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May 25

What's the name for the blown up texts so common in social media?

In social media, many simple texts go viral which have nothing special other than they are blown up to a picture. People may forward them because (a) it's dead easy and (b) they find them funny or they want to proselytize the expressed opinion to others. What are they called? You might consider them a subgroup of internet memes. However, they don't fit the definition “Two central attributes of Internet memes are creative reproduction and intertextuality.”, nor do they contain any other noteworthy creativity. Their only purpose seems to be that they're bigger than normal text so that they gather more importance. Even “eye candy” would be too flattering, so I'd rather call them "rectangular attention sinks". Maybe I'd better turn to a sociologist with this question.

Related tech question: Do any social media offer a way to simply filter and ignore these attention sinks? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 09:41, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide any examples of "blown up texts"? Do you mean texts as in a form of online messaging between two people, such as SMS? ―Panamitsu (talk) 10:06, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

For example an image that contains nothing but the text
Why's it always “nyc smells like pee” and never “my pee smells like the greatest city in the world”
(In this particular case, the image actually contains some user name who may have originally posted this, along with their picture, contrary to what I described above. But I picked this because I found it somewhat witty. And the user name and picture are not important here.) ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 14:28, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

In magazines and newspapers, they are called pull quotes. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 22:06, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Interesting; I wasn't aware of that term. But that's not the same thing. If you want to transfer the term onto social media, it would have to be some text taken from a longer discussion, rather like people use bold face and capitalization in such discussions as here. The blown up texts of my question do not pull a reader to any source. Even in the case of the “nyc” example which happens to contain something that looks like an author alias and picture, there is no way to jump to the original discussion. So, they're neither “pull” nor “quotes”. ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 08:21, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

For clarification: pull quotes are pulled from the text, though I guess they are designed to pull you in as well. --142.112.143.8 (talk) 21:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, that seems redundant. Or what would be a non-pull quote, then? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 05:08, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Pull quotes (in the original sense of the term) coinhabit the space with the text from which they were pulled, so in a print magazine the quoted passage would typically appear twice on a page: once in the running text, and once standing out on ts own in a blown-up font size. Normal quotes typically appear merely once and usually have the same font size as the surrounding text, or when displayed as a block sometimes a slightly smaller font size.  --Lambiam 10:23, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. So their name seems to be a misnomer: The non-pull quotes even have more pulling to do, since they have to pull the text from farther away. But that was only a detour from my original questions. Can we turn back to them, please? ◅ Sebastian Helm 🗨 15:22, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Diffs

English Wikipedia is almost at 1,225,620,000 diffs, increasing at about 1000 every ten minutes or so I'm guessing. Is there a limit to this number in MediaWiki or the underlying software – cognate with the Y2K problem and the like?

(This is a throwaway question that just occurred to me, not a complaint or anything to take seriously or anything that I'm worrying about!) 46.69.215.187 (talk) 17:18, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

MediaWiki stores complete revisions (previous versions stored backwards deltas as diffs, but later versions store the whole revision and computes the diffs) in the REVISION table. The primary key for that is "int unsigned", which in MySql is a 32 bit integer. That's a max of 4,294,967,295; so that would put en.wikipedia at about 1/4 of the way to the limit. I don't know what provision the developers have for the (surely inevitable) case where that becomes an issue.-- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 18:27, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that answers my question and provides useful extra reading! Thank you @Finlay McWalter: I'm very grateful for your time and expertise. 46.69.215.187 (talk) 18:34, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

The reference document also states that there is a 64-bit integer data type, which is one possible solution. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:12, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

May 26

Word Autorecovery

I am using Windows 11, and Word for Microsoft 365. My question has to do with the feature to Save Autorecovery information, which saves a copy of each Word document that is open and has been modified within the past 10 (or other user-settable time) minutes. These Autorecovery files are saved in Appdata \ Roaming \ Microsoft \ Word. However, if I look at them as I am editing various Word documents, sometimes I notice that some of them have sizes of 0 KB. I am attaching a screen shot showing a view of the Word folder with four documents having sizes of 0 KB. These files are in fact null files; that is, the 0 KB is correct. The files that I was editing were not null files.

What causes Word to stop creating good Autorecovery files? What I have found I can do is to stop Word (after saving the documents in question to their disk locations), and restart Word. If there is an unexpected stop or unexpected loss of Word functionality, updates to the documents being edited are lost.

Is there technical documentation of the Autorecovery feature? Does anyone know what causes these failures, or how to minimize their occurrence? Robert McClenon (talk) 03:36, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

What follows is a hunch, although based on Microsoft sources. Buried deep in the menus of office is a way to change the autosave location. [1] Perhaps this will solve the problem. I base that on hints in this otherwise irrelevant page [2]. It has the phrase "the roaming profile has reached its maximum storage limit". What is the Roaming directory? It seems to be to do with making user data accessible across a network. Maybe avoiding the "roaming" will also avoid the zero bytes file issue.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:24, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, User:Card Zero. The sources that you have provided are very old, which I think you knew, but they do provide information for an educated guess, which is what you were trying to do. You ask: What is the Roaming directory? That is displayed in the screen shot that occupies too much space just above this discussion. It is a subdirectory of my User directory, and, as you imply, it has something to do with network access, but appears to be an old version of network access. I have changed the directory in which the Autosave is being done,and will see if that accomplishes anything. I think that we are both inferring that what was happening was that the Word subdirectory within the Roaming subdirectory had exceeded some size limit, which would be why the Autorecovery files were being zeroed. You provided some useful information to guess at what to do. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:38, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes. A couple of other completely different wild guesses, which I have no time right now to investigate, is that they are lock files (to do with exclusive access to a file in use) or placeholders (when there is no need for an autosave but it is somehow convenient to Word if it can find the appropriate autosave file anyway). Also I really ought to dig the previous similar discussion out of the archives, I forget how it concluded.

Update: I searched the archives, and it turns out I was thinking of the saga of normal.dotm, a different problem you had with Word, although similar in that you lost supposedly saved data after a crash (in that case, template settings).  Card Zero  (talk) 20:23, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

"dracut"?

Where does the name of dracut (software) come from? --142.112.143.8 (talk) 04:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Never mind, I found a Reddit thread with the answer. It's named after Dracut. I once read a novel where the "no resemblance to actual people" disclaimer said that "the characters are placenamed"; apparently some software developers had the same idea. --142.112.143.8 (talk) 05:10, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

May 27

Ringtones for different known callers

Ringtone doesn't seem to mention that this is possible but I think it is. I tried finding sources but found nothing that Wikipedia would accept, and even then, nothing seemed to make it clear the concept even existed.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:36, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Seems like that is part of the functionality of the software of the phone (iOS/Android), not part of the ringtone itself. Polygnotus (talk) 04:11, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

The best place to propose an improvement to any article is the talk page of that article. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned, it is the phone's software, not the concept of a ringtone. On my phone, I can go into my contact list, select a contact, and set both an image and a ringtone for that contact. Then, when I receive a call from that number, the image I set shows up and the ringtone I set plays. If I haven't set either one, the default image and ringtone are used. So, it is possible to have a ringtone for a specific contact on a phone if the software allows it. It is also possible to have a different ringtone on different phones. It is possible to have a ringtone that plays when you purchase the phone, but then a person changes it later to a different one. It is possible to play a ringtone on a piano without a phone at all. It is possible that a frog may learn to vocalize sounds that mimic a ringtone. A lack of references should indicate that concept of "possible" and "ringtone" is not in itself notable (but I would like to see that frog). 12.116.29.106 (talk) 11:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I can't really propose an improvement where I don't have the reliable sources that would support it. That was my purpose in asking here.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 14:30, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

May 28

How to search for fake references (in SparQL or with other methods)

In SparQL, how can I search for stuff like this. So it would start with an opening square bracket, then a number of up to 3 digits, then a closing square bracket.

Is there a way to do this via the normal search box? Is there another, better way? Thanks! Polygnotus (talk) 04:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with SparQL, but a regular expression that will serve for a search in most query pattern syntaxes is:

\[[0-9]+\]

Thus will also match "[2024]". If 3 is a hard limit on number of digits, this might work:

\[([1-9]|[1-9][0-9]|[1-9][0-9][0-9])\]

 --Lambiam 10:13, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I think that the problem is that the article content itself is not on Wikidata, which means I have to try a different approach. It seems like the search function also does not like regex. So I may have to download a dump and use regex. Polygnotus (talk) 11:24, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

May 30

What Programming Language Is This? (1998)

I was watching TV the other day and they showed a computer screen with code on it. Normally, I rewind the program to see what language they are using. However, I came across a language I don't recognize. It looks like they are using # signs for comments, CIF to terminate IF blocks, == for testing equality, & and | for compound conditions, = for assignment and maybe line numbers for a couple lines. The TV show was from 1998. What programming language is this? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 10:15, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

So the oddest part about the language appears to be that it uses indentation for structure, which is known as the off-side rule. That article has a list of potential candidates, but I had a look through and wasn't able to find what's in the image. ―Panamitsu (talk) 11:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I've just noticed your remark about CIF, sorry. ―Panamitsu (talk) 11:56, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

The code snippet deals with astronomical coordinates and a "beam", which suggests to me that this has to do with radio astronomical data (nothing to do with the story I guess). Some of the statements look like Fortran. The slashes suggested something like ESO-MIDAS, but that doesn't have CIF. In fact, I haven't found anything using CIF, but maybe I've just hit the limits of my google foo. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a newer variant of FORTRAN. If the C of CIF is in the first column then it's a comment. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:47, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

Here's a second screenshot. Unfortunately, there's some ghosting in the image but you can see that there are nested CIF's. A Quest For Knowledge (talk)

I think I've found it, or at least I've made a development. I've found a language called Cola ( COntrol LAnguage for use with Hermes)[3] which was created(?) in 1994. Here appears to its source code. It is part of some project called the Groningen Image Processing System which "is a highly interactive software system for the reduction and display of astronomical data," which falls in line with Wrongfilter's comment. It has the CIF and also CFOR (my guess is the C stands for close), and generally looks similar, except I can't find anything about what symbols are used to make comments. ―Panamitsu (talk) 12:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Excellent! It seems to me that cola uses exclamation marks for comments, but otherwise it is very close. This seems to be based on sheltran, which as far as I understand was a sort of pre-processor for Fortran 77 to allow for a more structured coding style. Makes you wonder how the makers of that TV series found that piece of code. --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:02, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Help with text

Hi, i'm trying to create a Category for discussion request on Wikimedia Commons but i need to do some work on the proposal itself before i can publish it. Could anyone help me out? I'll much rather ask here than on Commons since the response time here is much faster.

The raw text to the CfD can be found on https://pastebin.com/cEaWgU6R Trade (talk) 17:10, 30 May 2024 (UTC) Basically the things i need to do is the following:

• Remove all duplicate entries
• Remove all " (<number> C)" and everything in between them (including the space in front)
• Start each entry with ":[[:Category:" and end each entry with "]]"

There are probably some way to automate it but as i said i have no clue how--Trade (talk) 17:19, 30 May 2024 (UTC)

I've created a subpage User:Trade/CfD Cristal on Wikimedia Commons – a much easier collaborative communication channel than PasteBin. I have fixed numerous issues (mainly lack of whitespace or the wrong case) that resulted in redlinks. CfD listings of multiple entries commonly use *; therefore I have not replaced * by :.

The usual terminology is to merge categories (such as Category:RED ƎYE Pictures logos) into target categories (such as Category:RED ƎYE logos), which means all category members get reassigned to the target category. So instead of

(Move all the images into "Category:RED ƎYE logos")

you might want to use

Merge the following categories into Category:RED ƎYE logos:

I have left your wording unchanged, though.  --Lambiam 08:53, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Appreciated Trade (talk) 00:42, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

June 1

C++ array initialization

Let's say I allocate a new array

std::array<int,10> *x = new std::array<int,10>;

Considerable head scratching at cppreference.com doesn't tell me whether this array's elements are guaranteed to be initialized to 0. Experimentally they do seem to be, but that could be accidental. In C, of course, int x[10]; makes an array that is uninitialized. Does anyone know? Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:1ECE (talk) 05:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

Cplusplus.com says By default, regular arrays of local scope (for example, those declared within a function) are left uninitialized. This means that none of its elements are set to any particular value. I don't know what happens in a global scope. ―Panamitsu (talk) 06:33, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

In C, a global array is initialized to zero. (Reference: K&R, or the latest C standard.) I think C++ works the same way: this page from learncpp.com says "Global variables have static duration" and, later, "Unlike local variables, which are uninitialized by default, variables with static duration are zero-initialized by default." This is not very official C++ reference, but has the advantage of actually telling us the answer. And our compatibility of C and C++ article says various things about arrays, but nothing to contradict that the languages work the same in this respect.  Card Zero  (talk) 07:44, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

A std::array is not a C-style array. It acts similarly in many ways but has some differences.

The std::array constructor follows the rules of aggregate initialization. But if there is no initializer list (in braces), default initialization is used. The std::array constructor reference linked above says "note that default initialization may result in indeterminate values for non-class T", and the default initialization reference linked above clarifies that POD types ("plain old data", like int) are uninitialized by default initialization. So for a std::array<T> created without an initialization list, the elements are uninitialized if T is a POD type. If T is a non-POD class, the elements would be initialized with their default constructor. CodeTalker (talk) 05:53, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

But are you disagreeing, or agreeing? We've all agreed the array would be uninitialized if it has local scope. But do you think an int array with global scope (or "static duration" perhaps more relevantly), with default initialization, is uninitialized? Your links led me to zero initialization, but I still don't see a definitive answer on this site. Presumably it is telling us, in its way.

Zero-initialization is performed in the following situations: 1) For every named variable with static or thread-local(since C++11) storage duration that is not subject to constant initialization, before any other initialization.

Maybe that means global arrays are initialized to zero, but due to uncertainties about what very formally specified thing in the reference relates to what familiar thing in practice, I can't be sure. Is a global array a variable? Does it have static storage? Fairly sure of the latter, less certain of the former.

Perhaps you weren't disagreeing, but just elaborating: we have the new wrinkle that uninitialized non-POD types get a default initialization, even at local scope.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

As I read it, the elements are not guaranteed to be initialized. For reference, I'm using final C++23 draft; the numbers in parentheses are the relevant locations in the draft.

First off, only the pointer has static storage. The array has dynamic storage, having been created by a new-expression (7.6.2.8 (9)). What happens from there is, well, complicated.

• An allocation function may be called to obtain storage (7.6.2.8 (11-13)); if so, the state of the memory thus returned is unspecified (6.7.5.5.2 (2)).
• Now, the expression has no new-initializer, so the result is default-initialized (7.6.2.8 (23.1)).
• Default-initialization means that the best applicable constructor for the initializer () (chosen via overload resolution) is called with an empty argument list to initialize the class (9.4.1 (7.1)).
• The array class is an aggregate, and uses the implicitly-declared default constructor (24.3.7.2 (1)).
• This performs whatever initializations that would be performed by a user-written default constructor with no ctor-initializer and an empty compound-statement (basically, a constructor that doesn't specify anything) (11.4.5.2 (4)).

Not actually knowing precisely what the data members contained are or how they are specified, we are stuck here. There is nothing preventing an implementation from, for instance, storing the data in an array specified with a default member initializer (see 11.9.3 (9.1)) of {142857, -32768}. IF one assumes that the class holds an array of 10 ints with no initializer specified (which seems more likely), that array is itself default-initialized (11.9.3 (9.3)); each element thereof is then also default-initialized (9.4.1 (7.2)). For an int, default-initialization performs no initialization (9.4.1 (7.3)), and we are left with whatever was in the memory we were allocated.

BentSm (talk) 14:01, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

There are many cases: heap/local/static, POD/non-POD, and created with or without an initializer. The OP was asking about a std::array<int> (POD) on the heap with no initializer. Such a variable is not guaranteed to be zero-initialized. The same is true if local rather than heap but a static would be zero-initialized. In all these cases, non-PODs would be initialized
by the class's default constructor. Heap variables may be default initialized if no initializer is given (uninitialized if POD or default constructed if non-POD) as in the OP's example, or value initialized if given an empty initializer (zero if POD or default constructed if non-POD).

So, to enumerate the cases:

// --- static; no initializer
static std::array<int,10> a; // initialized to 0
static std::array<MyClass,10> a; // initialized by MyClass::MyClass()
// --- static; empty initializer (same as previous case)
static std::array<int,10> a{}; // initialized to 0
static std::array<MyClass,10> a{}; // initialized by MyClass::MyClass()
// --- local; no initializer
std::array<int,10> a; // uninitialized
std::array<MyClass,10> a; // initialized by MyClass::MyClass()
// --- local; empty initializer
std::array<int,10> a{}; // initialized to 0
std::array<MyClass,10> a{}; // initialized by MyClass::MyClass()
// --- heap; no initializer
std::array<int,10> *a = new std::array<int,10>; // default initialized (uninitialized)
std::array<MyClass,10> *a = new std::array<MyClass,10>; // default initialized: initialized by MyClass::MyClass();
// --- heap; empty initializer
std::array<int,10> *a = new std::array<int,10>(); // value initialized (set to zero)
std::array<MyClass,10> *a = new std::array<MyClass,10>(); // value initialized: also initialized by MyClass::MyClass();


BTW, the "experiment" by which the OP found their array to be set to zero would be better done by deliberately unzeroing the heap first, by something like

std::array<int,100> *z = new std::array<int,100>;
for (int i = 0; i < 100; ++i) (*z)[i] = 0xffffffff;
delete z;

This is not definitive but it makes it more likely that the next thing allocated from the heap doesn't use fresh system-allocated memory, which might indeed be all zeros. CodeTalker (talk) 17:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

June 2

Fingerprint, Identification key, Recipe, Answer file, INI file, Bibliographic Record

A couple of examples for context:

1. ccache "caches compilations so that ... the same compilation can be avoided and the results can be taken from the cache... by hashing different kinds of information that should be unique for the compilation and then using the hash sum to identify the cached output."
2. Saving a copy of an online webpage from within a Web Browser (File > Save Page As...)

What is the word for a set of parameters which attribute to an instance/snapshot the information required for it's reproduction?
In the examples above, ccache utilises "different kinds of information that should be unique for the compilation", similarly if I save a webpage from within a Web Browser, the only way for someone to be guaranteed to independently replicate the same file would be for the same URI to be accessed by the same version of the Web Browser with the same configuration (e.g. javascript enabled/disabled, identical installation+configuration of extensions which affect page retrieval/rendering) on the same Operating System with the same configuration.

In the case of ccache, the compiler version and flags are some factors of the "information that should be unique for the compilation", and during recompilation inputting the same selection of information results in an identical hash and therefore a cache match.
But what is the word to describe the information being input?
I'm not looking for a generic word like "metadata".

Some words I thought of which seemed to be candidate answers were:

• Fingerprint (computing) - However fingerprint refers to an algorithmic output (e.g. ccache 'hash') whereas I am wanting to refer to the inputs, which the article simply defines as "a procedure that maps an arbitrarily large data item (such as a computer file) to a much shorter bit string, its fingerprint".
• Key (cryptography) - This seemed very close, except that in the case of cryptography it is described as "a piece of information" whereas I am looking for a word to refer to a "set of information".
• Identification key - "aids the identification of biological entities", rather than describing the parameters of the entities creation.
• INI file - "a text-based content with a structure and syntax comprising key–value pairs for properties, and sections that organize the properties", so what would be the name of the section?
• Answer file - Contains the data that is essentially what I am describing, except that an answer file is context-specific to computer program installation.
• Recipe - Are configurations equivalent to 'ingredients'? I would have thought a recipe would include much more detail that just application version numbers and parameters.
• Bibliographic record - This seems the most relevant as a name for the set of reproduction parameters, except that it is context-specific to library science.
• Exif - Again, very similar, but the set of parameters is just referred to as EXIF metadata or tags.
• User Agent/Generator - This is part of the information which would be included in the set.
• Finite-state machine/Combinational logic - Wouldn't this be referring to the method/logic, rather than the input parameters?
• Artifact - This refers to the File, rather than the attributes which contain the information required for the File's reproduction.
• Snapshot (computer storage) - Again the File, rather than the attributes.

Mattmill30 (talk) 16:16, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Would the correct generic word for "a set of parameters which attribute to an instance/snapshot" be the 'profile', which is then qualified with the context-specific word 'generator'?

Therefore making the "set of parameters which attribute to an instance/snapshot the information required for it's reproduction" the 'generator profile'?

If so, what would be the "different kinds of information that should be unique for the compilation" used by ccache? the 'compilation profile'?
So then the ccache article would be appropriately updated with "the next time compilation of the same project using the same compiler with the same compilation profile is attempted, the same compilation can be avoided and the results can be taken from the cache. Mattmill30 (talk) 17:27, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

The examples you give don't (as far as I understand the issue) help to reproduce an item. Is Unique identifier what you mean? It is a generic term; depending on the use, various types of unique identifiers have more specific names, such as the International mobile subscriber identity and International Standard Book Number.  --Lambiam 17:41, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

In the case of saving a copy of the same Webpage from multiple Web Browsers, a Unique identifier would be necessary in distinguishing between the multiple copies.

e.g. you could append the name of the Web Browser to the filename, or in the case of multiple copies of a webpage from different versions of the same Web Browser then using the Installation GUID, etc.

However, that wouldn't provide information specific enough to facilitate reproduction, or enable identification of other copies/instances of a particular resource which was generated using an identical system configuration.

Did my earlier response to myself provide clarity to my question?

If my question is still unclear, I can construct an example "solution" which may provide clarity Mattmill30 (talk) 18:19, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia pages have a revision ID. That of the version of this page, after you posted your question, is 1226936970 Can I use it to reconstruct a screenshot of what you saw? No. I don't know if you used a laptop or a smartphone. Suppose I know you used a MacBook. Which type of many types? Which size of screen? Produced in which year? (This makes a differences for some types.) Which release of macOS were you using, and which version of that release? Likewise, not only which browser, but also which version? Did your browser have customizations? Was the window full-screen? If not, what were its sizes? How far up or down was the page scrolled, and at which zoom level was it being viewed? Did you watch in dark mode? Knowing all this may still not be enough for a faithful reconstruction of what you saw. Only a screenshot will do.  --Lambiam 06:08, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

One distinction I do want to make is that in my examples I didn't go as far as "reconstructing a screenshot", though the word I am trying to obtain should be capable of also labeling the set of attributes which would be required in reconstructing a screenshot.

For example, if a Web Browser saves the Webpage of a URI to a file, and then that file is reopened in the same Web Browser, with the same configuration, and a screenshot is taken, then the set of metadata attributed to the screenshot file would include:

?label profile? = ('HTTP response','Web Browser "save as" filename+parameters {User-Agent+about:plugins+env+profile_config_diff}','Web Browser+Operating System "screenprint" filename+parameters [e.g. screen resolution, window size, etc]')

With the inputs+metadata for each step in the processing sequence, it would be possible to faithfully reconstruct a screenshot.

However, my question isn't specifically about reconstruction, it's about reproducibility using "a set of parameters which attribute to an instance/snapshot the information required for it's reproduction".

So the assumption is that the file is available, and I am asking what the correct label would be for a complete set of metadata that would enable reproduction (essentially a proof? - I'm not a mathematician). Mattmill30 (talk) 12:21, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Can you clarify the difference between reconstructibility and reproducibility? In which aspects is a reproduced item allowed to differ from the original?  --Lambiam 15:35, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Reproduction vs Reconstruction

Reproduction	Reconstruction
A copy of something, as in a piece of art; a duplicate	A thing that has been reconstructed or restored to an earlier state
(computing) A method for reproducing a bug or problem	A result of an attempt to understand in detail how a certain result or event occurred

In reproduction the existence of the original production isn't necessary if a method for reproduction is known. Whereas in reconstruction, the original thing must exist in order for it to be reconstructed.

For example, let's say I and many others have archives of Webpages produced from a variety of time periods and Web Browser versions, but the file contents of my archive becomes corrupted.

I could "reproduce" my archive from the archives of others if they held copies of the same webpages with same "Last-Modified" or "ETag" HTTP headers, saved from the same Web Browser version, which completely satisfies my set of reproduction metadata; but I could only "reconstruct" my archive if I had taken a backup of my archive in advance.

Mattmill30 (talk) 18:33, 3 June 2024‎ (UTC)

Not everyone makes the distinction you make. For example, one of the senses Merriam–Webster gives for reconstruct is "to re-create or reimagine (something from the past)", offering this example: "reconstructing a lost civilization".^[4] A civilization that is lost has ceased to exist.

The web pages of many websites do not have enough meta information in their URI + embedded in the file itself to enable unique identification of an archived version. If they do, the combined meta information forms a unique identifier. Without knowing the operational procedures of the people putting content on these pages and assuming they adhere to them, it is not possible to be certain of the uniqueness, though. They might for example fix an obvious spelling mistake while not changing the meta information.  --Lambiam 21:24, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that combined meta information potentially forms a unique identifier. But "I'm not looking for a generic word like 'metadata'", and as you have acknowledged "[Unique identifier] is a generic term; depending on the use, various types of unique identifiers have more specific names".

I am looking for a specific term.

I've given the two examples of a fully-automated cache and a semi-automated saving of a downloaded webpage, which have varied inherent terminology.

For example, the set of attributes which ccache utilises are called options, arguments, information and mode, because of it's command-line context.

ccache hashes "different kinds of information that should be unique for the compilation" and if the cache doesn't already hold a file named with the uniquely identifying BLAKE3 hash, then it completes the compilation and the output file is named "using the hash sum to identify the cached output"[5].

In this example the term 'unique identifier' is already used and more appropriately applies to the hash rather than the ccache-input-* information[6]. If the information were then attributed to the cached output file, the files now have a set of attributes containing production metadata (I previously considered a context-specific label of "compilation profile"), which would vary from the webpage archive example because, in addition to facilitating identification of other copies/instances of a particular resource which was generated using an identical system configuration, the production metadata would be of debug-quality and so also enable verification and validation.

I would expect the term for referring to the varied set of attributes to either be an umbrella term or have context-specific variability, in order to accommodate the nuances of different production procedures.

I'm unsure whether 'profile' would be an appropriate term, given it's definition: A summary or collection of information. Unless it was perhaps used as the umbrella term for all the various sets of context-specific attributes, referred to as the production profile. Mattmill30 (talk) 16:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Given the focus of my question is metadata to facilitate reproduction, which is broadly covered by the fields of Science and Business, I've realised that the stages of an assembly line are co-ordinate to steps within a job stream, which appear to be forms of Workflow.

Since Workflow is a management term, it seems my original question imports the concepts of sequential sets of metadata, which I recognised in mentioning 'INI file' as one of my candidate answers, and hierarchy, which is inherent (URI) to the HTTP cookie variant of Magic cookies.

My reservation with the use of the word cookie, is that magic cookies are "used to identify a particular event or transaction; the data is typically not meaningful to the recipient program and not usually interpreted until the recipient passes the data back to the sender or another program at a later time"[7], whereas metadata to facilitate reproduction would have to record a particular event or transaction.

Therefore, although I recognise file metadata would likely be attributed by way of either Property Handlers/Alternate Data Streams or similar technologies, I think the universality of the INI format makes it suitable at this time to explore a solution to the concept of production workflow metadata, in order to realise the various elements.

Therefore, would the following definitions satisfy as terms for a "set of parameters which attribute to an instance/snapshot the information required for it's reproduction"?

Section = Profile (i.e. Production)

Key = Event (timestamped production job/event identifier [e.g. Firefox 125.0.3-1, 'Save Page As...'])

Value = Attributes presented in name/value pairs from the production event parameters (e.g. HTTP-response= ; User-Agent= & about:plugins= & env= & profile_config_diff= ;)

Mattmill30 (talk) 17:05, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Do you want to coin a term, or are you looking for an existing term of art that covers whatever it is you are trying to describe? Inasmuch as I get what it is (hardly, I must confess), it seems a pretty generic concept, so a term covering it should be expected to have a pretty generic coverage. I mean, do we have a name for, "an information record that describes something"? Yes, it is a descriptor, which is a generic term because it is a term for a generic concept. It is also not too clear to me what the issue has to do with computing; it seems perhaps more related to information science. A few well-chosen realistic use cases might (perhaps) clarify the issue. The reproduction of archived web pages seems a less realistic use case, for the reasons I have given.  --Lambiam 18:57, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Ideally, I am hoping to find an existing term, and not necessarily a term of art. But in the case that neither a general term can be contextualised, or a term of art doesn't exist, such that a new one must be coined, then I am trying to define the scope that the term should encompass.

I agree that my question is multi-disciplinary, but I have raised it in computing because I am looking for an answer which applies to computer processes and files, rather than, for example, bibliographic records in library science. It seems to be within the vein of Version control

The concept has general and specific elements. Similar to how MusicXML has a specific utility (Western musical notation) written in a general markup language (XML).

My question is both general, in that I am discussing standard File System and Operating System features, metadata constructs and a framework for measuring completeness of the metadata for enabling reproducibility, and specific, in that the context is specifically for the recording of production processes and parameters which contributed to be current state of a file/resource.

I will attempt to flesh out a more comprehensive solution than my INI example, and some realistic use cases. But I am still only asking for words which appropriately label the elements/fields for storing and identifying production metadata, within the Computing vocabulary or domain of discourse. Mattmill30 (talk) 06:18, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm thinking environment parameters. (I'm also thinking about epigenetics, but that's the wrong domain, and I may have failed to understand your concept anyway. Still, epi- is a nice prefix.)  Card Zero  (talk) 10:17, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Google Gemini suggested 'identical execution environment'. You can abbreviate it to iEE. manya (talk) 07:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

June 6

Pdf

Ho! If I shrink a pdf with Acrobat say I can get it down by 60% say but if I then want to OCR it the size goes up to be even more massive than it was before. Is there a way to avoid this, say, keeping it smallish but also with text recognition? Thank you 2.28.124.7 (talk) 10:40, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the use of Acrobat and am not sure what you mean by "shrinking" a pdf with Acrobat.

Some apps, such as PDFpen, can OCR a bitmap and turn it into a searchable pdf.^[8] The output is not much larger than the input – the blow-up in size occurs in the other direction, when a pdf produced by a word processing app is converted into a bitmap. PDFpen is not free; I do not know if there are free apps for this.  --Lambiam 19:35, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

A scanned PDF is, in essence, a PDF container with a series of high-resolution bitmaps (JPEGs) for each page. A typical OCR-annotation program extracts each JPEG, does optical recognition, and then adds PDF text objects behind the JPEGs (so they're selectable and copyable, but not visible). Those text additions are trivial - typically a few KB at most, per page.

Your problem is twofold - you want to a) downscale the JPEGS and b) add the OCR annotations. These are effectively orthogonal tasks. I've no idea how you're getting the poor results you are, with the Acrobat workflow. But I can do what you want with ghostscript and then ocrmypdf (which uses Tesseract). All of this is free software. For me, in Linux, it's as easy as:

QUALITY=/ebook  # use one one of /screen /ebook /printer /prepress /default  # /screen is very low resolution, /prepress is the highest

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=$QUALITY -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH  -dQUIET -sOutputFile=scaled.pdf test.pdf

ocrmypdf scaled.pdf ocred.pdf

For me, this takes a 2.5Mb scanned pdf test.pdf and the GhostScript (gs) line scales it down to 178Kb. The ocrmypdf command takes that and produces a 181Kb file (a modest addition consistent with the text on that page).

I've no idea how do to any of this with Acrobat. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 20:20, 6 June 2024 (UTC)