. They're just details of that other subject, here and there in context to that subject. A separate outline on iOS is helpful to someone who wishes to focus on it. Everything else is filtered out. Clarity.
Size does not matter. There is no minimum size requirement for any type of article. Though admittedly, a list must have at least 2 entries to fit the definition of a list. :) And an outline must have at least two branches, otherwise it's just a straight list. Other than that, size doesn't enter into it. All of the current outlines are fairly extensive, because we're building the outline of knowledge from the top down, and the subjects near the top of the knowledge tree have the largest scope. They're huge. But the further down in levels we go, the smaller the subjects will be. That's to be expected. The Transhumanist04:01, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Outline" is short for "hierarchical outline". There are two types of outlines: sentence outlines (like those you made in school to plan a paper), and topic outlines (like the topical synopses that professors hand out at the beginning of a college course). Outlines on Wikipedia are primarily topic outlines that serve 2 main purposes: they provide taxonomical classification of subjects showing what topics belong to a subject and how they are related to each other (via their placement in the tree structure), and as subject-based tables of contents linked to topics in the encyclopedia. The hierarchy is maintained through the use of heading levels and indented bullets. See Wikipedia:Outlines for a more in-depth explanation. The Transhumanist00:07, 9 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
