Talk:Fields of engineering

message: The list of engineering disciplines is gettin a little long.  Still there are some disciplines that come under engineering that are not presently described. I am wondering how best to integrate them.  "Optomechanics" is an important sub-specialty.  It is recognized as such by both the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers SPIE (themselves a huge group with an annual conference in the thousands), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics AIAA, and the IEEE.  I intend to do an entry on this discipline, the fields main inventors and practictioners, the core texts, with links to the societies and institutions that referee the publications in this area. This discipline could be listed as a second tier of the present list, disciplines and sub-displines.  The main discipline would be mechanical engineering or optical engineering and the sub specialty Optomechanical Engineering.  The optomechanics material does need to be added.  The question is where?  Any opinions?  Robert Chave (talk) 23:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Adding Disciplines, not presently listed:  Where to put these?  An Example is 'Optomechanics'

message: This page needs to be merged into the Engineering article.  All engineering fields need to be listed there, no just a chosen few to avoid the appearance of bias.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by FactsAndFigures (talk • contribs) .
:I disagree. This list is quite long, and would dominate the Engineering article. Standard practice on Wikipedia is to break out excessively long sections into separate articles, and provide some summary information in articles that reference the breakout article. The current engineering article includes a summary in the form of a list of what the NSPE considers the "major branches" of engineering (alternative references welcome, but I think a reference of some kind is needed to avoid arguments about which branches should appear in the summary list), and directs readers to this article for a complete listing. --Allan McInnes (talk) 17:46, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I admit that I was also somewhat surprised by the presence of "sanitation engineering" on the NSPE list. It's your (and my) opinion that sanitation engineering isn't really "major". It's the opinion of the NSPE that sanitation engineering is "major". The difference is that inserting our opinions into Wikipedia counts as original research (not allowed), while including NSPE's opinion counts as providing verifiable information. Since the lead-in to the list explicitly says "According to the NSPE..." I don't see a problem including such a list. Again, if you would like to provide an alternative reference, I'd be happy to use that instead. Perhaps the Bureau of Labor Statistics would provide a more "unbiased" viewpoint. Alternatively, I'd be more than happy to see the list deleted entirely. --Allan McInnes (talk) 05:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think I've solved it -- see the engineering article.  As such, I've deleted the merger tag. FactsAndFigures 16:10, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge proposal 

message: This page, as well as other pages on engineering and the very Engineering category needs massive clean up. Too many non-engineering fields that use the term 'engineering' are creeping in through the cracks. The list has to include rigorous engineering disciplines which have the backing of licensing bodies/professional degrees (e.g. IET, IMechE and BEng/MEng in the UK). Network engineer, genetic engineer, etc, need to be kept out. 
I removed surveying engineer. The page redirects to "Surveying", and even though it claims they apply 'engineering principles' that is not sufficient reason to classify it as such.
We need to get sourced material and establish 'necessary' and 'sufficient' conditions for the engineerign category on wikipedia. Your average electrician, mechanic or 'networking guy' are NOT engineers. It seems a habit to add the term engineering to the end of EVERYTHING these days. Soon we'll have janitors running amok claiming to be from that engineering discipline.
There is no contest over Electrical, Electronics, Mechanical, Civil and Chemical Engineering (or their subdisciplines). These are the purest engineering disciplines. In view of the existence of sub disciplines perhaps it is best to structure this table hierarchically where possible (e.g. computer engineerung under electronics under electrical.)
We need to use these as the standard against which new entries are measured. The difficulties arise in differences between jurisdictions, but we can try. Rlinfinity (talk) 01:27, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up