Talk:Effectiveness

Unsupported distinction between effective vs efficacious
The paragraph towards the end making a distinction between the meanings of "Effective" vs "Efficacious" does not seem to be substantiated; not least from the reference cited, which, if anything, seems to claim the exact opposite! It reads more like an unfounded assertion from a person with a strong opinion on the definition, but which is contrary to any real use of the term. While the notion that the word "Effective" could in theory involve a negative effect as well as a positive one is somewhat plausible from an etymological point of view, this is most certainly not compatible with how anyone would use this term in practice, and in any case you could claim the same about 'Efficacious' with an equal absence of evidence. If you say "the swordsman dealt an effective blow to his opponent", I doubt that there would be a single person that might think "Yes but I can't tell if the effect was harmful or beneficial; he should have said 'efficacious blow'.". Plus, in this particular case, 'effective blow' is such an ingrained phrase, it would sound wrong to say 'efficacious blow' in the first place, it's just not used as a phrase. 'Efficacious' instead tends to be more used when talking in pharmaceutical contexts etc. So my own personal impression is that the two are mostly equivalent, but simply tend to be associated with different phrases or contexts, and that no good evidence has been presented for the extraordinary assertion that they differ in meaning in such a stark and specific manner. Tpapastylianou (talk) 14:36, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Improvement Drive
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Wrong definitions
It seems that the explanation at the bottom of the article about efficiency and effectiveness is just the other way around, is it not? -- Hulten 14:21, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

what about effective in economics? what does that mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.166.2 (talk) 02:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

The distinction between efficiency and efectiveness is not helpful at all! They both seem to mean the same thing according to the definitions in the article, if they can be interpreted at all. 'Setting the "right" targets' implies choosing means to an end, i.e. an 'end goal'. This seems to be the same as 'having a good input/output ratio'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.225.93.26 (talk) 20:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Not a disambiguation page
This is not a disambiguation page, as it merely describes different kinds of the same basic concept. bd2412 T 18:40, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Denial is not a river in egypt. There's nothing significant in common between these things other than the term. It looks to me that this is a disambiguation page. There's no evident way this can become a well rounded encyclopedia article.Rememberway (talk) 18:04, 20 February 2011 (UTC)