Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electrical polarity


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to Electric current. Consensus is that if this is to be an article, it needs to completely and competently rewritten (with appropriate sources, to start with). The redirect target can be changed through the editorial process if desired.  Sandstein  08:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Electrical polarity

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

The concept is not supported by either refs included in the article or academic publishings elsewhere and could be an original research. When talking about polarity-related concepts in Electricity, we commonly refer them to the vetor field generated by an external electric field that is applied to a dielectric material. In academic search of "Electrical polarity", I rarely see any usage of this phrase to refer the electrode things. Therefore, it looks like original research to me. I'm not quite sure if there's any other phrase for the concept described in the article since too few references are given. Tiger (Talk) 15:40, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Tiger (Talk) 15:40, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment This is one of those science articles we have floating about that looks like it was assembled from flash cards that somebody used to study for a high-school exam. It mentions symbols and names some devices but doesn't actually explain the topic. It needs rewriting, or redirecting, or something. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 23:59, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, as one of the major discoveries of Benjamin Franklin. While it is the case that in academia polarity is often expresed in terms of the direction of an electric field, it is not exclusively so, and electrical polarity (or just 'polarity') is more typically used in the laypersons lexicon. Passes WP:GNG.

SailingInABathTub (talk) 10:58, 29 June 2022 (UTC) Relisting comment: There seems to be consensus to not keep the article in its current form but to redirect it. However there is no clear consensus on what to redirect it to, and whether the target article will need updating (perhaps with merged content). Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, TigerShark (talk) 01:38, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per the blow-it-up-and-start-over clause unless someone volunteers to rewrite it in an organized and comprehensible way that makes it clear the page is not redundant with electric charge, voltage, etc. We write articles based on what things are, not what they're called, and it makes more sense to explain the workings of electrical devices in existing articles of broader scope, rather than cobble together a semi-coherent story about a plus being here and a minus being there, based on scattered instances of jargon recorded over centuries. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 19:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Notes: This page originally was created as a redirect to electric charge, so any redirection would be to that page again. FMecha (to talk&#124;to see log) 09:28, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete per User:XOR& I think -- it can only be wholly confusing to have this as a separate article without being written to properly reference those articles. This seems like one of those cases of "people in industry X use the term Y for what everyone who properly studies these things know is already called Z". Caleb Stanford (talk) 20:57, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment XOR'easter and Caleb Stanford pointed out my feeling when I read the article. And also appretiate SailingInABathTub's listing references here. From those references, what I see is that this concept is so closely related to Electrode, Direct current, etc., that I can't tell a way to make it a separate article from existing articles. Merging it into existing pages could be a good choice, though I doubt if there's anything new to merge into. Then blow it up until someone find a proper way to describe it as a stand-along article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tigerzeng (talk • contribs)
 * Redirect, don't delete. This is linked to 90 articles (and 10 redirects) to define polarity. The current article is terrible. Magnetic polarity redirects to a compact definition at Magnet but there doesn't seem to be a good definition in any electrical article. I will add a short section to Electricity with the definitions of the four uses of polarity in electricity: the charge (+ or -) of a concentration of electricity (Franklin's first use of it as he charged up things), the + or - side of a battery (also from Franklin's era since he made batteries) or parts of a circuit, chemists use of polarity to describe the separation of charge in a molecule, and polarity as used by electricians for ac circuits to distinguish between the line or hot side (positive) and the cold side (negative) as in the polarized plugs we use. StarryGrandma (talk) 14:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect (maybe to Electric current?), it's a reasonable thing people may search for, but it does probably need WP:TNT as an article. -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Delete this sounds like an attempt to explain electricity to a general audience, but with no sources, it's hopeless to try and correct it. There are no electric poles like there are on a magnet, it basically goes in one side and comes out the other side from the battery or power source. It's either direct current in one direction, or alternating current in both directions, shifting rapidly. I'd just delete and not bother with a redirect. Oaktree b (talk) 02:32, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I guess we could redirect it to electrical batteries or the general electricity article? Oaktree b (talk) 02:35, 6 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Electric current, search results suggest that this is an informal term for direction of current. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 03:50, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.