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Can we merge the following:

into perhaps?

Question Balancing

I propose we merge all sensible questions from and into

2
  • 7
    damn fine idea Tom
    – Rob Moir
    Commented Nov 28, 2012 at 12:17
  • 1
    I think WiFi is a better tag than Wireless-Network; so I've merged that way, that can be reversed pretty easily. As Voretaq points out, Wireless contains stuff not related to WiFi and needs someone to wade through it. Wireless probably aught to be blackholed after the wading through.
    – Chris S Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 16:25

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
7

Seems generally reasonable to me - not sure if it should go under or though.

A brief pre-merge audit of the tag is probably warranted to make sure there's no ridiculous crap in there like "wireless keyboard", "wireless mouse", or things that are "bluetooth wireless".
Such questions are likely ancient off-topic crap that really should have been on SuperUser, and candidates for mod deletion with prejudice.

list of questions that are not 802.11 related:

3
  • i listed out the three questions that are not related to 802.11 by editing your answer.
    – longneck
    Commented Nov 29, 2012 at 14:43
  • I suspect that most such questions are off topic anyway. I personally don't see those three examples as being on topic and have voted accordingly.
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 0:06
  • I would not shed a tear if those questions disappeared from the site. That said, I've retagged them out of wireless and shoved the contents of wireless into wifi.
    – voretaq7 Mod
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 15:50
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My humble opinion (and my first post to meta, please tell me if I'm not supposed to comment here):

  • wireless should not be used for wireless ethernet 802.11 networks, it's too generic, and could equally apply to Bluetooth stuff, ZigBee, cellular networks, proprietary wireless connections (keyboard, mouse, etc) and anything that uses non-cabled means of transporting data (radio and infrared)
  • wifi is slang for IEEE 802.11 networks and I agree with John Gardeniers in not recommending its use - but we should expect the vast majority of people trying to use it
  • my vote is for 802.11
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  • Welcome to meta and you are most welcome to participate (especially when you agree with something I said). :)
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Dec 4, 2012 at 0:49
3

Before this merge happens perhaps we should give some proper thought to what tag should be used.

I personally don't like wifi as a tag because it was a brand name that has since become a common use term, like slang, rather than something with a clear definition. When you stop to think that it's an abbreviation for "wireless fidelity" it's utter nonsense at best.

Maybe the tag should be 802.11 because at least that is defined.

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  • I think i generally prefer wireless-network but 802.11 isn't bad either.
    – Tom O'Connor
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 0:31
  • wireless-network is still a little vague for my tastes. e.g. Bluetooth is wireless networking, even though it normally consists of only two devices on that network.
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 5:39
  • I'm now pondering whether Bluetooth is actually On Topic for SF!
    – Tom O'Connor
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 10:25
  • Potentially yes, although I've yet to see a Bluetooth question that is on topic. Regardless, if we're trying to make a single tag to cover what we normally consider to be "wireless" then it should ideally be as exclusionist as possible.
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Nov 30, 2012 at 23:38
  • WiMax, cellular mobile and point-to-point microwave is "wireless networking" too, but I don't think there's an "RF Engineering" SE, yet?
    – Andrew
    Commented Dec 4, 2012 at 2:55
  • 802.11 is probably terrible for search engine purposes.
    – smcg
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 20:43
  • @smcg, why? I'm able to search for such things just fine.
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 22:06
0

I certainly would not merge with content from . I think back to an old position where we had to utilize microwave communication devices to provide failover and primary internet connectivity to sites where decent broadband could not be achieved.

I'd imagine the wireless tag might contain questions related to this and others have mentioned various other wireless technologies which may have very different uses or purposes. Even if it were to be cleaned up I think there is a diffence between Wireless technologies and WiFi for internal networking uses only.

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  • The problem remains that "WiFi" has no definition.
    – John Gardeniers
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 22:11
  • @JohnGardeniers Agreed, maybe we are looking at this wrong, maybe we should create different tags for wireless protocols and related software and a different tag for wireless hardware to separate the stack a bit, but not get so fined grained as to have different tags for different technologies themselves such as WiFi versus Bluetooth unless the amount of questions for a specific subject increases dramatically.
    – Brent Pabst
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 23:08

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