English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Articles for deletion/Ring Indicator

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:15, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Ring Indicator

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One pin of an interface standard - all the context is in RS 232 which this article must duplicate. Take out the duplication and what's left is trivial. Has been tagged for merge for years, but two merge attempts have been undone. Wtshymanski (talk) 14:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per nom, not a noteworthy subject worth covering in an encyclopedia (even an electronic one). JBsupreme (talk) 17:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Merge with RS-232. This content is not in the current version of that article, but would be helpful there. Particularly the part of how the Ring Indicator interrupt is handled on USB to RS-232 converters. Racepacket (talk) 18:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Keep. I would also support a Merge myself, save only that the target article is already 33 KB in size; for this merge to really make sense, similar articles like Data Carrier Detect and Data Terminal Ready would need to be merged as well. See discussion. As the originator of these articles (I program serial stuff for a living), I don't mind a merge of them all if that's truly the consensus - particularly if in the interest of avoiding an enormous RS-232 article, it were into a new article such as "Signals in RS-232" that concentrated on elaborating the contemporary usage of the signals, as opposed to the electrical/physical characteristics defined in the spec. While RI is admittedly one of the least important pins in the RS-232 standard, I created an RI article intending it to be part of a series covering other signals in detail. And for the other pins, there's a lot of detail to cover. Reswobslc (talk) 04:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Keep based on this proposal. The whole serial interfacing area needs a good clean up in my view an isolated motions to delete useful (if possibly misplaced) content are not helpful. I would begin by looking at the relationship between serial port and RS-232, and clean up the overly peecee-centric stuff on the former so that it at least acknowledges the existence of other serial standards such as RS-422. Once that is done the treatment of individual signal lines can be considered. Right now I think it is premature - RS-232 tends to be slavishly devoted to the standard itself and so some details on the page under discussion are likely to be bounced out as irrelevant. The tight focus keeps it on topic but it would also exclude, for example, the fact that RI triggers an interrupt on some machines as a mere implementation detail.
A Wikiproject Serial Comms, anyone, to clean up this whole area? CrispMuncher (talk) 16:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment by original nominator. Perhaps some Wikiprojects do some good, but the articles I've been editing, that have been tagged by one project banner or another, don't seem to evolve any more rapidly toward GA or FA status because of the banner. Perhaps a redirect to the Wikibook would be a more encyclopediac approach than long essays on every pin in the RS 232 interface. I guess I'm clinging to the romantic notion of an encyclopedia as being a concise overview of knowledge in many fields, as opposed to an exhaustive listing of train-spotters' obsessive trivia in every single field. I can hardly wait for the articles on 1/4 inch by 20 TPI by 3/4 inch bolt, 1/2 inch by 20 TPI by 1 inch bolt, and so on - the hardware catalogs and parts lists of the world are ripe with opportunities to build articles on verifiable subjects.--Wtshymanski (talk) 17:21, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment - I've already replied on the DTR AfD page, unaware that this was where the real discussion was happening. IMO...
- I understand the concern about bloating the RS-232 article, but it already contains a lot of material that can be culled, e.g. RS232#Seldom used features (a seven-row table, plus 535 words in 12 paragraphs, entirely unreferenced) can be deleted or moved to a separate article, the second paragarph of RS232#Cables is mostly chat, some stuff about de facto behavior of modems belongs in the Modem article. I've re-built the RS-232#Pinouts table so it has a tiny summary of each signal, which means that the RS-232#Signals section can now be expanded without affecting the pinout table. I really think merge is the best option.
- Surplus material can & should go into a Wikibook if possible.
- 100% agree that other serial comms articles need a re-vamp, too. Flow control has only one reference, Software flow control likewise.
- Re-writes should aim to go from the general to the particular. For example, "RI triggers an interrupt on some machines" is a mere implementation detail, but it's reasonable to mention that using CPU interrupts is a common design for more efficient serial communications. In the DTR article the "DTR configurability on modems" section (which should be in Modem IMO) doesn't explain why there are all these different ways a modem reacts to DTR. - Pointillist (talk) 01:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

- Pointillist (talk) 01:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment This is an Articles for Deletion page (WP:AFD). On-topic discussion should be limited to whether the article in question should or should not be deleted. Many editors view AFD's as a consolidated log as in this example. Discussion about what you think can be culled, revamped, and rewritten are rather offtopic, bloat the AfD logs with unnecessary content meaningless to those who review them, and belong on the article's talk page. Reswobslc (talk) 04:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete, if the main author doesn't want to collaborate on what can be rescued and how the RS-232 article can be cut down to make space for it. - Pointillist (talk) 09:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Keep: article about a sufficiently important and complex subject that meets both notability and verifiability criteria. -- The Anome (talk) 11:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.