This category is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Energy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy articles
This category is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
This category was nominated for
deletion on 15 June 2010. The result of the discussion was keep.
(unindent) OK, here's a list of all current subcats, and in which group they fall. I called these two groups "use" (which corresponds to the category proposed here) and "phys", which means that this is really about the term "energy", as defined in physics.
(Made table sortable)
I was amazed how neatly most categories can be grouped into these two categories. Therefore, I now think that we can delete
category:energy in physics and remerge its subcats and articles into this category, once the energy/power articles are in their own category. How does that sound? —
Sebastian06:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Second (and third...) guesses
(Headline inserted to avoid scrolling)
Actually, just when I was about to do the move, I became aware of the article
Energy (society). That seems to me like it should be the main article for this category.
WP:NCCAT#General naming conventions recommends using that as the name for the category. I'm not too happy with the word "society", which sounds pretty vague. But it is shorter than the name Lucideer proposed. So, which one is better? —
Sebastian04:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I would agree with you that society is a little off-sounding for this purpose. Wikipedia's naming conventions are there for a reason and should definitely be carefully considered in all cases, but provided consensus is reached I think more intuitive name would be of more benefit to users. —
Lucideer — continues after insertion below
Good! Maybe the article name "Energy (society)" could also be changed to match the new category name - I'll leave that up to
WP:ENERGY, especially if you guys want to declare that a core article of your project. —
Sebastian08:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
On another note, I'm not entirely sure all of the categories fit quite that neatly. Shouldn't
Category:Energy conversion be under phys, as it can be described as being a field of thermodynamics. -
lucideer 06:28, 7 December 2008
Hmm, let's look at that category's subcats and articles. As for the previous table, please feel free to change any of the entries if your assessment is different. I didn't include the articles, but it seems to me that out of the 91, there are no more than a couple. —
Sebastian08:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Hmmm indeed. I'm beginning to second guess. Is there really such a well defined difference between energy and power (as encyclopedic topics, I'm well aware of the differences between the physical properties). The categories perturbing me are those related to
Heat engines and
Energy conversion systems. Obviously heat engines are predominantly used in society to generate power but they're physical workings (and the articles' contents') are concerned with the chemical processes converting one form of energy to another. I'm probably being overly scrupulous... -
lucideer16:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I know what you mean! Everything is connected somehow; and the more you think about it, the more connections you find, and the whole thing becomes a Gordian knot. I feel it falls into place when you think about it this way: Physics is there to help people. The concept of energy/power is one of the success stories of physics in that it had a huge impact on society. It is natural that such concepts get assimilated, and you don't have to think about physics every time you enjoy the power of your motorcycle - any more than you think about the plastics your keyboard is made of when you edit Wikipedia. If an article is important for society, it should be in the appropriate "use" category. If it's really important for physics per se, then it should of course also go into the "phys" cat. But few of the articles we're talking about really are important for physics. As long as they describe concrete tangible things, such as a heat engines, energy conversion systems or piston engines, they only need to be in the "use" cat. By contrast, the underlying concepts, such as
energy conversion, fit better in the "phys" cat. —
Sebastian19:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
One agreement, one disagreement:
Use = targeted at general society?
Phys = targeted at physicists, chemists, etc.?
I agree that this is a good method for defining things.
My disagreement would be the following: Energy conversion is a topic I would consider aimed at physicists (
Thermodynamicists) obviously as you say, but looking at the actual content of the articles on heat/piston engines, etc., most focus on these "underlying concepts" of entropy, the thermodynamic laws and chemical equations related to combustion and such within the heat/piston engines. So going purely on what I see is the articles' content I would put such topics under phys.
Naturally all my nitpicking here makes things massively complicated, as it would be a mammoth task to examine the content of each article in detail to decide which category it belongs to. So I apologise. But I'm just saying what I see.
One possible proposal would be instead of awaiting consensus, to simply categorise them blindly enmasse now, and write on a permanent prominent project page a concise agreed upon definition on what belongs where. That way people can correct any miscategorisation easily over time, having a well defined reference. Kind of an extended
WP:BRD for handling the maintenance of these warring categories.
P.S. - When these categories are created, should each come under a single WikiProject (use under
Energy, phys under
Physics), instead of being under both (as this is currently). -
olucideer00:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Don't worry - this is quite a big topic, and there is no rush, so it is worth spending some time now thinking about how to do it well.
Target group division: It seems like you are proposing to distinguish categories between those targeted to general readers and those targeted to specialists. I think that both "use" and "phys" categories have both levels of readers. There are highly specialized editors and (presumably) readers for "use", and there are general readers of the "phys" topics - like the person who added the sentence "
Power is often confused with strength" to
Power (physics). I think we should write for both. —
Sebastian00:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
You're right of course. I think the more this gets discussed, the more issues come up so continuing debate for as long as possible to iron out potential kinks would be wise. I'm not proposing ending discussion however; creating these categories, and recategorising at least the uncontroversial articles will probably attract more interest to the debate anyway.
Time should definitely be taken to agree on definite category titles before that is done, but other than that I think going ahead and starting will only attract attention and enhance discussion.
I'm not really sure about the titles now that I see them side by side, but I created a sample of what could potentially be put on each category page
here (see scope section). Thoughts? -
olucideer01:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
(Made table sortable and merged with above one for easier reference)
Energy conversion: I must admit, I didn't check the individual articles. Sure, what you say makes sense, so how about keeping
Category:Energy conversion in both the "use" and the "phys" cat?
categorise enmasse: Sure, we can do that, once we're sure that "Category:Power and Energy Use" is fine with everyone. So far, it's only you and me here, and I wanted to give it a bit of time so others can chime in. (There has been one good other proposal, but the editor deleted it himself.) I just want to avoid having to go through it again in a week if someone comes up with a better name. —
Sebastian01:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Double categorisation. Grand so. Sounds good to me.
I'm actually heading off for two weeks, this will be my last edit, but as you said there's no harm taking time reaching a consensus. Give people as long as to chime in. -
olucideer01:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
This category is within the scope of WikiProject Energy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Energy on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnergyWikipedia:WikiProject EnergyTemplate:WikiProject Energyenergy articles
This category is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
This category was nominated for
deletion on 15 June 2010. The result of the discussion was keep.
(unindent) OK, here's a list of all current subcats, and in which group they fall. I called these two groups "use" (which corresponds to the category proposed here) and "phys", which means that this is really about the term "energy", as defined in physics.
(Made table sortable)
I was amazed how neatly most categories can be grouped into these two categories. Therefore, I now think that we can delete
category:energy in physics and remerge its subcats and articles into this category, once the energy/power articles are in their own category. How does that sound? —
Sebastian06:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Second (and third...) guesses
(Headline inserted to avoid scrolling)
Actually, just when I was about to do the move, I became aware of the article
Energy (society). That seems to me like it should be the main article for this category.
WP:NCCAT#General naming conventions recommends using that as the name for the category. I'm not too happy with the word "society", which sounds pretty vague. But it is shorter than the name Lucideer proposed. So, which one is better? —
Sebastian04:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I would agree with you that society is a little off-sounding for this purpose. Wikipedia's naming conventions are there for a reason and should definitely be carefully considered in all cases, but provided consensus is reached I think more intuitive name would be of more benefit to users. —
Lucideer — continues after insertion below
Good! Maybe the article name "Energy (society)" could also be changed to match the new category name - I'll leave that up to
WP:ENERGY, especially if you guys want to declare that a core article of your project. —
Sebastian08:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
On another note, I'm not entirely sure all of the categories fit quite that neatly. Shouldn't
Category:Energy conversion be under phys, as it can be described as being a field of thermodynamics. -
lucideer 06:28, 7 December 2008
Hmm, let's look at that category's subcats and articles. As for the previous table, please feel free to change any of the entries if your assessment is different. I didn't include the articles, but it seems to me that out of the 91, there are no more than a couple. —
Sebastian08:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Hmmm indeed. I'm beginning to second guess. Is there really such a well defined difference between energy and power (as encyclopedic topics, I'm well aware of the differences between the physical properties). The categories perturbing me are those related to
Heat engines and
Energy conversion systems. Obviously heat engines are predominantly used in society to generate power but they're physical workings (and the articles' contents') are concerned with the chemical processes converting one form of energy to another. I'm probably being overly scrupulous... -
lucideer16:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
I know what you mean! Everything is connected somehow; and the more you think about it, the more connections you find, and the whole thing becomes a Gordian knot. I feel it falls into place when you think about it this way: Physics is there to help people. The concept of energy/power is one of the success stories of physics in that it had a huge impact on society. It is natural that such concepts get assimilated, and you don't have to think about physics every time you enjoy the power of your motorcycle - any more than you think about the plastics your keyboard is made of when you edit Wikipedia. If an article is important for society, it should be in the appropriate "use" category. If it's really important for physics per se, then it should of course also go into the "phys" cat. But few of the articles we're talking about really are important for physics. As long as they describe concrete tangible things, such as a heat engines, energy conversion systems or piston engines, they only need to be in the "use" cat. By contrast, the underlying concepts, such as
energy conversion, fit better in the "phys" cat. —
Sebastian19:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)reply
One agreement, one disagreement:
Use = targeted at general society?
Phys = targeted at physicists, chemists, etc.?
I agree that this is a good method for defining things.
My disagreement would be the following: Energy conversion is a topic I would consider aimed at physicists (
Thermodynamicists) obviously as you say, but looking at the actual content of the articles on heat/piston engines, etc., most focus on these "underlying concepts" of entropy, the thermodynamic laws and chemical equations related to combustion and such within the heat/piston engines. So going purely on what I see is the articles' content I would put such topics under phys.
Naturally all my nitpicking here makes things massively complicated, as it would be a mammoth task to examine the content of each article in detail to decide which category it belongs to. So I apologise. But I'm just saying what I see.
One possible proposal would be instead of awaiting consensus, to simply categorise them blindly enmasse now, and write on a permanent prominent project page a concise agreed upon definition on what belongs where. That way people can correct any miscategorisation easily over time, having a well defined reference. Kind of an extended
WP:BRD for handling the maintenance of these warring categories.
P.S. - When these categories are created, should each come under a single WikiProject (use under
Energy, phys under
Physics), instead of being under both (as this is currently). -
olucideer00:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Don't worry - this is quite a big topic, and there is no rush, so it is worth spending some time now thinking about how to do it well.
Target group division: It seems like you are proposing to distinguish categories between those targeted to general readers and those targeted to specialists. I think that both "use" and "phys" categories have both levels of readers. There are highly specialized editors and (presumably) readers for "use", and there are general readers of the "phys" topics - like the person who added the sentence "
Power is often confused with strength" to
Power (physics). I think we should write for both. —
Sebastian00:57, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
You're right of course. I think the more this gets discussed, the more issues come up so continuing debate for as long as possible to iron out potential kinks would be wise. I'm not proposing ending discussion however; creating these categories, and recategorising at least the uncontroversial articles will probably attract more interest to the debate anyway.
Time should definitely be taken to agree on definite category titles before that is done, but other than that I think going ahead and starting will only attract attention and enhance discussion.
I'm not really sure about the titles now that I see them side by side, but I created a sample of what could potentially be put on each category page
here (see scope section). Thoughts? -
olucideer01:28, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
(Made table sortable and merged with above one for easier reference)
Energy conversion: I must admit, I didn't check the individual articles. Sure, what you say makes sense, so how about keeping
Category:Energy conversion in both the "use" and the "phys" cat?
categorise enmasse: Sure, we can do that, once we're sure that "Category:Power and Energy Use" is fine with everyone. So far, it's only you and me here, and I wanted to give it a bit of time so others can chime in. (There has been one good other proposal, but the editor deleted it himself.) I just want to avoid having to go through it again in a week if someone comes up with a better name. —
Sebastian01:24, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply
Double categorisation. Grand so. Sounds good to me.
I'm actually heading off for two weeks, this will be my last edit, but as you said there's no harm taking time reaching a consensus. Give people as long as to chime in. -
olucideer01:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)reply