Talk:XDM (display manager)

Untitled
Note:

XDm is also Springfield Armory's new match grade pistol, http://www.the-m-factor.com/home.html. Chaney44145 (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

moved
I've moved this article back to XDM. "X Window Display Manager" is the name in full, but "XDM" is what it's pretty much universally referred to as. Also, the longer name will get confused with the idea of an X display manager in full - David Gerard 16:00, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

cleanup
I attempted to begin cleaning up/wikifying this page but was reverted. Currently it appears to me to have spelling, grammar and style problems. Does anyone disagree? Jamougha (talk) 18:59, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

xdm vs twm
Isn't twm the default X display manager, not XDM? That's what I got when I clean installed. If not, maybe a clarification on what the distinction is? 68.116.252.50 (talk) 17:20, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * twm is a window manager. xdm is a display manager. Very different concepts. -- Sy / (talk) 15:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Requested move
Move User:3247/XDM (disambiguation) to XDM, and other moves as now shown in page XDM. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 12:21, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * XDM → X Display Manager (implementation) — Relisted for further input. Jafeluv (talk) 17:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The software is usually abbreviated xdm, not XDM. The full name is X Display Manager but there's already X display manager. —  3 2 4 7    (talk) 22:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * X display manager → X display manager (program type) User:3247/XDM (disambiguation) → XDM
 * XDM is currently about the X Display Manager included in most X11 distributions. However, the usual abbreviation is xdm, not XDM (the man page uses Xdm following normal capitalisation rules). Further, XDM is also the XQuery/XPath Data Model and there are probably a lot of other uses.
 * The other problem is X display manager, which is currently about the concept of X display managers in general. X Display Manager redirects there, although that's the name of a single implementation.
 * While all of these have different names if you pay close attention to the capitalisation, I think it's confusing. So XDM should be a disambiguation page. X display manager and X Display Manager should redirect there.
 * However, I'm unsure about the names for the articles:
 * Should the implementation live at xdm (whatever) or X Display Manager (whatever).
 * Is "implementation" a good disambiguator? Is program type a good disambiguator? Note that software, program, ''X11', etc. all do not work.
 * —  3 2 4 7    (talk) 22:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Sorry if you are already familiar with the relevant policy, but I thought I'd bring it up to help focus the discussion. Policy WP:COMMONNAME says that article titles must generally follow whatever is the most common name of the subject. If there is both a full name and an abbreviation available to choose from, WP:ABBREV says the abbreviation should be used if the subject is "almost exclusively known only by its abbreviation and is widely known and used in that form". How to check the relative prominence? MOS:ABBR says "In order to determine the prominence of the abbreviation over the full name, consider checking how the subject is referred to in popular media such as newspapers, magazines, and other publications." At a quick glance searching for references to this piece of software, it seems that uses of   vastly outnumber the uses of its full name. If that is so, then we ought to use   as the title (in parallel with the article about the general concept X display manager to be consistent with WP:ABBREV). 85.94.186.91 (talk) 00:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The implementation and the concept have essentially the same name: It's just the capitalisation that differs (following normal English rules w/r/t proper names) and maybe the fact that one is abbreviated more frequently (which can't be tested). These differences are far too subtle to exploit them as the sole way to disambiguate.
 * It does not really matter whether the implementation lives at xdm (whatever) or X Display Manager (whatever). However, what does matter is that all of xdm, XDM, X display manager and X Display Manager are ambiguous or too easily confused and should therefore lead to a disambiguation page.
 * BTW, WP:ABBR (not WP:ABBREV ) also says that the expanded form should be used if the abbreviation is ambiguous. —  3 2 4 7    (talk) 09:36, 4 September 2009 (UTC)