Talk:Universal Serial Bus

USB 3.0

I want more information about USB 3.0 --Samit Boonyaruk (talk) 11:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I came to this page looking for info on 3.0. A good place to put it would be in the overview, next to the other two's specs. 131.187.128.50 (talk) 14:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

There is a new connector used on peripherals, apparently referred to as USB 3.0 Micro B. It should be mentioned in the description of connectors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Troglosphere (talk • contribs) 20:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)<!-

For USB2 devices plugged into a USB3 hub - do you get more bandwidth between hub & PC for the connected USB2 devices, or does it degrade back to USB2 speeds? E.g. I have USB2 micro controller programmers that use a lot of bandwidth, is it worth using a USB3 hub over a USB2 hub? Another example would be USB2 Hard Disk Drives plugged into a USB3 Hub, with USB2 the hub to PC bandwidth is shared between the hard disks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.158.114 (talk) 06:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

A USB2 device will not "get faster" because it is connected to a USB3 hub. A USB2 device will not "degrade" back to USB2 speeds because never communicated at USB3 speed to start with. A USB3 hub contains a virtual USB2 hub which talks on a separate USB2 bus back to the host controller. All downstream USB2 devices on a USB3 hub use the same USB2 bus back to the host controller.

This is different than the USB1 device on a USB2 hub scenario. Using multiple USB2 hubs, or having a USB2 hub with multiple transaction translators, would create a separate virtual USB1 bus back to the host controller for each device. SchmuckyTheCat (talk) 06:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

It is a little more complicated than that. Although USB1 and USB2 communicate over the same pair of wires, the ports into which the cable is plugged actually has 2 sets of receiver and transmission circuitry, one for the two USB1 speeds and a separate one for USB2 speed. This came about because the method of termination chosen for the original USB1 bus will not work at USB2 speeds. On plugging a USB1 device into a USB2 compliant hub, the hub communicates with the device at USB1 speeds (using its USB1 transceiver circuitry) but upconverts the data stream to USB2 speed for onward transmission to the host, enabling onward communication over the USB2 system. This was done to prevent slow speed communication holding up the bus for faster transmissions - a major limitation of the original USB1 system.

The presence of the two sets of ports can be easily observed in a PC. Device manager will reveal twice as many root ports as the PC has physical connectors. Those grouped in pairs are the USB1 ports and those grouped in greater than 2 (usually 4 or 6) are the USB2 ports (and may be identified as 'enhanced').

USB3 has further complicated the issue, because it uses a different bus protocol (and even a different bus withing a USB3 cable). Thus a USB3 port has three sets of transmit and receive circuitry. All of this is transparent to the user, unless a fault with a faster port or inadequate cabling causes the system to fall back to a slower speed, giving the error that your device will work faster when plugged into a USB2 (or USB3) port. 109.156.49.202 (talk) 14:56, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

USB 3.0 Pin Outs

There are various problems with the USB 3 connector diagrams and pin outs. In section 4 Physical Appearance, the right hand diagram "Micro-B USB 3.0 compatible socket" :

• If this is a receptacle diagram, the right hand standard B pinout labels are reversed.
• They're labeled 5 4 3 2 1. To align with the standard plug connector circuits they should be 1 2 3 4 5. I assume the left hand SuperSpeed pinouts are reversed too.
• In the text in the diagram: "are aligned pin-minute increase in the standard", I don't believe pin-minute is an english preposition. Suggest: "is backward compatible with 2.0 B connectors".

In the section USB 3 Pinout - the USB 2.0 mini/micro OTG pin is omitted. See the above diagram. If there is no physical pin in this location, the table should list the pin location as not used.

I trivially editted the main article to distinguish 'standard' as in 'standard A/B type connectors', vs standard as in 'standard prior to USB 3.'

I assume someone with more experience will straighten this out.

-- LarryLACa (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Possible unit error in section Transfer Rates / Transfer speeds in practice

There seems to be an error in the following phrase (error highlighted):

As of 2004[update], the actual throughput of USB 2.0 high bandwidth attained with a hard drive tested on a Mac was about 18 MiB/s, 30% of the maximum theoretical bulk data transfer rate of 60 MiB/s (480 Mbit/s)...

Usually transfer speeds are quoted in decimal Mbit/s. If this is the case, then 60 MiB/s should be replaced with 60 MB/s (decimal megabytes/s) or 57.2 MiB/s (to maintain uniformity in unit usage), since one MiB is strictly 2^20 = 1,048,576 Bytes. I could have fixed the page by myself, but I'm unsure if the top speed is 480 decimal Mbit/s or 480 Mib/s = 503 Mbit/s. I belive the former (decimal Mbit/s) has more chance of being correct. Maaf (talk) 16:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I looked at the USB standards and I discovered that the maximum speed in USB 2.0 is indeed 480 decimal Mbits/s = 60 MB/s = 57.2 MiB/s. I've corrected the typo, however, percentages are still incorrect. I've sent an e-mail to the cited article author asking him whether he used decimal MB/s or binary MB/s in his post. After he answers me I will fix the percentages.Maaf (talk) 23:28, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I've pointed it out before here (and I suspect I'm fighting a losing battle) but equating e.g. 480Mbit/s with 60MB/s isn't really valid. Protocol overhead (bit stuffing in particular) means such "equations" are crude approximations at best. We need to avoid presenting them as if they were somehow true by definition. USB2.0 is 480Mbit/s, not 60MB/s. Crispmuncher (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2011 (UTC).

480 bits equals 60 bytes. Other than that, 30 MB/s are common transfer rates over USB (using external hard drives). For example C't magazine always includes a speed test of USB port in their PC hardware tests and the values are always around 30 MB/s. (I don't know if it is Mi or "plain" M). --Xerces8 (talk) 13:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The c't guys know what they're doing, so M = 10^6. -- Zac67 (talk) 17:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Connectors: Mini-B plug (5-pin) image, micro-USB 8-pin, and micro-B USB3

The micro/mini USB connectors are too confusing for me to be sure, but it seems to me the 2nd connector in the image of several mini/micro/standard connectors, labelled "Mini-B plug (5-pin)", looks just like a micro connector (not mini) with fewer pins, and thus my best guess is that the text should say "Micro-B plug (5-pin)", or, even more likely, "8-pin" (see below), since the 5-pin version probably is the leftmost one (even though it's bigger).

Yes confusing. The images are inconsistent with each other. The 2nd plug in that 6-together image is called Micro-B, but is different to another Micro-B in an image below it. In the 6-together image the left-most one is labelled ExtUSB but looks just like what's called Micro-B below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.165.2.55 (talk) 02:02, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

There also seems to exist an 8-pin "micro-USB" which looks much like the ordinary 5-pin micro-B but only around 4.9mm wide (I have one in front of me right now, it is not uncommon). See here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Micro_USB_db.jpg I'd bet on that this is what is denoted "Mini-B plug (5-pin)" in the image (although not all pins show there), looks just like it anyway.

AND there also seems to be a new 10-pin micro-B for USB3.0: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USB_3.0_Micro_B_plug.PNG

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.209.36.220 (talk) 08:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

confusing use of terms

Please, try to explain or re-cast as be consistent in the use of possible equivalent terms: plug, male, female, receptacle, connector, jack. 69.9.28.55 (talk) 23:21, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Good point. While I'm not going to actually make any changes, the USB standard indicates the proper terms are "receptacle" and "plug", which are female and male respectively. 76.243.42.111 (talk) 11:59, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

There is an obviously accepted standard for determining whether any connector is male or female. The USB connectors have flown in the face of this convention and identified them the wrong way around. Have a look at the end of a free USB type B 'plug' and decide if it's male or female. The presence of a large hole makes it female. Similarly the spigot in the Type B receptacle makes it resolutely male especially given that the receptacle's spigot goes in the plug's hole. I'm sure I don't need to draw a diagram at this point!! 109.156.49.202 (talk) 15:01, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

charging standard & maximum power relationship

The USB 2.0 standard specifies the maximum power available from a USB hub port as 2.5W. The USB charging standard promoted by device manufacturers specifies a maximum power of 5W. What is the relationship between these two standards and how is the difference in specification dealt with in practice?. Does this cause failure?. 118.90.14.211 (talk) 23:50, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Found this: http://www.usb.org/developers/devclass_docs (scroll to "battery charging"). Not certain if it's the exact document you want, but it seems relevant. In case it breaks some time in the future, the link was titled "Battery Charging v1.2 Spec and Adopters Agreement". --Wascally wabbit (talk) 21:53, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Protocol analyzers trivial section deletion?

the section as it currently stands tells you nothing apart from that protocol analysers can be obtained. It merely bulks out the article. Should we delete it?CecilWard (talk) 21:32, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Requested move (previous discussion)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was moved per WP:COMMONNAME. WP:TITLEFORMAT explicitly exempts things that are almost exclusively known by their abbreviations and USB is clearly the common name for this thing. The alphabet soup argument is something I empathize with (but, unfortunately, not supported by policy!) --rgpk (comment) 17:13, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Elaboration: Hopefully, we're all agreed that the thing is rarely referred to as a universal serial bus and almost always called USB (if not, then we certainly have a problem). Given that, let's look at the arguments for not moving it to USB. The first argument presented was based on WP:TITLEFORMAT. As I point out above, that doesn't hold for this sort of situation. The second argument is that there are other meanings of USB. That may indeed be the case but, since USB redirects to this thing, that is a completely separate issue and should be discussed separately. The third argument is the 'ought' argument. That is not a good argument because policy specifically directs us to use the common name, not what it ought to be, other things being equal. Even if that were not the case, Universal Service Bus is hardly ever used anyway so, as chris cunningham points out, this would be an exception anyway. The last two arguments are non-starters. Sure, the first line will say USB or Universal service bus or whatever. Nothing wrong with that because the title is at its common name where it should be and the first line of almost every article contains all alternative titles. I'm afraid I didn't treat the W Nowicki's arguments about alphabet soups seriously and apologize if it was meant as a substantive one. All in all, the only argument that has some strength is the TITLEFORMAT one, but this appears to be an exception along the lines of NATO. --rgpk (comment) 23:02, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Universal Serial Bus → USB – "USB" already redirects here, and is by far the most common name for the subject. As it is clearly the primary topic for this initialism, it can live happily at the root title without disambiguation. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 15:03, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. I would agree with you expect for two things in this article: 1) WP:TITLEFORMAT would suggest we don't use the abbreviation, and 2) there are plenty of other meanings for USB as covered in the dab page that I would think the Universal Serial Bus article should be more clear about its specific title. As it is set up today I think the current redirect with the "about" link if someone used USB is very appropriate and non-confusing. Why is a change necessary? I think the Solid-state drive article is a perfect comparison. Most people use the term SSD, but since there are so many other meanings we left the article title as the full description and redirected the acronym showing the link to the dab. I think we should do the same here and leave it as is. § Music Sorter § (talk) 15:40, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support. Clearly the primary topic and the common name. I actually didn't know what the full name of <whatever it is> before seeing this at requested moves, but have regularly heard the term USB. Jenks24 (talk) 15:44, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. If this is the primary topic of "USB", then USB can and should remain as a redirect to this article. That doesn't mean we need to move the article. The title of an article about a particular thing ought to be the name of the thing, not an abbreviation of the name, except perhaps in extraordinary cases where the actual name is hardly ever used in practice. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 16:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
  • The name hardly ever is used in practice, relatively speaking. This is no different to the hundreds, possibly thousands, of other examples of initialisms which predominantly stand for one thing. IBM, for instance. This is well-grounded in actual Wikipedia practice. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:35, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

IBM is the official name of the company. Digital Equipment Corporation is usually abbreviated DEC, etc. but those are shorthands, not the name of the thing. W Nowicki (talk) 00:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: USB should be moved to USB (disambiguation) and USB should redirect to Universal Serial Bus. –CWenger (^ • @) 16:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

  You can't have actually looked at what is currently at USB if that's your reaction. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:35, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

• When I looked before I added my comment, USB was a disambiguation page. It looks like people have been moving pages while the discussion is ongoing. Why does the history of USB only have a single entry? –CWenger (^ • @) 01:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: If we move to USB the very first thing the article is going to do is expand the acronym anyway, almost as if to say "This article is called USB but we really mean..." The standard is called Universal Serial Bus, not USB. The article title is itself part of the explanation of what is being covered and we already have a redirect in place to assist the reader. Crispmuncher (talk) 16:37, 22 June 2011 (UTC).
  • Thta's what we do in every other case where an article is located at an abbreviated title. It's certainly not a reason to move to the expanded title by default. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 20:35, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
    • That's your opinion, and an assertion is not an argument. I've made my position clear. Crispmuncher (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC).
• Oppose: computer articles have way too much alphabet soup. Please take pity us poor acronym-impaired readers. W Nowicki (talk) 00:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Move war?

Wow, 5 oppose votes versus 2 (including the nominator) support votes and it's moved? What's the point of even having move discussions? –CWenger (^ • @) 17:58, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

This sure sounds like an abuse of administrator rights. If the consensus is not what you want, move it anyway? Do two moves in eight days make it a move war? W Nowicki (talk) 21:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Elaborated above. Bear in mind that these are discussions, not polls, and vote counting is not the way that consensus is determined. (See WP:NOTAVOTE and WP:Consensus.) --rgpk (comment) 22:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I would argue the first point you raise above, which is it is not "almost exclusively known by its abbreviation". (I don't know why I didn't articulate this better in my vote instead of simply stating my preferred outcome.) To me, there is not a great way to objectively determine this, so the votes are perhaps even more important than normal. USB is quite common but you can see the full name used at the top of the USB.org, for example. 5–2 is a pretty strong consensus to override in any case, but particularly when we are dealing with a rather subjective policy. –CWenger (^ • @) 23:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

"Not a head count" means "not a head count", not just "not a head count in tie breaks". USB.org is obviously going to want to explain as early as possible what the full expansion is, as that's one of the primary jobs of an explanatory website. And I don't want to have to go bringing up Googlefight links, but real-world usage obviously favours the contraction by several orders of magnitude. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 11:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME had already been cited in the introduction. As such every commenter had considered it before commenting and those against the move had dismissed it in favour of other arguments. This isn't a case of a policy coming up out of nowhere and nuking an argument; this is a case of a fully informed community reaching a conclusion and a single individual substituting his own conclusion for the one reached. That is not reaching consensus: that is abuse of process.

RegentsPark also assumes that everyone concurs that USB is the more common name to begin with. I don't know where that came from as it certainly was not the debate. I hinted at this in my comments but since cnsensus seemed pretty clear to me I didn't bother to develop it as much as I might have. To be clear, I do not accept that within the meaning of WP:COMMONNAME. That policy dos not say what you may assume it does. It doesn't matter what you or I or some random web page say. It certainly doesn't matter which gets more Google hits. We pay attention to reliable sources and WP:RS is quite a high threshold that excludes many casual uses of the terms. I can't claim to have done a comprehensive survey, but in more learned texts that clearly meet the threshold my initial sampling shows that the expanded form is the more common one. Indeed, in the debate as judged there is only one RS cited. That is in expanded form. Where does the assertion that the abbreviated form is prevalent come from, if not from the debate, and without the admin indirectly involving himself? Crispmuncher (talk) 14:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC).

Are there any acronyms which would not be the WP:COMMONNAME, in this case? I mean, acronyms are created because they are so much easier to use. Does that make them "almost exclusively known by [their] abbreviation"? –CWenger (^ • @) 15:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The test is 'almost exclusively'. If you look at WP:TITLEFORMAT, the examples are: NATO and Laser are both ok as abbreviations while UK is not. --rgpk (comment) 15:43, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

In that case the USB as common name assertion fails immediately. Crispmuncher (talk) 15:59, 1 July 2011 (UTC).

I appreciate what you are saying. If we are to determine what is the WP:COMMONNAME for something, what method do you think is more valid than asking the opinion of all participating editors who have to use some method. I know Google.com is not a "reference" but look at the following:

"USB" & "Universal Serial Bus" Comparison

Related term	"USB" ____	"Universal Serial Bus" ____
Port	73.2M	6.9M
Hub	35.0M	3.0M
Mouse	31.1M	4.0M
Cable	79.2M	5.0M
Power	67.0M	7.5M
"Flash Drive"	41.1M	1.5M
{blank}	1,470.0M	10.5M

I was convinced USB is the commonly used name for this long before I did either poll. If we are supposed to use some other method, I am happy to listen. § Music Sorter § (talk) 02:29, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Crispmuncher, in reply to your comment, my view on the WP:COMMONNAME point was based on a simple poll of about 20 people at my office. I took around a cable used for my mouse and asked what they would call that connection. It was unanimously USB. I felt that was consistent with what I thought as well. My initial opposition to this change was because I misunderstood WP:TITLEFORMAT. Now that I understand it better it makes sense and I will update my vote above for better historical understanding.§ Music Sorter § (talk) 15:52, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

That's precisely my point. The twenty people in your straw poll are twenty unreliable sources. Those are twenty opinions that are completely ignored. That is where the "not a vote" element really kicks in. Crispmuncher (talk) 16:01, 1 July 2011 (UTC).

Oops, forgot it was locked above. I guess I won't change it with strikeout.§ Music Sorter § (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

rgpk, I appreciate your detailed elaboration on the move decision above. I also appreciate the better understanding of WP:TITLEFORMAT as it applies to abbreviations. I realize I missed the fact that USB was already redirecting to Universal Serial Bus which creates a different case than we have on SSD and Solid State Drive. Based on that I would not have opposed in case future readers care about how this poll and outcome transpired. § Music Sorter § (talk) 03:25, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I did not want to sound combative, just wanted to understand what consensus was then. An obvious problem with the "poll of twenty people" is that they all knew what USB was. My assumption is that people read wikipedia articles becase they do not know what something is. That is why it seems better to expand acronyms except in cases like "laser" where it had really come into English as a word. In this case, those 20 were all office computer users. Consider someone reading in the year 2020 when the technology described here is obsolete because computers are all less than three milimeters thick. Another example: consider Sacramento, California. If you ask 20 people who live in California, they will most commonly call it just "Sacramento". If you google search, probably the most common would be Sacramento, CA. But this is meant to be a global encyclopedia. We append the full state name at the end of the title, not the abbreviation which is most common, but might not be known to those not familiar with it already. Another example is Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. By far the most coverage of this topic (certainly all by a certain political party) uses the moniker "ObamaCare". There are many cases where a nickname or abbreviation is often used, but a full name is more appropriate for an encyclopedia. W Nowicki (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Purely from a policy perspective, article titles should be recognizable, precise, concise, natural and consistent and the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources. (see WP:AT.) One would have to argue that the long form of USB is generally more recognizable, precise, concise, natural, consistent and more frequently used then USB for the title to be at the long form. That may well be the case but I haven't seen anyone present any arguments along those lines. Unfortunately your examples are too dissimilar to be useful here. Sacramento, California is disambiguated along the guidelines set for American cities (much debated, BTW!). The health care act title has POV connotations whatever title is used and, obviously, there has to be a POV minimizing consensus. For USB, on the other hand, there are no POV connotations, and the disambiguation and/or primary topic argument has yet to be made. (BTW, article titles are designed for access, not for education. The general idea is that a user will type the name that is the most familiar and will expect to see that name pop up at the top of the screen. If more users see a different title pop up, then, other things being equal - POV, consistency, disambiguation, etc., the article is probably at the wrong title.) --rgpk (comment) 12:01, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Tangled in the middle of that thread, CWenger asks if there are "any acronyms which would not be the WP:COMMONNAME, in this case". Leaving aside cases where the abbreviated title is obviously pretty ambiguous (UK, TV, ABC), we do not in general avoid titling subjects with their abbreviations if those are indeed common. M Nowicki's comment that "a full name is more appropriate for an encyclopedia" is, quite simply, not what our naming guidelines say, as evidenced by the third of the five basic rules:

Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously

Emphasis mine. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 18:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

It has been two and a half months now. I've still awaiting a demonstration that USB is the most common name - I warned against Google stats before they were posted. I am not going to let this lie: this is one of the worst admin abuses I have seen here. Is such evidence going to be forthcoming or shall I open a dispute now? Crispmuncher (talk) 01:30, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Simson Garfinkel, Boston Globe. Happy yet? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:52, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

No need for hyperbole; it is just a title after all, and even I can see some value in the reasoning, just disagree with it. For example, not sure which side the comment about "..to identify the topic of the article unambiguously" is arguing? Clearly "USB" does not identify the topic unambiguously, since there in fact is a page USB (disambiguation), so that rule argues for the full name, right? Also my claim that "full name is more appropriate for an encyclopedia" is clearly supported by the rule under WP:TITLEFORMAT which says Avoid abbreviations. So the claim ", quite simply, not what our naming guidelines say" is not so "simple". The guidelines say "avoid abbreviations". As one who has seen all sorts of computer technology come and go through the years, it is just a matter of time before this one too fades into history and the acronym USB becomes better known as something else. It will have nowhere near the staying power of Laser for example, and will eventually need to be moved back to its proper name (if Wikipedia is still around we hope). W Nowicki (talk) 17:36, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Case now filed with the mediation cabal. You may consider this to be an unimportant point but personally I consider that holding admins to account is of the utmost importance: policy can't be interpreted selectively to suit a personal position. Crispmuncher (talk) 15:49, 26 November 2011 (UTC).

Split history and USB3 sections

• Agree - I agree that the article is too long and I think those two sections would work nicely in their own articles with a link back to small paragraphs here. § Music Sorter § (talk) 23:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Done. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:12, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Mice vs mouses

The mouse (computing) article covers this naming convention question with sources. You will find a number of sources saying it can be either mice or mouses and the official online Oxford Dictionary (2011) source states the term mice is more common. Since the mouse article uses mice throughout the article and this article was written originally with mice (from what I can tell), I propose that this article which links to that article use the same convention. I am reverting the change to keep the original until we come to a consensus. § Music Sorter § (talk) 05:21, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Quite. "Mouses" is sheer pedantry, and I've never heard it in the wild. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:14, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

"Mice". Never ever heard or read "Mouses" which just sounds horrible. --Zac67 (talk) 16:27, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

There's no such thing as a consensus on grammar. It's "Mice". "Mouses" is only used when people are trying to be cute. Padillah (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I've eliminated the controversy in the lead section by replacing "mice" with the general term "pointing devices", with a wikilink to [[Mouse (computing)]]. "Pointing devices" includes terms like mouse, trackball, touchpad, digitizing tablet, joystick, etc. — Quicksilver^{T @} 16:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Lead too short?

Smackbot tagged the article with {{Lead too short}} on 1 July 2011. The lead could use some work to improve the article summary in the first sentence or two, removing some of the convoluted syntax and making it more accessible to a tyro, but I see nothing wrong with the length of the lead. Accordingly, I've removed the tag. — Quicksilver^{T @} 16:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Smackbot merely dated the tag: I added it, as even after rewriting the old lede to better act as a summary it's still far, far too short for as well-developed an article as this. It does not make the most cursory effort to explain the technical details of the standard and brushes on its history and use in only the lightest manner. Please read WP:LEDE, which explains exactly what we expect of a good article introduction; for an article this size it should be three or four good paragraphs long and should make an adequate attempt to summarise all of the key points expressed in the article. If I don't find time to do this myself in the near future I'll be re-tagging it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Redirect request

Can an authorized user make a redirect from USB plugs to USB#Physical_appearance please?
~ender 2011-08-10 20:38:MST

Y Done Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 13:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

System Design Section

This section is too theoretical with no examples provided for each new term introduced. The vast majority of people use USB devices, so giving examples of what each term means seems only natural. To not give examples only serves to keep the general public away from reading this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.113.81.244 (talk) 01:06, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

USB.org links

Seanmcd27 (talk · contribs) added the following comment to the references section while fixing some dead references. It doesn't belong in the article body so I've moved it here.

note that because of the naming convention used by the usb consortium website, every time they update a document it breaks the links on this page. if you go to [1] you can find the documents referenced on this page even if the more specific links are broken

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 23:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Controversy

Some people say the logo which is similar to a pitchfork was created to offend Christians --88.111.125.135 (talk) 21:20, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Who are those people?.Jasper Deng (talk) 21:27, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The key word to search for is "trident". If you Google "trident USB Christians", there are an abundant of articles that can serve as possible sources. The trident is seen as a symbol of Satan, and USB's use of an image of a trident has some Christians to refer to USB devices as "satanic devices," or "the devil's technology." If you look in the Trident in popular culture article, you'll find a mention of the USB symbol looking like a trident. As a result, Evangelical Christians in Brazil, for example, have banned the use of USB after claiming the technology is the mark of Satan-worshippers. If Wikipedia allows discussions of "fan death" among the Koreans, I think the trident link is well sourced and should be covered, if anything, as a pop culture subject. Groink (talk) 22:46, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing to suggest that it was created with the purpose of that.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

No no, no one saying that the USB trident was used "for" the purpose of symbolizing Satan, although the original editor mentioned as such. Think of the issue when Procter & Gamble used a moon like symbol for its corporate logo, and people believed that the company were Satan worshipers. This is well covered in the Wikipedia article, under the "Logo controversy" section. Many articles here in Wikipedia cover these kinds of issues regarding logos; Google "site:en.wikipedia.org satan logo" Groink (talk) 23:07, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

The original story came from a Brazilian newspaper equivalent of the Onion, translated to English, reprinted, and then taken out of context and ran as truth. It doesn't matter how many RS re-ran, quoted, paraphrased the story when the source was satire. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

This should NEVER be taken seriously, otherwise it turns into this mess: Moon landing conspiracy theories. If you create a section in the article, put it at the bottom and call it Humor or something not serious sounding, because it sure the heck isn't a real controversy. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 23:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

We're not going to add a new section for something so trivial. If this were a genuinely notable event (which it isn't, as detailed by SchmuckyTheCat above) then it would belong in the still-to-be-written section on the standard's impact. However, as it isn't, it doesn't. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:59, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

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USB → Universal Serial Bus – The reasons for this request are based on the dispute over the legitimacy of the move last June and the discussion. I deliberately didn't want to propose this over Christmas when people are less likely to be paying attention and while this is far from my preferred approach (I would rather the original decision was overturned) it does seem the best way of getting a shoddy decision reversed based on the advice given at dispute resolution.

There are four primary reasons for proposing this move:

• There was no consensus for the previous move.
• The determination of consensus was based on a selective application of policy and no opportunity was given to dispute that.
• WP:TITLEFORMAT is clear that there is a presumption against initialisms in article titles.
• The threshold for over-riding that presumption where the subject is "almost exclusively" known by its initialism and an expanded form is less familiar that the abbreviated form. That does not apply here.

I'm aware people may be getting tired of this by now, but it was a outrageous decision then and it still is now. Hopefully we can draw a line under this with a fresh discussion. Crispmuncher (talk) 04:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC).

• Support. Have a look at USB (disambiguation), there are several important competitors for the acronym. Of course web-based searches will currently favour the computer term, but Universal Serial Bus is recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources (WP:AT of course) while the acronym is arguably ambiguous. Play safe and make the undisambiguated name USB the DAB. Andrewa (talk) 05:01, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose. Very few non-technical people know what the full term means, or even that the "bus" in question is a Bus (computing), not a Bus (that universally follows a series of stops ;-). Everybody knows that "USB" is something the mouse or the harddrive needs to work with his computer. The other USBs are, without exception, abbreviations only encountered in very specialised situations. Even if I heard about e.g. a "USB report" in an academic situation, I would expect a report about USB, not a report written by Stony Brook or the Universidad Simón Bolívar. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: That has not been my experience, or I suppose it depends what you mean by non-technical people... very few Australians, and almost none below the age of thirty, are uncomfortable programming and using a GPS or downloading pictures from a mobile phone. In that sense even those who describe themselves as non-technical are actually far more technically competent than the majority of Australians were in my youth. The phrase universal serial bus flows off the tongue without any thought that it might a sort of motor omnibus, any more than the phrase Her Majesty the Queen leads them to wonder whether the current monarch is best described as Majestic. The case might be stronger in the case of LED; I doubt even technical people would object to using the term for a three-lead device were one to come into common use, it would no longer be any sort of diode but would IMO still be called a LED for clarity. And yet we still use Light-emitting diode rather than LED as the article title. Andrewa (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Weak support because of WP:TITLEFORMAT. USB should still redirect. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

• Weak support per SchmuckyTheCat, including redirect. This initialism thing easily gets out of control with vested interests jockeying for perceived status in obscurity. This case is close, IMO, because this meaning seems used much more often than the dozen others, but better to err on the side of clarity and description rather than jargon and insider knowledge. ENeville (talk) 21:03, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support per WP:TITLEFORMAT, with USB as prime redirect. The rest routing to USB (disambiguation). -- SchreyP ^(messages) 21:10, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. There seems to be a concession here that this is the primary topic for USB, so I won't argue for that. But given that it's the primary topic, why not use the more recognizable form? WP:COMMONNAME seems clear on this point. Powers ^T 03:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The provision of WP:TITLEFORMAT relating to initialisms takes precedence since it is much more specific than the more general guidance at WP:COMMONNAME. In any case I have not accepted USB is the more common name in reliable sources: its simply that at dispute resolution both sides accepted we don't need to show the full form is more common. Crispmuncher (talk) 15:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

TITLEFORMAT only specifies a presumption in favor of the expanded title; in the case of a widely known acronym such as this one, one which is regularly used without expansion in reliable sources, the presumption is no longer necessary and gets in the way of serving our readers. Powers ^T 19:32, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Widespread use is not the threshold for countermanding that presumption: almost exclusive use is. That is difficult to demonstrate as evidenced by previous discussions of the issue. Crispmuncher (talk) 20:14, 16 January 2012 (UTC).

If it's that difficult to demonstrate, then the threshold is too high. Powers ^T 21:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• Weak oppose - at first I wanted to support, but I changed my mind after reading WP:ACRONYMTITLE: almost exclusively known by its acronym or is widely known and used in that form (e.g. NASA and radar). and also: In many cases, no decision is necessary because a given acronym has several expansions, none of which is the most prominent. [...] the acronym should be a disambiguation page. Han-Kwang (t) 17:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:ACRONYMTITLE. — MrDolomite • Talk 23:12, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
• Weak support We should avoid acronyms in titles if the subject of the article has a widely known expanded form. It is indeed widely known to computer enthusiasts that USB stands for "Universal Serial Bus". A strong counter-argument would be that the less digitally literate have only encountered this name in compound terms, primarily the now ubiquitous "USB stick". Having a redirect from USB to Universal Serial Bus, instead of to a disambiguation page, would remedy any associated problems with this, however. —Ruud 20:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Frankly I don't see how anyone can "oppose per WP:TITLEFORMAT" or equivalent, at least without a lot of elaboration. Those policy statements are clear that there is a presumption AGAINST acronyms. The exception clearly has a very high threshold by design and I don't see this meeting that. Even Powers above doesn't claim this, criticizing the policy rather than its application. The title is very much part of the article too and I feel that "Universal Serial Bus" better communicates what the article is about than yet another TLA. Quantumsilverfish (talk) 03:59, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Please don't put words in my mouth. I support TITLEFORMAT's advice in general; I just think it's being applied too strictly here. As Han-Kwang said, ACRONYMTITLE allows initialisms if the subject "is widely known and used in that form". That's clearly the case here, and if WP:TITLEFORMAT doesn't include that same language, it should. Powers ^T 14:35, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Sorry, that was not my intention, but the threshold is intentionally set high in policy. It is not a question of interpretation and application. Quantumsilverfish (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2012 (UTC).
• Comment. Interestingly, a few months ago at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Weakening the wording of WP:ACRONYMTITLE there was almost universal agreement that USB was clearly allowed under ACRONYMTITLE because it is so common. Jenks24 (talk) 06:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

It is not a given where consensus is there, certainly not overwhelmingly so: it starts out strongly for USB but swings back towards the end. In any case I will point out it is not a balanced discussion: I chose not to take part, nor did any other opposers of the disputed move. In my case the whole discussion left a very bad taste in the mouth: after being accused of forum shopping simply for filing a case at DR after months of being ignored that very editor opens up a new front days later. It's worth also noting the case at DR[2] since even neutral commentators raised concerns as to the legitimacy of the previous move. That becomes especially significant in case of a "no consensus" outcome. Crispmuncher (talk) 01:52, 20 January 2012 (UTC).

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

4-pin Mini B USB connector?

Is there any information in the article about a 4-pin mini B connector, as opposed to the 5-pin version? Apologies if I've missed it - Or maybe it's not a USB standard, it's just some people have bought a Mini-B cable that doesn't fit, ie - You need to know the pin number also. Thanks 88.104.143.197 (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2012 (UTC)