Talk:Cell phone

mobile phone culture

I removed the following sentence from culture:

According to a survey conducted by Merryl Lynch in September 2004, subscribers in the US talk 619 minutes a month on their phones.

I think we should have this kind of info in this section. I would like to see a source reference first though so we can check and potentially expand with other related info ChrisUK 21:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Substantial new material to be edited

The following text was pasted into the article. I think that it needs a rewrite and cutting down in order to merge better with the rest of the article. I propose we do it here and paste back in when ready. ChrisUK 6 July 2005 22:43 (UTC)

New text

Though mobile phones vary significantly from Telecom Company to Telecom Company, and even nation to nation (most noticeably the United States,) all mobile phones, and the other technologies that support them must generally accomplish the same tasks, regardless of the technology that drives them.

Mobile phones must be connected to the system of land-line phones in order to be not only useful, (so that land-line telephones can contact mobile phones, and vice-versa,) but so that two mobile phones can also connect with each other just as easily.

Consequently, all mobile phone systems are (somewhat abstractly,) comprised of two components; the handset, and the tower.

The handset is the portable, and typcially phone-shaped device. The tower is a high-yield radio tower that the mobile phones direct their radio communications toward for routing to their destination.

The handsets feature a (comparatively) low power transceiver that is typically designed to transmit either digital audio, or analog audio only up to a few kilometers (under ideal situations,) to where the tower is (also ideally) located.

The handset generally seeks out an available tower, informs that tower of its unique identifier, and alerts the mobile phone network that the it is ready and standing-by to receive (and send) telephone calls. It then periodically repeats this information to the tower, as well as seeks out new towers, over the duration it is powered on.

This is called “Stand By,” though no active calls are being made, the phone is simply informing the mobile phone network that it is available. This time is considered to be “standby time” when comparing mobile phone battery lifespan, because the phone does consume power to keep this minimalist “I’m alive” dialog with the mobile phone provider.

Towers are radio towers that feature a series of high power radio transmitters designed to broadcast both their presence and other information the mobile phones can use to determine if it can utilize that tower, as well as the actual conversations and other data.

This is one reason mobile telephone service is considered to be so sporadic in rural areas. Though a tower has the power to broadcast its presence much further than a mobile phone can, the mobile phone might perceive the tower in communications range, but not have enough power to establish a communications dialog with the tower.

In other words; the tower can be heard, but the phone isn’t loud enough to shout back to the tower.

The tower itself is connected to the landline telephone infrastructure by a high-capacity phone line, and may also be connected to a dedicated data line (and/or both depending on the technology.)

The tower can then route calls between the mobile handsets its serving, and telephone calls over the landline. Because the tower tracks what mobile handsets it is servicing, and informs the mobile network provider of this information; at any given time a call to a mobile phone can quickly be traced to the appropriate tower that will broadcast the conversation to the handset.

However, if the handset is not on the network (powered off, out of service area, etc) the call is either routed to voicemail, or otherwise not connected, as that the mobile phone network cannot “find” the handset.

The connection to landlines ensures that a person on a landline can call a mobile number without worrying that the mobile phone is not directly connected to the land-line infrastructure vice-versa; a mobile user needn’t know or care that their mobile phone is only indirectly connected to the landlines; they can just make a phone call.

Towers have a finite capacity, that is to say, there are only so many mobile handsets it can service simultaneously. This limit comes from a wide variety of sources including governmental restrictions on EM communication, technological barriers in communication standards and other technological limitations. These problems are usually resolved by adding more towers (which, through various means negotiate the workload amongst themselves,) to handle more mobile handsets, as well as to expand the geography in which a mobile phone will work.

Rename Article

I think that the name of the article "Cell Phone" ought to be changed to "Cellular Telephone." As it is, "Cell Phone" sounds un-professional and depthless. The telephone is cellular in its operation--which isn't quite as clear from the word cell. Further, telephones are designed to send long-distance messages, which is what tele means (far in Greek).

• I think a more relevant issue is that the accepted name to most English speakers (outside the US at any rate) is "mobile phone", and that cellular phones are logically a subset of mobile phones anyway. Haikupoet 03:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  • It was at mobile phone until some anon copy/paste moved it here. Reverted back. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:04, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Topics from 2009

Mobile-phone article botched 20 days

12-Jan-2009: Currently Formerly, the name "cell phone" redirects redirected to article "mobile phone" which is often viciously hacked. The term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism. Of course, multiple editors could not cope with the stampede of vandalism, and on 23Dec08, the article "mobile phone" was hacked and botched by an IP address, in a series of edits, to omit 6 whole sections of text about the features, applications and setup of cell phones. Next, additional hackings and advert-links were reverted for another 2 weeks. However, the prior vandalism went uncorrected for 20 days, as people could no longer cope with daily corrections to long complex articles. It is not always obvious how to merge old hacked text into an article with 3 weeks of new changes. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I have converted name "cell phone" into a short article, see below: #Cell-phone article as overview. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia have multiple ways of dealing with vandalism. There is absolutely no need for creating new article, protect old one from vandals. There is procedure for that. And multiplying articles do more harm then good - primarily by confusing readers and editors. Vitall (talk) 11:22, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Limiting vandalism target-name

12-Jan-2009: The term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism (similar to "search engine"). To limit the complexities of embedded vandalism, any target-name articles should be kept to a brief overview of the subject, which can be easily reverted & checked when vandalism is detected. For indepth coverage, spin-off articles should be linked as "see-also" entries, which can contain more detail without hiding frequent vandalism. Much like the total chaos of the search-engine articles, the redirection article "mobile phone" has become hideously hacked with numerous embedded problems by the stampede of vandalism, buried in a mass of detailed text. Although many people attempt to revert vandalism, it is easy to become overwhelmed trying to merge 3 weeks of changes with large sections of hacked text. Consequently, most broad-scale vandalism in large articles is fought by simply removing the whole sections of hacked text, period.

Instead, the article name "Cell phone" should be was re-converted from a redirection into an actual article, but as a short overview, to introduce the subject, with links to article "mobile phone" as low-profile links found by serious readers. Hacking of the article "cell phone" could continue, endlessly, but be more easily reverted by containing less text to scan & verify. Meanwhile, other spin-off articles, under less targeted names, could contain the massive details about the various cell-phone topics. With less (daily) vandalism to the large articles, then hackings can be more easily reverted, without the problem of cross-merging for all the other rapid vandalism. Simply put: Wikipedia can have large articles, and Wikipedia can have multi-vandalized articles, but Wikipedia cannot cope with large, multi-vandalized articles. The two must be kept separate: a vandalized target-name should be limited to containing a small article, not redirected into a large article. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:26, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by saying [t]he term "cell phone" is a major target-name for vandalism. There were no edits of any kind to [[cell phone] for almost an entire year! What vandalism are you referring to? older ≠ wiser 20:43, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• I was thinking people typed "cell phone", got redirected to "Mobile phone" and started vandalizing. However, with article "Cell phone" as separate now, it will be easier to see which article gets more hackings (such as "Jonnhy doez phonesex" & "Bush is teh gay" etc.).
• 11-Feb-2009: After 30 days, the article "Cell phone" was attracting daily vandalism in February 2009. The average in January 2009 had been hackings made about once every 2 days. See topic below: Rate of vandalism. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:07, 11 February 2009

Cell-phone article as overview

12-Jan-2009: I have converted the name "cell phone" (from being a February-2008 redirection to "mobile phone") into being an overview article with see-also links to article "mobile phone". The term "cell phone" has been a target-name for vandalism. However, the term "mobile phone" has been accessed by Wikipedia readers 10x more often (read 5,000 times per day) than "cell phone" (read 500 times per day). It might be the case that the name "mobile phone" is actually tied to more vandalism, in which case, the article roles should be reversed. Perhaps, article "mobile phone" should be the small overview article, catching all the daily vandalism, and "cell phone" or some other name should be the large article that contains the many details where vandalism gets buried after the numerous edits. It should only take a few weeks, of watching the edit-histories, to see whether "cell phone" or "mobile phone" gets more of the daily hackings/reverts. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:52, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

This issue was also placed in Talk:mobile_phone. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:32, 12-Jan-2009

I'm not at all clear why we now have two articles (Cell phone and Mobile phone) each covering the same thing. Surely these are now WP:Duplicate articles? If they cover the same concept, all the material should be in one article or the other (I don't care which). We need a very good reason to go against established usage on this, and I can't see any such reason yet. The solution to persistent vandalism is protection, not creation of duplicate articles. Richard New Forest (talk) 18:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer to see Mobile phone merge/redirect to Cell phone. Makes sense to use the most WP:Common name. Besides, the majority of folks nowadays say "cell phone" or "cell" and not "mobile phone" or "mobile". Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:09, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any advantage to having two articles with such substantive overlap. I suggest going back to cell phone redirecting to mobile phone. Moving mobile phone to cell phone can be raised at WP:RM. older ≠ wiser 20:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Or just perform a history merge, saving us the trouble of WP:RM. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:44, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I think some discussion would be needed before moving as it is not at all obvious that one or the other is the primary topic. older ≠ wiser 21:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• See below: "Not all mobile phones are cell". -Wikid77 (talk) 00:31, 14 January 2009

People read Mobile-phone 91% Cell-phone 9%

12-Jan-2008: Although, in conversations, more people might be saying "cell phone" rather than "mobile phone", when counting Wikipedia readership data, the extreme reverse is the case: during 2008, nearly 91% of phone readers read article "Mobile phone" versus 9% reading article "cell phone" (even though they were directed to the same article text). As of 12Jan2009, the articles have been separated now, so readers will see 2 different pages. Perhaps people who say "mobile phone" are more likely to read Wikipedia, or perhaps some navboxes are directing most people to click for "mobile phone" while "cell phone" is not in those navboxes. The readership levels are based on massive data: during 2008, article "mobile phone" was read about 5,000 times every day, while "cell phone" was read nearly 500 times every day: the ratio is basically 10x to 1. So, some major factors are keeping "mobile phone" as being the Wikipedia favorite, 91% of the time. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:58, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

This seems to be a US/UK thing (see List of words having different meanings in British and American English). "Cell phone" is now almost never used in the UK – everyone here just says "mobile", and "cell" on its own would not be understood. As I said above, I don't care what the article is called, but it should stick where it is, as per WP convention. Richard New Forest (talk) 21:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Not all mobile phones are cell

13-Jan-2009: Several times, on talk-page Talk:Mobile_phone, people have mentioned concerns over calling all "mobile phones" as "cellular". Someone even noted the article "Mobile phone" has apparently been kludged (or twisted) into re-wording cellular phrasing by word-replacement, just putting "mobile" for former word "cell" regardless of actual meaning. Others have predicted that "cellular will become dead technology", with the implication that "cell phone" will become like "galleon" compared to a modern "battleship", possibly with a consumer-driven preference to rapidly migrate to new technology. Anyway, there are numerous, impending factors that seem to prefer separating article "Cell phone" from "Mobile phone" in the near future. I had just wanted to compare vandalism between the 2 articles, as separated for a few weeks, to see if "cell phone" attracted significantly more daily hacking or not. However, this is a great time, for Wikipedia organization, to help determine if "Cell phone" should become a spin-off article of "Mobile phone" as it becomes broadened to cover more technologies. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

It is pracitularly nice how "mobile phone" article contradicts this one while calling mobile phone a cell phone too. I think both articles should be merged and the difference should be made clear in some history section or so (if there is a difference at all).--Kozuch (talk) 09:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Studying vandalism is not an appropriate reason to fork an article, nor should vandalism ever affect how we organize material. This article should be redirected back to mobile phone, in the absence of a clear rationale for a separate article.--Srleffler (talk) 23:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

• 11-Feb-2009: Excuse me? The problem that occurs in the organization of large articles is: hidden vandalism. There is an old expression, "People who live in glass houses should not throw stones". It very much matters how houses are built, and it matters how articles are organized to limit vandalism. The problems of hidden vandalism, or hacking, have persisted for over 4 years. Forking the article "Cell phone" has diverted daily vandalism that would have been redirected into "Mobile phone". This article should not be redirected back, as it is a separate type of phone ("cellular") and catches it's own share of daily vandalism. It would be great if Wikipedia did not have to worry about vandalism, but reality has proven otherwise. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Rate of vandalism

11-Feb-2009: After 30 days of being a separate page, the article "Cell phone" was attracting daily vandalism or spamlinks in February 2009. The term "cell phone" had been suspected as being a major target-name for vandalism, and the evidence shows, absolutely, that was still the case in February. The average rate in January 2009 had been hackings (or vandalism) made about once every 2 days. The article had not been protected against IP-user or new-user edits, so the data reflects worldwide editing of the article "Cell phone" with daily hacking. Because the article is so short, corrections have been easy to make, most within one minute or some in 3 hours, never lasting for 20 days as happened with "Mobile phone". -Wikid77 (talk) 12:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikid77's unconstructive revert

This won't fly. Wikid77, please give an exceptionally good reason as to how a month's worth of changes didn't improve the article. Far as I can tell, your edit was bordering WP:VANDALISM, pure and simple. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 20:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• To User:Sesshomaru: I am EXTREMELY upset at your behavior. I did not revert the article, I merged prior text with the existing content. Please read the ENTIRE PRIOR 30-DAYS of talk-page entries above. How dare you even begin to suggest that my actions are "bordering WP:VANDALISM". Hello? I wrote that ENTIRE article. That's right, every word. Who's the vandal now? Did anyone even consider opening the slightest dialog with me prior to hacking whole sections out of that article? NO, OF COURSE NOT. Sorry, but I don't respond well to Rude-ipedia. Please stop your disgusting, foul accusations. I hope to God you don't inflict these types of accusations on other users. Please read WP:CIVIL and seriously consider what is your agenda with regard to the article. Thank you. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Read up on WP:CIVIL yourself. Do you even know what WP:BRD is? Oh and FYI, the junk you're referring to was original research. User:Kozuch was the one who initially took it down. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 15:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Splitting this off as a separate article, and merge

Wikid77 and all, As a reader who stumbled on this, quite frankly splitting off cell phone into an article separate from mobile phone is ridiculous, particularly as a "solution" to vandalism. The thing to do, if an article is getting a lot of vandalism, is request semiprotection for it -- not start another "magnet page"! What about all the readers who go to this article and don't realize that we have a much better article on the topic under a different name? I appreciate your trying to be helpful, but this is not the way to go and is unhelpful for the encyclopedia. I'm requesting comments on a merge of this page back into mobile phone. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 06:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• To user:phoebe: Actually, the article stub as you saw it was not the original, intended content. It had been hacked so much, that the text recommending to read article "Mobile phone" had been axed weeks ago. Ironically, I had tried to restore that text as the "unconstructive" edit discussed above. In similar cases, where key links to related articles are easily hacked out of existence, the trick has been to link major articles in a sidebar navbox, as a separate template file: a sidebar navbox is not so easily hacked as would be article text linking "mobile phone". Also, splitting articles is a preferred method of fighting vandalism, as opposed to thinking that a large, overall article can be made "unsinkable". I was the one who restored the missing 6 sections into article "Mobile phone" after they had been hacked away 20 days earlier. Moreover, other editors have even recommended duplication of article text: not only is Wikipedia not paper (WP:NOTPAPER), but also Wikipedia won't crater because duplicate information is stated in 2 separate articles. So, yes, splitting or even repeating information is, on the contrary, very helpful for the encyclopedia. In fact, other users are currently discussing multiple splits to article "Mobile phone". Then, when such multiple, split sub-articles are linked using sidebar navboxes, then everyone wins. It is rare for vandals to disable an entire set of articles in the manner that they killed those 6 sections about mobile-phone features and applications (on 20Dec08). As for semiprotection, I suspect that you realize that it has been considered an avenue of last resort against vandalism, because anonymous-IP or new-user edits account for half of Wikipedia's user base. Instead, split a large article into logical sub-articles (linked by navboxes), use semiprotection on as few subs as possible, and then let everyone contribute to the rest, while even duplicating information to some extent (to avoid "putting all eggs in one basket"). This is similar to Wernher von Braun's Mars Project, designed to send multiple manned spaceships to Mars, avoiding a single point of failure. Each sub-article can act as a lifeboat to the others; there is no longer an "unsinkable" gigantic article. That is a workable plan proven to reduce vandalism, spamlinks, and hacking as often occurs in large articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I really do appreciate your enthusiasm in trying to protect the articles. But splitting is not and has never been a solution to vandalism problems. (See the Manual of Style for more on this). Semi-protection, on the other hand, is quite common -- in fact, the mobile phone article is currently semiprotected. We do try to keep topics together; duplicate articles are not considered a good thing. Best, -- phoebe / (talk to me) 21:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to support Phoebe on this one -- Wikipedia's defense against single point of failure is the page history, not having duplicate content. Semi-protection can aid against drive-by issues, and warning and blocking individual troublesome users from continuing to cause problems. Forks of content inevitably cause more problems than they solve.  :) — Catherine\^talk 00:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• Forks are not really a problem any longer, with the use of search-engine lookup in modern times; see below: "How redundant content survives vandalism". -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I still don't get why this page may be better off as a redirect to mobile phone. Who uses "mobile phone" nowadays? The common terminology for the device is "cell phone". Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• The term "mobile phone" seems to be a British preference; see above #People read Mobile-phone 91% Cell-phone 9%. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

As I believe I've said already above, I don't understand why two articles on what is basically the same topic is better than one. As for which title is better, that would need a bit more discussion, but in my experience cell and mobile are both in common use. older ≠ wiser 02:25, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• The term "cell phone" is based on "cellular phone" as using cell sites; compare to "WiFi phone" and "wireless phone", "portable phone" & "cordless phone".... The question is also whether "mobile phone" includes "WiFi phone" or if mobile phone will become synonymous with the old technology using cell sites. Also, consider how UK English differs on the terms: in the U.S., talking about a "lift" typically means a "facelift" or "catching a ride" and rarely the UK concept of lift as the American word "elevator". Hence, OED & Webster definitions should also be considered. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

For most cases there are NOT separate articles for regional/national spelling variations that treat the same subject. For instance, To use your example, there are not separate articles for lift and elevator. However, linguistic variants for the same or very similar topics are a different issue than whether differing technologies should be treated in separate articles -- and both are different issues than whether having separate articles in some way helps prevent vandalism. By jumping about from one rationale to another, it rather gives the impression of grasping at straws. older ≠ wiser 16:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

How redundant content survives vandalism

16-Feb-2009: Unfortunately, when a lone article gets hacked, there is no other article containing the lost information, and few people scan the history page back through 20 days of revisions to recover the hacked 6 sections about mobile-phone features. So yes, duplication is better, such as an overview of features in one article, then detailed features in another. That type of duplication is very common in Wikipedia. A search-engine or wiki-search lookup will list 2 articles formerly describing handset features; one article will still be okay, while the other article will have been hacked (or vandalized) as the 6 sections about handset features will be gone. However, that's okay to the reader, because the search-results listed the other article which can be read (because it did not get vandalized during the same period as the first article), and so, still describes handset features. Although in the past, forking of text often led to outdated variations, with the "advent" of search-engine technology (during the past 20 years), more people are learning to scan for similar content, and update all variations to reflect current information. In reality, information is forked hundreds or thousands of times in Wikipedia, as in every time someone mentions a similar phrase about a topic or event: such as the September 11 attacks occurred in year "2001" or Albert Einstein was a "theoretical physicist" as duplicate data. Plus, that redundant content survives vandalism, as well as providing direct information in the sections where it is duplicated. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Content forks are not a useful method for fighting vandalism. Summary style splits between main articles and sub-articles or related topics is not the same as forking. While good summary style may duplicate a few salient points, it should not reproduce substantial content. Excessive duplicate content is inherently more difficult to maintain and should be avoided. older ≠ wiser 14:29, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Duplicate the phone details only in limited amounts

16-Feb-2009: While duplication of redundant content can help survive hackings and vandalism, there are WP examples of duplication gone awry. Perhaps, the most obvious problem is the giant navboxes. Formerly, template-based navboxes were auto-updated in most articles within 10 minutes of changing, but now articles contain old navbox revisions even a week after updating. Some navboxes have grown to have 200-500 wikilinks, in effect forking the content as "boxified articles" appended to other articles. In February 2009, when a navbox template was modified, only the articles next-edited would be instantly updated to show that template revision. If the navbox template is revised 30 times in one week, then 30 different variations of that navbox could appear in the various hundreds of articles that use it. This problem should be avoided in telephone articles: limit the navbox to a handful of articles (perhaps 50), rather than split "Mobile phone" and link those sub-articles in a navbox tacked onto 500 other articles. Keep telephone navboxes in only limited sets of articles (such as 50). That will avoid the impact of the "30-revision" navboxes forking different versions of content into hundreds of articles. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

First, I do not think what you say about navboxes not updating is actually true. It is true that some information such as What Links Here are not updated for some time after template is modified, but users that load a page containing a template will generally see the latest version of any transcluded templates. But in any case, that is rather tangential to whether cell phone and mobile phone should be merged. older ≠ wiser 16:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• 18-Feb-2008: I understand your shock and disbelief that the navbox articles are no longer updated (for days) to reflect a modified navbox. It has always been a problem of wiki-illusions as to how articles are really formatted. An article, in display form, to be seen by thousands of readers, has already been stored in canned form, already pre-formatted for all the templates of infoboxes, navboxes, etc. It was only an illusion that the article appeared to be instantly formatted, "live", for the exclusive viewing of the next reader. Instead, the canned copies are shared, all users see the same copy. Wikipedia, on the wiki-servers unseen in the background, has been desperately queueing articles to be quickly reformatted when their templates change. Modify a template used by 6,500 articles, and all 6,500 articles are queued to reformat those canned-copies for future display. And yes, the article-formatting queues often contained more than a million article names to reformat. I hope that explains why various articles can contain many different revisions of a navbox. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but I've seen no evidence of your claims and have not noticed it turn up in discussions on WP:VP(T). Do you have actual evidence to support your assertions? Or can you point to some places where this supposed problem has been discussed by wikitechnologists?

Limiting forked content about phones

19-Feb-2009: Many people have expressed an idealistic standard for avoiding forked content in articles, but unfortunately, far more than 500,000 Wikipedia articles already contain forked content. The forked-content "horse has already left the barn", and currently, vast herds of articles contain forked content. The situation now requires a more realistic approach, as to how forked content can be kept within manageable limits.

Although many paragraphs are duplicated between some articles, the most common forking is to duplicate navboxes in every article conceivable. The navbox acts as the "boxified contents" of an overview article, appended repeatedly, over and over (and over and over) to every possible article, over and over. This problem should be kept limited in phone articles.

To understand the impact, consider the baseball article "Adrian Burnside" (Australian baseball player). That article had only 9 typical wikilinks in early 2008, but 2 baseball-team navboxes were appended to increase the wikilinks to about 75, expanding the wikilinks by a factor of 8x times more wikilinks by duplicating the content. Those navboxes link over 50 articles, generating about 50x65 or 3,250 wikilinks where, formerly, only 2*50=100 wikilinks were needed. To indicate a player is a member, of a team, requires only one wikilink to that team article, not a "boxified version" of that team-article appended to every team member and their brothers. The impact is enormous: those articles generate more than 3,250 wikilinks where 100 had been sufficient to link the team articles: that's a factor of 32x times more wikilinks (3250/100) generated for Wikipedia to store, format and display on an article page. It's like saying a family was comfortable in a 3-bedroom house, but now they've moved up to the navbox-lifestyle as 32x better, in a 96-bedroom house.

When splitting "cell phone" from "WiFi phone" and "mobile phone" or "mobile device", avoid creating those monster navboxes as forked content in every possible phone article. Keep the duplication of information limited to just a few copies, not a 150-item navbox appended to 200 articles. I think a navbox of perhaps 30 links would be sufficient in most cases. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:10, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

unfortunately, far more than 500,000 Wikipedia articles already contain forked content. Your discussion of the possible impact of navaboxes is interesting, but this article's talk page is not the appropriate forum to address issues that are much larger than this article. older ≠ wiser 12:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes: please post on the village pump if you want to talk about infoboxes in general. This page is not the place to do it. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)