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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 29 March 2024 [1].

Protocol Wars

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Nominator(s): Whizz40 (talk) 17:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about... a long-running debate in computer science which occurred from the 1970s to the 1990s, when engineers, organizations and nations became polarized over the issue of which communication protocol would result in the best and most robust computer networks. This culminated in the Internet–OSI Standards War in the 1980s and early 1990s, which was ultimately "won" by the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) by the mid-1990s and has since resulted in most of the competing protocols disappearing. Whizz40 (talk) 17:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Don't use fixed px size
  • Captions need editing for MOS compliance (and would suggest checking the article text as well)
  • File:Donald_Davies.jpg: where is that licensing coming from?
  • File:Bob_Kahn_1969.jpg: why is this believed to be public domain?
  • File:Battle_For_Access_Standards.png has an inadequate FUR. Ditto File:Internet-OSI_Standard_War.jpg, File:Vint_Cerf_IP_on_Everything.jpeg

Thank you for the comments, Nikkimaria. Apologies for the delay in responding. I am being held up by a heavy workload in the last couple of weeks and the next couple of weeks, plus family commitments and a bereavement in the extended family. I will come back to this in early April. Whizz40 (talk)

Comments Oppose by Ceoil

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The article has great potential for a gripping story, but assumes too much knowledge on the average readers behalf. As an older person who was connected from the mid 90s, I read with interest for the first few sentences, and then lost grip; TCP/IP, PTT, DoD? Not suggesting you dumb it down, but can you please explain the meaning of the terms, and their relative importance, so the non comp-sci readers know what the issues and dynamics were. Ceoil (talk) 01:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a sample of places that could do with trimming of detail for clarity, or oppositely use wiki-links, or explainers so the lost can get grounding'

  • Separately, proprietary data communication protocols also emerged....wiki proprietary and legal trademarks
  • Why does The first use of the term protocol...occurred in April 1967 need four refs
  • AT&T in the United States and the postal, telegraph and telephone service (PTT) in the United Kingdom, the General Post Office (GPO). The incumbent utility companies had a monopoly on communications infrastructure -
  • Licklider, Baran and Davies all found it hard to convince incumbent telephone companies of the merits of their ideas. - Innovators found it hard to convince the incumbent monopolies to innovate (or some such)
  • Also, between users of the best effort service, use of network resources does not enforce fairness, for any definition of it - Any definition of best effort service
    • we have the unexplained terms "fairness" and then the weird add-on "for any definition of it".
  • On the ARPANET, the starting point for connecting a host computer to an IMP in 1969 was the 1822 protocol - punct

Its an enjoyable if for now confusing read - but I don't think much heavy lifting is left. More later. Ceoil (talk) 02:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • For accessibility for a lay reader, brief explainers on terms such Packet switching, internetworking, dynamically routing, distributed networks, etc would be v. helpful
  • In the early 1960s, J. C. R. Licklider proposed the idea of a universal computer network while working at Bolt Beranek & Newman (BBN) and, later, leading the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later, DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). - do we need his CV
  • Only use a person's full name after first mention[2]
  • Keep with either the "United States" / "United Kingdom" or "US" / "UK".
  • Still only scanning, will read full through shortly. Ceoil (talk) 23:56, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now. For probably good reasons, the nominator isnt in a position to engage atm, weeks old comments above remain unresolved, with no indication of a timeline for closing out. Its certainly not ready now; maybe the article will be worked on and returned at a more convenient date. Ceoil (talk) 03:36, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sohom

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I want to take a look at the article at a later date. Sohom (talk) 03:24, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sohom Datta, you may wish to consider doing that sooner rather than later. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On it, I'm not a subject matter expert when it comes to networking, but I do have some background knowledge of modern network protocols in the OSI model.

Lede
  • Define "packet switching" in the lede
  • The lede really isn't selling the article too well here, the first paragraph is probably fine, the rest is a bit of word salad especially if a person is not familiar with the protocols being mentioned. I would personally try to keep jargon to a minimum in the lede. (For example, instead of "X.25", try mentioning what was different about the standard)
Background
  • Please provide a simplified background section where you give a brief outline of the topic and explain the context and potentially broadly talk about the protocols involved. (This used to be optional, but now is generally recommended by MOS:CS)
Packet switching vs circuit switching
  • Why do we have 5 citations for the third paragraph?
  • The heading of this section talks about two technologies, packet switching and circuit switching. However, the section effectively does not mention circuit switching at all (the only mention of it is in the last sentence of para 3). As a reader, I'm left confused wrt to what "circuit switching" is and why it was considered a viable competitor to packet switching at all (besides the fact that AT&T uses it)
Datagrams vs virtual circuits
  • As a reader, this section starts out great, describing the two technologies and then mentioning the advantages and disadvantages of each. However, there is no mention of datagrams once we start talking about the events occuring during this "war", as a uninformed reader I'm confused as to why datagrams is even mentioned.
TCP vs CYCLADES and INWG vs X.25
  • Don't create external link to RFCs, desribe what you need and move on. The average reader of this article is not going to be interested in the exact RFC spec of a protocol.
  • There were two competing proposals, one based on the early Transmission Control Program proposed by Cerf and Kahn Probably use the TCP abbreviation here.
  • Even in this section, I'm losing track of who/which group supported what. The first paragraph mentions that CYCLADES used virtual circuit networks, but partway through the section we learn that it's creator was a strong advocate of datagrams?
  • I would suggest trying to look for more coverage of the virtual circuit camps. You've dedicated 7 paragraphs to covering the people advocating for datagrams, but only 3-4 for the virtual circuit camp.
Common host protocol vs translating between protocols
  • LGTM, no issues
DoD model vs X.25/X.75 vs proprietary standards
  • Ditto, this section looks good if a bit jargonny, which seems unaviodable.

I'm going to stop the review here for now to give some time refute/address my points. As I see it right now, the article's "Early computer networking" section needs some major restructuring, triming and/or content-addition to be compliant with the FAC criteria surrounding completeness (as I read them). (that being said this is my first FAC review so feel free to let me know if I went wrong somewhere) Sohom (talk) 21:30, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

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This has been open for more than three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is still some way from gathering a consensus to promote, so I am going to archive it for the nominator to work on the issues raised off-FAC. I look forward to seeing it back here in due course, although the usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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