Talk:Noise (spectral phenomenon)

Dab spinoff
User:Swpb I stumbled across this spinoff of the dab Noise (disambiguation). I'm not sure if I see a clear arrangement for the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, dab, "(spectral phenomenon)", and similar remnants in the dab. Initial thoughts: Not obvious, as there's many noises and many signals, so a two dimensional topic space. Regards Widefox ; talk 15:34, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * if it's a WP:DABCONCEPT, shouldn't it displace a PT e.g. noise or something
 * "(spectral phenomenon)" doesn't sit well with me. Noise only has meaning in relation to a signal. Generally, but not always, "Noise" is to a "signal", what "weed" is to "plant" (NB Signal noise redirs to Noise (electronics)). "Spectral" doesn't come into it, as that's just a time transform, and "phenomenon" implies physics, and some examples here are titled "noise" but nothing to do with undesirable or physics e.g. Comfort noise
 * A name change
 * Other directions are WP:INCDAB (doesn't seem useful, considering the title weakness)


 * You're right that it's a broad-concept article. Maybe a better title would be "Types of noise". It could displace Noise, with the latter moved to Acoustic noise, but it may be that most users searching for "noise" mean the acoustic kind, and that displacement would just make things harder for them. I'm not sure that "phenomenon" necessarily implies physics, but I think we can do away with the word if its a concern. Which entries are INCDABs? — swpb T&#8201;•&#8201;go beyond&#8201;•&#8201;bad idea 16:32, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * List of noise types maybe, but List of noise topics already exists, and Noise is useful. Noise (audio) seems to be a previous location for noise. (re side issue of "phenomenon" - it has a lot of physics examples, but yes hard science.). The undersirablility being central to noise (signal to noise), so it's more measurement and engineering. Agree acoustic noise is probably what readers generally want, but if we had a quality dabconcept (scope at least) it could rival it for PT. Widefox ; talk 15:54, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I didn't know about List of noise topics – maybe that's a good place to merge this page (or vice versa), keeping the organization. — swpb T&#8201;•&#8201;go beyond&#8201;•&#8201;bad idea 19:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Took a big hack, but still ugly
Perhaps the solution is to refactor this article into:
 * noise (science and technology)
 * noise (social disruption) — to include human communication

These in addition to noise, which I surmise as now being almost entirely acoustic. &mdash; MaxEnt 23:55, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I took a cut at this for my own wiki, which is substantial in scope, and here's what finally works for me:


 * noise (environmental) — mostly acoustic; legal regulation, pollution, sculpted, manipulated
 * noise (science and technology)
 * noise (disruption) — spam, agitprop, and malcontents on social media

There's already a lot in sound and acoustics concerning the underlying nature of audible noise, and I don't see much need for overlap.

With this index structure, I doubt I'll have any trouble quickly resolving where to file any future links which land in this sphere.

Note that what works for me sometimes aligns with what works on Wikipedia, but not always. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

One more comment. Wikipedia likes to name pages after concrete topics rather than spheres of treatment (i.e. science and technology).

To go this direction you perhaps wind up with this:
 * noise (signal and sample artifact) — straddles electronics and statistics

This particular muddle strikes me as tough nut to crack in a perfect way. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:29, 7 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The existing division is perfectly precise; only uses of "noise" as a quantifiable component of a literal signal belong here, including acoustic and statistical noise. All other uses of the term, including metaphorical "noise" like spam, are covered on Noise (disambiguation), including dictionary definitions via the Wiktionary link there. — swpb T&#8201;•&#8201;go beyond&#8201;•&#8201;bad idea 14:26, 7 June 2022 (UTC)