User:Wtshymanski/parts
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Essay in draft: Wikipedia is not a parts catalog (WP:PARTS)
Parts lists are easy and fun to do.
Parts lists don't belong in an encyclopedia.
Parts lists cause problems for the Encyclopedia.
A parts list, by its narrow and context-less nature, is the very opposite of an encyclopedia article.
Wikipedia should contain no parts lists.
Wikipedia is not a parts catalog.
Encyclopedia articles should be concise, authoritative, comprehensive and accurate overviews of a topic (well, "accurate" is a loaded term on Wikipedia, we must say "verifiable"), not a blizzard of uncorrelated facts. A parts list doesn't give an overview of the subject, and rarely gives any explanation of why the parts differ or why they were used.
A good encyclopedia article about lamp sockets would tell you "how" and "why" and "when" each lamp socket development came about. A list of parts gives no explanation of why the parts differ. There's no historical context to explain the technical and commercial factors that gave rise to the plethora of parts. There's no indication of the sequence of development.
We don't need an "article" on every single size of flashlight battery ever known. We don't need even more articles full of tripe like " A 0.5 inches (0.0127000 m) (1/2 inch) bolt (IPA [boɫt]) (UK english: bolt)is smaller than a 3/4 inch bolt but bigger than a 1/4 inch (0.063500 m) bolt; a 15/32 inch (0.46875 inches (0.0119063 m)) bolt is nearly the same size. All dimensions must be measured at non-relativistic speeds. Bolt technologies such as metals such as iron, steel, brass, aluminium or non-metals such as nylon (and rivets and screws and tape and nails) may or may not be utilized to hold things together such as metal parts of structures. Nicholas Tesla invented the bolt in 1893. Other places that use bolts include automobiles, and the bus stop at the end of my street. In England a hand tool called a wrench (known to laypersons colloquially as a "wrench") is technically known as a spanner. As of the latter part of the first decade of the 21st century, most countries use metric dimensions for bolts. You must always turn a bolt clockwise to tighten it, but some bolts tighten in the anticlockwise direction. Make sure you have proper footware on when working with bolts. You can buy the best bolts at www.boltworld.com." and similar dreadful tedious mind-deadening unsourced rubbery platitudinous garbage that is embarrassing to read.