User talk:Kim Rubin

I live in Menlo Park, CA. I am an independent inventor and have founded or co-founded several companies. I am currently increasing my knowledge of internet, router and switch protocols.

I have contributed to a number of wiki technology pages.

My first project is a focused list of acronyms used in the internet protocol community. Specifically, there are acronyms that are likely to be tested for a CCNA certificate.

Kim Rubin (talk) 18:28, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Welcome
Welcome!

Hello, Kim Rubin, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place  before the question. Again, welcome! Muhandes (talk) 15:57, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
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List of information technology acronyms
I was thinking about your article List of information technology acronyms and its place in wikipedia. On one hand WP:NOT is pretty clear - Wikipedia is not a dictionary, usage, or jargon guide. This is definitely a jargon guide. Furthermore, you state that it should serve "as a key source both for students studying for any of the professional certification exams..." which is definitely wrong, as WP:NOTGUIDE states "Wikipedia is ... not an instruction manual, guidebook, or textbook". The only way I think it would fit is as a Glossaries per WP:STAND. I suggest you check and see if/how it applies. Maybe consider migrating to wiktionary? Best regards and happy editing. --Muhandes (talk) 16:44, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the well-stated points. I considered the appropriateness prior to creating the page. First, there are quite a few other lists within Wikipedia. Like the other lists, I believe this list has very wide applicability. For example, it serves to document the "jargon" of extremely important technology. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who come across this type of terminology every day. Unlike some technical jargon, these terms are used across a wide range of disciplines. Second, there is no comparable list anywhere else. (That does not imply it belongs here, but is relevant to its presence.) Another way to think of this is a "disambiguation page." Note that EVERY term in the left column links to the matching entry within Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is not a place for this "jargon," then why are nearly 100% of these terms defined here already? This page can be viewed as a convenient navigation guide for entries that already heavily used within Wikipedia. Third, over half of these terms are defined by ongoing standards. It is not trivial to find "the one" standard that defines the term. Thus, the third column is an ACTIVE reference that will be updated as the underlying standards evolve. This characteristic of this table makes it not so much a "list," as a comprehensive indexing point to other original sources. And, I believe (is this right?) that pointing to such sources IS a key purpose of Wikipedia. Finally, I deleted from the table all obscure and proprietary terms. These are exactly the type of terms that might indeed appear in a "list" (such as dictionary) but I do not think are appropriate for a "live" entry. Kim Rubin (talk) 04:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll answer your points in the order you made them. The existence of other such lists is usually not an argument, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS (or more crudely, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS). Usefulness is also not an argument in itself, see WP:ITSUSEFUL (In fact, I might use the list myself as I teach a course on communication networks. This doesn't matter. It has to meet Wikipedia's policies) . Comparing to disambiguation pages is a negative argument. By definition, a disambiguation page does not contain any information, nor is it useful in any way other than as a search tool, see MOS:DAB. If you add a source to a dab page, it will be promptly removed (assuming someone is watching the page). I'm all for navigation tools, but to be useful as a navigation tool something needs to be visible, and this list isn't. Try to search for any of the terms, you will see that the list doesn't even show on the first 20 pages. If you want to develop this into a navigation tool look at navigation bar or navbox. Listing external links is a very secondary purpose of Wikipedia, if at all, being self contained is much more appreciated. In fact, See WP:EL - external links are not tolerated at all in the body of an article (someone might just remove all of these links based on WP:EL and WP:LINKFARM, compare for example old version to current versoin). WP:EL allows for a limited number of external links, at the External links section of a specific article. A much more useful approach is to edit the specific articles, making sure the latest standard is highly visible, and that the text is correct and current. Many of the articles in the list will benefit from such treatment. --Muhandes (talk) 07:01, 14 September 2010 (UTC)