![]() | Disambiguation | |||
|
What is a light bulb?
It's not clear to me that today's edit is correct. While it would once have been clearly true that the primary meaning of "light bulb" was "incandescent light bulb", it is not so obvious that that is still true. The term "light bulb" is certainly commonly applied to some other forms of lamp, such as compact fluorescent lamps and LED bulbs. --Srleffler (talk) 06:59, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- Hello, Srleffler. The edit you are referring to is one I made yesterday. Sorry about the late reply; I've been busy with other matters on Wikipedia. Good thing that I placed this disambiguation page on my WP:Watchlist; otherwise, I would not have known about your above comment unless I checked back in to see if anyone had contested my change. As you know, I made a similar edit with regard to the Light bulb redirect. As noted in my edit summaries, I made these edits because of WP:PRIMARYTOPIC; among sources, judging by common use of the term light bulb, as well as common imagery as to what a light bulb is, I believe that what is primarily meant by the term light bulb is incandescent light bulb. I see that you also felt this way, but in 2006 and 2007, seen here and here; however, I see that you were also conflicted about this matter in 2007. When I saw this and this edit by an IP and that you had not reverted, I assumed that you agreed with that IP or that you didn't care much about whether or not the term was noted as most commonly being associated with the incandescent light bulb. If it is best to start a WP:RfC about this matter, which I think it is, I don't mind that. It just doesn't seem best to me to redirect readers to the Lamp (electrical component) article when they type in or click on "light bulb"; I was surprised that an article about the light bulb was as poor as the Lamp (electrical component) article is; soon after reading that article's talk page, however, I realized that the article I meant to go to was located at Incandescent light bulb. Yes, I also refer to certain compact fluorescent lamps as light bulbs, but I expected those to be included in a general Light bulb article. Flyer22 (talk) 21:23, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
- I see it as a usage that is likely evolving, given that traditional incandescent light bulbs are no longer available in parts of the English-speaking world, and will I believe in a couple months be unavailable in a much larger part of it. I'm content with either definition for the moment, but am concerned both that Wikipedia should not anticipate the future, nor should it be bound by a traditional definition past the point where it no longer holds out in the real world.--Srleffler (talk) 04:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- Your "evolving usage" argument makes sense. I still think that, since this matter will keep coming up (even if occasionally), we need a big discussion on this it, with different editors weighing in on it, so that there is WP:Consensus about what to do in this case. That stated, I'm obviously okay with letting my light bulb edits stay intact. Flyer22 (talk) 05:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
- I see it as a usage that is likely evolving, given that traditional incandescent light bulbs are no longer available in parts of the English-speaking world, and will I believe in a couple months be unavailable in a much larger part of it. I'm content with either definition for the moment, but am concerned both that Wikipedia should not anticipate the future, nor should it be bound by a traditional definition past the point where it no longer holds out in the real world.--Srleffler (talk) 04:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
It's a year later, and I think it's time to switch to "Lamp (electrical component)" as the primary usage. It's clear that people (at least where I live) are using "light bulb" to refer to things other than incandescent lamps. Boldly giving it a try...--Srleffler (talk) 17:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
- I'm still not convinced. I suggest either alerting Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to this discussion or starting a WP:RfC on it, or both. Flyer22 (talk) 18:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
RFC
It has become unclear what the primary meaning of the term light bulb is now. Traditionally, light bulb has unambiguously referred to an incandescent light bulb, and the term currently redirects there. Incandescent light bulbs are being rapidly replaced by other technologies, however, and are no longer available in some places. In common usage, "light bulb" is at least sometimes being applied to other technologies such as compact fluorescent lamps and LED lamps. Is it still true that "incandescent light bulb" is the primary topic in this case?
A quick survey of online dictionaries finds that most still define a light bulb as an incandescent lamp, but that a few including American Heritage, MacMillan, and Random House have broader definitions.--Srleffler (talk) 18:50, 9 November 2014 (UTC)