Talk:Industry (economics)/Archive 1

Merge discussion
I suggest that all of the parts that say "Main article:" should be merged into this article, seeing as none of them are very large and it seems it would be better to have all the info on one page. ILovePlankton 22:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Intro edit
The intro needs severe revision. For instance, this paragraph:

"Without industries we would not have the opportunity to enjoy the goods we have today. The industries just came along as discoveries from scientists such as Newton and Einstein made improvements to the modern world making manufacturing a reality. Industries are linked to each other and that is why we see the beauty of the world as it is today."

It has an undeniable pro-industry bias. In addition, it is vauge and says little that is concrete about industry. (Yes, industries create many goods, but who enjoys these "goods"? What are the goods in the first place? And how exactly is "the beauty of the world" related to indrustry?) It and the rest of the intro need severe revamping, especially in relation to WP:NPOV. I am not arguing that pro-industry opinion should not be covered. However, it should be labelled as such, and put in a section labelled "Opinion on industry", with opposing opinions given coverage as well.

I've cleaned up part of the intro so it's not POV, but it still jumps around a bit and contains parts that might be repeated twice. Sorry about that. I'm not even sure what to do with these and other problems with it, so I'm marking it with the Cleanup tag. As always in Wikipedia, feel free to put anything back in that you think was stronger or more accurate in the previous draft. I make as many mistakes as anyone. Kennard2 00:21, 29 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, I left a couple minor edits that I labelled as "dummy edits" because I thought those were edits to correct small mistakes right after saving that page. My bad. Kennard2 00:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Portal
It's my thought that the "Industry" article should be a portal leading to information regarding many different industries etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OneRyt (talk • contribs) 18:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC).

Industry vs. manufacturing
What's the difference between industry and manufacturing? How do they overlap? Seems that we need to work this out before embarking on a major rewrite (which the article does desperately need). (So does Rob C. alias Alarob 00:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

cleanup?
Should this article have a cleanup tag? 59.93.128.33 06:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
 * This article has been tagged since December 2006 for cleanup, making it one of the oldest articles marked for cleanup. What, in terms of WP:MOS, still needs to be done before this tag is taken off of the article.  Barkeep   Chat 14:42, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

more links, references and proof plz
you people just write stuff there and put in lists without any value, proof or references, the only source is a link to a dictionary wth??? --Economicdefenceleague (talk) 18:26, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Cleanup
I cleaned up the lead section a bit. I put the stuff about industry sectors into a new section, deleted redundant sentences, and removed some bullet items that didn't seem to fit with anything else. I also removed the cleanup tag that stated that the lead section needed to be cleaned up, but I won't be offended if you put it back.. the article still needs a lot of work. Marla the Mop (talk) 21:14, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

No real definition of what industry is!
What is industry exactly? What are the key things that must be in it to call it an industry? It seems there are a lot descriptions of what an industry does - but not what it truly is. There must be some key requirements to being called an industry, surely.
 * Industry is the production of any material goods except agricultural goods. Simple. --178.197.236.195 (talk) 15:01, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Bold statement

 * "Many developed countries and many developing/semi-developed countries (People's Republic of China, India etc.) depend significantly on industry."

That's a bold statement, please think about it once more. Just because of the outsouring of our industries into development countries it doesn't mean that our economies don't strongly depend on those industries. Especially the trading and distribution sector. Without those foreign industries our economies would go down within a minute. So therefore we are the ones that became dependent on the development countries, not the other way round. Think about that twice. --178.197.236.195 (talk) 15:11, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect examples under Industry classification
In the table of sector definitions, examples of tertiary jobs are given as teachers and managers. However, from the reading I've been doing, these jobs fall into the quaternary sector. Page 363 of this paper that introduces the quaternary sector (http://www.roiw.org/1987/359.pdf) says that the tertiary sector is mainly transportation and trade (retail/wholesale). No SIC major groups (https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/sic_manual.html) past #59 are included in its definition of the tertiary sector. Teachers (#82) and managers (#87) are both clearly listed under the quaternary sector. I'm going to replace the example in the article, but I wanted to start this talk topic in case my limited research is mistaken. Input welcome.

Tedsanders (talk) 23:03, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Data?
Where's the industry data? What's all the reported income statements and balance sheets revenue and assets, by industry? Or at least the Fortune 500 by industry and their revenue, employees, earnings, assets and so on.--Jerryseinfeld 20:28, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

One thing I noticed was that Yahoo! use the Reuters industry categorization. Yahoo! include market cap, so to figure out the revenue of a category take market cap from Yahoo! and p/s from Reuters. Consumer Financial Services: Market Capitalization: 250B, P/Sales (ttm) 2.51. So the annual revenue is 250/2.51 billion.

Finance — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerryseinfeld (talk • contribs) 20:51, 12 April 2005 (UTC)
 * Consumer Financial Services - revenue: 100 billion (250/2.51)

I need a census of industries of the southeast region!
Does any one know where to find one? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.224.219.164 (talk) 21:47, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sure, this is a good source: http://www.ecanned.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.156.47.71 (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Upper right pic
I dunno how to fix this, but there is a problem with the picture in the upper right over lapping the text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madris (talk • contribs) 16:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Split article according to different meanings of the word "industry"
The word industry has in my understanding at least two meanings:
 * 1) A certain type of production, as represented by
 * 2) * the secondary sector of the economy in the three-sector theory (see e.g. the legend of the diagram at the top of the arcticle)
 * 3) * Industrial revolution, industrialization, deindustrialization, post-industrial society, where industry is seen as different from e.g. crafts by using for example mass production


 * 1) * This meaning is also used by most other language Wikipedias I can read/understand (with some help from Google Translate :-)), e.g. de:Industrie, es:Industria, fr:Industrie, nl:Industrie or no:Industri.
 * 2) generally an economic activity see e.g. ISIC v4 on page 3
 * 3) * This is the meaning mostly used by all the given industry classifications.
 * 4) * ISIC has for example categories, which don't fall typically under the first definition like
 * 5) ** T 97–98 Activities of households as employers; undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use
 * 6) ** U 99 Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies
 * 1) ** U 99 Activities of extraterritorial organizations and bodies

In my opinion it would be best to split the current article along those lines.

What do others think?

--S.K. (talk) 21:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Involved feedback
Perhaps in your discussions you might consider adding somewhere the circular nature and feedback of the system. For example wages drive demand, but demand drives wages. 70.27.152.243 (talk) 16:06, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

"Modern misusage of the word"
I've commented out the following two paragraphs, added by anonymous user 67.119.158.54 a bit over a month ago:
 * Industry is commonly understood as business population and workforce. With no doubt, industries means more than one industry. Despite this common sense, the 21st Century youth generation has mistaken the word as a substitute for clothing company. Possibly inspired by big name companies like World Industries and Skin Industries, which are neither technically industries''' in the original sense of the word.


 * Today many small t-shirt labels borrow the word for their names, knowing their company is composed of less than 10 teenagers, hardly an industry, let alone industries.

They're rather poorly-written and unclear, they read like a whiny old man ("21st Century youth generation"?), and they generally seem to have no point. &mdash;Simetrical (talk) 02:33, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Industry v. Manufacturing
What is the difference between Industry and Manufacturing? The current definitions sound very similar: "Industry is the production of goods or related services within an economy." and "Manufacturing is the production of merchandise for use or sale using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation." Power~enwiki (talk) 08:09, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Industry includes construction, mining, manufacturing and utilities. Ian D 123 (talk) 01:28, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Industry articles
There are the following different meanings and related terms of industry:


 * industry as a list of companies and a part of economics (Pulp and paper industry)
 * industry as a technological process (Papermaking)
 * industry as a part of technological process (Kraft process)
 * industry as a type of product (paper)
 * industry as a type of plant (paper mill)
 * industry as a list of plants (List of paper mills)

I'm wondering whether we can standardize such entities using Wikidata and Infoboxes.

--Vanuan (talk) 21:04, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * As I‘ve proposed before (see archive), I think the article should be/must be split according to the different meanings of the word “industry”. This would also allow for meaningful Wikidata items and interwiki links. --S.K. (talk) 22:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Moving a section
I'll move the first section of this article, "Classification", to article Industry classification. That will solve the issue raised in December about splitting this article. Marcocapelle (talk) 21:38, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

"Slavery"
The article is about industry, and the first topic mentioned is "slavery". 1. Slavery has nothing to do with topic. 2. The article confirms it. 3. It was poorly sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:14D:BAD7:4699:D856:8B8C:3CA6:4F2 (talk) 19:11, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Revive Split Proposal (Jul 2020)
So after swinging by the article & thinking a bit, I'd like to revive the discussion on splitting the article.

I pretty much want to second what you proposed in the archive. I can think of 3 major meanings for industry in English: I can take care of a concept split between 2 and 3, but before that, I think there needs to be some consensus on exactly how focused the industry classification page should be.
 * 1) The old-timey sense of "industriousness", which doesn't need an article
 * 2) A specific class of related products and processes
 * 3) The sense implied in things like industrialization, which in my mind, comes down to manufacturing at scale

Is there really a need to discuss specific classification systems in a separate article from the idea of an industry class? Couldn't they just go under a few sub-headers, like "Classification" and "Standards"? In other words, what about just broadening the lede at "industry classification" and adding a redirect to it from "Industry (economics)"? The related parts here could be moved there, and if what's left here needs disambiguation, we could rename this page "Industry (manufacturing)".

Another option is to roll up the 3rd meaning into a section within the Manufacturing article. Of course, that only makes sense if there's not much to say about extensive industry beyond what already belongs there and in other articles like Industrial Revolution. Zar2gar1 (talk) 00:37, 25 July 2020 (UTC)


 * The article has changed quite a bit since back when I made the proposal but the mixing of the different meanings is still there. So I still support the split. Looking at wikt:industry does IMHO as well. --S.K. (talk) 07:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Google/Oxford definitions sort of imply the same (especially with the bit about "manufacture... in factories"). I'll give it another week or two to see if anyone opposes, and in the meantime, I'll try seeing how much interest there is at the other 2 pages to absorb some of the content here. Zar2gar1 (talk) 02:40, 27 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Looking at wikt:industry, I see the 3rd definition of "industry", namely "(uncountable, economics) Businesses that produce goods as opposed to services." and also "There used to be a lot of industry around here, but now the economy depends on tourism.". These meanings of the word "industry" are very different from the meaning of that word in the article Industry classification. Misha Wolf (talk) 12:31, 27 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I am very concerned that some of the contributions above appear to conflate the concept "industry" with the concept "manufacturing". This is *not* the meaning of the word "industry" in the article Industry classification. In that article, "industry" has a *much* broader meaning. Any action based on this misunderstanding would damage Wikipedia. Misha Wolf (talk) 11:13, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. --Macrakis (talk) 14:30, 27 July 2020 (UTC)


 * So I think we may be talking past each other some. First off, everyone so far agrees that this article currently mixes up 2 different things, right? I'm not saying these should be actual page titles or opening sentences, but just to clarify, we could refer to them as something like:
 * Industry (economics) - A taxonomic level for categorizing all kinds of economic activity
 * Industry (manufacturing) - The large-scale production of goods, typically in factories with machinery
 * Just separating those things (and probably some of the historical bits too) is the only real goal of the split. I mention the other articles here because if there's any interest to absorb some content from here (or even merge into what's left here after the split), that will probably change how I go about the specific edits.
 * As long as everyone here mostly agrees we should split the article, it can be done. At the other articles, I'm just looking for consensus on whether or not they have a home for some content from here (or maybe vice-versa if this article is consolidated enough). Zar2gar1 (talk) 22:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)


 * My main concern is that the Industry classification article should not be damaged. I'm not saying that it must not be changed but that any change must be in harmony with the purpose of that article. I would oppose a renaming of that article as the existing name is what an interested reader would expect. Note that a large number of the classification schemes listed in the table in that article have the words "Industry Classification" or "Industrial Classification" in their names.


 * The Industry article is quite a different kind of creature as it currently seems to have no clear purpose. The text about classification does not belong in its lede, especially as this subject doesn't seem to be discussed in the body of the article.


 * Any proposal to move that text to the Industry classification article would need to be justified on a sentence by sentence basis. For example, the sentence "The major source of revenue of a group or company is an indicator of what industry it should be classified in." would not be acceptable in the Industry classification article as it describes one particular type of Industry classification, rather than all Industry classification, which is what it implicitly claims to do. If you look at the table in the Industry classification article, you will see that the introductory sentence says "A wide variety of taxonomies is in use, sponsored by different organizations and based on different criteria." (my emphasis) The 4th column of the table gives, inter alia, the applicable Criterion. Misha Wolf (talk) 23:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, that's fair. Just to get back on track, I don't think I'm misrepresenting anyone by summing up the consensus so far as tentatively for the split, as long as we don't change industry classification. Let me swing by Manufacturing and a couple related articles to see if they're interested in taking on some of the other content. Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. Please could you help me find an answer to the question I asked at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Economics. Thanks. Misha Wolf (talk) 21:46, 28 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree with everything that Misha Wolf has said. In particular, the current Industry article doesn't seem to know what it's about -- it seems to be a miscellany of topics in political economy including development, labor, etc. Mashing the Industrial Classification article (which has a very clear focus) with it can only produce a bigger mess. --Macrakis (talk)

So if there are no new comments, I'll get to work on the split. I won't touch the industry classification page, and after a little time to think, I'll be moving the bulk of the content into industrial society. It's not a very active page & I'll only be adding / copy-editing there so I'm just going to be bold. Zar2gar1 (talk) 21:30, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Primary topic or disambiguation at industry?
Thanks a lot for the successful split, it‘s much better now!

I′m wondering though now if the current meaning is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. IMHO both meanings (2: "class of related products and processes" and 3: "manufacturing at scale") are equally/comparably common. See e.g. the Ngram for industry vs. manufacturing or the |Manufacturing related page reads.

I would therefore propose to move the current article to e.g. industry (macroeconomics) (better ideas more than welcome) and industry (disambiguation) to industry.

What do others think?

--S.K. (talk) 05:55, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I'm glad you think it turned out well, and I personally have no problem making the WP:DAB page the main one for now. My only real comment is there's already a redirect pointing here from industry (economics). Since redirects are cheap & should track a move though, I'm fine with the page moving to industry (macroeconomics) if you think the macro qualifier is important. --Zar2gar1 (talk) 14:31, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I based my suggestion on the introductory sentence and didn’t know there was already a link industry (economics). It would work for me perfectly to use this. Your call. --S.K. (talk) 15:02, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * In that case, I'd say just clobber the plain economics one. Not so much because another redirect is a problem, but come to think of it, industry analysis might technically be more of a microeconomic topic anyways. I didn't even stop to think about it during the split. --Zar2gar1 (talk) 15:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I started the process and made a request for the move of industry (disambiguation) to industry. --S.K. (talk) 15:33, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Nice! I just went ahead and made sure to grab the talk sub-pages too. BTW, do you think we still need the British spelling banner here on the talk page? The article is much smaller now and I'm not sure it does follow a specific convention. Then again, I've always preferred to just let an article keep different spellings; I'll leave it up to you to cut or keep it though. --Zar2gar1 (talk) 16:00, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I missed the sub-pages, was a little bit in a hurry.
 * I cleaned up the introduction of the DAB page industry now as well using the existing redirect industry (manufacturing). IMHO this would be good to use if one wants to split this meaning from the general manufacturing article. Hope this is okay.
 * Regarding the British spelling: I'm out on that. I'm not a native speaker and can distinguish the different spellings only very limited. I leave this therefore to native speakers.
 * --S.K. (talk) 00:55, 28 September 2020 (UTC)