Talk:Etching (disambiguation)

New disambiguation page - Proposal to revert to previous situation

• User:Smack has taken it upon it himself (20 December 06) to put etching to this new disambuiguation page. This was done without any consultation & I think this is a mistake, and the previous situation should be reverted to, for the following reasons:

• there was only one page called etching.
• it implies that what he calls etching (art) is not chemical etching, which is not the case.
• the only other item on the new page, Line art, is a mish-mash of a page & does not mention etching once in the main text, and has very little to do with etching. He describes it as "an improper use" himself.
• there was a perfectly adequate disam notice at the top of the etching article already, pointing to chemical etching:

This page discusses etching in connection with printing and art. For other industrial uses of etching see Chemical etching.

For the history of etching, see old master prints.

In the United States, the term etching is sometimes used improperly to refer to line drawings done in pen and ink and other media.

• this will leave hundreds of "etching" and "etcher" references pointing here, which will take forever to sort out, & cause continuing confusion, hassle, and inefficient linkage.
• there was no proposal to do this.

Please say if you Support or Oppose below: Johnbod 21:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Support as per my proposal above Johnbod 21:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Support Johnbod's proposal above White Krane 00:07, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Support as per Johnbot. (User:DGG forgot to sign - added by Johnbod 13:02, 30 December 2006 (UTC))

Support Johnbod's proposal above. We must be accurate in our language: whether or not something will take 'forever to sort out', this is an encyclopaedia, and 'woolliness' should be eschewed. Nick Michael 08:00, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose reversion. I see two problems with the status quo ante:

• It gave primary-disambiguation status to the form of art. I think that this status is pretty clearly undeserved, and that we need a more-equal disambiguation.
• The disambiguating header contained too many links. I admit that I don't know whether or not we actually have a policy that governs the length of these headers, but as far as I'm concerned, three dablinks is too many, especially considering that more may crop up later. That said, if you want to remove line art and leave only three ambiguous pages, I won't oppose you. I don't claim to know anything about common usage in the art world, so when I made the dab page, I just deferred to the editor who first added that link.

--Smack (talk) 00:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Note - see also recent comment at section "new title for etching (art): "etching"" - essentially a Support vote. Johnbod 19:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

How to fix it

Different Tact The way I would fix this is to create pages and edit as follows:

1. move this page to: Etching (disambiguation)
2. then create the page Etching redirect it to Etching (disambiguation)
3. Etching (disambiguation), this page, needs to be improved to describe the differences and list all the things to point to
4. then create the page Etching (chemical) redirect it to Chemical etching
5. put disambiguation statements on: Etching (art), Chemical etching

Did that make sense?, Then just do it!

Be bold in editing, moving, and modifying articles, because the joy of editing is that although it should be aimed for, perfection isn't required. And don't worry about messing up. All prior versions of articles are kept, so there is no way that you can accidentally damage Wikipedia or irretrievably destroy content.

This proposal looks mostly the version that stands right now (as of my changes), except that the dab page has 'disambiguation' in the title. Is that correct? If so, I can accept your proposal. --Smack (talk) 00:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

BMcCJ

I implemented this. There are many types of etching, so this gives room for the others as well. Try it out, if you rally hate it. It can be undone.

For other uses, see Etching.

or Etching (chemical), for the history of the method, see old master prints.

Happy Holidays All! BMcCJ

This does not solve the problem. As written it makes worse the false dichotomy between "art" and "chemical" etching; to be clear - there is NO non-chemical etching. In my view the original etching article, now "etching (art)" clearly does deserve its former status as primary-disambiguation article because:

• it is the only one to give a clear account of the basic common principles of etching.
• it already mentions non-printmaking uses, and this should be expanded
• it is the only article to give an overview of all uses in a historical perspective - this also needs expanding.
• for these reasons, it is clearly the best general point of departure for a reader who does not understand what etching is, regardless of context.

It is clear from the Talk:Chemical etching page that that article is very deficient - most of the content is on one specialized area of use, and that does not seem to be very well covered. I still support my original proposal above; after this has been done the content should be added to as mentioned above. "Chemical etching" should perhaps be renamed "Modern industrial Etching" or similar and the article written to give a quick overview of uses, with links to the various more specialized articles. I have removed "Line art" from the disam, as this really is irrelevant. So there would only be two disam links at the top of etching - to the Industrial article & old master prints for the history of etching in printmaking.

I won't do anything until the New Year, so please comment. Happy holidays! Johnbod 18:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll reply to your four points in order:

• We should not use one article's incidental lack of content as an excuse to foist improper responsibilities on another article. When I have time, I can greatly expand the coverage of etching in semiconductor processing.

-Fine, but this should be in an article called "Etching in Semi-conductors" or something; no doubt there are many other industrial uses neither you or I know about, which may be covered in time.

• As far as I can see, it devotes exactly two sentences to specifically non-printmaking uses.

-No, there is more than this, but there are also large gaps, on the "pre-Hopfer" uses, which I believe (but at the moment can't reference) go back to ancient Egypt) and other industrial uses in the modern period (ie non-computing). These are not covered anywhere.

• It reviews the history of etching from the perspective of art, and says nothing about developments in industrial etching.

-Nor does anywhere else; when these developments are covered a unified history will be the best jumping-off point; if we had enough material I would do an overall history section not weighted to art.

• I agree that it is the best departure point that we have, but nonetheless it is a very bad one.

-better than the disam page, which will just leave a reader who has no clue what etching is puzzled where to go next.

I think that primary-topic disambiguation is out of place here. People who want to read about etching semiconductor wafers should not be forced to read about art. If you want to have a primary topic, we could have a page that talks about chemical principles, although I don't think that art and semiconductors have very much in common. For instance, semiconductor processing does not fit the definition that your article gives: "Etching is the process of using strong acid to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface..." Semiconductor processes etch nonmetals (notably silicon dioxide and silicon nitride) at least as often as metals. They don't always use acid, and they don't always restrict themselves to unprotected surfaces. The only universal definition of 'etching' that I can imagine is 'chemically removing a material from a surface', and you can't write very much about that.

-They only have to read as far as the top disam notice. The top definition is easily broadened.

However, I agree that the name "Chemical etching" is not appropriate. I might suggest "Industrial etching" instead. However, Old master print is also mis-titled; it should be called "History of old master prints", "History of etching in art", or something like that.

-"Modern industrial etching" or similar, surely. No doubt there were plenty of non-art industrial uses in the C19 etc. Old master prints is the only article to cover the category as such; only some are etchings, others are engravings, woodcuts etc. Unlike Chemical etching, it is not a misleading name. Like vast numbers of historical articles, it covers a specific period (c1430-1830) and does not need to announce itself as a history. At the moment, it is quite possible that someone who wanted to find out about the process Rembrandt used would look at "chemical etching" instead of etching (art).

--Smack (talk) 06:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

-I have commented inline as there are so many points. I'm afraid I remain unconvinced that the disam page has produced any improvement, or is likely to do so in the future. Johnbod 08:39, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

-Fine, but this should be in an article called "Etching in Semi-conductors" or something; no doubt there are many other industrial uses neither you or I know about, which may be covered in time.

I think you're just agreeing with my point. I would like to see separate articles on etching in art, etching in macroscale industry, and etching in microfabrication. You're right that we only have one of these articles right now. However, it only covers art, and I don't want to force the other topics into it.

Well we have at least 1 1/2 of them. The main etching article does not only cover art, and can expand easily (when we have the material) to cover all pre-Industrial revolution applications. Johnbod 02:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

-Nor does anywhere else; when these developments are covered a unified history will be the best jumping-off point; if we had enough material I would do an overall history section not weighted to art.

I could accept a unified "History of etching" from Egypt to Intel. However, as I said above, I don't want to force this unified history into an article on art.

Thank you for your concern, but this is not a problem - especially as we are not overwhelmed with material at present. Most early uses were (as far as I know at present) essentially decorative/artistic, so it is not much of a stretch. Where else could such material go anyway? A disam page is completely the wrong place for it. If we got tons & tons of material on other historic uses, then a separate overview article, off which the printmaking would branch, would be the way to go. That is at best a long way off Johnbod 02:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I definitely don't want a dab that "covers material", since that's not the purpose of a dab. On the other hand, I intend to write up some more material on semiconductor processing, so we'll need a jumping-off point. --Smack (talk) 22:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

-They only have to read as far as the top disam notice. The top definition is easily broadened.

It's easy to broaden the definition, but much harder to broaden the article to fit it. --

What does this mean? A broad definition (not just acid/metal) at the top & a description of the classic acid/metal technique below. But if they want to read about etching in micro-electronics, they follow the link at the top to whatever that article ends up being called.

Smack (talk) 00:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that an article should include everything that the intro section covers. Otherwise, you're forcing it to double as a dab. --Smack (talk) 22:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Comments inline by Johnbod 02:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Comments inline by Smack (talk) 22:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

new title for etching (art): "etching"

I suggest to make "etching" as new title for :etching (art), because the "art" context is very bigger than the "chemical" context. I don't know the word-statistics in english, but in german ("Radierung" versus "Ätzung") it is so. --Wst 12:58, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

New proposal

How about Etch:disambiguation - since now 2 meanings for that (& we don't even have etch-a-sketch yet) & then the old Etching for the art, with disam ref to etch at the top?

There is a clear concensus against the present situation, but I hope this would satisfy all Johnbod 18:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Moves

Following the above, I have redirected "etching" and "etcher(s)" to "etching (art)" , but left "etch", "etchant" and "etched" to redirect here, as this matched the majority of the linking articles. I have I hope corrected most of these to here, but many art ones obviously don't have "etching (art) - I didn't change that, so it is not my responsiblity to fix those. User:Smack has said he doesn't intend to do it. Johnbod 00:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I set up Popups on my account yesterday, so I can now fix links to dabs expeditiously. I figure I should work on this dab because I created it. As I understand the situation, we currently have problematic links pointing here and at "Etching (art)". Is this correct? --Smack (talk) 02:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Great - by far the most numerous are "etching" or "etcher" that should go direct to "etching (art)". There are some coming here - I cleaned out all the art ones I could see, so I think they are mostly industrial type ones, many of which probably ought to come here anyway.

I hope you can live with the situation now - I think its a balanced solution, & no doubt not the ideal from anyone's angle. Cheers, Johnbod 02:18, 8 February 2007 (UTC)