Talk:Electromagnetic coil

Should this article be broken up?

This article seems to be about four different subjects which have almost nothing in common except the "coil" shape. Most of these are already treated in existing articles: electromagnetic coils in inductor, chemical coils in Coil (chemistry), ceramic coiling techniques in ceramic art. There is also a Coil (disambiguation) page which deals with other uses. Perhaps the term "coil" is simply too broad to merit its own article, and this article should be broken up and the content added to the above pages. Comments? --Chetvorno^TALK 16:41, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

More like an extended dictionary definition

This reads like a long dictionary entry, the kind in which the word being defined is combined with other words to create a number of commonly used phrases or idioms. Compare, for example, the dictionary.com definition of "coil": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/coil But such an entry is not "encyclopedic." Dratman (talk) 05:36, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

That was my point in the above comment: this article is not limited to a single topic, it covers several unrelated topics whose only common point is that they are different definitions of the word "coil". There are already articles covering these different types of "coils". I think this article should be broken up and merged into them. --Chetvorno^TALK 18:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of incoming links, and a broad-concept article seems warranted. Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Broad-concept articles -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:37, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

This subject is covered more extensively under inductor, the proper name for an electrical coil. IMHO, anything electrical and unique should be moved to inductor, and this page should go away.  :- ) DCS 16:10, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, almost everything on this page is on the coil (disambiguation) which this page intercepts. WP:PROD time.  :- ) DCS 16:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Deprod

While I understand the "Prodder's" concern, I do not think summarily deleting the page is the answer. This page is the primary page on the disambiguation page. That page needs to be sorted before this one. Op47 (talk) 22:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned this page can stay here forever.  I agree, let's sort out the disambiguation page.  I see no logical reason for disambiguating the disambiguation, which is what is happening.  I'm an EE and a coil to me is a pick-up coil(such as used for RFID and security tags}, which I can't find.  Let us(another todo...) work on fixing up the disambiguation page, then PROD this page.  AFD is a pain.  Coil as an induction should go to the Wiktionary as an antiquated name for inductor.   :- ) DCS 04:28, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm done. Comments? We can rename this Coil (electromagnetic)? Then, disambiguate it. The disambiguation page is next to be cleaned.  :- ) DCS 06:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

WOW, you have been busy. I think you are right, call this page Coil (electromagnetic) and rename the disambiguation page Coil. Don't do the latter lightly, because there will be a lot of links to sort out. Op47 (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Hundreds of links here.  A dozen to Coil (disambiguation).  :- ) Don 12:22, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, rename it Coil (electromagnetic). There is also Induction coil, Induction loop, Magnetic inductive coil, Single coil, Field coil, Solenoid, and Inductor. Be nice to merge at least one of these, too. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:49, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

This article is still called Coil without specialization, although it only has content related to electrical coils and none to the many other types of coils mentioned on the disambiguation page. Even if we renamed it Coil (electromagnetic), the many types of electromagnetic coils are so diverse that there's not much you can say about them collectively except that they consist of a coil of electrically conductive wire. So Coil (electromagnetic) would just become another disambiguation page. This page needs to be PRODded. --Chetvorno^TALK 02:42, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is the article at "Coil" about the e-m coil rather than the more common generic coil shape?

Why is the article at Coil about the electromagnetic coil rather than about the more common generic coil shape? And why don't have an article about the coil shape?

We have Square, Circle, Pyramid (geometry), etc. Why not coil?

Or should Coil redirect to Spiral?

--B2C 07:50, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Read the three discussions above. The article originally was about the generic coil shape, but I and some others felt that that was too broad a topic for an article, so it was narrowed to the "electromagnetic coil" topic. Someone was going to change the name, but I guess they forgot. My feeling is that it should be redirected as you suggested, to Helix or Spiral or Inductor. --Chetvorno^TALK 08:17, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to Electromagnetic coil. -- BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:42, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

---

• Coil → Electromagnetic coil
• Coil (disambiguation) → Coil

– I moved this article from Coil to Coil (electromagnetism) rather than to Electromagnetic coil because Electromagnetic coil already existed. The reason for moving in the first place is because this coil is not the primary topic for "coil". For now Coil redirects to Coil (disambiguation), but Coil (disambiguation) needs to be moved to Coil. If there is a primary topic for coil, it's the general shape, but I don't think we need more than the opening sentence on the dab page to cover that. Putting it in RM just in case I missed something. B2C 05:14, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support "coil" should be a disambiguation page. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 08:26, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support "coil" should certainly be a disambiguation page. However I think Electromagnetic coil should also be a disambiguation page. There is no way for this page to meaningfully cover all the forms of coils used in electronics: inductor, transformer, choke, electromagnet, loop antenna, inductive sensor, balun, recording head, solenoid, armature winding, flux gate, variometer, induction coil, Helmholtz coil, degaussing coil, field coil, Maxwell coil, Rogowski coil, bifilar coil, loading coil, hybrid coil, voice coil, the topic is too broad. The little that is on this page gives a view of the subject mainly limited to transformer windings, and merely repeats content better covered in Transformer and inductor. --Chetvorno^TALK 11:22, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
  • Disambiguation pages are for articles that have identical titles with unrelated meanings, not for topics that have large numbers of subtopics. You are thinking of some kind of index, not a disambiguation page. bd2412 T 16:44, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

An index-type article would work, which just has an introductory paragraph and a list of types, with a few sentences about each. There's just not much you can say about "electromagnetic coils" that applies to all, except that they are a conductor wound into a coil shape which either produces or interacts with a magnetic field. Engineering books do not have sections titled "electromagnetic coils". --Chetvorno^TALK 18:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

For example, the lead sentence in this article already leaves out a class of coils when it defines the subject as a conductor "...wound around a core or form to create an inductor or electromagnet." Inductors produce a magnetic field which interacts with the coil itself. Electromagnets produce a magnetic field that interacts with something else. But a third class of coils are sensor or pickup coils which do not produce a magnetic field, but in which an external field produces an EMF. --Chetvorno^TALK 18:11, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support: Since I seem to be the one who kicked this off. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 09:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
• Support both and maybe make electromagnetic coil a WP:CONCEPTDAB. Red Slash 01:19, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

• Support This would solve the current situation where the Coil (disambiguation) has a definition at the head of the page where it defines a specific subset of the electrical subset of the coil usage despite their being several sections that are unrelated. –LiveRail < Talk > 17:40, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

  The current situation is exactly per MOS:DABPRIMARY: "When a page has "(disambiguation)" in its title... It is recommended that the link back to the primary topic appear at the top, in a brief explanatory sentence. For instance:" No such user (talk) 09:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

That has been discussed to death. This whole proposal is about changing that. –LiveRail < Talk > 17:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Won't renaming Coil (disambiguation) → Coil be a bit deceptive? It is actually a disambiguation page, so shouldn't it be named one? --Chetvorno^TALK 23:33, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
  • See the essay WP:MALPLACED -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 05:55, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
    • Okay, I see. Thanks --Chetvorno^TALK 16:17, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose. Hold on, people. How is the electromagnetic concept not the WP:PRIMARY use, at least of all the items listed on coil (disambiguation) ? I do accept that coil is a type of spiral shape, not necessarily made of conducting wire, but there is no article describing that topic, and I don't see a need for one. By moving, we would force users searching for electromagnetic coils to click once more, and editors who link it to often err by linking to a dab page, so what's the benefit of such move? It would be fixing what is not broken. (I would gladly change my mind if anyone manages to write a sensible WP:DABCONCEPT article about general coils, but there is not one). No such user (talk) 09:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

The real issue here is that the electromagnetic application of a coil is a subset of the electrical applications of the coil. That in itself is a subset of all the applications of a coil. How a subset of a subset of the applications can be considered the primary use is a mystery. It was pointed out above, that it was intended to remedy the situation, but this somehow did not get done. –LiveRail < Talk > 17:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

@LiveRail: I think that is too fine a distinction. Electromagnetic coil should cover all electrical uses. --Chetvorno^TALK 17:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Like Chetvorno, I don't see such distinction; I assert that its electromagnetic properties make the only relevant application of coils in electric engineering worth of encyclopedic treatment, and no other uses have been described in the article, anyway. So, the current article is reasonably broad in scope, and there are no subsets you describe. There might be other uses of non-electric coils of general interest, but I can't think of one and so far in this discussion none has been demonstrated. No such user (talk) 18:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment the first one is better Coil (electromagnetism) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.175.135 (talk) 13:59, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Discussion

I realize that I'm in a minority, but sorry, folks, I see a lot of misguided support !votes above. The current situation is exactly as it should be under the premise that electromagnetic coil (itself a WP:DABCONCEPT for many specific uses) is the primary use for 'coil'. To change this, someone needs to demonstrate that this is not primary topic, and that there are other topics on coil (disambiguation) of comparable importance. So far, I haven't seen even an attempt: "should be a disambiguation page"; "because I started this" and "nas a definition at the head of the page" are not particularly convincing. No such user (talk) 09:51, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I feel that might be a parochial view. For us techies Electromagnetic coil is the primary meaning of Coil, but I'm not sure it is for general readers. One thing I am sure of: this article, whose scope is limited to electromagnetic coils, should not be named Coil; the name has to reflect the content. What about we make the move: Coil → Electromagnetic coil (or Coil → Coil (electromagnetic) if you prefer) and argue about the disambiguation page later? --Chetvorno^TALK 18:26, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

It should be a disambiguation page because there are a lot of coils in the world and there's not really any reason to think that readers have any particular coil in mind when they type in coil. I could see a person easily wikilinking in an article about a snake: "when threatened, the snake curls up in a coil shape" and not think twice about it. Red Slash 21:12, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Rewrite as WP:BROADCONCEPT article?

Now that the issue of the article name is settled, I suggest that the article be rewritten as a WP:BROADCONCEPT article, as discussed above. I think it should mainly give the terminology of coils and only the most basic scientific principles, and then give a list of links to articles on the different types of coils; electromagnets, inductors, transformers, and transducer coils, and leave it to these articles to cover the science. I don't see any point to having sections on such narrow topics as potting or parasitic capacitance; this is WP:UNDUE weight in a general article on coils. --Chetvorno^TALK 00:55, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Or also as suggested previously, we could have a separate article do that at coil (electromagnetism) -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 07:45, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a WP:POVFORK, I don't think we should have two redundant articles just because of a disagreement on format. This article as it stands is extremely uneven; it randomly goes into a few topics mostly applying to a few types of coil and ignores other equally important ones. There are probably 30-40 types of "electromagnetic coil" that have articles on WP; this article only mentions a few of them. --Chetvorno^TALK 10:32, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

It would not be a POVFORK, depending on the scope of each article, and what the function of each would be. One easily could be a basic coil article, the other could be a sort of list or set index. That would not be a POV fork. -- 70.50.151.11 (talk) 13:30, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Most of this article's content is redundant already; it mostly repeats what's in Transformer and Electromagnet. You want to have it a third time in Coil (electromagnetism)? --Chetvorno^TALK 17:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I oppose separate Electromagnetic coil and Coil (electromagnetism) articles. I'd like to see the list of 30-40 types of "electromagnetic coil" that have articles on WP. Can you create a See also section in this article and list them there? ~KvnG 14:36, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Started rewrite of article, that includes a list of links to different types of electromagnetic coil. --Chetvorno^TALK 01:21, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

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