Talk:Triboelectric effect

Request for comment on meaning of triboelectricity
Normal useage of many science terms is a noun and the corresponding adjective for instance ferroelectric and ferroelecticity. Other examples are for the adjective pyroelectric, piezoelectric, ferromagnetic, electromagnetic (and more).

It has been suggested that triboelectricity is the electricity produced by the triboelectric effect, instead of being the noun with triboelectric the adjective. For completeness, note that triboelectricity is a charge transfer, and there is common use of triboelectric as an adjective.Ldm1954 (talk) 22:43, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I suggest you rename the article "Triboelectricity". The "effect" is not helpful. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:05, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I believe that my version of the opening statement is clearer: Should "triboelectricity" be treated as an alternative name for the triboelectric effect or as the electricity produced by the triboelectric effect? Aaron Liu (talk) 23:03, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Electricity. There is a plethora of online, secondary, reliable sources that support that it is electricity,s ee the section above.
 * University of Wisconsin MRSEC: Triboelectricity, more commonly known as static electricity
 * ScienceDirect, a science publication search tool: Triboelectricity is a particular case of the general phenomenon of charge storage exhibited by electrets.
 * Aaron Liu (talk) 23:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It is unfortunate that you do not want to pay attention to the science, but still feel that you are an expert. To quote what you said:
 * "I don't think I'll have time or commitment to read the entire book just for Wikipedia" Ldm1954 (talk) 23:28, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see where I have claimed that I'm an expert, and I believe that I should not need to finish reading a 250+ page book just to see if there is anything in there that claims that triboelectricity is the triboelectric effect without using the word "triboelectricity" Aaron Liu (talk) 00:51, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, please read Dunning–Kruger effect, I am afraid this is relevant. Ldm1954 (talk) 23:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Having read through the above discussions, I'm going to have to side with Ldm1954: "You need to read and understand it [the applicable literature] before you try to comment on the relevant science." I think we have here a case of someone who "knows just enough to get into trouble" as the saying goes. Even Liu's understanding of what "noun" means seems off to me. E.g., all three of "triboelectricity", "electricity", and "triboelectric effect" are nouns (or a noun phrase in the third case), yet Liu says "triboelectricity is the electricity produced by the triboelectric effect, instead of being the noun with triboelectric the adjective", which is a statement that makes no sense if you known what a noun is. At most, we may have a case where the term "triboelectricity" is used multiple ways, and the solution to that is to explain both definitions.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:56, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thankyou. Ldm1954 (talk) 00:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @SMcCandlish "instead of being the noun with triboelectric the adjective" is not what I said at all, I agree that all three of these are nouns and have no idea why Ldm's talking about parts of speech. I don't think I should be required to read an entire 250+ page book to comment on what triboelectricity means, especially when I found no mention of "triboelectricity" in the PDF. I've read all the other sources Ldm has provided (save for DOI:10.5006/2555 which I can't access), and while the numsis.northwestern.edu ones do say it's the same thing as the effect, it's from a research team, none of them are review articles, and it counts as a primary source and should have less weight than secondary sources. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:47, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also on a side note I prefer "Aaron" instead of "Liu". Aaron Liu (talk) 00:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The thing most closely related to the nonsense about parts of speech was when I opposed Ldm's overexpanding of the opening statement in the RfC draft in the "RfC draft" section above. Aaron Liu (talk) 00:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I quoted the wrong party, sorry about that. Anyway, I stand by the gist of what I wrote: If we have multiple uses of the same word, we explain them, and explaining them is done by reading and summarizing complex source material. It's work. And it can't be faked by skimming a little of the source material and then saying "I should not need to finish reading a 250+ page book". Those who won't do the work need to stand aside.  I should know; I've just spent 3 months of my free time researching another topic, and it has involved reading  of pages of complex source material. Our matter on that topic is now vastly better than it was before, but it required doing all that reading, and accurately summarizing that material – including in light of conflicts between different authors, and different shades of meaning being attached to particular words, and figuring out what weight is due to each source. There is no shortcut. PS: It's clear just from the two source quotes above that different authors are using "tribolectricity" very differently. The first is using it to mean the static electricity that arises from the triboelectric effect, and the second is using it to mean the tribolectric effect itself. So, moving this article to Triboelectricity may present an ambiguity problem. And WP:RFC is not the process by which we move articles anyway; that's WP:RM.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Firstly this RfC isn't about moving things, that was only suggested by John and not in the opening statement. Secondly I really don't think the book can offer any useful information on the meaning of triboelectricity if the word "triboelectricity" isn't in it. The book seems to be about the details of how the triboelectric effect works and I don't see anywhere discussing the terms. I don't think I need to read the entire book and understand how it works to understand what word I should use, and I would very much like it if Ldm told me the page numbers that discussed the terms. Lastly I agree that we could just put them in as disputed though I would really like it if we had secondary sources backing "it's an alternative name". Aaron Liu (talk) 12:34, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * How do you know the book doesn't mention "triboelectricity" if you've not read it? Who said anything about "disputed"?  A word having multiple meanings or shades of meaning isn't a dispute, it's just different patterns of usage. Honestly, I don't know why this discussion is so long and so ranco[u]rous.  I'm of half a mind to just go edit the lead, using the sources already cited above, demonstrating that the term triboelectricity is used in two different ways, and move on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:33, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I have a digitized PDF of it and I used a search tool on it and all mentions of "tribo". When I said "disputed" what I meant is that it has multiple ways of usage, and I can agree to make the lead like that and then try to resolve the other disputes, though I'd still really like to see a secondary source backing the "alternative name" usage. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, that's research for you to do, then. I've done what I can to satisfy you, and to bring all the above silly pissing match (four whole threads worth of it) to an end. Also did a bunch of citation cleanup.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:32, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Lol, only the last three threads (including this one and the RfC draft wasn't really a thread so just one other thread) have been about this, the other ones were about other things. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:52, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also when I said bolding I meant italicizing, my apologies. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:54, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It was italicized per MOS:WAW. If you have not internalized our manual of style yet, then you should not be edit-warring with people over style matters.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:29, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also the ScienceDirect source doesn't appear to support the idea that "triboelectricity" is the same thing as the triboelectric effect to me, see the above mention of ScienceDirect. Aaron Liu (talk) 01:56, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Comments
That cat photo is genius, kudos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:3D08:127F:5000:44E4:B601:E417:23C4 (talk) 05:29, 30 August 2023 (UTC)