Talk:USB flash drive

Alternative Names

Wanted to add alternative names but at top of article in edition mode saw following comment "please do not add alternative names, see talk archives for long history". I cannot see anything related to "alternative names" on this present talk page. Could someone make it clearer (link, better explanations about location, etc...) where this "long history" about alternative names is? Thanks. 77.186.198.15 (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Have a look though the talk archives Talk:USB flash drive/Archive 3 , also this is what the section used to look like. Roughly speak there are 100 possible names, no obvious priority, lots of trouble gettign proper references for them. Also I'm going to revert you last edit since it just seems to be a link to a page that generates redirects to this page. - SimonLyall (talk) 09:53, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the precise pointers to the discussion history, very appreciated. I completely get the point that the listing of alternative names shouldn't be made directly inside the article. But why not simply pointing to it? This is very relevant, valuable, informational and helpful information that without any doubts deserved to be found easily by article readers and, as it is only a link, it prevents the drawbacks listed in the discussion happening. 77.186.198.15 (talk) 10:14, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that the list of redirects to this page is not really a currated list. I could for example create something like Monkey drive as a redirect and it unlikely that anyone would question it. There are no references on how correct or incorrect items on the list are. A term like USB is common but not on the list because it has another primary meaning. Overall the list isn't really better thaan a random list somebody has written - SimonLyall (talk) 09:45, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

If Wikipedia redirects can be permanently bullshitted / randomized without anybody questioning and/or correcting them (unlike any other Wikipedia edit), then this is a major flaw in Wikipedia. Is anybody doing anything to solve this problem?!?! 217.186.101.161 (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

"What links here" can always be used for an article or any other page to show which redirects and other pages point/link to it. It's just a matter of using that feature. At the same time, new pages‍—‌including redirects‍—‌are regularly checked for obvious problems. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 09:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Interesting answer. Does this mean that the list of redirects (or any similarly generated list which could also automatically include disambiguated terms that point to the article to eliminate the "alternative names with another primary meaning are not listed" argument, etc...) can be referred to from within the article to list alternative names as the previous editor did (please argument logically and solidly with clear references to Wikipedia rules, etc...)? 77.77.150.55 (talk) 12:22, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, per WP:ELPOINTS, external links "should not normally be used in the body of an article", and such a list would be an external link. Also, articles should not contain links to redirect pages that redirect back to the article itself, per WP:REPEATLINK. With all that in mind, I don't see how‍—‌and more importantly why‍—‌something like that could or should be done. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 13:05, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

From a pragmatical and utilitarianist point of view, as Wikipedia is a major source of information for most people, it seems it would be better to provide a relevant information (i.e. in this case a list of alternative names which is subject to Wikipedia verifiability and notability criteria) that is around 90% useful for around 90% of people rather than providing no information at all which is around 0% useful for around 100% of people. But the rules are the rules (and trying to change them would probably be a big endeavor), thank you for referring to them in your answer. 77.77.150.55 (talk) 14:03, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome. Anyway, no matter how usable would it be to provide a list of alternative names, I'd say that only one of the images already available in the article is good enough for 99.9% of readers to figure out what the article describes, regardless of which alternative name they're familiar with. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 14:49, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I think what you describe is not the most useful use case indeed ;) In terms of useful use cases, I was more thinking something along (just an example): I'm talking to someone (face-to-face i.e. no time to check anything online, don't want to ask my interlocutor because I'm afraid my interlocutor think I'm lame, etc...) and that someone uses the term Pendrive or Cruzer, etc... (without clear disambiguating contextual information). Then if in the past I read the USB flash drive Wikipedia article and there was a link to a list of alternative names and I read that list as well I would immediately know what my interlocutor is talking about. If there was not such a list in the Wikipedia article then I wouldn't be sure what my interlocutor is exactly talking about (if I didn't already know this term from other sources obviously). Hence the Wikipedia article would have been less useful for me by definition. Another potentially (but more trivial) useful use case: I read the list and I am curious who uses / in which context is used the term Pendrive. I do a web search on this term and now I know. I'm sure there are other (more) useful use cases. The rational way to determine if such a list would be useful to readers would be to make a readers survey. I guess it's not really practical. But my intuition (obviously biased, because I personally find this information very useful) is that most readers would find this information relevant and useful for a number of use cases (and more trivially simply the feel-good effect of knowing this list as reading Wikipedia is not just about finding useful information it's also the pleasure of reading, learning stuff even if it has no immediate direct use) 77.77.150.55 (talk) 16:15, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's good news – that should be already covered. :) Redirects show up in autocompleted suggestion lists displayed upon entering terms into search boxes around Wikipedia. Once a suggested article/redirect title is selected, it leads either to an article, or to a disambiguation page. Thus, a reader should be at the right place either by being immediately presented with an article, or by selecting one of the meanings listed on the disambiguation page. Sounds usable? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 17:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, "what links here" is present in each article's toolbox on the left side of the screen... That could freely be considered as a kind of the alternative names list. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 17:06, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Just before answering you: another use case that came to my mind is: you find that using / saying "U-S-B-flash-drive" is way too long / effortful / didactic and you would like to use another much shorter term, then the list of alternative terms would come very handy. Regarding the autocompletion suggestion : I was not really able to make that work for me and to be honest this kind of dynamic HTML can be very brittle and might not work on all devices, platforms, browsers, configs, etc... So I find this too technologically-based imho. Regarding the "what links here" link, it is a much larger superset of links than simply the list of redirects so not that useful to use as a list of alternative names imho. Most articles in Wikipedia which match several terms begin with "blabla (also known as ..., or ..., ...) is ..." for example "A solid-state drive (SSD) (also known as a solid-state disk or electronic disk, ...) is ...". I understand that there are too many alternative names for USB flash drive to list them directly in the article. But imho this is not a good enough reason to completely sweep them under the carpet. There has to be a more satisfying solution. The list of redirects has drawbacks but at least it is something to begin with and that can be improved upon. I remember when I was a kid, the paper encyclopaedia of my parents was accompanied by a thesaurus, I think this is what is missing in Wikipedia. Actually, talking about that, I've just come across this new project: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Wikisaurus . So a solution might be to link to this http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=USB+flash+drive&ns110=1&fulltext=Search+Wikisaurus (although empty for now) or directly to this for now: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flash_drive#Synonyms . I am not too sure what the best solution is, and it's not up to me to decide anyway, this would require consensus. What I'm pretty sure of is that no matter how long is the list of alternative names, completely sweeping it under the carpet is not the best solution. 77.77.150.55 (talk) 17:58, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Hm, would this be some kind of a compromise to note that a variety of other names also exist? That way we have no lengthy lists as part of the article, while it's clearly noted that alternative names do exist, and readers can easily have a look at them. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 07:34, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Excellent, thank you so much :) I think indeed at this point in time this is the best quick win-win compromise indeed :) Another benefit from this compromise is that the list of redirects will come under more eyeballs and hence under stronger scrutiny so more people will have a chance to question and/or prove/disprove the verifiability and notability of the redirects.

To perfect this list and include the alternative names which also have other primary meanings as rightly noted by SimonLyall (for example UFD, USB, ...) the next step would be to try to automatically generate a list that includes these as well. I've come across this generated page: http://dbpedia.org/page/USB_flash_drive which includes these but much more info as well. I think this very interesting DBpedia project provides some promising tools that could make it possible (at least in theory) to generate a HTTP GET query that extracts precisely the information to build a list of {redirects + disambiguates}. That would be something to investigate / play with (but personally unfortunately I don't have much time to spend on that at the moment). Anyway thank you very much for your great contributions -and SimonLyall as well- :) and talk to you another time. Bye for now. 77.77.150.55 (talk) 09:43, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome, and I'm glad that you like it. :) Let's also see if other editors are fine with the inclusion of a note. — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 09:47, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Why compare it to an optical drive in the first paragraph?

Generally, optical drives or disks are read-only, sometimes write-once or write-rarely. Second, they are much rarer than flash drives, especially these days. Can this comparison be deleted, or replaced? 08:43, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Inventor of the USB flash drive?

Who is in fact the inventor of the USB flash drive?

Another Wikipedia article claims that a Singaporean "Henn Tan" invented the Flash Drive (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henn_Tan). Henn Tan, who owns Trek Technologies, has won a patent suit in Singapore, and lost the patent in UK on grounds that its specification was not specific enough. The latter information is, however, available in this article.

I posit that this article can be improved if it can resolve this issue by citing a source as who who is in fact the inventor rather than by simply asserting it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adenxj (talk • contribs) 08:07, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071004175258/http://www.corsairmemory.com/_faq/FAQ_flash_drive_wear_leveling.pdf to http://www.corsairmemory.com/_faq/FAQ_flash_drive_wear_leveling.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090305041708/http://www.sandisk.com:80/Products/Item(1219)-SDDR-108-A11M-SanDisk_MobileMate_Memory_Stick_Plus_4in1_Reader.aspx to http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item(1219)-SDDR-108-A11M-SanDisk_MobileMate_Memory_Stick_Plus_4in1_Reader.aspx

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Unerasability

This article completely ignores the serious difficulty of effectively erasing data to make it unrecoverable. The wear leveling feature apparently makes it extremely difficult to overwrite sensitive data. Many sources say it is better to physically destroy the drive if the data is important. An 18-page pdf article on the problem is at https://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/fast11/tech/full_papers/Wei.pdf agb