Talk:Point source

message: I suggest that Point source be moved to pollution point source, and that point source (disambiguation) be moved to point source (except for the company reference). A new disambiguation page would then be needed with two entries:
* A point source is a single identifiable localized source of gas, fluid, heat, noise, waves, substance or pollution. A point source has negligible extent, distinguishing it from other source geometries, such as a line source.
*Point Source (company), a company that produces lasers and fiber optic devices
What do people think? This would make the article more consistent with e.g. Line source. Rnt20 12:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems clear to me that the definition of a point source is essentially the same for Environmental, Physical and many other applications. They are all based on a mathematical abstraction of a source with a fixed location and no spatial extent in any dimension (in the real physical world these sources have small spatial extent - but often mathematics dealing with an object of no physical extent can be used as an approximation). I think there should be a main definition page, which would go further than a wiktionary definition and perhaps list common applications of the mathematical abstraction - e.g. in pollution theory or radiation etc. There should also be a seperate page that is less mathematical and solely deals with the term in it's pollution context. The articles about pollution point sources should link to this page. 131.111.48.50 14:20, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The proposed disambiguation page does not comply with WP:MOSDAB, in several respects. In particular, it is not appropriate to create a disambiguation page with only two entries. The proposed name for the pollution page is also inappropriate. A better name would be Point source (pollution). Note also that disambiguation pages are not articles. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation.--Srleffler 16:16, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested move 

message: OK, I have reformatted this article as a proper disambiguation page, in accordance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages). There are now many articles that link here, however. Two days ago, we had no inappropriate links to this disambiguation page. Another Wikipedian went through and changed many of them to point back here, and created many new ambiguous links as well, contrary to WP:D. He also created many little stub articles, one for each "type" of point source. It seems that we now have two options:
#Adjust the links to this page to point to the appropriate individual articles on each type of point source, or
#Merge some or all of the individual articles into a single article on point sources in general
I say "some or all" largely because of the pollution article. This topic is distinct enough from the other articles (all of which deal with physics) that it may benefit from being treated in a separate article. The kinds of things one might want to say about a "point source" of pollution are different from the things one might consider for point sources of light, sound, heat, etc. Or maybe it's not that distinct after all and could be covered in the same article. I'm a physicist, so I don't really know much about it.--Srleffler 05:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it all makes sense scientifically now (it certainly didn't before). I would also be happy for all of the information to go on one point source page -- good luck in trying to do that though (I tried to do this before, but there was some of resistance from other editors). Changing the links is a little tricky, as the majority of links refer to point sources in general and not one specific type (e.g. they do not single out the case of light, radio or light pollution, but discuss waves in general which would include all of these, or e.g. they discuss the emission and tracking of a gas but do not state whether or not the gas is a pollutant). I will make these point to the general point source article. Rnt20 09:18, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the resistance you saw was mostly from me. My main issue is that there is a difference between a disambiguation page and an article on point sources. They have different purposes, and different structure. A combined article on point sources is fine, but should not be marked as a disambiguation page.--Srleffler 16:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

text: the merger is probably the best idea, since the creation of all these stubs is of dubious value (e.g. point source (fluid) etc.)  It doesnt seem likely some of these stubs will ever amount to useful articles.  the thrust of point source should be to describe the theory of using the concept of point source and draw examples from the varous fields. i have just greatly expanded line source and feel this is a reasonable model for point and area source articles. regards Anlace 05:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that the definition of a point source is not changed whether or not the gas / fluid / light / heat is considered a pollutant. I think the pollution case can be included on the same page by simply stating that the substance, waves (e.g. light, sound) or heat being emitted might be a pollutant for the case of pollution tracking (or not for the case of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Optics etc). The same laws and mathematics apply whether the gas or smoke is labelled a pollutant or not, so why have a separate page? Rnt20 08:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mbeychok can probably address this better than me, but for an article on pollutant point sources one might want to discuss regulatory definitions and other issues that don't arise in consideration of point sources in physics. Even if fundamentally they are the same thing, there may be good reason to treat point sources of a pollution in a separate article, since there may be much to say about them that does not overlap with what one would want to discuss in an article on point sources in physics and chemistry.--Srleffler 16:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Disambiguation page reformat and merge proposal

message: As an example of why the pollution topic may need its own article, user:Anlace just changed Point source (heat) to thermal pollution, apparently assuming that "point source" automatically meant a point source of pollution. I reverted and reorganized the list to put pollution at the top, in hopes of avoiding this confusion.--Srleffler 05:33, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: the merger is probably the best idea, since the creation of all these stubs is of dubious value (e.g. point source (fluid) etc.)  It doesnt seem likely some of these stubs will ever amount to useful articles.  the thrust of point source should be to describe the theory of using the concept of point source and draw examples from the varous fields. i have just greatly expanded line source and feel this is a reasonable model for point and area source articles. regards Anlace 05:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that the definition of a point source is not changed whether or not the gas / fluid / light / heat is considered a pollutant. I think the pollution case can be included on the same page by simply stating that the substance, waves (e.g. light, sound) or heat being emitted might be a pollutant for the case of pollution tracking (or not for the case of Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Optics etc). The same laws and mathematics apply whether the gas or smoke is labelled a pollutant or not, so why have a separate page? Rnt20 08:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mbeychok can probably address this better than me, but for an article on pollutant point sources one might want to discuss regulatory definitions and other issues that don't arise in consideration of point sources in physics. Even if fundamentally they are the same thing, there may be good reason to treat point sources of a pollution in a separate article, since there may be much to say about them that does not overlap with what one would want to discuss in an article on point sources in physics and chemistry.--Srleffler 16:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments?

message: The following comments dated September 4th and 5th were co-opted by Srleffler from another (previous) discussion of this same topic.  They are out of chronological order and hence confusing. In all fairness, they should be moved to the top of this page since they were made before Srleffler's  merger proposal and before Michael Hardy resolved them by his re-organization. - mbeychok 17:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not move them here. Until I looked at the history I thought you had copied them here. Actually, though, they were put here by user:Rnt20. I agree with you entirely, about them being confusing. I added a box around them. Hopefully that will help.--Srleffler 17:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It does help a bit. I have now moved them to the top of this page where they belong. - mbeychok 18:20, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The 
following
 comments dated Sept. 4th and 5th

message: I came to this article via RFC and it seems like the articles have a substantial amount of repetition. Also, it seems that by breaking up the material readers aren't able to get a full scope of the variety of applications in which this concept it used; part of the interest of the topic is the breadth of its applications and chopping it up hides that. It seems like the best solution would be a single major article on the topic at this title (dab-linked to the company) with subtopic pages broken off as needed if a large amount of information is developed on any one particular application. If there is opposition to such a merge, I am having difficulty characterizing it based on the above discussion, so help me out. If there is no opposition, let me know and I will try to carry out the merge. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:50, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC

message: I think we have a consensus for merging all of the point source stubs except for the pollution one. I don't think I have seen anyone argue against merging those. I don't think we have consensus on the pollution article yet. Perhaps we should agree that the other articles will be merged (when we're done the discussion), and focus the discussion on the interaction with the pollution article. 
I generally support keeping it separate, but I'm not an expert in this field and can't make the case for it. Some of  Rnt20's recent edits attempting to harmonize the articles make me quite uncomfortable, however. While a point source of pollution is treated as "negligible in extent" for the purpose of modeling its effect on the broader environment, it is typically not in any usual sense "small". The overlap of definitions also leads to some confusing and misleading terminology. For example, contrary to what Rnt20 asserts, a streetlamp may be a point source of light pollution, but it is most certainly not an "optical point source". A power plant is a "point source" in a pollution model, but is not a great example of a "gas point source" in general.
The use of "point source" in pollution studies seems almost metaphorical, not carrying with it the connotation of smallness found in most other uses of the term.--Srleffler 03:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this sounds OK, but the main point source page must have a brief summary of pollution point sources (with a link to the pollution point source article). Note that point sources in physics are often (perhaps usually?) much larger than point sources in pollution tracking. Typical point sources in physics are: stars (the typical example of a point light source, 100,000 miles to 100,000,000 miles across, but still of negligible size as far as astronomers are concerned), the Earth (typical example of a point gravity source for solar orbit discussions, 10,000 miles across), quasars (billions of miles across), etc so the argument that pollution point sources are not always small seems a bit of a lame reason for having a separate page! One of my physics textbooks gives a distant streetlamp as another classic example of an optical point source in physics (there really aren't separate definitions of point source for physics and pollution -- they really are identical definitions if you look in textbooks -- only mathematics deals with the non-physical concept of a really point-like (infinitesimal) source). The only difference is thus between the definition of a mathematical point source (an abstract concept, infinitesimally small) and a point source in pollution tracking or physics (a real object of finite size, like a street lamp, star or power plant). Note also that not all sources in pollution tracking are labelled as point sources -- only the sources of negligible size are called "point sources" (see line source, area source etc. for examples of sources which are too large to be point sources in pollution tracking). Part of the disagreement seems to stem from a misunderstanding of what a point source is in physics (basically the same thing as a point source in pollution tracking). Rnt20 09:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

text: As far as the merge itself is concerned, I am happy to help with merging the text, although I haven't been involved with merging any articles before so I'm not an expert in this. Rnt20 10:10, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Partial consensus?