Category talk:Explosives

talk items
yes, these are all chemicals, as all matter is made up of chemicals, and explosives are all matter. Gentgeen 04:07, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * So, in other words, you think that we should go put the articles of every thing in the category of Chemicals? Should we also put everything that is on the planet Earth in the category Earth or maybe everything should go in the category Universe. That's clearly not useful, and is not quite what is meant by the word, for it denotes some use in chemistry. While a substance may be made of chemicals, it does not mean that the article should be classified according to its molecules. Instead, the useful thing to do is to make a subcategory we might call Explosive chemicals, which will be under both the categories Explosives and Chemicals. The field of explosives is more vast than you seem to think, and even if you adhere to this absurd notion of "All matter goes in the category Chemicals", there are theories and processes in the field of explosives that are ideas rather than things. - Centrx 06:45, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This question has just come back up (beginning of 2006); the distinction now being a question of whether materials which are by themselves (a single pure material) are explosives or explosive chemicals or both, and what to do with materials which are mixtures of other materials, following some cleanup effort with a separatist bent by User:Uthbrian. I am going to for now replace the Explosives categorization in articles Uthbrian removed it from and open discussion here for public review etc. I am wondering if we should create additional categories (explosive mixtures, binary explosives, etc), or consider a complete recategorization. For example, Cooper in Explosives Engineering uses the terminology pure explosives and use forms of explosives. Georgewilliamherbert 21:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry about that. I think any of your suggestions is a good idea.  My intention was to leave only articles about general topics (such as Explosive booster, Explosive detection, Low explosive, Misznay-Schardin effect, etc.) in Category:Explosives, while sub-categorizing all explosive compounds & mixtures into appropriate categories.  --Uthbrian (talk) 21:24, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Nothing to be sorry about; you're trying to help clean up some category stuff which is arguably from both a strict technical sense and a naive wikipedia browser sense confused / muddled right now. If we had to wait for category professional experts or serious hobbyists to start such cleanups everywhere that we need them, it would take forever.  I don't know how long it would have taken me to get around to deciding to put some effort in on this question absent someone else starting the process, for example.
 * As we move forwards, I think we need to think of two goals in the improvements... one is improving the technical accuracy from a professional's standpoint, and the other is improving the comprehensibility from a naive user's viewpoint. From the naive users viewpoint, they'll get confused if we take stuff out of the category:Explosives.  Though technically it's overbroad, practically/from a user standpoint I think that's unavoidable.
 * What I think we can do which probably achives both goals safely is to add some additional categories, perhaps Category:Pure explosives and another for mixtures/binaries/use forms etc. I am interested in your and anyone else's feedback on these ideas and issues; if we can hash it out some here and come to consensus on a policy and implimentation it should help make the actual updates easier and more consistent.   Georgewilliamherbert 21:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your idea of adding additional categories to clarify if the explosive is a pure compound or a mixture, etc. By the way, I've noticed some possibly redundant categorization:
 * Category:Bombs is listed under Category:Explosives and category:Explosive weapons (which is a sub-cat of cat:Explosives). I'm considering if we should drop the Category:Explosives from the Category:Bombs.
 * Worth considering. Georgewilliamherbert 23:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Category:Exploding animals is listed under Category:Explosives and Category:Unusual explosions (another sub-cat of cat:Explosives). I think we should drop Category:Explosives from Category:Exploding animals, since it doesn't deal directly with explosives.
 * Agree. Georgewilliamherbert 23:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Completed. --Uthbrian (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Category:High explosives is only filled with the main article high explosive, which is a redirect to Explosive material.
 * Let me take a look at this and get back to the discussion... Georgewilliamherbert 23:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

--Uthbrian (talk) 22:29, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. This hasn't gone anywhere for six weeks. Unfortunate. Let me reread some stuff. Georgewilliamherbert 09:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

liquid explosives
Liquid explosives are in the news today. Where should the category liquid explosives go? --Gbleem 12:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)