Talk:Artifact

Question
Question to anyone who reads this: do you think we should split the archaeological and digital definitions of "artifact"? I have no problem wih them being on the same page, but as a newbie, I don't know the rules for this. Discuss!


 * It depends how much thre is to say on each. See Disambiguation. I would say the archaeological is by far the dominant, so that would stay here with a note & a link to Artifact (digital). -- Tarquin

Sounds good. Would this be a straightforward "see Artifact, digital" entry, or is there a special Wikipedia way of doing it? -- Storm

Are there just two meanings? See Newton for an example. -- Tarquin

suggested disambiguation titles

 * Artifact -- this page, the archeology meaning
 * Digital artifact

I think it should probably stay here until such time as there's enough for it to justify its own article; I think it's likely an article of its own would remain a tiny stub. - Khendon 17:56 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Storm

We could reconcile the two by saying something along the lines of "human or other (perceived) intelligent activity".

That would allow us to cut the following, which appears a bit garrulous to me (reminds me of Eisenhower's definition of an intellectual):


 * In a broader sense, it may be defined as anything created by any intelligent being, but at the moment our knowledge of intelligent beings consists of one example -- humanity. (Some ethologists, scientists who study animal behavior, may not agree with this assertion; nor would many UFO enthusiasts).

Sebastian 01:26 Jan 23, 2003 (UTC)

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Photographic Meaning of Artifact
Outside of digital imaging, in photography an artifact is something present in a photograph that is a product of the processing method and was not part of the original thing(s) that the photograph is supposed to faithfully reproduce. This is, in fact, the source of the use of the word "artifact" in digital imageing. The term was first used many in photochemical photography nearly a century before computers were even invented. How should the page be modifed to reflect this? --Prophet121 01:14, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Julian Huxley
I removed the bare statement that the word "artifact" was coined by Julian Huxley. The OED lists a number of usages long before Huxley was born, the earliest being:

1821 COLERIDGE in Blackw. Mag. X. 256 The conception of all these, as realized in one and the same artéfact, may be fairly entitled, the Ideal of an Ink-stand. 1834 COLERIDGE Lit. Rem. III. 347 A lump of sugar of lead lies among other artefacts on the shelf of a collector.

If he began using the term in a specific way, then perhaps we can discuss that somewhere, or in one of the relevant linked disambiguated meanings. Nandesuka 04:16, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

expand
This lists a bunch of fields that use the word, but not how they use the word. So I marked it expand. RJFJR 16:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Cleaning up the page
I removed the two redlinks (to Artifact (philosophy) and artifact (information theory)) when cleaning up the page, since they were at least partially covered by the other links to sites that actually exist. Please comment if you disagree. Norwaystudent 18:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Edits made Mar 14 2008
Marchije (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Removed the following because these are sort of definitions, and not direct links to a single page that one would search for with the keyword "artifact" or "artefact":
 * A human-made object, such as a tool, weapon or ornament, especially those of archaeological or historical interest
 * A human-made object that is a prototype or standard of measurement
 * A structure or feature, visible only as a result of external action or experimental error. Also known as disturbance in biopotential signals
 * Moved American and British English spelling differences to "See also" section
 * Created new dab page for Artifacts and moved Artifacts (album), Artifacts (group) and Artifakts (bc) to that page * Added link to Artifacts under "See also" heading
 * Removed the following because there is no specific article on the topic, nor is the topic expanded upon on the Donnie Darko page:
 * Artifact, an object responsible for creating a Tangent Universe as described in the fictional book The Philosophy of Time Travel from the film Donnie Darko
 * Someone may still want to break the list down into categories, but I was too lazy...

Cultural artifact
Added Cultural artifact. There is some overlap with Social artifact, but this disambiguation page should contain both terms unless the two terms are merged. Corker1 (talk) 19:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Why US spelling?
Why does this page use the US spelling rather than the international spelling of artefact? --Duncan (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Artifact is by far the more common spelling . They're both "international".  Artifact is preferred in US, Canadian, and North American-influenced Englishes (Philippine, Okinawan, etc.)  Artefact is preferred in British and most Commonwealth Englishes.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  22:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Dispelling the idea that artifact and artefact have different meanings
Please see Talk:Artifact (archaeology) for an overview. The short version is that three runs of sourcing can find no reliable sources in support of this notion. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  22:18, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

PS: I would not be surprised if the artifact spelling had become more common field-wide in computing and science contexts heavily dependent on computing, for the same reason that program has come to dominate even British computing despite preferences for programme otherwise. Affected usage might include any or all of Artifact (software development), Virtual artifact, Artifact (UML) (especially if UM doesn't support a  alternative keyword), Artifact (error), Compression artifact,, Digital artifact, and perhaps Visual artifact. None of the works consulted so far indicate such a shift, however, and it may be too soon to source one. The likely sourcing path would be works on computing and related fields that are recent and published outside North America. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  22:25, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Artifact (archaeology) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 06:31, 3 April 2022 (UTC)