User talk:JMF/Archives/2021/April

My (good faith but heavy-handed) removal of archive-url= hair from Ray Tomlinson EMail @ reference...

FWIW, the sequence of events:

1. The page hosted by BBN presumably went offline; perhaps in the wake of Tomlinson's 2016 death; perhaps a brief glitch - who knows?
2. InternetArchiveBot added deadurl=yes |archiveurl=<Wayback URL for 2006 snapshot> |archivedate= in 2017
3. The page revivified, but Wikipedia kept linking to the Wayback Machine archive of it, because deadurl.
4. I clicked on the reference while browsing, and was dismayed to find the BBN page had ostensibly evaporated and I was getting an archived copy. I am used to seeing pages move and editors spackle over the dead link by using the archive instead of the new home (which are sometimes quite live). In past instances where my Google searching for a catchphrase finds a page's new home, I've removed the archive hair and substituted the URL of the new live link into the cite web. (No, I don't vandalize pages by wholesale replacement of a cite web with a single-bracketed).
5. Encouraged by your phrase "Good faith...", I've learned of cite web's live/dead/unfit functionality, and I'll use that in the future.
6. This leaves me wondering how many Wikipedia extlinks (cite-wrapped or not) to live pages are thrashing the Wayback Machine because of erroneous (pessimistic) deadlink parameters. If anyone ever asks you, perhaps Wikipedia could use a periodic robotic crawl of deadlink cites to see if they're actually live.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. AHMartin (talk) 11:26, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@AHMartin: Thank you but no real need to explain. I wouldn't worry too much about the traffic to archive.org, very few people check the citations. I was a bit more worried by WP:PRIMARY but found a good secondary so all is cool. I was also worried that the BBN page might fall by the wayside (aka WP:LINKROT), it makes sense to keep the archive-url as sometimes their search function misbehaves. Furthermore, original links can still be 'live' but the original content has gone.

I didn't check though, did you imply that the current live page has changed (for the better)? If so, the archive-url needs updating if you have time. ==John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:14, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I hadn't checked (despite the fact that in general I fear robotically frozen Wayback URLs could memorialize obsolete content). But I just checked now, and while there have been about 360 captures of the Tomlinson page at BBN, the live page seems unchanged since 2007 by casual inspection. (Not too surprising since the author's passed away). So the 2007 URL should be adequate. It would be folly for humans to chase around constantly updating those timestamped archive URLs... AHMartin (talk) 05:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:MRDA

Was that caption really "vandalized"? It was added by the original author of the essay, User:JzG, here. Leijurv (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

@Leijurv: I have reverted my good faith 'correction to vandalism" back to status quo ante. It just looked to me that it had been hacked. Well, it does, doesn't it? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:53, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

👍 :) Leijurv (talk) 21:56, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion

May I strikethrough just the words Support, reluctantly for the benefit of a potential closer? Cambial foliage❧ 15:45, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

@Cambial:, best I do it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:50, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

👍 Cambial foliage❧ 16:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Keyboard technology

Hello! Sorry, would You think, the "Apple keyboards" paragraph - maybe, we need just a purge him? Because I don't see another logic of his placement. ThisIsNotABetter (talk) 01:21, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

@ThisIsNotABetter: Apple keyboards began with quite a different connection technology. Nowadays they connect with usb like pc keyboards. I don't know anything about how they work internally. I would only support deleting that section if we had a reliable source that says that the only real difference today is in the layout and cosmetics. A formal proposal to delete would be needed at the article talk page. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 07:28, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

So, what I think: the old keyboards with specific connections can be describes as "proprietary keyboards" with "proprietary hardware, firmware and standarts" (similar to industrial keyboards), but current USB-C and bluetooth models with signals and layout differences can be called as "proprietary" too - as with "proprietary firmware and standarts", as similar to chromebook\chromebox keyboards; and just as hardware that supports proprietary standarts (not a technology). If we keep Apple keyboards here, we also need to add a chromebox keyboards too, and after these describe - why they here. That's acceptable? ThisIsNotABetter (talk) 13:37, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point. I have a Chromebook: the keyboard is technically the same as any commodity keyboard, except that the legends on some keys have been changed. The technology is the same. Apple has always claimed to be different: certainly in the past you couldn't plug a commodity keyboard into a Mac and expect it to work; nor could you plug an apple keyboard into Windows PC. Yes, the usb electronics work but the plug'n'play would not and no drivers would be available.

I was thinking that maybe I should leave a note on the talk page of an apple hardware article to say that the section will be deleted unless someone contributes some material. --John Maynard Friedman (talk)