Talk:Diaper

Toilet Training a choice

The way I understand it, infants are physically unable to control the movement of bowel or urination because the mylin sheathes surrounding the nerves used to sense and control the processes are not developed. I feel it is erroneous to say that toilet training is the 'choice' of either parent or child. It is a matter of whether or not the child's body have developed to the point where the process can be under voluntary control, period.

Other Issues

The Adult section of this article, particularly the description of why diapers are used in bondage fetishism is TOO EXTENSIVE, in my opinion. Could someone with more knowledge of wikipidea's guidelines for what is and isn't necessary in an article give it a look-through? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.56.65.24 (talk) 03:08, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I removed a section from the "Child" portion of this article in which a ridiculous phrase implied that "Australia supported a mainstream view of Diaper wearing in school age children", which a (defunct) link to a news site that is known for its trash and tabloid journalism. Not only is it ridiculous to assume from a single news article, rather then a study or journal, that an entire country or state supported this phenomenon, but simply reading something in a news article and dumping it on wikipedia is grossly stupid. Can we try to keep information sources factual when it comes to this sort of information? 121.210.240.147 (talk) 16:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Ammonia

Can someone change the Ammonia section? It states that Ammonia is caused by the combination of fecal matter and urine, when it is just the urine that is resposible. This may cause some to belive that a diaper that has only been urinated in will not produce Ammonia. --User: tash 18:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Well fecal matter contains urease which catalyses the conversion of urine to ammonia so it is technically correct but I agree it is slightly misleading, as it makes the diaper rash worse, it is not the sole cause.--Wherethere (talk) 03:12, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

GA Review

This article does not meet the Good article criteria at the present time. Although the lead section appears good, and it is well written, there is a serious lack of citations of key information later in the article (some entire sections are completed uncited, and other key info in other sections needs to be cited).

Inline citations also need more information included than just an external link; it should include full citation information -- author, title, publication, date of publication, date URL was retrieved. This is actually quite important -- if the link ever becomes inaccessible, the additional information can be used to help verify and track down the source offline, if needed.

The article needs to be checked thoroughly for NPOV issues. Sentences like, "Disposable diapers were introduced to the US in 1949 by Johnson & Johnson, and were considered by parents as a great invention." are going to be hard to verify with reliable sources (specifically, the part in bold text), and should be toned down.

Consider moving 'etymology' to immediately before the 'history' section. It's useful to discuss the origin of the name first. Also, the 'taming of the shrew' part could use a reference; while it's mentioned, yes, an inline citation containing a link to an online copy of Shakespeare's play would help readers verify this if they wished.

The entire 'types' section only has two inline citations and a 'citation needed' tag. The bullet points in the disposable subsection seem to written too much like an advertisement for disposable diapers, than an actual encyclopedia article. I would think that it could be rewritten to provide a better, more concise, description of this type of product, and try to write in prose, with citations, rather than listing with bullets.

I would also merge the 'controversy' section into the section on cloth diapers; the text itself could also be greatly reduced. I don't think that disposable diapers are really all that "controversial". Rather, there's certainly an issue with diapers filling up landfills, and several environmental groups do favor the cloth diapers, which is why it should be included in that section. As its own section like this, it's really a violation of WP:NPOV, and of WP:WIAGA.

I'm not sure that 'changing' and 'length of use' are quite as important as the amount of text leads the reader to believe. It seems to me to contain a lot of cruft, and could probably be reduced. Remember, wikipedia is not a 'how to' guide.

I would create a new main section entitled 'uses', with three major subsections: 'children', 'adults', and 'animals'. Some of the stuff under 'changing' and 'length of use' could go under 'uses: children'.

Hopefully, these suggestions will help editors to improve the article. I think once they are fixed, the article will be a lot closer to meeting the GA criteria. Good luck! Dr. Cash (talk) 05:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I've done a bit of work today to clarify the Types:Cloth section and added a section following it called "Care and Ecological Concerns" to separate the discussion of cloth diapers from the green debate over cloth v. disposable. I'm not averse to removing the brief "dry pail method" section in the first par. of the new section, as it now seems out of place and "how-to" to me, but I'd like a second opinion. I also updated links and added access date information to them for the references section. I'd welcome some reliable pro-disposable study references to balance the new section a bit. The studies that I've referenced are not available online for reading that I can find, but do fall within Verifiability requirements. The citation information that I've given should be plenty of information to find the studies in offline research, but please let me know if additional is needed or if there's a formatting change needed.

I've done some revision on the Types:Disposables section according to your recommendations and added citations to it.

I've also checked and/or updated citation links in these sections to include access date information. Only one revision of existing citation was required for a moved article. The information referenced has not changed, so I updated the citation URL and access date. Let me know if you're interested in other revisions to those sections.Heather (talk) 19:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Pioneering days

This article contains a line about the situation "in the pioneering days". When on earth was that? Is this a reference to the United States? --KarlFrei (talk) 12:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Given the general timeline putting the Industrial Revolution after this bit, it most likely it is in reference to the American pioneers of the 19th century, but there's also not a citation for this bit, which makes me suspect lack of verifiability. Heather (talk) 20:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Unwilling

Unwilling to use a toilet? What the...?12.26.68.146 (talk) 15:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Diapering in History

The reference to Elizabethans only changing soiled diapers every few days is based on a cited web article that lists absolutely no citations for their statements and is not even a historical costume site, but instead a disposable diaper industry page. A much more solid citation is needed for the pre-twentieth century section of the History section than the referenced website. Heather (talk) 21:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Upon discussion elseNet with others who've been searching for the same citation basis and after my own searching and review of my personal knowledge base of the subject, the referenced information about pre-nineteenth century diapering cannot qualify under the Wikipedia standards for verifiability. I have altered the History article to reflect this and removed the inappropriate citation(s) from References as well. In addition, I removed and replaced citations which did not have access dates and were no longer accessible. Heather (talk) 23:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't really understand your issue with the former source. Why did it need to cite sources, it was the source and there doesn't seem to be any reason why it wouldn't be reliable. Yes, it's a diaper industry site, wouldn't that indicate they would have knowledge of diapers throughout history. It just seems like you've deleted a lot of good information from the article without much reason. Coop41 (talk) 14:58, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the information presented is *not* good. I and other costume historians with interest in childhood have been looking since this was revised and have yet to find a single reliable back up or citation for this misinformation. Book research efforts seems to indicate that the information was from a (possibly privately published) manual about raising children, written by a later Victorian, Edwardian, or an American contemporary, and without any stated research or citation to back up the statement.

Scholarship in costuming indicates that the information given is incorrect, beyond being occasionally physically impossible. A child with four days of feces and urine pressed to the diaper area is a child who develops open and seeping/bleeding wounds. Keep doing it, and you don't just risk a screaming child, but a crippled and/or dead one. This aspect of human infant physiology has not changed in four hundred years, and the removed piece of misinformation blithely stated that Elizabethans changed infants' diapers only every four days. A newborn makes approximately 8-12 soiled diapers every 24 hours. Period lists in letters, pawnbrokers ledgers, and the like, of items made or needed for expected and existing infants include enough diapering material to change soiled diapers quite often for several days, in addition to swaddling linen and bands, linen caps and clothes, and blanketing/sheeting. These are sources ranging from nobility down to lower middle class. I'm trying to get to the library to ILL one such source (facsimile pawnbroker's ledger) to add here.

In short, the information presented on the website is not just outdated, but wrong. Heather (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if you really believe the information was innaccurate I would rather it wasn't there, it just seemed like you deleted it because you didn't personally agree with it, rather than a genuine problem with the source. But you do seem to know more about this than I do so I suppose I'll just trust your judgement. :) Thank you for looking for a replacement source and I hope you find one because the history section is looking a little sparse now. Coop41 (talk) 21:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

3.5 billion gallons of oil are used to produce the 18 million throwaway diapers that end up in landfills each year

Must obviously be wrong, otherwise how could anybody afford any? Togo (talk) 21:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Amazing that nobody caught that until now. I've traced the source of the claim to this edit from March 17, 2008. It was stated that way from the beginning and thus is not vandalism. I agree with you that it cannot possible be true; if the 'millions' and 'billions' were switched it would make more sense, but I can't just make a change like that without knowing what the actual data is. Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 21:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

3.5 Billion Spread out to make 18 Million diapers means that it takes 194.4 gallons of oil to produce one diaper. This statement is clear wrong but has great emotional shock value for someone with an agenda. JTH —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.115.160.22 (talk) 01:40, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, there are probably a lot more than 18 million diapers being used each year. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Ive removed the claim for now. -- Soap ^Talk/_{Contributions} 01:55, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

hey ppl —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.126.112.231 (talk) 22:25, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Nappy

Why not call the article "nappy" instead of "diaper"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.215.146.182 (talk) 19:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR. We had a discussion about this a few years ago and Diaper won. Admittedly, though, it wasn't much of a discussion; see Talk:Diaper/Archive 1#Name. It's possible but highly unlikely that consensus could change to renaming it Nappy. —Soap— 20:44, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any real evidence diaper won. There was no real discussion, heck ENGVAR wasn't even mentioned, so no consensus was achieved (and the closest thing to consensus in that discussion was nappy anyway). However it is unlikely the article will be changed since wikipedia wide consensus per ENGVAR is when there is no reason to choose one over the other we follow the first contributor which was diaper in this case. Nil Einne (talk) 11:05, 29 May 2011 (UTC)