Talk:Optical interconnect

Merge proposal: from Light-speed silicon chip
A strange pop-sci article on an IBM optical bit led to an even stranger WP article. To the extend that it has something to say, it should be here at optical interconnect. Dicklyon (talk) 22:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * done. Dicklyon (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the change. I, the original author, am very upset with the change and the ratings speak for the change of the article. I know it has been a couple of months but please try to explain further in depth the reason for this change. Micklan (talk) 04:50, 18 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The last version of your article cited two sources, niether of which mentioned anything resembling the title you chose. They were about an optical interconnect technology, so a merge seemed appropriate.   The "how it works" explanation was also not very coherent, so I worked on that.  What is it about this that is upsetting you?  Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Although I agree that the explanation was unclear before, I think that quite a bit of depth was lost in the article. I think we should refer back to the original and see if any aspects of the technology can be integrated back into this article. Micklan (talk) 18:46, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

This article's topic and mergers
When this article was created, its topic was about optical interconnects in the context of integrated circuits (that is, the replacement of metal global interconnects [very long interconnects, or wires, that transfer electrical signals to far-away destinations, such as from a sub-circuit on on side on an IC to the other]):. In a later edit, the topic was changed, without discussion or consensus, to one about the use of fiber optic cables for connecting various consumer computer peripherals to PCs:. The edit summary of the edit that changed the topic claimed that the previous content didn't say what optical interconnects are and lacked references, which isn't true. The last version of the article to be about the original topic,, contained references. It may not have been well-referenced, and the article may not have been as well-written as it could have been (for example, it didn't properly introduce the subject in a manner that was accessible to laypeople), but its shortcomings shouldn't have been a license for replacing the content with that about an entirely different topic. However, the fix isn't a fix, the fix just replaced the content with that about a different kind of optical interconnect. This has created a problem with the incoming wikilinks. They expect this article be about three different things: optical links for connecting peripherals to computers, optical links to connecting nodes in a cluster together (which are also referred to as optical interconnects in the literature), and optical links for replacing metal interconnects on ICs (see ).

The article makes no provisions for clarifying that there are three different topics that share the same name. To add to the woes of this article, content from Light-speed silicon chip, which is about the use of optical interconnects on ICs, was merged into this article after its topic had changed from being about ICs to being about peripherals:. And the given rational for doing so (Talk:Optical interconnect) also complained of the confusing nature of the content. Once again, the solution has resulted in an even more confusing situation: In an article about peripheral interconnects, the first and second paragraphs are about peripheral links, the third, about IC interconnects, and to tie it all together, no disambiguation.

This situation needs to be corrected. I propose that:
 * The last revision of this article to be about IC interconnects be split off into Optical interconnects (integrated circuits)
 * The optical interconnects pertaining to peripheral links be split off into Optical interconnects (communications)
 * If it doesn't duplicate whatever articles Wikipedia already has, the optical interconnects article for communications can have a section about optical interconnects in cluster networking
 * This article will be turned into a disambiguation page, which is absolutely necessary because of the high prevalence of drive-by disambiguation and wikilinking

If this discussion doesn't result in any responses or a clear consensus founded on informed reason, I'll just ignore all rules and fix this issue according the plan I've just outlined. 99Electrons (talk) 08:54, 10 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Revert article to its original subject. The brief paragraph on fibre-optic cables (which currently has been substituted as the lead paragraph) is useless as a standalone page and has nothing to say that is not already in Optical fiber cable and Fiber-optic communication.  A disambiguation page is unnecessary, we are only at WP:TWODABS and only one page (this one) is using the ambiguous title.  Disambiguation can easily be handled with a hatnote.  If someone wants to write a worthwile article on optical patch cables then we would have to make a decision on whether there was a primary topic or not, but honestly, the existing articles already cover this pretty well. SpinningSpark 14:24, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Revert. This article was hijacked, and should be returned to the original subject. Merge off-topic material into existing articles rather than creating new ones. Provide a clear explanation of the article topic in the lede, and hatnotes for disambiguation.--Srleffler (talk) 06:05, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm unclear on what article is to be reverted to what version. Is this about the merge I did in 2011, or something different? Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I think your edit was on-topic. It is this edit that caused the problem. SpinningSpark 17:44, 11 January 2019 (UTC)