Talk:File attribute

Merging Extended file attributes here?
Guy Harris has suggested that Extended file attributes should be merged into this article. Do we have a consensus to do this?


 * Support It will be relatively easy to write a single, good article about file attributes in general, easier than maintaining two separate articles and more useful to non-expert readers. CWC 06:03, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Hi. I am the nominator, but I guess that means I support it, right? Length and content similarities were my motivations. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 15:18, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Unsure (As per the above, Codename Lisa suggested it - I just fixed the merge-to item in extended file attributes to point to file attribute rather than to file attributes.) I think the notion of "extended file attributes", in the sense of, for example, arbitrary user-defined name/value pairs, is sufficiently interesting, and distinct from the attributes defined by the file system such as file permissions, file accessed/modified/etc. time stamps, and the attribute bits manipulated by the attrib/chattr/chflags command, that it might deserve a page of its own, referred to by file attribute. Guy Harris (talk) 16:54, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. That is rather an editor problem than an edit problem, if you know what I mean. You see, when writing an article for people who do not know about something, I think one should have their point of view in mind, not one's own. One should write an article to tell them it is so and so, instead of assuming that they come straight for their subject. The problem is: Those who know what is an extended attribute and how it is set aside from a normal attribute don't read these articles. I wanted to propose a Summary style briefing but then I saw that it is physically impossible! The rather hilarious quotation that came to my mind was: "Size matters!" Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 19:04, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Before your edits to file attribute, the page talked about file metadata in general in the lede and about "attribute bits", along the lines of DOS/Windows/Linux ext2 file attributes and 4.4-Lite-and-derivatives file flags, in the "Editing file attributes" section. Your edits made it talk only about "attribute bits" (which is arguably the right thing for this page to do); given that, I think file attribute is now discussing a completely different topic from extended file attributes, with the only commonality being that they're both forms of metadata maintained by the file system - the "extended file attributes" are generally arbitrary name/value pairs not interpreted by the file system, while the "attribute bits" have "names" from a fixed OS-defined set and Boolean values, and some of them are interpreted by the OS API layer and file systems.  As such, I think the way to handle people who come to file attribute looking for extended attributes would be to have a hatnote redirecting people to extended file attributes. Guy Harris (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. And your edits have added size to the article as well. So, I guess all previous parameters are invalidated. At the very best, we need a new discussion. Let's call it day and remove merge tags. Anyone willing to re-propose a merge has no trouble putting them back. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:10, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose. The current definition of "file attributes" doesn’t seem to cover "extended file attributes". [Written before nominator withdrew: Do sources consider the "extended" name–value pairs more closely related to these flag attributes than to other metadata like timestamps?] Vadmium (talk, contribs) 01:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC).
 * Oppose. This would result in a messy article. Marokwitz (talk) 10:10, 31 December 2012 (UTC)