Talk:Trapezoidal thread form

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Trapezoidal thread

I'm considering moving this article to the name trapezoidal thread form, because the trapezoidal thread form is very similar to the acme form and the acme form is a trapezoid. This is the way they are handled in the book "Design of Machine Elements" by Bhandari (seen here: http://books.google.com/books?id=f5Eit2FZe_cC&pg=PA203). I just think its pointless to have two article about the trapezoidal thread and the acme thread, because all of the info is the same except one is 29 degrees and the other is 30 degrees. Does this make sense? Wizard191 (talk) 23:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. That's funny, I just came here to suggest the same move, almost 2 years later, and found your comment here. Thought you'd written it tonight, then saw the date! My coming here to comment tonight was prompted by the recent edits by Peter Horn and you. — ¾-10 03:22, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Surely Acme is the common name? --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:08, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure in the US acme is more common, but elsewhere it's probably trap. Wizard191 (talk) 15:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a quick sniff test, Google Books shows 8000+ hits on "Acme thread" and only about 570 on "trapezoidal thread". --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:17, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Move?

It has been proposed in this section that Trapezoidal thread form be renamed and moved to Trapezoidal thread form.

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Links: current log • target log • direct move

Acme thread form → Trapezoidal thread form —

Better get this move discussed. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:18, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, as per WP:Commonname, see "sniff test" above where Google Books hits are about 15:1 in vfavor of "Acme Thread". Not all trapezoidal threads are Acme, but all Acme threads are trapezoidal. Which search term gets more views in a month? --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral - I think from a logical standpoint that it makes sense to move this, but based on a policy standpoint it makes sense to leave it as is. Wizard191 (talk) 15:24, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Another sniff test, in August, September and October "Acme thread form" got around 6000 page views per month while "trapezoidal thread form" got fewer than 30 per month. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason why I would move it despite Wtshymanski's entirely valid point about search hits or page views is superset-subset logic. If you're going to have one article about all trapezoidal threads (nonmetric and metric), then the name for it should be the generic name of the superset. Analogy would be this: *If* all colas shared one article, then you wouldn't name it "Coca-Cola" even if Coca-Cola was 10-to-1 more popular than Pepsi. You'd name it "cola" and have ==Coca-Cola== and ==Pepsi== as sections of it. Now, you could have Acme thread be its own article, and then have another article to cover trapezoidal thread forms as a class. That would work. I just think that you could easily fit all the content into one article, so may as well. However, as a structurist, I can't argue that it *needs* to be one article. So I guess my position comes down to Support but not willing to fight about it—I think from a logical standpoint that it makes sense to move this, but based on several other standpoints (eg, apathy, policy, zen) it's acceptable to leave it as is. — ¾-10 23:38, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, my position includes the idea that the name "Acme" should be reserved to refer only to the 29° nonmetric thread. The 30° metric thread ought not be called Acme. I'm usually not one to fight sloppy natural language overlap, but in this instance I think it's worth fighting against (preserving the distinction). Oh well, guess I'm done pondering this topic for now. — ¾-10 23:43, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What do the authorities say? That's the only thing that should matter on Wikipedia. Never mind what my "idea" is - I might be ignorant, ill-informed, mistaken, or just plain evil. But find a reference that says "The Acme thread form refers to thus-and-so family of threads" and we're out of the woods. My Machinery's Handbook is packed away somewhere in one of 140 boxes, but that's where I'd go if I wanted to find out what an Acme thread was. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:53, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We've got an article ~~Please read:A personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales Screw thread, no, wait, actually it's just called~~ Screw thread (cut'n'paste picks up stuff that we can't see?), is there anything about trapezoidal threads that distinguishes them from Acme that could usefully be explained there? Even "Machinery's Handbook" won't spend more than a paragraph or two on any one thread form, so it might be thin for a whole article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:02, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think your stance that we are all to stupid to determine how to define supersets and subsets is pretty dense. If you continue that thought-path we should only be able to structure the sections of an article based on how the references do, because we aren't smart enough to figure it out on our own. Or for that matter why on earth did we (the community of Wikipedia) allow sections at all because that's WP:SYNTHESIS. Sorry, but that's idiotic. Wizard191 (talk) 15:12, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, "Design of Machine Elements" by Bhandari (seen here: http://books.google.com/books?id=f5Eit2FZe_cC&pg=PA203) states that Acme is a subset of trap. threads. See page 204, halfway down on the left side. Wizard191 (talk) 15:14, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed when I ask for a Coke in a restaurant, I generally get some kind of bubbly brown sweet liquid, though it may come in a blue can instead of a red can. Why isn't the term "trapezoidal thread" showing up more often? Have we been traumatizing readers who type in "trapezoidal thread form" in a search box and are instantly whisked here to read about Acme threads? Could we not merge this into Screw thread and do an overview of the different thread forms and why they are used, and ditch the detailed tables of dimensions that no sensible person would trust off Wikipedia anyway? Show example dimensions for one similar size, where it illustrates differences betweeen similar-appearing thread forms, but no-one is going to base hs QA inspections on a Wikipedia table. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:41, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with merging this isn't screw thread, that article is already quit bloated at 33 kB, so WP:SIZE has kicked in. And I'm not sure how all of the sudden that content is now under scrutiny when we are just talking about moves. If you want to talk about merging you might be able to convince me to merge this article (and the other power screw thread forms) into power screw. But none of that really answers the structure aspect...I think this might be a compelling case of WP:COMMON to override WP:COMMONNAME. Wizard191 (talk) 16:01, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I actually see all valid points here. But you have to look at the whole elephant rather than the fire hose and the four tree trunks. Thus my net result would be the same line of thinking that Wizard191 is talking about. What's happening here is that what the experts prescribe and what the laypeople actually do are *both* relevant to the encyclopedia-building, and we have to decide how to properly balance them in this instance. This is a case where "what people usually call the whole class" is actually a sloppy (imprecise) use of the name of the most prominent member of the class. It is very analogous linguisitcally to the genericization of a trade name in natural-language usage. This is why the cola-vs-Coke analogy is actually quite apt. Wtshymanski is entirely correct that in many places, for example, widespread throughout the American South, people use the word Coke to mean any cola. To answer his earlier question about how the experts define the name Acme thread, yes, it is indeed the name of a specific subset of trapezoidal thread with a 29° thread angle and non-metric (inch-based) standardized dimensions (the standard is defined by ASME/ANSI B1.5-1988, per Machinery's Handbook 25e pp. 1716-1717). However, as with cola-vs-Coke, natural language does not consistently follow the usage prescription of the experts. Where this leaves us as encyclopedia builders is that this theme recurs across hundreds of instances in life, and for each instance, we have to decide our appropriate balance point on the spectrum of prescriptivism versus descriptivism (in layperson's language, that simply means "how language should be used versus how it actually is used"). Wizard191 is entirely correct when he points out the dynamic tension between WP:COMMON and WP:COMMONNAME. It would be an inferior result if we declared a theoretical principle that either one of those should always defeat the other, independent of instance-specific factors. In this particular instance, I feel that the smartest thing to do is to follow the superset-subset logic (and stick to the expert [ASME/ANSI] distinction). We are effectively (but gently/respectfully) saying to the readers who don't stick to the prescription, "You're using the term "Acme" too loosely; it rightly refers to a specific nonmetric standard. The generic term for this whole class of threads is "trapezoidal" (because the thread form is based on a trapezoid)." Same with cola-vs-Coke. With full respect to the U.S. Southern culture, Wikipedia should still call its article on cola "cola" instead of "Coke". — ¾-10 17:34, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If you were one of the 6000 people last month who typed "Acme thread form" and got to this article, you should have been told that an Acme thread is an instance (variation, cousin...) of a trapezoidal thread form. If you were one of the two dozen who typed "Trapezoidal thread form", you should have gotten to *something* on that topic, which might have alluded to the Acme form as being another popular variety. But no-where on Wikipedia do you find *why* there are two different thread forms, or what they are used for, how they developed, who uses them, etc. Wikipedia articles tend to be too much about leaves and not about the forest. What are the people who typed "Trapezoidal thread form" looking for, I think is the question. Never mind subset/superset theory, we can't even tell them why it's called "Acme". --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, you are getting off-topic again. The point isn't how this article can be expanded or if its lacking in areas (which it is), but if it should be moved/merged. Feel free to start another conversation about how this article needs help, if you feel so compelled; or just fix it. Wizard191 (talk) 20:07, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]