Talk:OTCA (disambiguation)

What? Is there really someone else referring to Brice Due's unit cell construction as "OTCA" (instead of "OTCA metapixel")? What does "OTCA" expand to, then?

A forums search only finds instances where "OTCA" is referring to a class of cellular automata by its own. GUYTU6J (talk) 13:24, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

• This forum search returns many results for the metapixel and relatively few results for non-metapixel usage: https://conwaylife.com/forums/search.php?keywords=OTCA Confocal (talk) 13:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

I see, but for non-metapixel usages like this one, the abbreviation is clearly unrelated to the unit cell construction. GUYTU6J (talk) 13:34, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Again, please elaborate your answer and describe the search results. The explanation so far is not clear and convincing enough. GUYTU6J (talk) 03:15, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

GUYTU6J, I can certainly see where you're coming from -- nobody would normally refer to the metapixel as "OTCA", even though it can simulate any outer-totalistic cellular automaton... it's always "OTCA metapixel".

On the other hand, somebody who sees "OTCA metapixel" for the first time might think "what's OTCA?" and go look up "OTCA" in the LifeWiki. Or someone looking up OTCA in the LifeWiki might be interested to find out that all OTCAs can be emulated by Brice Due's metapixel.

So I don't see that it's so terribly awful to have a disambiguation page for "OTCA" -- though it certainly does seem to make sense to redirect plain "OTCA" to "OTCA (disambiguation)", if we follow this model. Unless there are lots more people who disagree with me than who agree, of course. I would also be perfectly happy *not* having a disambiguation page for "OTCA". Dvgrn (talk) 18:41, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

The thing is, "OTCA" has one and only meaning of "outer-totalistic cellular automaton", so there is nothing "ambiguous" about it and no "disambiguation" is needed. OTCA should only redirect to outer-totalistic cellular automaton, and that target page could have a paragraph detailing that Brice Due's unit cell is capable of simulating these rules. GUYTU6J (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. As can be checked by a quick forum search (see above), the abbreviation "OTCA" has at least two associated meanings when used in a forum post, and "OTCA metapixel" is the more common associated meaning. So in my opinion, if OTCA is redirected, then it should be redirected to OTCA metapixel - because that's (currently) the more common associated usage, and the wiki should attempt to document existing usage rather than trying to redefine/change it. Having OTCA redirected to "outer-totalistic cellular automaton" would be incorrect. Confocal (talk) 04:17, 1 September 2022 (UTC)