signal-to-noise ratio

1. communications (SNR, "s/n ratio", "s:n ratio") "Signal"

refers to useful information conveyed by some communications

medium, and "noise" to anything else on that medium. The

ratio of these is usually expressed logarithmically, in

decibels.

2. networking The term is often applied to Usenet

newsgroups though figures are never given. Here it is quite

common to have more noise (inappropriate postings which

contribute nothing) than signal (relevant, useful or

interesting postings). The signal gets lost in the noise

when it becomes too much effort to try to find interesting

articles among all the crud. Posting "noise" is probably the

worst breach of netiquette and is a waste of bandwidth.

[Jargon File]

(1996-01-29)