Talk:Aqueduct (water supply)

Opening heading

Hi Wikipedians! I split the article Aqueduct as discussed at Talk:Aqueduct/version 2#Split proposal (2) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nankai (talk • contribs) 03:45, 16 February 2013

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was no merge. Consensus holds that the two terms are distinct enough for separate articles. -- Kafziel ^{Complaint Department: Please take a number} 16:27, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

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the following discussion is copied from Talk:Aqueduct so that the merger proposal can be discussed further in the context of the now-split article, and bridges can be kept out of the discussion.

• I propose that Flume be merged into Aqueduct. I think that the content in the Flume article can easily be explained in the context of Aqueduct, and the Aqueduct article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Flume will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Nankai (talk) 19:45, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The two concepts are similar, but have important differences. A flume is designed to carry materials with the aid of water, while an aqueduct carries only water. I feel these are sufficiently different as to warrant separate articles. Oppose merger. The Interior (Talk) 19:51, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that some flumes are used to transport materials, but others are simply aqueducts; if you remove the the bits of Flume that are not about transport of water is there much left?Nankai (talk) 02:59, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps a better merge would be Log flume into Flume. That would fill out the flume article better, and highlight the differences. The Interior (Talk) 19:55, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The above suggestion is a good idea.Nankai (talk) 03:18, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I further propose that Leat be merged into Aqueduct.Nankai (talk) 02:59, 6 January 2013 (UTC) (same issues so can be dealt with in the same discussion).

• I further propose that the brief section Power canals be moved here from the article Canal (the article is mostly about artificial waterways; a power canal is not a waterway.) Nankai (talk) 03:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• I further propose that the brief section Rill#Functional and aesthetic be moved here from the article Rill. Nankai (talk) 03:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
  • Modified the link as I just modified the rill article. And, yes that section could be merged as suggested. Vsmith (talk) 13:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• I further propose that Acequia be merged into Aqueduct. Nankai (talk) 03:29, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Coming to this from Leat I see no real relationship that suggests leat should be merged with Aqueduct. A leat may include an aqueduct but it certainly is not one. --Herby ^{talk thyme} 11:40, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

• • The trouble with the article Leat is that it is (at least initially) about the word leat and not about a concept, so it violates WP:DICT. Leats are called leats in the area where that word is used, and I am sure people who call leats leats think an aqueduct is something else, but it isn't really, it's just somewhere else. The article Controlled-access highway provides a good model of how a concept with a diversity of names can be handled on Wikipedia. There's nothing much separating a freeway, a motorway and an autobahn except for their locale. I'm suggesting that the same applies to leat, acequia and aqueduct, all of which I would call a water race in my native language of New Zealand English.Nankai (talk) 22:24, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose:The definitions are similar but not equivalent. Aquaducts are historicaly important structures. If the sections about the historical and modern aquaducts are splitted the merger with the said articles and modern aquaducts can be discussed. But in any case historical aquaducts should not be included in the merger. Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 15:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose This is trying to do far too much, and an attempt to merge will take out a lot of info to the detriment of the project. For instance, both acequia and leat have large quantities of regional content that has low value to the concept of aqueducts globally, but this information is still likely worth keeping.

More practically, what is is an aqueduct? There are two primary meanings that this article hasn't separated (water channel or a bridge).

The aqueduct-as-a-bridge has been partially split out to navigable aqueduct, but that doesn't cover the case where its a water supply, not a canal, on the bridge.

As for the water channel meaning there are many different purposes I can see. These include:

1. Supply of drinking water
2. Supply of water for irrigation
3. Supply of water for hydroelectric power (eg power canal)
4. Supply of water for use by a water wheel (eg mill race)
5. Supply of water for decorative purposes (eg a modern rill)

In general, the first cases are longer than the later ones. An aqueduct for drinking water is likely to be long. Mill races can be as short as a few metres. But there are exceptions and some mill races can be long.

Some waterways built for other purposes now only function as a water supply - this includes some flumes and canals. All this means in actual practice there's overlap between all these concepts from a garden rill up to a canal, and this is reflected within the regional terms.

I'd suggest getting this article rewritten to provide a better structure to discuss the various functions of an aqueduct - including info from the other articles as appropriate without redirecting those articles. The first step to that is get water supplies properly separated from bridges. Once that's done, it will be possible to work out if the various articles above should be merged to a specific section of this article, or if they should be kept as a stand-alone, per summary style guidance.--Nilfanion (talk) 15:25, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• • Nilf raises some good points here. Maybe Aqueduct should be separated into Aqueduct (bridge) and Aqueduct (watercourse). Maybe the latter should have a more universal name as Aqueduct to mean a water supply in a modern context seems to be an American English usage; in other parts of the world it seems to refer to an ancient structure.Nankai (talk) 22:15, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
  • To give some idea of what a split Aqueduct article could separate to, I have created rough drafts here:
    • User:Nankai/Aqueduct_(bridge)
    • User:Nankai/Aqueduct_(watercourse)
  • Nankai (talk) 22:12, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
    • One problem is Ancient/Modern may not be a useful dichotomy. Aqueduct (of both sorts) have been constructed and used from before the Roman period, right through to the present. Major aqueduct construction drops off in Europe in the post-Roman period, but you don't have to wait to modern times to get new ones. Large-scale aqueducts are being built in the UK in the 16th C. That's definitely not ancient (but its same period as Aztec works), and its not modern either. A by-location listing of aqueducts around the world seems logical. At the same time - its the ancient aqueducts (especially Roman) that are likely of highest interest to readers. Providing a "history" section might be best way to do that.
    • The uses section in both variants needs to be beefed up substantially, basically to discuss all possible movements of water not just irrigation and civic supply.--Nilfanion (talk) 09:51, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to all for contributions to this discussion. I can see that the merger discussion is not reaching much consensus, so I won't act further until the idea of splitting the article is fully discussed (which I suggested in this discussion but have now more formally proposed below). Accordingly I'll remove all the "merge" tags for now Nankai (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

• My view of oppose merger still stands. Getting rid of the confusion between the bridges and watercourses is a necessary first step to improving our coverage of aqueducts (and stopping this article about the watercourses having half-a-million pics of Roman aqueduct bridges).

Post-split it will be easier to improve this article (with new material, adding info from other articles etc) without a merge & redirect of those articles. Peterkingiron's comment with regards to leats in the split discussion is pertinent, and I agree with it: "I would prefer this to remain a separate article, linked by a "main" template, rather than being merged." My comment there "aqueduct/leat/aquecia is more like road/autobahn/byway than motorway/freeway/autobahn." is also relevant.

Once this article has been substantially improved, the correct choice to make in a merge/no merge descision will be apparent. IMO no need to merge the other articles in to this one, and certainly not at this time.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:58, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I see no point of merging perfectly good articles with regional content and some differences in one very big article. However, I believe that short references to Flume, Leat and Acequia must be made in this article. --FocalPoint (talk) 19:26, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

• Honestly, I would have prefered and considered that Aquaduct qua watercourse be the primary topic as it is the absolute parent category to aqueduct bridges. Anyways, I'd suggest trying to not rush this process, since as was mentioned, if not planned out ahead of time clearly it could lead to quite a mess (and much more than exists not). I do think that regional differences (e.g. Leat) of such a length are valid, if only as a means of WP:SUMMARY style addressing of more specific concepts. Thus, for the time being until the ideas are cleared up with some good research, I oppose, and like for the relating issues. I also move that there be investigation and discussion into a classification scheme for all these things and have it well sorted out, trying to find universal terminologies and concepts, etc. Then removing the dictionary definitions in favor of conceptual ones, and mentioning the context and relationships between them.

But to the immediate matter, mere industry- or region- specific variations, if sufficiently notable and distinctive of themselves, does not IMO a merge make. My perspective is that from industrial uses, where the type of artificial waterway used has significant and distinctive characteristics, depending on the exact purpose. In that way, it really seems like a road/autobahn/bike-path/logging road/fire road issue. If it's not too much to ask, I would like a little bit of time to research deeper into hydraulic civil engineering to see what the lit says. Morgan Riley (talk) 19:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

It strikes me that this article developed as an accumulation of descriptions of aqueducts from around the world, hence why its dominated by a partial geographic list. as opposed to a balanced article about the concept itself. This means that its describing a few specific aqueduct systems, as opposed to discussing the features of aqueducts as a whole, their history, the types of aqueduct that exist and so on.

The accompanying list for this article (list of aqueducts) is clearly inadquate, I'll try and fill that out a bit.--Nilfanion (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Flumes

• Okay, to answer the issues surrounding flumes, I am not a hydraulic engineer, but it looks like from everything I read that the very nature of all types of flumes in reliable source are that they involve the use of gravity + constrained space => increase flow velocity. With that property of flow velocity they are thus used as a means of measuring flow of a larger body (measurement flumes) or for accelerating other objects (logs, potatoes, humans). Contrast this with power canals, millraces, and aqueducts, which are very concerned with the overall volume and the available pressure or differential remaining at their end destination, whereas the flumes don't need to retain any significant pressure at all at the end (even the one at the hydro plant that was pictured, according to its sources, was merely to transfer water from one reservoir to another). That said, it seems there is a second definition hovering around, that for any elevated wooden box water-conveyer of some distance. More work on this to come.

The problem is that I still need to find some good reliable sources that say just that that clearly, as I fear it would be seen as original research. But I feel it is enough to make the case not to merge it with aqueduct. Again the aircraft carrier/trawler/yacht distinction. However some confusion may have arisen in part from the lead image. The images are from yes, a place where a flume was used, BUT upon tracing back to the source, it seems that those were from a structure very much like a logging flume (an elevated wooden box system), and that the lead image makes it look like that these include any old millrace or power canal. I'm editing the article to clarify some without making the claims above, and to act as a summary-style article. I foresee that eventually logging-flume will get expanded, as its rather short for its subject, and I don't see a need to merge as its a definite and notable subsidiary topic. More work still needed to reconcile these via sources (working on that now). Also, can anyone help support this?Morgan Riley (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC) question answered by a long day of research~

So I've been pouring over the online available books on hydraulic engineering and millwrighting (and just about everything else) to figure out the meaning of flume. I've come to the conclusion that there exist really two main definitions. 1.) an elevated artificial open-topped watercourse, originally part of the headrace of a mill race, but expanded to include many other things and < 2.) possibly distinct, the measurement flume, but I am trying to figure out whether it is a estranged part of flumes, or a separate concept entirely beyond the "raised channel" idea. I also figure this is getting repetitive here, so I am moving any future discussion I make to the article on flumes.Morgan Riley (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

see new comments reflecting present research Morgan Riley (talk) 03:50, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed outline of the topic and sub-articles

• AqueductAqueduct (hydraulics)= Top level article, WP: summary style for all the others (the list section should either be a list, or something else), with maybe a reasonable history section that may be spun off if need be.
  • Aqueduct (bridge) (defined by structural form, not its flow)
  • (aqueducts with open-channel flow)
    • Canal = sunken into the ground, large
      • Power Canal = " " primarily for hydropower
    • Ditch = sunken into the ground, small
    • Flume = inclined, raised sides
    • Water tunnel (physical infrastructure) = enclosed, but usually with open-channel flow
  • (aqueducts with pipe flow)
    • Pipe
      • Penstock

looking at this, I really think that the engineering definition really ought to be the primary one... thoughts? Morgan Riley (talk) 03:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Changes to the above scheme to reflect more researchMorgan Riley (talk) 04:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This looks very good; I like the key separation of pipe flow vs. open-channel flow. I've added[1] a whole bunch of these to Aqueduct, although they could now do with separating out into open-channel/pipe, and penstock would need including there too. Would you be able to have a look and tweak? Rill also needs spliting to recombining with two other articles as currently it describes two different things in the same article. —Sladen (talk) 12:54, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

IMO this loses important distinctions as its purely looking at structure. Those distinctions arise from the purpose of the construction, not the technical details of how its built. For instance, a canal is a waterway used by boats, not an aqueduct. In extreme case - the Suez Canal isn't an aqueduct! An aqueduct is a way of moving water from A to B, whereas a canal is a way using boats to transport things from A to B. The volume of water transported by a canal to its end is rarely a significant design feature - all that generally matters is if there's enough flow to maintain a navigable channel, work locks and so on.

We may be missing a top-level article here - on artificial waterways as a whole, regardless of their purpose. That would cover all waterways built by man whether its to carry water, for shipping, for carrying floating objects, material in suspension (in mining proceses) etc.

As for this article I'd suggest 3 basic sections: Construction, Function and History. Construction is what you have above, function describes what the water is used for (civic water supply, irrigation, or whatever) and history can discuss the development from ancient to modern times (what the current article tries to do). . In terms of modern water supply, piped aqueducts are the large capacity trunk pipes from source to distribution point. The network of small-diameter pipes to the end-user aren't considered aqueducts.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

A difficulty in discussing this topic (even here on the on the Talk:pages) is that the words being used have different meaning depending on where editors comes from. What we need to do is describe topics. In en-GB a man-made channel for navigation (aka canal) might be assumed to be made for navigation: it might include aqueduct (bridge)s in open-channel flow but not pipelines. Whereas aqueduct would be a water delivery system made of canals and pipelines. Would you be able to disambiguate your reply above so it's completely clear? —Sladen (talk) 15:07, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Here in the United States and Canada, a "canal" means not just those for transportation, but any large ditch filled with relatively flat water (i.e. theoretically navigable, even if not intended for such). In some cases, the canals have been used for both purposes, e.g. Pawtucket Canal (began as transportation, converted to power canal). For a broader discussion of the dual usage in the USA, see also [here]. For an example of this which is immediately to the point, see Central Arizona Project, which is both a canal and aqueduct. However, not all canals are aqueducts. But it is highlighting that yes, there is a lexical problem here that need sorting out. Morgan Riley (talk) 15:46, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Some more inspection on the issue: the article Irrigation is peppered with canals, also over at the commons: see Commons:category:Irrigation canals and Commons:category:Water supply canals. The categorization seems to indicate that New Zealand also uses the wider usage of the term canal (see article Lake Tekapo). (Editor's opinion: possibly some of the issue is that in the UK, being a "hydrologically endowed" island, there isn't a major need to supply vast quantities of water from one place to another via canals as there is in more arid climes, and thus the very concept being described is unknown there). Morgan Riley (talk) 16:03, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Clearly there's multiple sorts of canals. My concern here: Is the Wikipedia article canal is almost exclusively about water transport canals. These are a distinct, and important, subset of all "large, theoretically navigable, water-filled ditches" and IMO canals used for water transport are the primary topic for the term canal. We really don't need yet another move/split type discussion here at present! Its the association to the article canal that's the problem, not use of the word "canal" to describe a large ditch per se.

I'd reiterate 3rd para of my initial comment - if we separate out construction and function, we can better handle this. The one thing that is clear is this article (and all sub-articles) are about supply of water from A to B.

(Explanation on UK - there's plenty of long distance water movement in UK, chiefly by pipeline but the New River (England) is a canal-sized waterway. However the UK has a massive canal network, with thousands of miles of navigable waterways, which completely dominate over other uses of the term.)--Nilfanion (talk) 18:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Hold on here. This discussion seems to ignore consensus reached only recently that the Aqueduct article should be a DAB page. This has been done BUT there's a lot of work needed to sort out existing links which point there. In fact it's done us a good turn in that it's disclosed hundreds of links that were already wrong because previous article splits didn't involve DABs.

In fact this is the wrong page to be having this discussion on. This is the Aqueduct (watercourse) page. And I move for evolution not revolution. Chris55 (talk) 16:30, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I just struck the offending phrase from the above schema (see strikethrough and underlines). Refer to the proposal below, where though "Aqueduct (watercourse)" is the functional over-category, it still retains its disambiguation per the prior talk-page discussion; this thread here is rather a discussion of how to organize this article, categories, and what is subsumed under it, etc.Morgan Riley (talk) 16:45, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you should tell Sladen. He's been copying all your headings into the DAB page. Personally I don't think that's a good idea: before you know it it'll be a full-blown page. Chris55 (talk) 17:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

With regards to the scheme at top of thread I'd expand it as below to provide a concrete structure for this article, not worrying about the other articles at this time, using same definitions as above to save time:

• Lead
• History
  • Appropriate sections (not a list of by-location sections)
• Construction
  • Open-flow
    • Ditches
    • Canals (no {{main}} to canal)
    • Flume
    • Unlined, earth/rock-cut
    • Stone-lined (or concrete, brick, metal...)
    • Elevated
  • Pipe flow
  • Infrastructure
    • Bridges (ie Aqueduct (bridge))
    • Tunnels
    • Reservoirs
• Uses
  • Drinking water
  • Irrigation
  • Industry (esp. mining)
  • Power generation

Further sub-sections could be added as appropriate. A goal here is to ensure no regional terms in section headings.--Nilfanion (talk) 18:57, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Thinking about this some more, none of the open-flow terms are necessarily aqueducts. Canals and flumes can be aqueducts, but are for often for transport of goods (!= supply of water). Ditches can be aqueducts, but are often drainage ditches (removal of water from A != supply of water to B). I'm not sure in any of these cases that the supply of water is the key meaning.

Suggest the three above instead (unlined, lined and elevated) as a more natural split. Early and small aqueducts are typically unlined, while lining is added to improve characteristics. Whether an aqueduct is lined, or not, is objective compared to the more subjective question (how big is it?). Elevated is better than flume IMO: Terminal sections of some Roman aqueducts were more like elevated highways than bridges, and "elevated" encapsulates that as well as flumes proper.--Nilfanion (talk) 13:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

So by that description, are we back to the beginning of what exactly is an aqueduct, how to define this article, and whether we need a separate higher article about conduits for conveyance of water in general, versus dedicated water supply? Morgan Riley (talk) 14:07, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for any terseness of my prior reply. To answer the issue of flume, in my reading on the subject, a flume indeed is everything from a box or semi-circle sitting on the ground to a massive trestle (with which it is often accurately associated, but by no means are all flumes those). For example, see this at the commons, which sits on the side of a cliff. The key idea in a flume is that it is simply not sunken into the ground, at least according to the only book I could find that firmly defines it in relation to other forms of water conduits (a hyroelectric engineering one, see first cite on flume). So thus the Roman ones you described would technically be flumes even if they never left the ground, so long as they aren't below ground. However, the same source categorized water conduits as thus: 1. "Canals" (me: in its broadest usage, i.e. open channel via open-channel flow), which is subdivided into a.) trenches (dug into ground) and b.) flumes (walls above ground); 2.) tunnels (open-channel flow mostly, but potential to become pipe flow, e.g. many sewage tunnels), and 3.) pipes (pipe-flow).

But I think the key issue before any proceeding is to wrap up the issue in the first topic on this page, namely concluding the merge discussion whether or not to merge all those topics on open-channel water conduits into this one, as requested. That's where this classification scheme began, as an attempt to show that those topics are at least discrete subsidiary ones, not synonymous ones. It's looking more and more that they are in fact parallel or related ones. Once that matter is done, I think continuing will be easier. Then we need to find a clear exact meaning for this one, which seems to be water supply over water conduit, as you said. As such, perhaps the proper place for a broad discussion of water conduits in general and the above schema by flow/construction would be the hydraulic engineering article, which is rather short and this would fill it out nicely and be totally appropriate there. Finally, someone somewhere has to have written on the topic in a clear way, right? Morgan Riley (talk) 15:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

So far there have been no supports to merge all the topics and a number of opposes so I doubt there will be any consensus to support. At the moment the article is pretty much a world list of water supply projects and what might improve it is some grouping of different periods and different approaches.However there are currently no citations from hydraulic history or engineering sources and that would be necessary for NOR, for something maybe along the lines you have suggested. Chris55 (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, the above doesn't need to be thrashed out here. It should just be done in the article, and any problems with it discussed further here per WP:BRD. I would done that already I had a bit of time to do the basic research required. The scope of this article - about water supplies - looks pretty apparent. Moving this article away from a (partial) world list would be good. The engineering aspect of aqueducts should be discussed in this article and that needs significant expansion. But that is only part of the scope of this article, and can proceed independently of the other (eg historical) aspects.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I've added a Design section to the article, briefly discussing open channel and pipes. It needs more and better sourced info (of course). The terminology problems can be avoided by just referring to "open channels", at least initially.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move: Aqueduct (watercourse) -> Aqueduct (hydraulics)

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 Aqueduct (water supply). Favonian (talk) 20:08, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

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Aqueduct (watercourse) → Aqueduct (hydraulics) – Reason being 1.) that an aqueduct qua bridge is still a watercourse, and thus insufficiently differentiated IMO, and 2.) that most titles when dealing with more abstracted concepts refer to which field of study they fall under, where the particular concept definition is most widely used. Here, all the literature seems to indicate that the unifying and the key distinctions to the various types of aqueducts (canals, flumes, pipes) is under hydraulics or hydraulic engineering (but per the article title policies, hydraulics is sufficient to distinguish that it refers to the flow aspects, rather than the structural engineering aspects Morgan Riley (talk) 03:58, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Support per nom. Clearly explained. bd2412 T 04:43, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Support per nominator. Hydraulics would be a clearer disambiguation. -Niceguyedc ^{Go Huskies!} 06:40, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

: Support with a bit of tidying up to the associated articles to make the delineation clearer. —Sladen (talk) 13:17, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Comment Lets see how the aqueduct (water supply) pans out, it probably won't work mid-sentence, but as an article name standing alone it if probably more friendly. —Sladen (talk) 11:23, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Not at all sure about this one. While Watercourse doesn't seem a particularly good disambiguator, I'm not at all sure that Hydraulics is better. It's just my gut feeling, and I cannot produce any evidence to justify it, but I suspect that the average reader, presented with the choice of Aqueduct (watercourse) and Aqueduct (bridge) on a droip-down menu would finish up where they wanted. I'm not at all sure that same reader would make the correct choice when presented with Aqueduct (hydraulics) and Aqueduct (bridge), and may well suspect that the Hydraulics version is some specialist engineering or physics term. Skinsmoke (talk) 17:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

This discussion is difficult in the absence of all the previous discussions which seem to have entirely disappeared. I don't understand "aqueduct qua bridge is still a watercourse, and thus insufficiently differentiated IMO": the etymology of the word tells it carries water. The aim of splitting Aqueduct (bridge) from Aqueduct (watercourse) was to separate the bridge meaning from the watercourse meaning. Navigable aqueduct already exists to take care of those bridges which are for navigation. And everyone accepts that no complete separation is possible as aqueducts often serve multiple purposes. Also I can't understand why you need to move and rename.

It also appears that many of those who contributed to the previous discussions are not being alerted to this one. Until this is sorted out, it may be wise to slow down. Chris55 (talk) 17:29, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed about the speed. Part of it is that it seems all the talk pages, histories, etc. are not clearly templated and linked, which is rather serious IMO. The very existence of a previous discussion is hidden at present, and all the links above that report to link to a discussion don't actually go to the right talk page. I'll try to work on getting some work going on. At the same time, anyone want to get WikiProjects Engineering, Mills, etc. involved, as they may have more knowledge?

As for the rename, part of it is that any aqueduct in the form of a bridge is still a "watercourse"; The disambiguation should not be ambiguous. The type of aqueduct that this article seems to want to be is an aqueduct in the hydraulic engineering (i.e. engineering of the water supply) context; thus the way I read WP:NCDAB, the specific subject/context is a good way to go with it, rather than class of object in this case. Or possibly Aqueduct (water supply) might be moreso?

As for your question of rename and move, it's a standard part of the template and they are the same thing: see WP:Moving a page#Move vs rename. Cheers. Morgan Riley (talk) 18:15, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

The old talk page is at Talk:Aqueduct/version 2. The old version history is a little harder to find at this address. Not exactly sure why it was done that way but it seems to have been sorted out by someone experienced. Chris55 (talk) 18:35, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Oppose (hydraulics), but support (water supply). As Skinsmoke notes (hydraulics) is unlikely to help readers, who will likely assume a narrow technical topic, whereas (watercourse) is a plain term readily understood. There is no real ambiguity with bridges: An aqueduct (as in a bridge) is not a watercourse itself, it is a bridge. It is a bridge that has a watercourse as part of its structure, but that doesn't mean the whole thing is a watercourse. However I'm concerned that (watercourse) might imply this is strictly about open-channel systems (and not a pipeline), but pipes are definitely part of this article's topic. (water supply) might be a better disambiguator.--Nilfanion (talk) 19:05, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I would fully support a move to Aqueduct (water supply) instead, since its absolutely clear and unambiguous to both technical and lay readers, is IMHO even more plain English than "watercourse", and solves the issue of pipes per your comment.Morgan Riley (talk) 19:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I would also Support a move to Aqueduct (water supply), which is much clearer and easily understood. Skinsmoke (talk) 21:41, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose the alternate aqueduct (water supply) is much better -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 03:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: I would also support a move to Aqueduct (water supply). It is the common factor. Chris55 (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose, and I also oppose Aqueduct (water supply). The current disambiguator (watercourse) is slightly better than the proposed (hydraulics) or alternate (water supply), because the latter two don't differentiate from the other main use of "aqueduct", namely Aqueduct (bridge), because both uses fall under "hydraulics" and both uses are parts of water supply systems.

  I do propose and support Aqueduct (water channel), because only this use is a water channel, and it more clearly differentiates this use from the bridge use since "water channel" is more commonly understood than "watercourse". --Born2cycle (talk) 00:21, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that is pipelines (which may be a major element of an aqueduct in some cases). Its somewhat inaccurate to describe a water-carrying pipe as a watercourse, and even worse to describe it as a "water channel".--Nilfanion (talk) 00:47, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Born2Cycle: water supply/water transfer aqueducts are made of features that are not just channels; siphons and pipelines amongst them. I mean I suppose we could propose Aqueduct (water) or Water aqueduct whereas Aqueduct (water channel) is heading in the opposite direction (talking about flows only presumably in open-channel flow. —Sladen (talk) 03:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Water aqueduct is the term which is quite common for these things here in the United Kingdom, and specifically means a construction for moving drinking water supplies (including channels and pipelines). Has Sladen stumbled on the ideal solution? I don't know what its use is like outside the United Kingdom, and whether it would be as easily understood as Aqueduct (water supply), though. Any thoughts? Skinsmoke (talk) 17:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Gut feeling is "Water aqueduct" could be misinterpreted as "not a canal aqueduct" and therefore being read as being a class of bridge. If its strictly about drinking water, then it might be excessively precise (excluding irrigation for instance), just as "water channel" excludes pipes.

Any bridges on an aqueduct are part of the aqueduct, and so are part of this article's topic, meaning we shouldn't seek a term that entirely excludes bridges. Rather provide a term that clearly indicates any bridges are subsidiary element. If "water supply" isn't adequate, expanding it to something like "water supply system" might do it - like has been done with fire sprinklers.--Nilfanion (talk) 22:11, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I accept your point about irrigation. Not something I would want to argue about, to be honest. Am equally happy with the suggested Aqueduct (water supply). Skinsmoke (talk) 15:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I support a move to Aqueduct (water supply), I think it is a good application of plain English compared to hydraulics and the incumbent watercourse. I'd also really like to say that I appreciate all the reasoned discussion here and I'm glad my split proposal has encouraged it.Nankai (talk) 02:52, 23 February 2013 (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.

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 19:03, 8 March 2013 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

• Aqueduct (water supply) → Aqueduct
• Aqueduct → Aqueduct (disambiguation)

– This is the primary topic for the term aqueduct. The current DAB page should be moved to Aqueduct (disambiguation).  Ryan Vesey 05:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: Any particular reason why it should be the primary topic? IMO, there seems to be some overlap between this and Aqueduct (bridge) (for example, they both have sections on the Roman aqueduct), which means they should either be merged, or the dab page should remain with no primary topic. Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• There isn't a "should be" a primary topic, since that's not an issue we decide. Instead we analyze whether or not something "is" the primary topic. Something becomes the primary topic when the vast majority of usages of the term refer to it. In this case, it appears that the vast majority of usages of the term "aqueduct" refer to it in the use of water supply. This is particularly evident when analyzing the links to the (now DAB page) Aqueduct. I've checked some pages at random, and every one of them used aqueduct in regards to water supply. Ryan Vesey 06:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• I just wanted a clear explanation for your reasons. There is actually no single criterion for defining a primary topic, and in fact WP:PRIMARYTOPIC has been in dispute for the past few weeks, specifically between the "usage" factor that you are citing, and other factors such as "long-term significance". In the previous move discussion (about changing the DAB phrase in parenthesis from "watercourse" to either "hydraulics" or "water supply"), I believe that a couple of users commented that Aqueduct (bridge) was the other "main usage", so that was where my thought process was. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• I feel that then this is a) improperly named, as an Aqueduct (in the bridge sense) is still used for water supply or b) (and more likely) the pages have been improperly split. I feel that the best solution is to recombine Aqueduct (water supply) and Aqueduct (bridge) (which would probably be better named Aqueduct (structure) if it remains split) and name the article Aqueduct. When I created this RM, I didn't realize that the structure (which is actually the primary usage of the term aqueduct) was not addressed in this article. If they aren't merged, this needs a rename to something new, because they current title doesn't work. Ryan Vesey 07:34, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think there is a primary topic here at all, but that will be easier to determine once the split has been stable for a while (so page views are meaningful and links are resolved) and I think its premature to work that out at this time.

See the previous discussion above for the difficulties in naming this article, for example adding the word "system" to the disambiguator may work. The topic of this article are a system of pipes/canals/bridges/tunnels etc called "aqueducts". Bridges on such systems are also called "aqueducts", but those bridges are a subsidiary topic to the system as a whole, not equivalent to it. That means there is some overlap, as they are not independent topics. Roman aqueduct is a better article, and gives a good idea as to what this article ought to be like (notice how much is specifically about bridges).

A merger would be inappropriate as the bridges and the whole are different concepts: A 300m long bridge on a 50km channel is not the same as the whole thing, just as a 300m long bridge on a 50km road are different. The original split discussion is at Talk:Aqueduct/version 2#Split proposal .282.29 is relevant to that.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. See Wikipedia:DICT#Good_definitions: Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic (or a few largely or completely synonymous or otherwise highly related topics... We have recently gone to a good deal of effort to change the article Aqueduct from an article about a word and all its meanings to a disambiguation page. Aqueduct and Aqueduct (and Aqueduct and Aqueduct etc etc...) are homographs. Wikipedia has clear, long established guidelines on what to do in such a case.Nankai (talk) 10:37, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose (sort of). Out of the several articles listed on the disambiguation page, none really strike me as a potential primary topic. Some consolidation of this article and "Aqueduct (bridge)" does seem like a worthwhile idea, however. IgnorantArmies 12:23, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Let the dust settle. This has been a mess for years, and we've finally (just) managed to separate the topics enough in order to start disambiguating the links. —Sladen (talk) 14:40, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose – the disambig page does not appear to support a primary topic claim at this time. Dicklyon (talk) 03:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

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

Bisse (France, Switzerland)

This may be of interest (translated from the French Wikipedia by Google): "A Bief or Bisse is an irrigation canal, dug in the ground or rock made of planks wood supported by beams fixed on the mountainside, for conducting water from melting glaciers in the valleys for irrigation (meadows, fields, vineyards, orchards, gardens, etc.)."

References

Team-B-Vital Improvement Drive

Hello all!

This article has been chosen as this week's effort for WP:Discord's #team-b-vital channel, a collaborate effort to bring Vital articles up to a B class if possible, similar to WP:Articles for Improvement. This effort will run for up to seven days, ending early if the article is felt to be at B-class or impossible to further improve. Articles are chosen by a quick vote among interested chatters, with the goal of working together on interesting Vital articles that need improving.

Thank you! -- ferret (talk) 01:11, 18 November 2021 (UTC)