Talk:Virii

malware adequately includes viruses with no particular adverse effect - they were not asked for.

Virii is a bad word for several reasons. (Ed: and why is that?)

There's also no need to explain what viruses are when there already is an article (computer virus) about the subject.

The article was nominated for deletion. You can read the ensuing discussion at Votes for deletion/Virii. Uncle G 00:56:06, 2005-08-10 (UTC)

rfc comment - redirect to plural of virus. If the declared meaning is common enough to note, then it belongs there. Rd232 15:46, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

This should be redirected to either plural of virus or virus. I've never heard the word used to mean anything other than "more than one virus". --Carnildo 18:11, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Redirect, for reasons given above. I don't care whether it redirects to malware (which is what the current content claims to be discussing: simply using storage and cycles is malicious enough), to virus, or to plural of virus. --Arkuat 23:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Virii is a new, distinct word. What should we do about words like newbie, anime, phishing, fugly, or my favorite McJob?  Languages evolve -- lets all be good Netizens and put our efforts into something productive!  Virii is not malware and not the plural of virus.  Therefor those pages are not able to fully explain and define virii. -- 23:59, 9 August 2005 (PDT)


 * Please explain to us how virii are not malware? --Eric Forste (Talk) 07:35, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Malware is software with malicious intent. A large amount of virii is not malicious.  Malware can also be software that does not self replicate, or hide itself inside other programs.  One of those features must be present for the software to be virii.  7:41, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that our articles by those titles discuss the phenomenon of newbies, the artform, the scam of phishing, ugliness, and low-paid low-prestige employment with particular reference to fast-food restaurants. Also note that the fact that there are two words for a concept doesn't mean that we have two articles.  Witness petrol/gasoline, squash/marrow, and so forth. Uncle G 19:16:31, 2005-08-10 (UTC)


 * Based on this, I would be ok with a redirect to malware. If this is done I will add a sub-section to malware about virii. 01:18, 11 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I came and found the article redirected to plural of virus, and also found 154.20.32.131 requesting a redirect to malware instead, so I changed the redirect to malware. Please add your subsection, and then this discussion can continue on Talk:malware! --Eric Forste (Talk) 07:39, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The problem with the meaning of the word "virii" as used in this article is that it is a neologism or possibly a nonce word: a new word that is not in widespread use. The word "virii" as the plural of "virus" is in very common usage, common enough that it could be considered the proper plural. --Carnildo 17:39, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the RfC, I would say that this term should be redirected to virus–which is probably the topic a reader is most likely expecting–or to plural of virus&mdash;which is an article that they most likely need to read. Either way, I can't think of any good reason for an independent article under this title. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

RfC - I think Virii should be redirected to plural of virus or virus. Google "virii biology" comes up with about 720 hits, whilst "virii software" comes up with about 460 (both excluding duplicate pages). Of course this is a rough and ready test, but it makes me believe that restricting virii to computer viruses is not correct. I have a slight preference to plural of virus, because there is a discussion of the word in that article. Maybe in a few years time the word will have evolved to have a unique meaning, and this question will no doubt be revisited, but this is not the case yet. Jll 19:31, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

RfC - Redirect to virus. The word doesn't have a unique meaning yet. That said, people looking for information on viruses will be surprised by a redirect to plural of virus, while people looking for information on the plural of "virus" will know to look through the virus article for it. &mdash; mendel &#9742; 04:05, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

I changed the redirect back to plural of virus, but an anon is insisting on changing it to malware. To me it is obvious to link to plural of virus; there is a whole discussion about this very in question, and it links to computer virus in the first line, so people looking for that will just be a quick click away. People looking for the plural discussion (I was), or biological viruses will not be well served by the malware link, which only talks about viruses far down in the article, and only the computer kind. In the edit summaries the anon said "Nobody associates virii with biological viruses" and "revert malicious edit" but a google search for virii biology gives 5000 links, and my edits were centainly in good faith! Thue | talk 20:57, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

http://ftp.clue.org/a.tgz Virii is not the plural of virus. It was already agreed on August 11 2005 that the redirect would go to Malware.


 * That link is broken.... TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:40, 4 September 2005 (UTC)


 * "That link is broken...". That was a euphemism or nice way say telling you to get "a" clue.  Unfortunately it was in unix tarball format (and gzipped too) which you were unable to understand. This sums up the intelligence of the "plural of virus" people.   1:00, 11 September 2005 (PDT)

Nobody is coming to wikipedia searching on "virii" expecting to get an article on what the correct plural of virus is. And the reason is simple: virii is a category of software and not a pluralization of the word virus. While some people have made the pluralization mistake, I don't think its even worthy of an article, let alone commandeering the virii page and regulating it to a redirect to something that it isn't. Nobody is expecting "virii" to point to biological viruses either. Virii isn't the plural of virus and pointing it at a page about this just encourages this mistake to be made (if you don't understand human nature ignore this sentence).

Why not an article on "plural of box" for boxen? Lets get some consistency. This virii episode show why wikipedia is fast becoming irrelevant. A select few are trying to write history and the future as they see it. 1:00, 11 September 2005 (PDT)


 * I think we'll do just fine so long as there are enough of us to keep those of you who are trying to do that in check. --Carnildo 02:16, 12 September 2005 (UTC)