Seeking opinions on technology-related Category-naming conventions

[QDP2012]

Good morning all,

The following relates to technology-related categories, and whether the names should be generic or brand-specific, etc.

• In the RR Wiki, currently, all NXDN stuff has been assigned to the "NXDN NEXEDGE" category, partly because there was not much NXDN data in the Wiki, and as a catch-all while NXDN data was collected.
  
  Now that NXDN ICAS data has been documented, the following question should be answered:
  
  Q: Should we eliminate the "...NXDN NEXEDGE" category naming-convention, and categorize all NXDN data in the Wiki into categories with a more general "... NXDN" name (without the NEXEDGE or ICAS specifier),
  
  OR should we create a new branch of categories named "... NXDN ICAS" for just ICAS specific data?
  
  
• Before we answer quickly, the same question easily applies to the "DMR" and "MOTOTRBO" nomenclature, because all of the DMR and MOTOTRBO data has been placed into the "...MOTOTRBO Information" categories, for much the same reason -- name was chosen early in the data-collection effort, and has become a catch-all, not necessarily intended to be Motorola-specific, but is used to categorize all DMR-data articles.
  
  Q. Should we eliminate the "...MOTOTRBO Information" category naming-convention, and catergorize all DMR/TRBO data in the Wiki into categories with a more general "...DMR" name (without MOTOTRBO or other specific-DMR-type specifier)
  
  OR should we create a separate branch of categories named for each specific type of DMR data?
  
  
• My opinion is that we do yet have enough justification to create the subtypes of NXDN, and that all NXDN articles should be categorized with a "... NXDN" category, that the "...NXDN NEXEDGE" category and the proposed "...NXDN ICAS" categories be eliminated.
  
  Further, my opinion is that we should put all DMR/MOTOTRBO articles in a more generically named "...DMR" category, and not have brand-specific subcategories within the technology, until/unless it is absolutely required.

Which way should we go?

Edit: If the general prediction is that the Wiki will be collecting a lot of brand-specific data, and that the brand-specific differences are significant, then maybe we should have brand-specific categories. I don't know. Someone with more experience will need to help clarify this.

Thanks,

 

[ka3jjz]

On the NXDN stuff - have you considered that there are really 2 'brands', one Kenwood and the other Icom? Now I could see NXDN as the high level category, and NEXEDGE and IDAS as categories under that. That way, if other players appear, we're already able to accommodate that without a lot of fuss.

On the DMR stuff, from what little I understand of it, MOTOTRBO is the Moto implementation of the DMR protocol. It's unlikely that someone else is going to come up with their own implementation, although technically I suppose they could do it. At this point, it's moot, since Moto seems to have this pretty much to themselves. But what about the future? Who knows? I'd say leave it as is until we see some reason to change it...Mike

 

[QDP2012]

On the NXDN stuff - have you considered that there are really 2 'brands', one Kenwood and the other Icom? Now I could see NXDN as the high level category, and NEXEDGE and IDAS as categories under that. That way, if other players appear, we're already able to accommodate that without a lot of fuss.

Ok, that would work. If NEXEDGE and ICAS are truly that separate, and don't play well with each other, then they really should be separated from each other; and being subcategories under a general "NXDN" category makes sense, too.

On the DMR stuff, from what little I understand of it...

I, too, have a lot to learn about all of these technologies.

...MOTOTRBO is the Moto implementation of the DMR protocol. It's unlikely that someone else is going to come up with their own implementation, although technically I suppose they could do it. At this point, it's moot, since Moto seems to have this pretty much to themselves. But what about the future? Who knows? I'd say leave it as is until we see some reason to change it...Mike

But, it seems that many flavors of DMR exist. Please see Wikipedia: Digital Mobile Radio >> Implementations

So, maybe MOTOTRBO should be a subcategory under DMR?

Thanks,

 

[AK9R]

On the NXDN stuff - have you considered that there are really 2 'brands', one Kenwood and the other Icom? Now I could see NXDN as the high level category, and NEXEDGE and IDAS as categories under that.

Sounds good to me. NXDN is the official name of the protocol. NEXEDGE is Kenwood's brand name for their implementation. IDAS is Icom's brand name. There are some slight differences between the two implementations.

On the DMR stuff, from what little I understand of it, MOTOTRBO is the Moto implementation of the DMR protocol. It's unlikely that someone else is going to come up with their own implementation, although technically I suppose they could do it. At this point, it's moot, since Moto seems to have this pretty much to themselves.

Actually, Hytera has developed radios and repeaters that follow the DMR standard and they are not compatible with all features of MOTOTRBO. I'd say the top-level category should be DMR with a sub-category for MOTOTRBO.

 

[QDP2012]

Sounds good to me. NXDN is the official name of the protocol. NEXEDGE is Kenwood's brand name for their implementation. IDAS is Icom's brand name. There are some slight differences between the two implementations.


Actually, Hytera has developed radios and repeaters that follow the DMR standard and they are not compatible with all features of MOTOTRBO. I'd say the top-level category should be DMR with a sub-category for MOTOTRBO.

Ok. Since it seems like we're all on the same page here, I'll get the categories and articles updated accordingly.

Thanks for your time and wisdom.

 

[ka3jjz]

Interesting - I didn't know there were so many other players in the DMR game. Then perhaps the same logic should be applied here as for NXDN. The problem is whether all these players will be able to talk with one another. You would THINK they would all subscribe to using the same protocols, vocoders and so on, but we all know what assume means...,Mike

 

[QDP2012]

Ok. Since it seems like we're all on the same page here, I'll get the categories and articles updated accordingly.

The categories and the Categories-Tree structure have been updated.

I'm stepping away from the keyboard for a while, and will evaluate the related articles' category-assignments later.

Thanks again,

 

[DaveNF2G]

Hytera's implementation includes something they call "pseudo trunking" which is not compatible with TRBO.

 

[QDP2012]

The categories and the Categories-Tree structure have been updated.

I'm stepping away from the keyboard for a while, and will evaluate the related articles' category-assignments later.

The articles' category-assignments have been verified or updated.


Next questions:

• Another question is whether or not Template:Table Trboconventional and/or Template:Table Trbosys have been used for DMR, non-TRBO, listings.
• If so, then should the templates be updated/duplicated/etc to accommodate non-TRBO systems?
  
  I haven't had a chance to research this yet, so I'm asking in-case anyone knows of a DMR/non-TRBO system that uses either of these templates.

Thanks again,