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Should this be a disambiguation page?

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I think that there is a bit too much explanation needed for a typical disambiguation page, but I am happy to be proven wrong. It is unlikely this will ever be much more than a stub.--NHSavage (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, this is a puzzler. I have one person convert it to a disambiguation page, but another has slapped 'This page appears to be a broad concept improperly framed as a collection of ambiguous links.' tag on it. I don't know what to do. The root of the problem comes from different communities using the words "particulate, particulates and particulate matter" to mean different things. From trying to remove links to the disambiguation page, 95% of the links mean particulate matter suspended in the air, usually as pollution. However, in some cases the same idea is being used more generically, thus it is more suitable to go to the aerosol article. Then there are particles suspended in water - the term particulate is frequently used to mean that as well, and finally on one or two occasions it has meant the particles in a granular material. I don't know what to do. Help!--NHSavage (talk) 17:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The problem here is the same as the problem we had with particle, which was initially a disambiguation page (even more justifiably so, because there was a band called Particle, and also a grammatical form), and is now an article. The problem is that the term, particulate, could be addressed at a high enough level of abstraction that all the things listed on the page could correctly be identified as types of particulates based on an basic shared characteristic other than the name itself. By comparison, mercury is the name of a planet, an element, a Roman god, a record label, and so forth, and it could not be said that these are "types of mercuries" as opposed to merely being "things called mercury". There are, however, types of particulates. The overarching question, then, is what is a particulate? It seems to me that the primary meaning of a particulate is any collection of particles suspended in another medium, whether that other medium as liquid, gaseous, or empty space. If it is possible to write an article on this phenomenon, then this article should exist, as it would generally be a correct target for almost any reference to any substance being in a particulate form. bd2412 T 17:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to revive and slightly improve the article I originally wrote on a sub page: User:NHSavage/Particulates but I really struggle to see how to expand it further. Especially as some people are using particulates to mean the solid bits in granular matter which is not a suspension. If we use you definition, then we are basically talking about a colloidal particle aren't we?--NHSavage (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we could give up on the whole thing and redirect them all to Atmospheric particulate matter with a couple of hatnotes. Given that 95% of links mean Atmospheric particulate matter, that is possibly the most justified answer.--NHSavage (talk) 18:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree to such a redirect, although I'm not sure what to do with the material on this page. I think the sample article that you put together is actually a good start. I think there's a little more that can be said - someone out there has managed to write an entire book, Population Balances: Theory and Applications to Particulate Systems in Engineering. Note that an article need not be long to be comprehensive of a highly abstract topic, particularly where there are other article that describe more precise aspects of that topic at length. bd2412 T 19:23, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That gives me something to think about. --NHSavage (talk) 19:42, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Possible hatnote for Atmospheric particulate matter

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{{Redirect7|"Particulate", "Particulates", and "Particulate matter"|particles suspended in a gas other than the atmosphere|aerosol|solids suspended in a liquid|suspended solids|a conglomeration of discrete solid, particles|granular material}} --NHSavage (talk) 18:21, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This has the added advantage of sparing me the effort of combing all the links to this page and redirecting them to the right article...--NHSavage (talk) 18:44, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 2012

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move the page to Particulate (disambiguation) and Atmospheric particulate matter to Particulates, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 04:18, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Particulates → Particulate (disambiguation) – This page is too frequent a link target for it not to be a topic of something. According to Wiktionary's entry on particulate, the word "particulate" just means "Composed of separate particles", so it is really just a fancy way of saying particles in some form of suspension (or none at all, in the case of particles in space). I therefore suggest moving this page to Particulate (disambiguation) and redirecting "particulate" to "particle", since they basically mean the same thing, and adding a hatnote and a line in the content of that page noting that things suspended in particle form are "particulate" and also mentioning particulate pollution. bd2412 T 13:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support rename but Oppose redirects. I would like to then return the page I moved back to Particulate. I started to try and work on disambiguation of this page, and about 90% of the links were to what is now Atmospheric particulate matter. It was probably a mistake to move the article there in the first place. Reviewing Wikipedia:Article_titles, there are several criteria which are in tension to some extent. Recognizability, Naturalness and Conciseness would suggest that article is better as particulate as it was before I ****ed around with it. On the other hand Precision would favour the current title Atmospheric particulate matter. Therefore I suggest that we move this page to Particulate (disambiguation) as proposed and move Atmospheric particulate matter with a hat note along the lines of This page is about particulate matter in the atmosphere. For other uses of the term "Particulate", "Particulates", and "Particulate matter" please see Particulate (disambiguation).--NHSavage (talk) 18:28, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would be fine with moving Atmospheric particulate matter here, but in retrospect I think the optimal solution to the assertedly ambiguous terms is to have a section in particle describing these various particulate states, and a hatnote at this title directing readers to particle for descriptions of these states. Putting aside the specificity of the atmospheric particles, which are often the subject of pollution regulation, all meanings of the term are WP:DABCONCEPT to particle. bd2412 T 19:07, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can sort of see how that would work, but I'd like to see an outline of the section. I like the phrase "assertedly ambiguous"!--NHSavage (talk) 19:30, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Particle#Distribution of particles. bd2412 T 20:12, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support proposal as modified (although, I'm not totally happy with Particle but that is another story...).--NHSavage (talk) 20:54, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to recap where we got. This is the proposal:

Just a minor point - I don't consider particles suspended in air to necessarily be pollution as there are many natural sources of PM. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Niallrobinson (talk • contribs) 09:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Please note that I have gone along with the discussion here, but it has left one page at a singular form (Particulate (disambiguation)) and another at the grouped plural form (Particulates). Please let me know if this is seen as a problem. Dekimasuよ! 04:26, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Particulates

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The uses of Particulate, Particulates, Particulate matter is under discussion, see talk:Particulates -- 65.94.169.222 (talk) 04:34, 4 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Requested move 12 August 2014

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Withdrawn by nominator. (non-admin closure) Steel1943 (talk) 15:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Particulate (disambiguation) → Particulate – Now that "Particulate" redirects to the disambiguation page, ie it has been decided that there is no Primary Topic for "Particulate", the disambiguation page should be at the undisambiguated title. Technically this might have been an "uncontested technical move" but I suspect that in view of all the discussions someone may object and have other ideas. (The dab page needs some cleanup too.) PamD 17:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Withdrawn by nominator. I always thought this was going to lead to trouble, but this move request was to tidy up the (poor) state in which things had been left after the previous discussions. I hope that you manage to end up with a situation where Particle, Particles, Particulate, and Particulates all lead to sensible places and everything is findable from all appropriate entry points via hatnotes, dab pages, etc. Good luck. PamD 11:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]


  • The dab page is a complete mess as disambiguation goes, and should be deleted. The fact that there have been very few people familiar with disambiguation participating in these discussions is seriously worrying, as the principles underlying disambiguation determinations are not being considered at all here. This is reflected by the fact that the first thing that was done after the last move discussion was to redirect Particulate to this title, in contravention of WP:MALPLACED. I would ask that editors make a serious effort to review and understand all of the thought that has gone into structuring disambiguation pages and disambiguation guidelines before creating a mess where solutions can be arrived at that are friendlier to the reader than this mess. bd2412 T 21:17, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A slavish adherence to the disambiguation guideline or the Manual of Style is inappropriate if the result would be to direct users to an article mostly unrelated to their search term, in this case Particulate. It's clear from earlier discussions that BD2412 (talk · contribs) put a lot of effort into structuring the various redirects around the concept of particulates, but didn't get much feedback from the wider community at the time. It's time to rethink the distinctions that have been made, even if the end result would be suboptimal, because current arrangements aren't working. NHSavage has explained the challenge facing us below; his comments are an excellent place to start. G. C. Hood (talk) 23:39, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What evidence do you have that current arrangements aren't working? Has there been reader feedback? Has anyone come to the airborne particulates page and said that it wasn't the target they were looking for? NHSavage has specifically said that people are looking for related but different things. If they are related, then they are not ambiguous, it's really that simple. Before we create a really bad situation for disambiguators, why don't we at least try writing up a section on the Particle page that captures exactly the relatedness that makes this topic unambiguous? bd2412 T 00:25, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

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Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

Discussion

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Particulate redirected to Particulates until that article was moved to Atmospheric particulate matter following a discussion at its talk page. An attempt to redirect Particulate to Particulate (disambiguation) after the move was challenged by BD2412 (talk · contribs) who redirected Particulate to Particle instead, despite suggestions in the discussion of the earlier move to merge Particulate and Particulate (disambiguation). Particle is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC of Particulate: a particle is a discrete object, while a particulate is a substance composed of many particles, which can normally be categorized into one of the four categories listed at Particulate (disambiguation). The redirect at Particulate should be replaced with this disambiguation page. G. C. Hood (talk) 18:40, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please fix the incoming links to particulate first. Thanks. bd2412 T 18:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This whole issue is a mess, mostly because people are lazy and say "particulates" when they really mean one of several related but different things. We have two completely distinct meanings - granular materials, and matter suspended in a fluid. Matter suspended in a fluid can be either suspended solids in a liquid or a colloid of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas i.e. an aerosol. Furthermore the term particulate or particulate matter is often used a short hand for atmospheric particulate matter which is often a form of pollution. Trying to get rid of all links to particulate is a serious piece of work and one that will never end because of people's lack of precision in how they use the term particulates. I do not agree that all links to particulate have to be sorted before we do this move - the current redirect at particulate is not helpful. Furthermore I would propose that particulate matter and particulates should both redirect to this page after it has been renamed. Then clean up of links to the disambiguation pages can begin.--NHSavage (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    If these terms are related (and, notably, most are not title matches and would need to be removed from the disambiguation page as is), then what we have is a WP:DABCONCEPT which needs an article written to explain the relationship. The reason the links should be fixed first is that readers coming to the disambiguation page are likely to be confused by the closely related options, and will throw their hands up and give up on Wikipedia before reading every article listed on the page to find the one intended. We should avoid creating bad situations for our readers where we can. bd2412 T 20:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that we should avoid creating bad situations for our readers. The current situation is the worst of all possible worlds. We have considered "broad concept" idea before I seem to recall. The problem is that I cannot see how the article would consist of any more than what I have written above. I don't have any more time on this now, I have taken on a role in a local charity and that is taking more and more of my free time.--NHSavage (talk) 20:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Particle encompasses all of the concepts on the disambiguation page (all particulate matter is, by definition, matter in particles), keeping the redirect to that broad concept article would do that just fine. If there is some problem with Particle being too broad, create a subsection on that page refining the concept of particulate matter and redirect to the subsection. Either way, it's better than the headache readers will get from an always-wrong disambiguation page. bd2412 T 20:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Suspension of discussion

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Since Particulates is no longer unoccupied due to the closing administrator reopening that move discussion, I presume that everyone will understand that this discussion can not proceed. I respectfully request that the proposer, PamD, withdraw this move request until such time as the target page is unoccupied. bd2412 T 11:33, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to oblige - see above. Is there anything more formal I need to do? PamD 11:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposed merge.

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Since I have removed all names that do not meet WP:MOSDAB standards for inclusion, and every topic on this disambiguation page either was or is a subtopic of particle (i.e. kinds of particles), the only thing left to do is merge the page content into Particle. bd2412 T 03:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose merge. Particles are physics things, or maybe material sciences. Particulates are pollution, whether natural or man-made. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:02, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Particulates are still particles, though, aren't they? Particles of pollution? If it is generally the case that "particulates are pollution", then the topic is an unambiguous subtopic of Particle, but requires substantial expansion either as a subsection of that article or as an article of its own. NHSavage wrote above that particulates means:
    "granular materials, and matter suspended in a fluid. Matter suspended in a fluid can be either suspended solids in a liquid or a colloid of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas i.e. an aerosol"
    However, NHSavage also wrote that he "cannot see how the article would consist of any more" than that. All of the topics to which he refers are already covered at Particle, so my question is really just whether NHSavage is correct that this description encompasses all that there is to say about particulates. bd2412 T 11:45, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merge. I really have a problem with the approach here. The article at particle is just plain confusing. "Something that is composed of particles may be referred to as particulate" - everything except elementary particles is made of particles! What is referred to 90% of the time when things are described a particulates or particulate matter is things suspended in a fluid. [[[Colloid]] almost covers it but then excludes cases where the mixture setttles. The very abstract concept of a particle is completely different to the specific usage implied by particulate. See for example the AMS glossary http://glossary.ametsoc.org/wiki/Particulates "The term for solid or liquid particles found in the air.". A redirect to particle is even less use to people looking for information about particulates than the current page is. Given that is has been decided that the primary article for particulate is what was formerly called (more accurately) atmospheric particulate matter, then perhaps the best option is to remove this page completely and add a hat note over at particulate to point to Suspended solids.--NHSavage (talk) 18:10, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Particle is a very difficult and abstract concept to fully describe, but I think that our responsibility as an encyclopedia is to tackle the abstract concepts and describe them as best we can. I understand your concern about the distinction between the extremely broad usage of "particle" and the much narrower usage of "particulate", and have made an alternate proposal at the reopened discussion at Talk:Particulates. bd2412 T 19:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merge. "Particulate" has two meanings, both in common usage. As a noun, it is distinct from "particle" in the way elucidated by NHSavage by having a narrower scope of meaning. As an adjective, it can simply refer to things, materials or substances, that are composed of particles. Both meanings should be addressed in the disambiguation page, because reader might reach it looking for either one: (1) a particulate might easily refer to a waterborne particulate, rather than airborne, and (2) particulate matter, which is an example of the second meaning, redirects to particulates, which in turn has a hat note to this disambiguation page. Eigenbra (talk) 02:06, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • The senses are still WP:DABCONCEPT to each other. Particulates, whether airborne or waterborne, remain particulates, and it is possible to write an article covering all particulates. Compare virus - there are airborne viruses and fluid-borne viruses, but we don't therefore make virus a disambiguation page merely linking to articles on those topics. We do not shy away from writing these articles merely because they are abstract. In fact, that is all the more reason to write them, because our readers benefit when we are able to explain difficult concepts. bd2412 T 02:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agreed, but that is not what was being proposed. I like the idea of having a broad article covering all particulates, airborne or waterborne, perhaps similar to the content now under particulate pollution (perhaps also with a hat note pointing to particle), but how does that square with atmospheric particulate matter being the primary topic for particulates? Are you suggesting atmospheric particulate matter should be its own article and most incoming links to particulates should be changed to point there? Eigenbra (talk) 03:03, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • The fact that there are multiple meanings of a term does not preclude one of those meanings from being the WP:primary topic. In addition to biological viruses, there are computer viruses and many titles of works named "Virus", but the primary topic is still one specific kind. Based on the discussion we have been having at Talk:Particulates, literature addressing airborne particulates outpaces literature addressing waterborne particulates by 5 to 1 or better. bd2412 T 03:23, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • But there cannot be an article encompassing computer viruses and biological viruses, like there can be an article encompassing airborne and waterborne biological viruses, so your analogy is getting a little confused. To summarize my position briefly: there should be a page about particulates that is not specifically about airborne ones and is not as general as to talk about all particles. Whether that page is a disambiguation page or an article depends on how much editors find to say. Eigenbra (talk) 03:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Okay, I see what you are saying. Since a page on the common and contrasting properties of particulates could conceivably encompass everything about airborne particulates and everything about waterborne particulates, it is in theory easy to provide enough coverage to justify an article. The question is how much duplication we want to allow (although in practice, a thorough encyclopedia will always have lots of duplication, since every topic overlaps with some others). My sole issue here is that I don't think this is an ambiguous topic in the first place, but a collection of related topics. We could start a draft at Draft:Particulate to put together the mockup of a primary topic article on the complete concept. bd2412 T 03:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I get that I am out of my depth here, and that you probably grok a lot more about disambiguation than I do, but let me throw out one last suggestion, and then get out of the discussion: an elegant solution might be for the article covering both airborne and waterborne particulates to be titled something like particulate (substance). It might be unusual for the more general article to have a title suggesting greater specificity, but if the atmospheric particulates are to be the primary topic for particulates, it will be problematic to have particulate be a different article. Eigenbra (talk) 04:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • If we had an article covering both airborne and waterborne particulates, and this basically covers the field for topics under the heading of "particulate", why would that article not be titled Particulate? bd2412 T 16:46, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • I really don't think we need an article covering both. The overlap is minimal and I think we will end up with either a lot of redundancy with the two existing articles at suspended solids and particulates or a very small article. If the vast majority of people looking for "particulates" want "atmospheric particulate matter", it is clear that the primary topic for "particulates" is what is currently there now and so particulates is the right place for the article we have over there at the moment per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. I made a mistake a few years back with that article as I felt it was better to have a precise term. This is indeed one of the criteria at WP:NAMINGCRITERIA but not the only one. Having gone back and read the naming criteria I now feel that for reasons of Recognizability, Naturalness and Conciseness we should leave that as it is (but improve the lede). If we add a hat note there to point to suspended solids we no longer need this page at all and we can delete it. --NHSavage (talk) 20:44, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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