Talk:Examples of electrical phenomena

I disagree. This seems to be a perfectly decent bit of infrastructure, like the various 'list' pages. I can easily imagine finding it useful to make a link to this page from another site. Matthew Woodcraft

The best one so far is optical phenomenon. I think it shows both how interesting and useful this approach is. Fredbauder 17:30 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

You're ignoring my argument, guys. Look at the argument; don't make bald assertions to the contrary. --Larry Sanger

You mean 'this is redundant'? I disagree. It's useful infrastructure. Matthew Woodcraft

How is it "useful infrastructure," and what does that mean? How is it an improvement over biology, etc. Is there a special category of scientific subjects, namely the scientific phenomena, that need to be listed out as such and distinguished from--what, the non-phenomena? I don't see it. --Larry Sanger

By 'infrastructure', I mean pages which are useful to help people find their way around Wikipedia. Many of the pages linked to from this one aren't readily accessible from electricity or electromagnetism, and even if they were, I think a list like this has value in itself. The point isn't to distinguish 'phenomena' from 'non-phenomena'. This page seems is a useful place to start for someone who wants to read interesting things about electricity, but might find the electricity page intimidating. Matthew Woodcraft

Then you should favor a page titled introduction to electricity[?] or how about cool entrees into electronics[?], because "x phenomena" does imply that the subject of the page are the x phenomena as distinguished from the non-phenomenal x (I guess). If it's an introduction you want, you'll be missing out on a lot of introductory topics if we list only the electrical phenomena, won't you? --Larry Sanger

introduction to electricity[?] would be a very different page. Electronics is something different entirely, of course. You're right, the subject of this page is electrical phenomena, as opposed to theories of electricity, the equations governing electricity, the fundamental particles carrying electricity, experiments with electricity, the history of electricity, or the techniques and economics of electricity production (all of which would also make perfectly decent pages). But the point of the page isn't to clarify what is a 'phenomenon' and what isn't, it's merely to provide a list of such phenomena to people who might find it useful. Matthew Woodcraft

The point of the page just isn't obvious to me, as I said; it isn't whatever you say it is, presumably. So, for clarity, if you want this page to serve the purpose you have decided it has, then call it list of electrical phenomena[?] or some electrical phenomena[?]. --Larry Sanger

There's certainly call for Electrical phenomenon to be a valid link, so we can write "x is an Electrical phenomenon...", but I agree with Larry's analysis: maybe it should redirect to "Electricity". -- Tarquin 20:28 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

At first that's what I thought was meant by "infrastructure"; that it made a handy link, but I think the case fails on those grounds because it's just as easy, and is clearer, more helpful prose, to write "In electronics, the phenomenon of X is..." or "In biology, X is..." as it is to write "X is an electrical phenomenon...". The other problem is that even if the page is just a collection of useful links, its existence still implies that it delineates a category of things, even if that's not the intent. --LDC

We have a page called List of swords. That page isn't trying to define what is and isn't a sword, it's just providing useful linking tissue. I think this page is similar. If some people want to think that this page is delineating a category of things, I'm sure they're welcome to, but I don't see why it should be thought of as a problem. Matthew Woodcraft

Excuse me for butting in, bone-head, but we don't have a page called "List of swords" -- I just moved it to Types of swords. So there. Nyaah! --Ed Poor

See above. This page isn't called list of electrical phenomena[?], or even electrical phenomena[?], but electrical phenomenon. --Larry Sanger

Would there be a problem if this page was called electrical phenomena[?] (or "List of...")? If not, can we just move it and get on with something more useful. --Camembert

Maybe, if there is a coherent category of "electrical phenomena" that actually would be usefully listed. I'd say move it or delete it. Preferably delete it. --Larry Sanger