Life Lexicon update collection thread

[confocaloid]

I've heard from a few people now that they don't see the point of posting their opinions on any of the currently open threads on the "signal" topic -- just because it's obvious to them that their opinions would get promptly drowned out by what amount to copy/pasted restatements of either my opinion or yours.

On the other hand, the recent "poll" thread on the definition of "dependent reflector" actually got some attention, to the point where it might well be considered to be a statistically significant expression of community opinion.

So that seems like it might be an idea for making some progress on the "signal" question. What do you think of starting a poll thread to collect community sentiment, using a short summary of your proposal and my proposal?

Personally, I don't expect any of related issues to be resolved any time soon. I think another new thread is unlikely to help.

The poll thread did not give any definite conclusion, other than that there are already at least several votes from people on either side. I'll quote here the latest post in the poll thread:

I stand corrected. I'm sorry about the misinformation and I can see that people can perceive this term both ways in existing usage (either accepting a range or requiring the stream to be strict)

For what it's worth, there are already several places where the relevant discussion was or is happening:

• several posts in Oscillator Discussion Thread, where dvgrn wrote:

  [...]
  However, there isn't actually any kind of signal loop at all in these things -- it's two or four separate segments. So any use of "loop" seems like not such a good idea. You wouldn't call something like this a "glider loop", right? The "signals" are traveling much faster than lightspeed through the gun, and therefore they're not actually signals:
  [...]

  and there were several replies after that
• Dependent Reflector Terminology and Analysis thread, where dvgrn wrote:

  [...]
  Looking at it all again, I think that there actually are perfectly viable signals in a dependent reflector loop, and that there is an unambiguous way to decide which output glider corresponds to which input glider, and that (completely contradicting what I said above!) there's no problem with super-lightspeed "signal" travel, if you pick the right correspondence.
  [...]

• Talk:Dependent reflector
• Poll: Should the term "dependent reflector" be made to include reflectors that accept a range of timings?
• "Signal circuitry" terminology

If "signal" is only allowed to mean "confocaloid-signal", then we can't say things like "... when the input signal has a horizontal line of symmetry ...". But if the definition of "signal" includes dvgrn-signals, then the meaning of that phrase remains perfectly clear, and then might not be any particular reason to change the wording.

By the existing definition in the LifeWiki entry signal, phrases like "a signal has a line of symmetry" are meaningless. A signal is information carried by a moving object. The moving object may or may not be symmetric.

My preference is to keep the existing definition of signal, and to fix unnecessarily ambiguous wording in other LifeWiki entries.
I don't know how much work it would be to do the same for Life Lexicon. That might be a different case, because LifeWiki can be edited by multiple people.

Now, if we could settle the issue of whether "signal" can be safely used on the LifeWiki to mean "active object moving through signal circuitry", then I think I wouldn't have to be so worried about the removal of "signal" from a few places where maybe it's not strictly needed. I totally agree that there are some definitions where "signal" is a little bit redundant.

I think 'signal' should not be used to mean 'active object' on LifeWiki. Active objects should be described as active objects.

I do not consider 'signal circuitry' to be a useful phrase. Just because a folder in Golly's pattern collection is named 'Signal-Circuitry', does not mean it is a meaningful category. It would be clearer to write 'circuitry' or 'reusable circuitry', depending on the intended meaning.

[dvgrn]

Personally, I don't expect any of related issues to be resolved any time soon. I think another new thread is unlikely to help.

The poll thread did not give any definite conclusion, other than that there are already at least several votes from people on either side. I'll quote here the latest post in the poll thread...

The latest post in the poll thread doesn't necessarily seem like the point or conclusion of the poll thread, though. The point is to get some sense of what the community thinks about the issue.

With over three-quarters of voters currently voting for the "include" option, and less than a quarter voting for the "exclude" option, out of a total of eighteen people willing to express an opinion there, that seems like ... well, better participation than we've managed to get on any of these "signal"-related discussion threads so far.

At the very least, the poll results seem to say that there's a good case for including some clarifying wording about the sense in which Silver reflectors count as dependent reflectors, in the "dependent reflector" article. Or would you say that that's not true?

It also seems to me like those poll results suggest that a sufficiently long-running poll might provide a similar measurement of community sentiment on the "signal" question -- which is an issue where otherwise we're really not getting much interest from other people in participating in our endless arguments. That doesn't seem terribly likely to change if we continue to add more posts with more copy/pasted repetitions of the same exact statements.

I'm proposing a possible step forward -- trying a poll about people's opinion of the best/most useful definition of "signal". Of course the poll might not produce any clear results, and it's very unlikely to "prove" anything -- but it could well provide a little more clarity than we have right now.

Rather than just create the polling thread on my own, I'm reaching out to you first to ask if you object to the wording of my proposed options. Please let me know whether you think the wording of the poll is misleading in some way, or if you're actively opposed to the whole idea of creating the polling thread. I'm happy to try to work with you if you have objections, but I would need to understand what the objections are.

[confocaloid]

Personally, I don't expect any of related issues to be resolved any time soon. I think another new thread is unlikely to help.

Rather than just create the polling thread on my own, I'm reaching out to you first to ask if you object to the wording of my proposed options. Please let me know whether you think the wording of the poll is misleading in some way, or if you're actively opposed to the whole idea of creating the polling thread. I'm happy to try to work with you if you have objections, but I would need to understand what the objections are.

I'm opposed to the idea of creating yet another polling thread right now.
Also, I doubt it was a good idea to start thread ("Signal circuitry" terminology) immediately after the polling thread started by Scorbie.

My preference would be to rewrite unnecessarily ambiguous wording on specific LifeWiki pages.
When the word 'signal' is used to mean 'active object', writing 'active object' directly is better.
When the phrase 'signal circuitry' is used to mean 'circuitry', it is better to write 'circuitry'. And so on.

[dvgrn]

My preference would be to rewrite unnecessarily ambiguous wording on specific LifeWiki pages.
When the word 'signal' is used to mean 'active object', writing 'active object' directly is better.
When the phrase 'signal circuitry' is used to mean 'circuitry', it is better to write 'circuitry'. And so on.

I've already given several reasons for disagreeing with your suggested use of "active object" (it's much vaguer and less specific than "signal"), and also my reasons for disagreeing with your use of plain "circuitry" when "signal circuitry" is currently used (because "signal circuitry" in current usage excludes one-time circuitry, and plain "circuitry" does not).

Your responses to these objections have been point-blank statements like

If the definition is changed in a way you're proposing, the definition would become useless, and "signal" would become a jargon word.

Clearly, since I'm still suggesting the change, I'm not very likely to agree that my definition would be useless. I don't think "signal" would become a jargon word -- or if it is, it's a very handy jargon word that has been in use for a quarter century, and I don't understand why we should suddenly make it much less useful by only allowing it to mean "confocaloid-signal".

I'll certainly wait at least a few days before starting a polling thread about the definition of "signal". But in the absence of some kind of reason why you're opposed to the idea, I might try creating one eventually. If I do, please avoid contributing a majority of the posts to the new thread, and I'll do the same (not counting the initial post, of course!)

[confocaloid]

I'll certainly wait at least a few days before starting a polling thread about the definition of "signal". But in the absence of some kind of reason why you're opposed to the idea, I might try creating one eventually. If I do, please avoid contributing a majority of the posts to the new thread, and I'll do the same (not counting the initial post, of course!)

The obvious reason why I'm opposed to the idea is that there are already too many threads related to the issue. Before starting new related threads, I'd prefer to wait at least a few weeks, not days.

My preference would be to rewrite unnecessarily ambiguous wording on specific LifeWiki pages.
When the word 'signal' is used to mean 'active object', writing 'active object' directly is better.
When the phrase 'signal circuitry' is used to mean 'circuitry', it is better to write 'circuitry'. And so on.

I've already given several reasons for disagreeing with your suggested use of "active object" (it's much vaguer and less specific than "signal"), [...]

I disagree.

First, 'active object' is not "my suggested use" -- as I already pointed out several times, 'active object' was commonly used before this discussion in the context of inputs/outputs of conduits. It is not my invention -- it is an existing term.

Also, 'active object' is specific, in that it specifically does not imply anything about whether or not the active object carries any information. An active object has a geometric shape, it can be moved, it can be flipped, it can be sent to a conduit that accepts this object as input, and so on, and so forth.

In comparison, 'dvgrn-signal' is vague -- it might mean something that carries information, or it might mean something that is meant to carry information, or it might mean something that doesn't carry any information.

Current definition of signal correctly distinguishes between signals and objects carrying those signals. You can flip an active object, but you cannot flip a signal. That makes perfect sense.

[...] , and also my reasons for disagreeing with your use of plain "circuitry" when "signal circuitry" is currently used (because "signal circuitry" in current usage excludes one-time circuitry, and plain "circuitry" does not).

As I already wrote, if you use 'signal circuitry' to mean 'reusable circuitry', then it would be clearer to write 'reusable circuitry':

...
One-time circuitry is a disjoint subset of circuitry that does not include Snarks or syringes or any of those things. So I've always tended to specify "signal circuitry" in preference to the too-vague term "circuit".
...
In conversations on the forums, I frequently find I'm reaching for a term that means "active object traveling through reusable circuitry", where I don't care if it's capable of carrying confocaloid-signals or not.
....

That's confusing. If one means 'reusable circuitry', one should write 'reusable circuitry'.

I do not consider 'signal circuitry' to be a useful phrase. Just because a folder in Golly's pattern collection is named 'Signal-Circuitry', does not mean it is a meaningful category. It would be clearer to write 'circuitry' or 'reusable circuitry', depending on the intended meaning.

[Scorbie]

The poll thread did not give any definite conclusion, other than that there are already at least several votes from people on either side. I'll quote here the latest post in the poll thread:

I stand corrected. I'm sorry about the misinformation and I can see that people can perceive this term both ways in existing usage (either accepting a range or requiring the stream to be strict)

I'm not happy with how this is posted without context. I'd wish potential readers to have a look at the whole thread.

[dvgrn]

When the word 'signal' is used to mean 'active object', writing 'active object' directly is better.

The word "signal" has never been used to mean just "active object".

In existing usage, when "signal" doesn't mean "confocaloid-signal", it very often means "dvgrn-signal" -- "active object traveling through signal circuitry" -- but it never means just "active object" in general. Contrary to your repeated statements, there are large classes of active objects that are not signals. So if you think it's okay to replace "signal" with "active object", it seems very likely to me that your suggested changes will create confusion rather than removing it.

... 'active object' is not "my suggested use" -- as I already pointed out several times, 'active object' was commonly used before this discussion in the context of inputs/outputs of conduits. It is not my invention -- it is an existing term.

"Signal", with the "dvgrn-signal" meaning, is also an existing term. You have in fact been very strongly suggesting the use of "active object" in place of several of those existing uses of "signal".

"Signal" still looks to me like a better, more specific term than "active object" in most of these cases. The final substitution in that edit seems like a particularly good example of how convoluted the syntax has to become, just to avoid using "signal" -- and that was even without including the full phrase "active object"! Leaving out the "active" adjective makes "object" even vaguer and less appropriate as a substitute for "signal".

... Current definition of signal correctly distinguishes between signals and objects carrying those signals. You can flip an active object, but you cannot flip a signal. That makes perfect sense.

The current definition does not specifically say "You can flip an active object, but you cannot flip a signal". That statement is out of alignment with a large fraction of the current common usage of the word "signal" on the LifeWiki and elsewhere.

There is no way that a statement like "you cannot flip a signal" would have survived in the LifeWiki for the last half-decade -- it causes too many obvious conflicts with existing usage. So if you (and maybe other people) think that the current LifeWiki definition implies that statement, then I think that's a reason to clarify the current LifeWiki definition -- not a reason to keep the definition exactly the way it is and change dozens of other things.

In other words, I think that any confusion here is caused by an overly literal reading of the current LifeWiki definition of "signal". Anyone who thinks that it means only "confocaloid-signal", and never anything else, seems likely to be confused by a large number of existing uses where "signal" is freely used with the wider "dvgrn-signal" meaning. But again, I think that this potential confusion can be corrected very easily by adding a sentence or two to the definition of "signal".

Example
Here's another example from an existing article -- Regulator. Example sentence:

"In 2020 Louis-François Handfield found a much more efficient mechanism, allowing signals separated by only 110 ticks to be regulated successfully, with a drive gun period as low as 74 ticks."

This wording isn't a problem for me, because the two sets of signals entering a regulator are reliably dvgrn-signals. The only change I might suggest making in this article is to replace four instances of "glider" or "gliders", toward the top. with the more general term "signal".

I would make this change, because the modern definition of "regulator" doesn't actually require that the inputs have to be gliders. Early regulators were always based on gliders, which is why the definition mentions them. But in Jormungant's recent compact regulators, both of the input signals are actually Herschels, not gliders at all. Herschels are still perfectly valid dvgrn-signals, though -- so substituting "signal" for "glider" seems like a good generalization to me, fitting in with the use of "signal" in the rest of the article.

However, we can't make that change if we're going to try to restrict the definition of "signal" to mean only "confocaloid-signal".

Neither of the input streams going into a regulator necessarily contains confocaloid-signals. The pattern posted here, for example, is a period-16502 oscillator.

I'm finding it too confusing to try to apply the "confocaloid-signal" idea in cases like this. The definition seems much too context-dependent to be useful, to the point where I can't reliably even guess what someone might think is a confocaloid-signal and what isn't. For example, it seems possible to me that the example pattern doesn't contain confocaloid-signals, because it's "just an oscillator" -- but that if the same regulator was placed in some larger pattern, then it would suddenly contain confocaloid-signals after all.

My point is that the word "signal" should not be used for the circulating gliders in either of the above cases -- unless it's somehow useful otherwise.

So -- maybe the circulating gliders in the regulator's drive gun still wouldn't carry confocaloid-signals, but the regulator's input and output streams would carry them. If I'm understanding things right, though, the word "signal" couldn't be correctly used for any of the actual gliders in any case, only for the information carried by them.

The fact that it's so complicated to try to decide any of this ... strongly suggests to me that "confocaloid-signal" is not a useful definition of "signal", and therefore that it would be better not to make any LifeWiki editing decisions based on that reading of the definition.

[confocaloid]

I think your way of using the phrase 'signal circuitry' is very confusing. To an interested-but-not-invested reader, 'signal circuitry' is unlikely to mean something that can be contrasted with 'one-time circuitry' in the way you are contrasting it.
Either plain 'circuitry', or 'reusable circuitry', or 'one-time circuitry' would be much more clear and readable.

...
One-time circuitry is a disjoint subset of circuitry that does not include Snarks or syringes or any of those things. So I've always tended to specify "signal circuitry" in preference to the too-vague term "circuit".
...
In conversations on the forums, I frequently find I'm reaching for a term that means "active object traveling through reusable circuitry", where I don't care if it's capable of carrying confocaloid-signals or not.
....

Assuming that you're still using 'signal circuitry' to mean 'reusable circuitry', it seems that you're defining 'dvgrn-signal' as any active object that moves through reusable circuitry. Is this correct?

That leads to several kinds of confusion.

It becomes hard to understand which uses of 'signal' follow the definition in signal, and which uses of 'signal' are jargon for 'dvgrn-signal'. If you're using the word 'signal' for everything that moves through an engineered pattern, the word becomes useless noise -- instead of explaining the pattern to a reader, you're confusing them.

For some unclear reason, active objects moving through one-time circuitry are excluded (even though such active objects also can carry information).

I believe using 'signal' to mean 'dvgrn-signal' is confusing jargon. This usage should not be mixed with the existing definition.

... Current definition of signal correctly distinguishes between signals and objects carrying those signals. You can flip an active object, but you cannot flip a signal. That makes perfect sense.

The current definition does not specifically say "You can flip an active object, but you cannot flip a signal". That statement is out of alignment with a large fraction of the current common usage of the word "signal" on the LifeWiki and elsewhere.

There is no way that a statement like "you cannot flip a signal" would have survived in the LifeWiki for the last half-decade -- it causes too many obvious conflicts with existing usage. So if you (and maybe other people) think that the current LifeWiki definition implies that statement, then I think that's a reason to clarify the current LifeWiki definition -- not a reason to keep the definition exactly the way it is and change dozens of other things.

In other words, I think that any confusion here is caused by an overly literal reading of the current LifeWiki definition of "signal". Anyone who thinks that it means only "confocaloid-signal", and never anything else, seems likely to be confused by a large number of existing uses where "signal" is freely used with the wider "dvgrn-signal" meaning. But again, I think that this potential confusion can be corrected very easily by adding a sentence or two to the definition of "signal".

LifeWiki is primarily an enclyclopedia attempting to document concepts, rather than a dictionary of common words.

The definition of the concept signal already clarifies that signals are information, rather than objects carrying that information.
It follows from the definition that one cannot flip a signal.
I believe the definition given in signal should be kept. Any enumeration of existing uses of the word 'signal' should be separate from the definition, and it should not be mixed with the definition of the concept.

Here's another example from an existing article -- Regulator. Example sentence:

"In 2020 Louis-François Handfield found a much more efficient mechanism, allowing signals separated by only 110 ticks to be regulated successfully, with a drive gun period as low as 74 ticks."

I don't see any obvious problems with the wording in this specific example.

As far as I understand it, the whole idea of an universal regulator is aligning the timing of actual signals carried by gliders.
The input signal-carrying glider may arrive at infinitely many different times, or it may not arrive at all.
The device is designed to handle either possibility.
One would not normally use an universal regulator to create a simple oscillator (except for demonstration or when trying to to prove someone wrong).

However, we can't make that change if we're going to try to restrict the definition of "signal" to mean only "confocaloid-signal".

Neither of the input streams going into a regulator necessarily contains confocaloid-signals. The pattern posted here, for example, is a period-16502 oscillator.

I'm finding it too confusing to try to apply the "confocaloid-signal" idea in cases like this. The definition seems much too context-dependent to be useful, to the point where I can't reliably even guess what someone might think is a confocaloid-signal and what isn't. For example, it seems possible to me that the example pattern doesn't contain confocaloid-signals, because it's "just an oscillator" -- but that if the same regulator was placed in some larger pattern, then it would suddenly contain confocaloid-signals after all.

That "random sample of that idea" pattern contains only part of the regulator.
I don't see anything I would want to describe as "signal", when trying to describe that particular p16502 oscillator pattern.

If you replace the p223 glider gun with something else that is considered to be a source of signals carried by gliders, then one can follow the movement of those signals through the device, and then it will make sense to say that output gliders carry the same signals (only re-timed). But that will be a different pattern.

My point here is that you are describing a specific pattern. Either you're describing the p16502 "random sample" oscillator, or you're describing the universal regulator.
The p16502 "random sample of that idea" oscillator doesn't contain any signals.
The universal regulator, on the other hand, is designed to handle a stream of signals carried by gliders.
Two different patterns, two different descriptions.

[dvgrn]

Here's another example from an existing article -- Regulator. Example sentence:

"In 2020 Louis-François Handfield found a much more efficient mechanism, allowing signals separated by only 110 ticks to be regulated successfully, with a drive gun period as low as 74 ticks."

I don't see any obvious problems with the wording in this specific example.

Okay. Do you have any objections to my adding the term "signal" in place of "glider" in the four places at the top where "glider" is used in the Regulator article? I think I'll try making that change, if it's non-controversial here.

That "random sample of that idea" pattern contains only part of the regulator.

Clarification: the "random sample of that idea" pattern actually contains the complete universal regulator mechanism.

In my usual way of describing it, the p74 gun on the left is providing the regulator's "drive signals", and the p446 gun on the right (containing four signals separated by either 110 and 113 ticks) is providing "test signals" for the regulator. So the lower output glider stream is the regulated stream, sending out a glider synchronized to p74N every time an input glider comes in from the p464 loop.

Does that change your answer to the question of whether there are signals present in the p16502 oscillator pattern? The demonstration pattern was certainly intended to include signals -- confocaloid-signals, not just dvgrn-signals.

[confocaloid]

Here's another example from an existing article -- Regulator. Example sentence:

"In 2020 Louis-François Handfield found a much more efficient mechanism, allowing signals separated by only 110 ticks to be regulated successfully, with a drive gun period as low as 74 ticks."

I don't see any obvious problems with the wording in this specific example.

Okay. Do you have any objections to my adding the term "signal" in place of "glider" in the four places at the top where "glider" is used in the Regulator article? I think I'll try making that change, if it's non-controversial here.

https://conwaylife.com/w/index.php?titl ... did=128868

I think these signals are most commonly carried by gliders. Something like a loafer or a MWSS on MWSS 1 is very unlikely to be a direct input or output of a regulator.

That "random sample of that idea" pattern contains only part of the regulator.

Clarification: the "random sample of that idea" pattern actually contains the complete universal regulator mechanism.

In my usual way of describing it, the p74 gun on the left is providing the regulator's "drive signals", and the p446 gun on the right (containing four signals separated by either 110 and 113 ticks) is providing "test signals" for the regulator. So the lower output glider stream is the regulated stream, sending out a glider synchronized to p74N every time an input glider comes in from the p464 loop.

Does that change your answer to the question of whether there are signals present in the p16502 oscillator pattern? The demonstration pattern was certainly intended to include signals -- confocaloid-signals, not just dvgrn-signals.

If the p223 loop gun is considered to be a generator of signals carried by gliders, then one can follow the movement of those signals through the device, and then it makes sense to say that output gliders carry the same signals (only re-timed).

I don't think the looping gliders inside the p223 gun should be described as 'signals'. In this case, if the gun is viewed as a source of new signals, then I would say that a new signal is created each time, carried by one of two output gliders of the H-to-2G converter.

I don't think it is helpful to describe gliders coming from the p74 gun as 'signals'. Those gliders do not carry information -- they are simply gliders, appearing at the same places at the same time regardless of the input of the regulator.

[dvgrn]

I think these signals are most commonly carried by gliders. Something like a loafer or a MWSS on MWSS 1 is very unlikely to be a direct input or output of a regulator.

Yeah, your edit "Usually, the signals are carried by gliders" is good. Thanks! We'll figure out at some point whether the "carried by" syntax is really necessary.

It would probably be pretty easy to build a universal regulator that uses some flavor of *WSS as one of the inputs, but I don't remember that anybody has quite done that. Paul Chapman's original regulator has an MWSS and two LWSSes as part of the mechanism, but the actual input and output signals are (carried by) gliders.

[confocaloid]

We'll figure out at some point whether the "carried by" syntax is really necessary.

I guess one might argue that it is not "really necessary", but then nothing is really necessary.

Articles are written for readers. It is helpful to explicitly disambiguate the use of the word "signal". Writing that signals could be carried by gliders is a clarification. The intended meaning of the word is the one defined in the entry Signal (as opposed to any other meaning of the word, such as the one in the entry Wire, or the "dvgrn-signal" meaning).

If the input signal to a regulator happens to be carried by a tandem glider, then the "dvgrn-signal" viewpoint would require to view each of two gliders in the pair as a separate "signal"; that would be inconsistent with what a regulator is.

[...]
So if you (and maybe other people) think that the current LifeWiki definition implies that statement, then I think that's a reason to clarify the current LifeWiki definition -- not a reason to keep the definition exactly the way it is and change dozens of other things.
[...]

The current LifeWiki definition makes a quite explicit distinction between signals and carrying objects. (There are other people who see this distinction -- it is not just me.)
I would prefer that the current definition of signal be kept. I think it is useful. (And it is certainly an existing definition that was written before this conflict.)
In practice, it would not be terribly hard (and it would be a better solution to the problem) to reword the confusing uses of the word on LifeWiki.

However, we can't make that change if we're going to try to restrict the definition of "signal" to mean only "confocaloid-signal".

The reason why that change in the entry Regulator can in fact be made, is that regulators are meant to be used in complex circuitry, where there is no obvious simpler way to solve the problem. The way how a regulator is designed to work is naturally explained in terms of signals that are somehow carried through the Life universe.

In comparison, elementary conduits are legitimately used in simple oscillators and guns, where the signal concept becomes useless. The period-256 glider gun doesn't contain any signals, and doesn't produce any signals; it is a Herschel running in a loop, producing up to four p256 glider streams.

[dvgrn]

Articles are written for readers. It is helpful to explicitly disambiguate the use of the word "signal". Writing that signals could be carried by gliders is a clarification. The intended meaning of the word is the one defined in the entry Signal (as opposed to any other meaning of the word, such as the one in the entry Wire, or the "dvgrn-signal" meaning).

I'm not a huge fan of disambiguation pages where they aren't needed. It's possible that a disambiguation page might solve the issue in this case, but it will be tricky to decide what should remain as the primary meaning and what gets shunted off as a secondary meaning. I'd prefer to have the "dvgrn-signal" meaning as the primary meaning.

The "confocaloid-signal" meaning could certainly be useful to have explained clearly on a disambiguation page, but it seems much more confusing and complicated to apply it correctly to actual patterns. So it shouldn't be given top billing as the one and only primary meaning of the term. I don't think that that limited meaning of "signal" deserves anywhere near the amount of exclusive attention that you're trying to give it.

If the input signal to a regulator happens to be carried by a tandem glider, then the "dvgrn-signal" viewpoint would require to view each of two gliders in the pair as a separate "signal"...

The "dvgrn-signal" definition does not require any such thing. Here's a candidate definition of "dvgrn-signal":

A signal is the movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light. "Signal" can also refer directly to active objects traveling through circuitry -- gliders, Herschels, B-heptominoes, etc.

1) A tandem glider is an example of an active object traveling through circuitry, so a tandem glider can be referred to as a signal, whenever it's appropriate to do so. When this kind of thing comes up in the context of actual discussions of actual patterns, it isn't anywhere near as confusing as you're making it out to be.

Tandem gliders are also a very rare edge case that makes up a tiny fraction of one percent of actual usage. A lot of Life-related terms have complicated edge cases like that. Edge cases are more like the "exception that proves the rule", than any kind of argument against the validity of a definition.

2) Furthermore, the "dvgrn-signal" definition still includes all of the wording that you're using to justify your restricted "confocaloid-signal" definition. If a tandem glider can be called a signal under the confocaloid-signal definition, then it can still be called a signal under the dvgrn-signal definition. Again, context is important.

The current LifeWiki definition makes a quite explicit distinction between signals and carrying objects. (There are other people who see this distinction -- it is not just me.)

I'd like to try very clearly acknowledging the truth of this statement, in hopes that you will then stop repeating it unnecessarily.

The current LifeWiki definition does make a distinction between signals and carrying objects. I can see that distinction very clearly myself, for that matter.

That distinction is very, very useful in some cases. It's also, in my opinion, a pointless distraction in a whole lot of other cases. It follows that the current LifeWiki definition is incomplete.

The fact that other people see this distinction does not imply that all of those other people agree with editing all of these existing uses of "signal" on the LifeWiki and the Life Lexicon to conform only with the limited "confocaloid-signal" definition. People are complicated. They might see an option that they think is a better solution than what you're advocating.

To find out what people actually think about your suggestion of making all of these changes, we're going to need people to make clear statements on the issue, like "I think all of these changes should be made the way confocaloid is suggesting", or alternatively "I think the definition of 'signal' should be adjusted the way dvgrn is suggesting, and let's leave the rest of the existing uses alone".

There might be some hope of getting clear statements like that, on a poll thread that did not immediately fill up with walls of text from the two of us, re-stating the same opinions over and over.

[confocaloid]

I don't believe a poll will solve the issue -- there are much more reasonable possibilities, than just the two options you're presenting.

There might be multiple different possible intermediate statements, e.g. along the lines of "some of the existing uses are rather confusing and could be rewritten in a clearer way". In fact, several other people already replied in the previously created forum threads to express their opinions.

Also, there are already several (recently created, recently active) terminology-related forum threads. I think creating even more such threads in quick succession is unlikely to help.

[...]
To find out what people actually think about your suggestion of making all of these changes, we're going to need people to make clear statements on the issue, like "I think all of these changes should be made the way confocaloid is suggesting", or alternatively "I think the definition of 'signal' should be adjusted the way dvgrn is suggesting, and let's leave the rest of the existing uses alone".

There might be some hope of getting clear statements like that, on a poll thread that did not immediately fill up with walls of text from the two of us, re-stating the same opinions over and over.

[dvgrn]

There might be multiple different possible intermediate statements, e.g. along the lines of "some of the existing uses are rather confusing and could be rewritten in a clearer way".

Definitely! That's certainly something we can completely agree on. The proposed poll has an "Other" option, very deliberately, for that exact reason. But if that's no good, please feel free to design a different poll, and let's see if we can agree on the wording.

I'm just still very worried about the fairly large number of specific examples you've given up to this point, where the proposed re-wording seems to me to be more confusing than the existing wording.

I'll certainly be worried about any example where the justification for re-wording is along the lines of "p43 Snark loop does not contain any signals". Changes made for that reason seem likely to cause more confusion, just because there's been no evidence yet of broad community acceptance of that statement.

I think creating even more such threads in quick succession is unlikely to help.

I'm happy to wait a couple of weeks, or whatever time period you want, as long as no "signal"-related editing happens in the mean time, that we haven't agreed on in advance like we did for the Regulator article -- unless people start speaking up and making it clear that they want your suggested changes to be made, without a lot of objections also showing up.

I'm a little puzzled as to how it could do any actual harm to start another thread, but I'm very patient -- a few weeks don't make any difference to me.

[dvgrn]

I'm happy to wait a couple of weeks, or whatever time period you want, as long as no "signal"-related editing happens in the mean time, that we haven't agreed on in advance like we did for the Regulator article -- unless people start speaking up and making it clear that they want your suggested changes to be made, without a lot of objections also showing up.

Okay, it's been about three weeks now, with no new information appearing (that I noticed, anyway) about what the community consensus might be on the "signal" question.

I'm still interested in finding out if some kind of general agreement can be sorted out, about whether the LifeWiki definition of "signal" should be adjusted or not.

My preference would still be to adjust the LifeWiki definition as described below. I'm currently planning to start a new thread tomorrow, with the following poll:

• Option 1:
  The p43 Snark loop contains no signals. Circulating gliders in a context like this should not be referred to as "signals" in LifeWiki articles, because they do not encode any information. The current LifeWiki definition of "signal" is complete and correct as it stands:

  A signal is the movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

  LifeWiki and Life Lexicon articles should be edited to remove uses of "signal" that imply that the p43 Snark loop can contain signals.
  ​
• Option 2:
  The p43 Snark loop contains eight circulating signals. The LifeWiki "signal" article should be adjusted slightly so that it's clear that this is a mainstream use of the term "signal":

  A signal is the movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light. "Signal" can also refer directly to active objects traveling through circuitry -- gliders, Herschels, B-heptominoes, etc.

If neither of the above two options looks right, please respond with a post stating an option that you would vote for -- or, e.g., state your agreement with an option described in someone else's post.

If Option 2 ends up with more support, then it's still perfectly possible that some of the large number of other suggested changes could be made, if they really seemed like improvements.

However, some of those suggestions seem like they're based on a very literal reading of the current definition of signal. So once the definition is adjusted, it might not make much sense to think of those as high-priority changes -- compared, for example, to all the other additions and changes that will be needed to produce a good solid half-decade update to the Life Lexicon.

I personally think that most of those uses are maybe a little redundant, but that they're also good reinforcement of the wider "dvgrn-signal" concept of "signal". However, if half of those uses of "signal" eventually disappear, I won't really mind too much -- as long as the definition of "signal" itself isn't generally read as being an unqualified restriction of the meaning of "signal", to just the narrow "confocaloid-signal" interpretation.

Any Feedback Before I Start the Poll?
The issue of whether the circulating active objects in a Snark loop can correctly be referred to as "signals", seems to me to be a very central question here. For that reason I'd like to keep the poll as simple as possible. The above is the best I can do to describe the two main options that are currently under discussion.

If the phrasing seems in some way unfair, I'd like to hear about that. It would be great if the results of the poll had some hope of reflecting a clear community preference, one way or another -- so that we can either make the suggested one-sentence addition to the signal article, or leave it alone and start making changes in various other places, in keeping with the more restricted definition of "signal". I would hope that poll wording can be found where there's no need to continue the argument about what the poll results really mean, after the voting is done.

Obviously if about 50% of people vote one way and 50% vote another, or if lots of people choose other options, that won't allow anyone to claim a consensus. ( If lots of people choose other options, we might try a follow-up poll, for example.) But I would think that somewhere around the 75% / 25% level should be considered to be a solid indicator of which way the wind is blowing on this question, so to speak.

In other words, maybe could agree in advance that if a three-quarters supermajority shows up among people who are willing to express an opinion, then whichever side gets the less-than-one-quarter support will be willing to withdraw their objections and end the current LifeWiki editing impasse.

[confocaloid]

The p43 Snark loop contains eight circulating gliders. Neither the concept of signal, nor the word 'signal', is needed to explain this pattern.

In the proposed "option 2" text, I suggest that the second meaning of the word 'signal' should appear in a separate paragraph, to make it clear that this is a disambiguation between different meanings of a single word.

Any possible results of the poll are unlikely to reflect "a clear community preference", because most people in the community are not active at any given time, and because the actual arguments/points/possibilities are more complicated than what can be presented as a poll option.

[dvgrn]

The p43 Snark loop contains eight circulating gliders. Neither the concept of signal, nor the word 'signal', is needed to explain this pattern.

That might be a key part of our ongoing disagreement. I find the word "signal" to be an extremely useful term to help explain this pattern. A p43 Snark loop is by no means "just an oscillator" -- it's specifically an oscillator with dvgrn-signals circulating through it, such that the period can be changed in various ways by removing some of the signals -- completely unlike engine-based oscillators.

Technically speaking, it's not entirely accurate to say that the loop contains "eight circulating gliders". Sometimes they're gliders, but sometimes they aren't -- but they're always signals (in the dvgrn-signal sense).

If we switch to talking about a loop that includes syringes and H-to-Gs, like the example in Figure 7.17 of the Life textbook, then "signal" in the dvgrn-signal sense of the term is even more useful. While the inputs start out as gliders, they don't necessarily spend most of their time in glider form -- but there are still definitely eight circulating Somethings. It works really well to just use the general term "signal" in cases like this, whereas something like "active object" is too vague and awkward to be a workable substitute.

In the proposed "option 2" text, I suggest that the second meaning of the word 'signal' should appear in a separate paragraph, to make it clear that this is a disambiguation between different meanings of a single word.

I don't consider it to be a disambiguation, actually. The term "signal" in the context of CA circuitry patterns has definitely been used regularly to refer to the active object traveling through the circuitry -- not to the abstract information that may or may not be carried by the active object. So I'm definitely looking for a single-paragraph Option 2 that conveys the wider meaning of "dvgrn-signal" as the primary definition of the term.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a better way to word Option 2 so that it's less confusing. Suggestions on that are certainly welcome. But basically it should be clear that Option 1 is "the primary meaning of signal is 'confocaloid-signal'," whereas Option 2 is "the primary meaning of signal is 'dvgrn-signal'."

I acknowledge your claims that this "dvgrn-signal" meaning is imprecise and therefore "useless jargon". This is precisely why I'm looking to create a poll thread: it looks to me like this "useless jargon" opinion might be a fairly extreme minority view, caused by an overly literal reading of the current definition of "signal". Your restricted "confocaloid-signal" meaning is the one that seems to me to be unnecessarily confusing and mostly useless in practice. It forces awkward "carried by" syntax and other convoluted workarounds into what are otherwise simple and clear conversations about the local effects of dvgrn-signals traveling through conduits.

Any possible results of the poll are unlikely to reflect "a clear community preference", because most people in the community are not active at any given time, and because the actual arguments/points/possibilities are more complicated than what can be presented as a poll option.

I get where you're coming from here, but at the same time, are there really not any possible results of the poll that would reflect a "clear community preference", in your opinion?

Exactly as in the case of the recent dependent-reflector poll, most community members won't understand or care about this issue enough to vote. But if the vote is skewed far enough in one direction or the other, then it seems reasonable to take that as an expression of the opinion of the people who understood and cared enough to vote.

[confocaloid]

The wording that you prefer to describe as "too vague and awkward" or "convoluted", is not actually invented by me. Neither it is recent.

The use of 'active object' is a long-standing terminology and distinction. It can be found for example on the page Stephen Silver on Stable Reflectors --

[...]

It is a fact of Life that a given R-to-Herschel conduit almost never works with any given source of R-pentominoes. There is a good reason for this. While Herschels are usually produced by a standard evolutionary sequence which throws the Herschel away from its source, R-pentominoes (and most other common active objects) tend to be produced in relatively inaccessible places. I was, therefore, not very hopeful about the usefulness of the new conduit. [...]

[...]
It should perhaps be pointed out that all these reflectors and converters are not quite as bad as their large recovery times make them appear. It is possible, for certain periods, to pack multiple active objects into the reflector/converter with each one deleting the beehive (or, in the case of Dave Buckingham's reflector, replacing the boat) that would normally be dealt with by a later one. [...]

Neither this terminology is "convoluted", as far as I can tell. I believe it is convenient and useful.
I like the ability to discuss conduits, active objects moving through conduits, etc. without even thinking about signals, and without making any explicit or implicit implications about existence of 'interesting' information movement. Sometimes a Herschel is simply a Herschel, i.e. an active object.

Any possible results of the poll are unlikely to reflect "a clear community preference", because most people in the community are not active at any given time, and because the actual arguments/points/possibilities are more complicated than what can be presented as a poll option.

I get where you're coming from here, but at the same time, are there really not any possible results of the poll that would reflect a "clear community preference", in your opinion?

Exactly as in the case of the recent dependent-reflector poll, most community members won't understand or care about this issue enough to vote. But if the vote is skewed far enough in one direction or the other, then it seems reasonable to take that as an expression of the opinion of the people who understood and cared enough to vote.

Forum posts containing specific arguments / opinions have much more weight than votes.
A vote does not imply understanding -- someone could misunderstand the whole issue, or vote mistakenly, or be misled by a confusing wording, or whatever.

[dvgrn]

I like the ability to discuss conduits, active objects moving through conduits, etc. without even thinking about signals, and without making any explicit or implicit implications about existence of 'interesting' information movement. Sometimes a Herschel is simply a Herschel, i.e. an active object.

This is actually a wonderful beautiful perfect example of where we agree completely.

In the quote above, you used the word "signal" in its limited "confocaloid-signal" sense. I also like the ability to discuss conduits, active objects moving through conduits, etc. without even thinking about confocaloid-signals. This whole long-drawn-out argument seems to me to be due to your insistence on seeing the "confocaloid-signal" meaning whenever you see the word "signal".

By contrast, I don't think that the "confocaloid-signal" meaning was ever the intended sole meaning of "signal". I very seldom have to think about the possible existence of 'interesting' information movement in signal circuitry when I'm talking about the signals moving through it -- and yet I use the convenient word "signal", and have done so for many years without anyone mentioning any confusion ... until now.

I'd really like to adjust the definition of "signal" on the LifeWiki, just so that other people don't fall into this unfortunate confusion that you've gotten yourself into. I don't think that there's really a big danger of confusion here, but it has apparently happened at least once.

[confocaloid]

I disagree. By definition, a signal is distinct from an active object carrying the signal.

Any "adjustment" of the existing definition would create a fresh new definition, which would be much more recent in comparison (and more recent than the existing usage of 'active object' in the context of conduits).
As far as I can tell, the current definition of signal comes from (no later than) 2003 version of Life Lexicon:

:signal Movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a glider (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using glider duplicators or other fanout devices, and can be used up by causing perturbations on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in pseudo-random glider generators, the unit Life cell and the Fermat prime calculator, among others.

Instead of changing the existing definition that explains the concept, I prefer to disambiguate different meanings of the word.

[dvgrn]

Instead of changing the existing definition that explains the concept, I prefer to disambiguate different meanings of the word.

Yup. We still both seem to know what our own and each other's preferences are.

I'm interested in finding out what other people's opinions are, so I'll try creating the poll thread soon. Do you have any further objections to the current wording? It would be better to hash out any objections out now, if possible, rather than find out later that you would have preferred some other wording and that you think that my characterization of Option 1 is unfair in some way.

There's not so much need for you to suggest improvements to Option 2 at this point, I wouldn't think. That's the option that I prefer over Option 1, just as it stands. If people think it's a terrible option because it "really" contains two separate definitions that should be disambiguated, then presumably they won't vote for it.

I'll repeat my request here, that we should both please leave the new poll thread as a place for other people to discuss the issue. How about on that thread, we only answer questions addressed directly to us, with short answers and/or links if possible -- and resist the impulse to drown out any debate by repeating our opinions in response to every single post?

I can add a link to one or more of your existing posts as a starting point, if you want people to go look at good representative places to understand your opinion. Just let me know what text you want to see in the poll thread initial post.

[confocaloid]

Personally, I do not believe that creating a new poll thread is going to be helpful at this point.
As a consequence, I do not have any additional specific suggestions regarding such a poll, other than what I already wrote above.

Instead of changing the existing definition that explains the concept, I prefer to disambiguate different meanings of the word.

Yup. We still both seem to know what our own and each other's preferences are.

I'm interested in finding out what other people's opinions are, so I'll try creating the poll thread soon. Do you have any further objections to the current wording? It would be better to hash out any objections out now, if possible, rather than find out later that you would have preferred some other wording and that you think that my characterization of Option 1 is unfair in some way.

There's not so much need for you to suggest improvements to Option 2 at this point, I wouldn't think. That's the option that I prefer over Option 1, just as it stands. If people think it's a terrible option because it "really" contains two separate definitions that should be disambiguated, then presumably they won't vote for it.

I'll repeat my request here, that we should both please leave the new poll thread as a place for other people to discuss the issue. How about on that thread, we only answer questions addressed directly to us, with short answers and/or links if possible -- and resist the impulse to drown out any debate by repeating our opinions in response to every single post?

I can add a link to one or more of your existing posts as a starting point, if you want people to go look at good representative places to understand your opinion. Just let me know what text you want to see in the poll thread initial post.

[dvgrn]

For the record, I do not believe the poll is helpful. There are multiple different issues, several of which are lumped together in this poll. Several people already replied in previous forum threads.

There is the concept of signals, and there is the word 'signal'.
The concept of signal has to be well-defined and unambiguous.
The word 'signal' is ambiguous; different meanings should be listed separately from each other.

In places where clarity is expected (definitions, introductory text on LifeWiki), the distinction between a signal and an active object should be maintained, because this distinction is important for understanding. An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Oscillators like the p43 Snark loop or the capped period-256 glider gun contain active objects (gliders / Herschels), but there are no choices to be made that would be somehow represented or encoded in those active objects. It is misleading to claim existence of 'signals' in those patterns (a reader is misled to look for something that is not there). Terminology should be helpful.

@confocaloid, if there's anything in the above that you'd like a response from me on -- where, say, you don't understand how I could possibly think what I think, or something like that -- then please let me know. I think I've already addressed all of these points to the best of my ability, so there's no point in saying anything more here, unless for some reason you can't find my previous responses.

Regarding existing terminology and existing distinctions between related-but-different concepts:

As far as I can tell, the current definition of signal comes from (no later than) 2003 version of Life Lexicon:

:signal Movement of information through the Life universe. Signals can be carried by spaceships, fuses, drifters, or conduits. Spaceships can only transfer a signal at the speed of the spaceship, while fuses can transfer a signal at speeds up to the speed of light.

In practice, many signals are encoded as the presence or absence of a glider (or other spaceship) at a particular point at a particular time. Such signals can be combined by the collision of gliders to form logic operations such as AND, OR, and NOT gates. Signals can be duplicated using glider duplicators or other fanout devices, and can be used up by causing perturbations on other parts of the Life object.

Signals are used in pseudo-random glider generators, the unit Life cell and the Fermat prime calculator, among others.

The use of 'active object' is a long-standing terminology and distinction. It can be found for example on the page Stephen Silver on Stable Reflectors --

[...]

It is a fact of Life that a given R-to-Herschel conduit almost never works with any given source of R-pentominoes. There is a good reason for this. While Herschels are usually produced by a standard evolutionary sequence which throws the Herschel away from its source, R-pentominoes (and most other common active objects) tend to be produced in relatively inaccessible places. I was, therefore, not very hopeful about the usefulness of the new conduit. [...]

[...]
It should perhaps be pointed out that all these reflectors and converters are not quite as bad as their large recovery times make them appear. It is possible, for certain periods, to pack multiple active objects into the reflector/converter with each one deleting the beehive (or, in the case of Dave Buckingham's reflector, replacing the boat) that would normally be dealt with by a later one. [...]

These distinctions existed long before this discussion, and they are reflected in the existing definitions. My preference here is to keep the existing definition of the concept of signal unchanged. Any ambiguous usage of the word should be explained separately.

The above quotations are from sources that are two decades old or more. That certainly establishes their antiquity. However, their relevance to a debate that is happening in 2023 is questionable at best.

In 2003, stable signal circuitry was still very new -- only seven years old. So few elementary conduits were known that it was still more convenient to build them all into Herschel conduits and keep track of them that way. Snarks, semi-Snarks, semi-cenarks, tremi-Snarks, quadri-Snarks, syringes, speed tunnels, H-to-MWSS and MWSS-to-G and LWSS-to-G and H-to-swimmer and all kinds of other signal converters hadn't been invented yet. We didn't even have X-to-2c/3 signal converters until 2004.

This is why, back in 2003, nobody really needed a short general term for "active object moving through circuitry" -- they could usually just say "Herschel" if it was Herschel circuitry, or "glider" if it was p30 or p46. Even then, they did say "signal" sometimes, like when a periodic signal was being sent through a wire from a signal source to a sink. But mostly when people would reach for a general term every now and then, they'd find some awkward construction like "active object", and that would be fine for a few uses.

Things are much more complicated now. People have a lot more experience with signal circuitry, and with the use of the word "signal" as a term that specifically means "active object moving through signal circuitry". A nice short word for that concept is quite often very useful -- and luckily we have a word like that in common use already: "signal".

I know you don't like the term "signal circuitry", or the use of the word "signal" to mean "dvgrn-signal" rather than "confocaloid-signal". But there's a whole lot of existing usage of the term "signal" in the "dvgrn-signal" sense, like the one in the "signal converter" link above. That existing usage isn't going to go away just because you think it's not the best possible definition. "Signal" was the best and most relevant term I could find when I named Golly's "Signal-Circuitry" folder about two decades ago. You're welcome to criticize that choice, I don't mind -- naming is hard. But that terminology decision was made long ago, and nobody objected at the time.

If the LifeWiki article on "signal" isn't doing a good job of documenting that existing usage, that just means that it's gotten a bit out of date in the last two decades, and needs a minor update. It just plain isn't going to work (in my opinion) to pretend that it's still 2003 and that the definition of "signal" has stayed the same for the last twenty years.

[confocaloid]

Creation of the poll is misleading. I do not consider the poll legitimate. Instead of creating even more and more scattered threads (misleading/diverting attention of community to irrelevant issues), it would be much more reasonable and productive to keep the discussion in a single place, and take into account already stated replies/opinions/feedback.

You are pretending that the whole set of issues can be reduced to a single choice regarding a single LifeWIki page. In reality, there are large-scale consequences across multiple pages. The content of the LifeWIki entry signal is not an isolated choice, but a part of a larger issue.

Life Lexicon lists words and phrases. LifeWiki aims to document knowledge in the form of articles about specific topics or concepts. You are ignoring this difference.

The word 'signal' is ambiguous, with several different meanings. You are essentially ignoring this.

More importantly, creation of this poll ignores that there was previous substantial discussion, in several forum threads and elsewhere. You are effectively discarding all the previous relevant discussion.

For the record, I do not believe the poll is helpful. There are multiple different issues, several of which are lumped together in this poll. Several people already replied in previous forum threads.

There is the concept of signals, and there is the word 'signal'.
The concept of signal has to be well-defined and unambiguous.
The word 'signal' is ambiguous; different meanings should be listed separately from each other.

In places where clarity is expected (definitions, introductory text on LifeWiki), the distinction between a signal and an active object should be maintained, because this distinction is important for understanding. An active object does not have to carry a signal.

Oscillators like the p43 Snark loop or the capped period-256 glider gun contain active objects (gliders / Herschels), but there are no choices to be made that would be somehow represented or encoded in those active objects. It is misleading to claim existence of 'signals' in those patterns (a reader is misled to look for something that is not there). Terminology should be helpful.

The above quotations are from sources that are two decades old or more. That certainly establishes their antiquity. However, their relevance to a debate that is happening in 2023 is questionable at best.

[...] It just plain isn't going to work (in my opinion) to pretend that it's still 2003 and that the definition of "signal" has stayed the same for the last twenty years.

The definition of signal did in fact stay the same since 2003.
You are proposing to re-define signals in your preferred way.

The existing definitions are still fine as they are. Just because the word is ambiguous, does not mean there is anything wrong about the concept.

The above quotations are directly relevant. Those quotations show that 'active object' was used long time ago for things moving through circuits, and 'signal' was defined the same way as it is still defined today. There are also more recent examples of the same usage.

Existing definitions explicitly distinguish between signals and carrying active objects. This is a useful distinction important for understanding -- not something to be discarded.