AllPinouts:About - AllPinouts
AllPinouts is a Web-based free content project to list all know pinouts.
Pinout or pin-out is a term used in electronics to describe how an electrical cable is wired, or the function of each wire (pin) in a connector.
An electrical connector typically consists of several electrical contacts or pins that can be used to carry electrical power or signals. Due to the wide variety of applications and manufacturers, a wide selection of electrical connectors exists with different types and numbers of contacts or pins. The pinout of a connector identifies each individual pin, which is critical when creating cable assemblies and adapters. Proper identification of pins and wires ensures that the signals and power are transmitted across cables and connectors.
AllPinouts is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world.
Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge. With rare exceptions, articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references or citations, as long as they do so within AllPinouts's editing policies and to an appropriate standard. For example, if you add information to an article, be sure to include your references, as unreferenced facts are subject to removal.
There is no need to worry about accidentally damaging AllPinouts when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and AllPinouts's software, known as MediaWiki, is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.
Because AllPinouts is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed. However, unlike a paper reference source, AllPinouts is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed manuals.
Further information on key topics appears below.
Contents
About AllPinouts
AllPinouts history
AllPinouts was founded by Nicola Asuni in March 2008 as evolution of the Technick.net website. Technick.net website was previously called Nick Homepage, online since 1 March 1998. The original Nick Homepage pinouts collection was based on a document called Pin&Bit written by Nicola Asuni in 1991 and originally distributed trough an italian BBS since 1994.
Copyrights
AllPinouts is a website owned by Tecnick.com. You are welcome to edit articles yourself, contributing knowledge as you see fit in a collaborative way.
All of the text in AllPinouts, and most of the images and other content, is covered by the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). Contributions remain the property of their creators, while the GFDL license ensures the content is freely distributable and reproducible. (See the copyright notice and the content disclaimer for more information.)
AllPinouts contributors
Anyone with internet access can edit AllPinouts, and this openness encourages inclusion of a tremendous amount of content. The only people who may not edit AllPinouts are people who have been previously blocked or banned from doing so.
Several mechanisms are in place to help AllPinouts members carry out the important work of crafting a high-quality resource. Editors are able to watch pages and techies can write editing programs to keep track of or rectify bad edits.
Making the best use of AllPinouts
Exploring AllPinouts
Many visitors come to this site to acquire knowledge, others to share knowledge. You can view changes as they happen at the Recent changes page. You also can view random articles.
AllPinouts articles are all linked, or cross-referenced. Wherever you see highlighted text like this, it means there is a link to some relevant article or AllPinouts page with further in-depth information elsewhere if you need it. Holding your mouse over the link will often show you where a link will take you. You are always one click away from more information on any point that has a link attached. There are other links towards the ends of most articles, for other articles of interest, relevant external web sites and pages, reference material, and organized categories of pinouts which you can search and traverse in a loose hierarchy for more information. You can add further links if a relevant link is missing, and this is one way to contribute.
Strengths, weaknesses, and article quality in AllPinouts
AllPinouts's greatest strengths, weaknesses, and differences all arise because it is open to anyone, has a large contributor base, and articles are written by consensus according to editorial guidelines and policies.
- AllPinouts is open to a large contributor base, drawing a large number of editors from diverse backgrounds. A large, diverse editor base provides access and breadth on subject matter that is otherwise inaccessible or little documented. While most articles may be altered by anyone, in practice editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, rich enough to afford a computer rather than poor, etc) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, whilst others may be covered in great depth.
- Allowing anyone to edit AllPinouts means that it is more easily vandalized or susceptible to unchecked information, which requires removal. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, AllPinouts is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, bias which would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be ultimately challenged or considered on AllPinouts. While AllPinouts articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling, or less well monitored, articles may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. AllPinouts's openness also means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit, or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies, or may add information without citable sources. AllPinouts's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected.
- AllPinouts is written by open and transparent consensus — an approach that has its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is extremely difficult to achieve and almost always fails after a time. Eventually for most articles, all notable views become fairly described and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles more fluid or changeable for a long time compared while they find their "neutral approach" that all sides can agree on. AllPinouts operates a full editorial dispute resolution process, that allows time for discussion and resolution in depth, but also permits months-long disagreements before poor quality or biased edits will be removed.
The MediaWiki software which runs AllPinouts retains a history of all edits and changes, thus information added to AllPinouts never "vanishes", and is never "lost" or deleted.
Contributing to AllPinouts
Anyone can contribute to AllPinouts by clicking on the Edit this page tab in an article. It is important to realize that in contributing to AllPinouts, users are expected to be civil and neutral, respecting all points of view, and only add verifiable and factual information rather than personal views and opinions.
Once you have determined that there is no article on AllPinouts on a topic you are interested in, you may want to request that the article be written (or you could even research the issue and write it yourself). The hope of any contributor is to provide useful and accurate information to others, and the projects help coordinate efforts.
Editing AllPinouts pages
AllPinouts uses a simple yet powerful page layout to allow editors to concentrate on adding material rather than page design. These include automatic sections and subsections, automatic references and cross-references, image and table inclusion, indented and listed text, as well as usual formatting elements and most world alphabets and common symbols. Most of these have simple formats that are deliberately very easy and intuitive.
Check the Editing guide on WikiMedia website.
AllPinouts has robust version and reversion controls. This means that poor quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editors, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing.
Editorial administration, oversight and management
The AllPinouts community is largely self-organising, so that anyone may build a reputation as a competent editor and become involved in any role they may choose, subject to peer approval. Individuals often will choose to become involved in specialised tasks, such as reviewing articles at others' request, watching current edits for vandalism, watching newly created articles for quality control purposes, or similar roles.
A variety of software assisted systems and automated programs help editors to watch for problematic edits and editors.
Handling disputes and abuse
AllPinouts has a rich set of methods to handle most abuses that commonly arise; these methods are well tested and should be relied upon.
- Intentional vandalism can be reported and corrected by anyone.
- Unresolved disputes between editors, whether based upon behavior, editorial approach or validity of content, can be addressed through the talk page of an article, through requesting comments from other editors.
- Abuse of user accounts, such as the creation of Internet sock puppets or solicitation of friends and other parties to enforce a non-neutral viewpoint or inappropriate consensus within a discussion, or to disrupt other AllPinouts processes in an annoying manner, can be reported at [AllPinouts:Suspected sock puppets].
Technical attributes
AllPinouts uses MediaWiki software, the open-source program used by Wikipedia and many other websites.
Feedback and questions
AllPinouts itself is run as a communal effort. Feedback about content should, in the first instance, be raised on the discussion pages of those articles. You are invited to edit the pages yourself to add information or correct mistakes if you are knowledgeable and able to do so.
