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Overuse of non-standard (Type A, B, C etc) arbitrary designations

These terms originate from an old US Department of State document (originally intended for diplomatic staff but seemingly slipped into widespread circulation via the interner) and are completly arbitrary with no official or formal basis. Their widespread use in this and other wikipedia articles may give the impression that these designations have some official basis when this is clearly not the case. Wikipedia exists to break down misconceptions not propagate them further. Some may find the terminology convenient but its use should be kept to a minimum. 89.242.207.184 (talk) 22:41, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Totally agree with you if the origin of the Type A, B, C, etc. nomenclature is as you state. Can you point to some support for that assertion? If so, we can and should greatly reduce or perhaps eliminate that nomenclature from this article. —Scheinwerfermann T·C01:02, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
We cite ""Electric Current Abroad" (PDF). US Department of Commerce, International Trade Administration. 2002. http://www.ita.doc.gov/media/Publications/pdf/current2002FINAL.pdf." - that's where the magic letters come from. If we get rid of it, someone will have to type in the formal names of al the different types. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Let's get to it, then; looks to me as if these letter designators are arbitrary and not the industry standard terminology our article presently suggests they are. —Scheinwerfermann T·C04:20, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
We'll have to figure out the national standard names for each type. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)
Just how do you go about alphabetizing a list of different standards using different names originating from different alphabets, using letters or symbols which don't even exist in English? How do you establish word-definition priority?
Englishified names and designations are completely acceptable since this article is written in English, and the A/B/C system while arbitrary is neither better or worse than any other global organization method.
If certain editors feel so strongly about wanting other names used by the country of origin, these editors are more than welcome to do that on the many other language articles that wikimedia provides. Go ahead, do a copy-paste of this into the japanese language wikipedia and change everything to use the Japanese language's methods for naming and ordering things.
(I'm still waiting for en-us.wikipedia and en-uk.wikipedia to be spun off and put an end to Colour / Color...) DMahalko (talk) 22:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes, we know you're still waiting for Wikipedia policy to fall in line with your opinions and preferences; you've made that clear and been rebuked for your poor understanding of how things are (and aren't) done on Wikipedia. So far it doesn't look as if your point of view will gain much of any more traction here than it did over at Talk:Right- and left-hand traffic. The crisis of ordering criteria you're alarmed about gives every appearance of being without basis; I'm pretty sure this article will be just fine—better, actually—without inclusion of the unsupportably arbitrary letter designations. Suggest you find something more pressingly and realistically urgent to be alarmed about, please and thank you, such as "What if frogs had claws and teeth and lived in toilets?". —Scheinwerfermann T·C01:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I happen to agree with this as well. I previously found myself questioning the emphasis on "Type X" as the main designation, but wasn't sure how difficult it would be to try to move more towards using the industry standard designations instead. We could also modify the table under #Comparison of sockets to use Socket standard as the first column and still keep Type as the rightmost column. --Tothwolf (talk) 04:02, 10 October 2011 (UTC) Screw this. My comment was not in reply to the comment directly above and if User:Scheinwerfermann can't leave my comment alone and stop changing the indentation to make it look like it was, forget it. [1] [2] --Tothwolf (talk) 21:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
The A. B. and C. nomenclature is entirely arbitrary but it is the referable global standard we've got. Unless you want to start your very own new way of organizing the world's devices and then try to get the rest of the world to follow this article's way of doing things.... oooooooh, dear, I forget, no original research.... oooh too bad, we will stick with the arbitrariness we've got than the ideal we don't. Just as you stated regarding the Wiekiepaedieae spelling insanity. :-)
When you say we, remember, it's just you. (Unless it's one of your other personalities that retired from something on your talk page back in 2009. The rest of you sure looks active yet.)

DMahalko (talk) 19:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Good heavens. Please spend some time carefully reading and absorbing NOR so that you will understand what is (and is not) original research, before you start shouting about it where it's not happening. Also, it's usually best to add your comments to a talk page discussion at the bottom of the thread, not interstitially. —Scheinwerfermann T·C21:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Tothwolf, that's a very impressive flounce to add to the ones on your user page and your talk page, but it's unwarranted.. Nobody's trying to nefariously make you look as if you're agreeing with anyone in particular, and repairing hierarchical markup to keep the thread tidy is not refactoring. Just make it clear whom you agree or disagree with, right in your text, and there'll be no doubt about it regardless of indent, outdent, updent, or downdent. —Scheinwerfermann T·C22:15, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I just picked up on this discussion. I concur with DMahalko that the letters from the Department of Commerce document are the best available standard in common use, and I think they should be restored as headings within the article (I see that Wtshymanski has removed some of them). Even if they are not really a standard (in the sense of being promulgated by ISO/IEC), they are often used on retail displays for travel power plug/voltage conversion kits, and they are much easier to remember and use than the official national standard names. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
That is a very narrow US-centric POV. The designations/names used should be those of the relevant authoroties who created the standards, not some totally arbitrary "travellers guide". Roger (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia follows the best available sources. Until IEC puts all its precious deliberations onto the Web for free, we're only going to see US taxpayer supported resources quoted in articles, because that's what Google turns up. That, and all those Tata-McGraw Hill books that get digitized. I speculate that there are more edits complaining about US-centrism in articles than edits that give points of view from other countries. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Couldn't we add both? This would allow the entries to be referenced by their official names, while still providing the A/B/C names which are referenced outside of Wikipedia and extensively used on the Mains power around the world article (using the full connector names on that page would decrease readability). For instance, the title of the first could be NEMA 1-15 (Type "A"). S-1-5-7 (talk) 14:19, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
The biggest problem with the letters is that the US department of commerce document doesn't ever properly define what plug type is meant by each letter It just gives a picture and a vauge description. Some of the pictures are obviously one particular type (E and G for example) but others could represent one of several incompatible or only partially compatible plugs and sockets. Going on the pictures and descriptions in that document and what I know about plugs and sockets.
A is clearly american/japanese two pin. But even within that there are two variants that are only partially compatible (IIRC you can use an unpolarised plug in a polarised socket but not vice-versa)
B has the same issues as A (but it's 3-pin)
C could be any of many incompatible or only partially compatible 2-pin plugs
D could easilly be any current rating of BS546 (which are all incompatible with each other) and probablly other national standards as well.
E is clearly a standard french earthed plug (dunno the formal name for it)
F is identified as a german schuko plug
G is clearly BS1363
H appears to be the older version of the israli standard
I is australian/chineese (which at least according to wikipedia are mostly compatible, at least compatible enough for travelers to get away with)
J was presumablly meant to be a swiss plug but there is also a similar but incompatible IEC standard plug.
K doesn't look like any plug i've ever seen. The tables imply it was meant to be a danish plug the plug body shown in the picture is the wrong shape for that.
L was presumablly meant to be an italian plug but there are apparently two incompatible versions of said plug.
The document also has misleading information in other areas (like marking countries with "A grounding conductor is required in the electrical cord attached to appliances")
In summary regardless of the fact it was produced by the US government that document is an APPALLING source. Sadly most of the information on plug types on wikipedia seems to have come from that document (or from a website that got it's information from there)Plugwash (talk) 15:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Plugwash. The document gives every appearance of containing arbitrarily assigned letters to various plug/socket systems for the sole purpose of identification within that document, written as a quicky guide for Americans intending to plug stuff in abroad. The letters amount to "Figure A", "Figure B", "Figure C", etc. This is not a standard of any type—not a national one, not an international one—and it is inappropriate for this article to elevate of these letter codes to quasi-official nomenclature. Our job in writing this encyclopædia is to describe the world as it is, not to decide how it ought to be. —Scheinwerfermann T·C16:54, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's a little unfair to lambaste the Department of Commerce for not providing a better free reference for an on-line encyclopedia 15 years later. Let's change the letter names to the national standard names. If we can find out what they are called, anyway - the set of "free" references and non-American sources have a small intersection. (We had one fellow over at BS546 rattle off the list of $3000 worth of British standards, but still couldn't tell us why the first edition of BS 546 was 1950, not "before the war" as folklore would have it. ) --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
That rather misses the point. If the groupings are based around a source which reasonable clueful editors agree is basically garbage then the groupings need to be dismantled rather than just renamed. It would be far better to simply list the standards by country and put up with duplication where present than attempt the sort of bogus aggregation which led to the current train wreck. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 23:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
IMO the biggest problem isn't so much this article<, it only uses the letter names in passing in most places anyway (some have already been removed) and it does list proper standard names in most places. Some of the letters have already been removed and It would be easy enough to get rid of the others (we would just have to come up with a system for handling the case where several national standards define essentially the same plug, america/japan australia/china etc).
The REAL problem is what to do about "Mains electricity by country". We can't reliably translate from the letters to proper plug type references and since the article is uncited (and even if it was cited a lot of the sources would likely be behind paywalls) we can't go to the cited sources either.
Recompiling it from scratch to anything like the current country count would be a MASSIVE undertaking requiring people with experience in many languages. As wtsymanski implied in his last edit summary ("Wikipedia: the encyclopedia written by cheapskates") would almost certainly be beyond the means of those currently working on these articles in wikipedia and i'm not aware of any reliable meta-sources.
So our choices seem to be leaving that article as a relic of the age before wikipedia cared about sourcing (which is a problem for fixing this article because that article relied on this one to define the plug types, something this article no longer does properly), "fixing" that article while making educated guesses at what plug type was actually meant or gutting that article down to the few countries we have proper information for.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Plugwash (talk • contribs) 19:22, 2011 October 18
for letter in a...z do googleforrefs(letter.country, letter.plug); findout (nationalstandardnameforplug); editarticle(letter, nationalstandardnameforplug); citereference (nationalstandardnameforplug): next letter. Pretty much the way the whole Wikipedia is written. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:20, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
and as for Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Cyrillic or Klingon letters sort order, that's an issue for the developers and not for us mere editors to worry about. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
What a mess... With this article at least, for connectors that don't have an "official" standards name (non-NEMA, CEE, BS, JIS, etc), probably the easiest thing to do would be to refer to them as <country> national standard, where country is the primary country which uses them or from where they originated. The majority of the newer connectors have some sort of official standards name though, so this may only be an issue for those listed under #Obsolete types and similar sections further down towards the end of the article. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Self appointed arbiter.

Wtshymanski seems to have appointed himself (or herself) as an arbiter of what may or may not appear in this article (and several others). Two contributions have been made that I regard as relevant.

First: an entry in the nomenclature tabel that highlights the fact that the term 'grounded', whilst regarded as a US term also has a completely different meaning in UK electrical engineering.

Second: The US term 'grounded conductor' (in US parlance) gives the false impression that the neutral wire will be at earth or ground potential. This is not necessarily the case especially in installations where the sole earth (or ground) point is at the substation.

Wtshymanski has unilaterally decided that he or she is entitled to delete them (and in one case providing a nonsensical edit summary). 109.156.49.202 (talk) 16:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedia articles ought not to contain things they admit have nothing to do with the topic. It wastes the reader's time.It's especially pompous when the article says in plain text "This has nothing to do with the topic, but I thought you might also like to know my cat's name is "Mittens"." Railway jargon has nothing to do with plugs and sockets, and we have a whole article on the differences between Indian English and American English, we don't need an arbitrary collection of terms here either. It would also help if the alleged usage could be *documented*, the last time I tried, I could not find anyone saying this, at least within the reach of Google Books. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:00, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
It isn't "unilateral" any more regardless, as I'd normally remove amateurish footnotes like this on sight anyway. We do not need to add paragraphs of text explaining the idiosyncrasies of British versus American terminology to every article which discusses electrical power so long as the subject is discussed on one central location, and it already is. If a particular piece of terminology in a given article is ambiguous then we should endeavour to reword it rather than scribbling clarifications in the margins. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 22:09, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Grouping

Perhaps instead of letters we can group by "NEMA and similar types", "CEE and similar types", "Britsh and similar types" and "Other standard types". And maybe add a column to the table saying "US Department of Commerce arbitrary letters", as well as giving the CEE number or standard name for each group. It would be very comforting to quote from standards documents to clarify that socket <foo> accepts plug <bar> but will also meet standards if taking minimumm and maximum plugs defined in standards <quux>, <beable> and <grault>. Maybe one big cross-plugging table instead of all the repetitive statements explaining that plug X will go into socket Y using hammer H ("can fit" or "approved combination", say). --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:16, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is beginning to remind me of the major restructuring we had to do with IEC 60320. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
It's more difficult because all the contents at IEC 60320 were in one standard, and at least one editor had access to the standard. Who has the Russian, Danish, Italian, Japanese,Chinese, Australian, etc. standards? --Wtshymanski (talk)
True, and at least two editors had access to the IEC 60320 standards documents...I had access to the later editions. --Tothwolf (talk) 17:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

IEC TR 83 is not a standard for the letters

Does anyone have access to IEC Technical Report 83? Perhaps that is the source of the letters we're having so much trouble with. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:25, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Much later. From what I've seen of the preview of IEC 60083, it doesn't use the same letters as the US Department of Commerce document. IEC TR 60083 does define a short-hand nomenclature for plugs, for example, NO-3 is the third type designated for Norway, but since the standard costs $342, it's fairly inaccessible to us editors. It's also incomplete, as many countries (Argentina, Egypt, and more, according to the title page) don't have their national standards listed in IEC 60083. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Type A, B, C, ...

Okay, I think that it is silly that the conversion that has been going on has been generating so much angst. Given that the new Brazilian/South African standard has no letter, it doesn't really bother me. What does bother me is that those letter types are in widespread use, and this article no longer contains them all, which it should somewhere in the article. Carolina wren (talk) 02:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Support your assertion that the letter codes are in "widespread use" and perhaps you might swing the consensus in line with your preference. —Scheinwerfermann T·C02:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
Whose consensus needs swinging? All I can see here against A. B. and C. are Scheiny, Wty, and (maybe) Thumpy. Everyone else says we want the letters.
If it is THAT much of an anal-retentive problem, then make different versions of the same article and re-sort the article however many arbitrary ways you want in each variation:
AC power plugs and sockets (organization by US Dept of Commerce standard)
Is it THAT goddamn difficult of a problem to resolve? DMahalko (talk) 04:32, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
This edit war has made a mess of the World Maps section. So wiseguys, what's the meaning of the letters on this map??
Though the meaning is perfectly understandable over in this article here for some reason..
DMahalko (talk) 07:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
If the argument for not using the letters is "this isn't any real international standard at all: rather, it's just the method used in this one source", then "not using the letters means that we can't use an illustration based on them" seems rather self-evident. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 09:27, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Dmahalko, this is not an "edit war". Matter of fact, it's exactly the opposite of an edit war. To learn the definition of that term, please see WP:EW. Moreover, despite repeated attempts at education by numerous editors—e.g., here, here, and elsewhere on this present page—you seem doggedly resistant to the reality that we don't create multiple versions of articles with this and that and some other spelling or sorting convention. That simply isn't how we do it here, and I don't imagine your future efforts in that direction will be any more tractive or fruitful than your past ones. We work by consensus here. Read up on it; it's not a popularity contest.

Thumperward, I don't necessarily agree that we can't use the letter codes in the world map. If we do, we would need a key to go along with it, that would accurately cross-refer the plug/socket types by their actual, real designations and by the letter codes. Such letter designators and keys are frequently used in images and diagrams where there's no space to spell out the actual designations on or in the image itself. That appears to be how the letter codes came to be in that Department of Commerce document—at least I'm still not seeing evidence to support the letters as anything more than just such a shorthand in that one particular document. If no such evidence is forthcoming, I still don't think we can legitimately inflate the letter codes' currency by using them as official type designators in this article. —Scheinwerfermann T·C17:32, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is really just a popularity contest of finding enough people of certain a certain persuasion to vote down the opposing team. It's a simple majority vote around here, and often a VERY simple majority involving just a two or three people, and nothing else matters. The speedy delete occurred only because there is a campground of people sitting around just slavering to delete anything that doesn't comply with arbitrary fungible policies, and I forgot to rally some 40 other people to my side before starting the article fork. My mistake.
Also there is a certain level of pomposity and bravado required of editors to succeed in the popularity game, and you, Scheiny my friend have that one down pat. (Egads, dear me, well I never, good gracious, land sakes alive. Tut tut.) DMahalko (talk) 21:09, 24 October 2011 (UTC)
The premise of your view of consensus is flawed; we don't vote. —Scheinwerfermann T·C00:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, not technically. No, just the most vocal loudmouth says "I'm gonna do X", finds two people to back them up, and does it, and shouts down anyone else who comes along who wants to undo the changes, and says "We're all in agreement here, what's your problem, you moron???" Oh. Hi. DMahalko (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay let's talk about the article. It doesn't matter if the A B C thing is not a world standard. That is not the point. Encyclopedia articles are supposed to describe all the various ways that a topic is described by various countries around the world.

Is Schuko a global standard? No. Is it here? Yes. Is NEMA a global standard? No. Is it here? Yes. And the A B C thing is PART OF THAT MESS. Is it a global standard? No. But as with Schuko, NEMA, and all the rest, it is widely used around the world. So it belongs here, alongside all this other disorganization.

It does not need to be a guiding principal for how to organize the entire article, but it should be included somewhere simply to indicate that this is just another widely used, and yet incomplete way of describing things.

A table summarizing how the letters relate to everything else without all the descriptive text would retain content, and still make this article mesh with everything else that is already out there that uses the letter types. DMahalko (talk) 02:18, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

You make it very challenging to assume good faith when you attempt to use the existence of a multiplicity of plug/socket standards worldwide as support for the use of an arbitrary nomenclature whipped up by one agency of one country's government. Also, you still haven't demonstrated that the letter codes are "widely used". —Scheinwerfermann T·C04:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Indeed. The general contempt for process and the presumably for-effect use of diminutives for other editors' usernames aren't helping either. I tagged the letters section for a split a week or so ago: what with the lack of evidence that it really denotes some sort of accepted global scheme, I'm coming round to the idea of simply merging any of the good bits to the existing Mains power around the world article and then summarising that content here. The discussion of the letters section could be retained in a single paragraph detailing how one particular classification system was laid out. I agree with your argument that the image can be retained to illustrate that particular classification system if for nothing else. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) - talk 08:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Scheinwerfermann began the incivilities him/herself right at the top of this talk page, up in the "Overuse of non-standard (Type A, B, C etc) arbitrary designations" section. Everything else before that was quite civil.
Why should this editor get a pass for writing this: Suggest you find something more pressingly and realistically urgent to be alarmed about, please and thank you, such as "What if frogs had claws and teeth and lived in toilets?". —Scheinwerfermann T·C01:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC) ... with all these wikipedia policies, I would expect someone to be slapping him/her down for writing this to someone else in an otherwise civil discourse. But nope, nothing.
DMahalko (talk) 17:42, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Please read WP:STICK Roger (talk) 20:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Land sakes alive. The frogs/teeth/claws/toilets thing was intended as a humourous, noncombative way of pointing out that your preferences and contentions, Dmahalko, were severely out of line with how things are done here. I'm so sorry the humour didn't register and you were offended. Perhaps that's what's happened in the other direction, too, and what has given me every appearance of mealymouthed obstreperousness on your part was in fact attempted humour. If that's the case, I must apologise for having missed it. Either way, Roger's right; WP:STICK is apposite here and now. How about a cuppa tea and a cookie? —Scheinwerfermann T·C21:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Support your assertion that the letter codes are in "widespread use" and perhaps you might swing the consensus in line with your preference. —Scheinwerfermann T·C02:33, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Scheinwerfermann, have you taken a look at any product catalogs for electrical plugs and sockets from companies that supply to the worldwide market? I don't see how you could have and believe these do not see widespread use. Note, I'm not arguing that the type letters should have been kept as the organizing principle for the article. I'm saying that the information is used widely enough that mention of the letter codes should be in the article along with their correspondence to the relevant standards. Carolina wren (talk) 23:15, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Okeh, please show us some of the reliable catalogues you have in mind so we can do as you suggest and look at them. —Scheinwerfermann T·C23:29, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
Here's three product offerings I got on the first page of results I got from Googling for "Type M plug":
adaptelec.com
amazon.com
atomicmods.com
I'll presume you'll at least have heard of Amazon, though I'll grant probably not the company selling that product through them, Bombay Electronics. The point is not that these designations have universal usage, but that they have sufficient usage to be worthy of being noted and defined somewhere in the article. Carolina wren (talk) 00:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Sorry, these won't do. I note that the last of your three links appears to contain text lifted verbatim from this article here on Wikipedia, which is one of several sturdy reasons why we'll need reliable sources to support the notion that the letter codes are "widely used". I also note the scare quotes around "Type M" in your first link, which implies that whoever put them there knew the designation is less than fully legitimate. —Scheinwerfermann T·C00:47, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
Sounds to me that you have officialitis. "Fully legitimate" indeed. While not sanctioned by any standards body they are in use by sellers of electrical equipment as I have already demonstrated, and frankly given the tone you have taken in this discussion, unless the IEC or some other standards body gives its imprimatur, you will never be convinced of their legitimacy. This isn't an issue I'm prepared to spend more time on this when I don't think you would ever be convinced they should be mentioned in the article short of their being adopted by an official body. I could understand your obstinacy if I was proposing to retain them as section headings, but I'm not so I don't. Carolina wren (talk) 03:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Show us a South African seller or manufacturer that refers to their plugs as "Type M" then we can talk. You seem to be suffering from "America-uber-alles-itis". See Ugly American. Roger (talk) 07:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Is this already on the list of lamest edit wars ever? The reason we use the US Department of Commerce document is that it is free and we can all Google it; whereas the IEC document (that might well have the same letter codes) is several hundred Swiss francs or is only available at bricks'n'mortar libraries. If it weren't for Americans not only would we not have a Wikipedia, we wouldn't have an Internet, either. --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:08, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

No, because it's still not an edit war. It's a talk page discussion. They aren't the same thing. A document that doesn't adequately establish basis for using a system of nomenclature remains unsuitable whether it's free or costs money. And jingoistic babble about how the internet and Wikipedia wouldn't exist without the USA! USA! USA! USA! is fatuous and inapposite. If you're unhappy with the nature of this present discussion, please improve it by making substantive contributions. —Scheinwerfermann T·C22:35, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, if it weren't for the American taxpayer, we wouldn't have a Department of Commerce reference or a Wikipedia to look down its collective nose at it. None of our team of volunteer scholars has bestirred himself to find the IEC technical report that might legitimize the letter classification among the anti-American bigots. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
There is no "anti-American bigotry" going on here; you'll need to try (much) harder to assume good faith. The document in question would be inadequate no matter whose government printed it up. —Scheinwerfermann T·C04:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
Good faith is an unnecessary assumption. Can anyone find the IEC technical report? The Department of Commerce is not a bad reference given its purposes, and its very hard to find assertions in the varied collection of national standards that "Yes, we really meant that plug on style sheet X of national standard Y will interchange with our socket P in standard Q, and still meet all our requirements." --Wtshymanski (talk) 05:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Assuming good faith is always required here. Writing an encyclopædia is not always easy. Sometimes it's hard. That does not exempt us from the responsibility that we do it correctly. —Scheinwerfermann T·C17:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Roger, for the same reasons that a U.S.-only manufacturer would be unlikely to refer to NEMA 5-15 plugs as Type B, a S.A.-only manufacturer would be unlikely to refer to SABS 164 as Type M. These type letters are of most use to those such as travelers who are mainly concerned about whether a plug adapter fits well enough for them to use their thingamajig, and not the fine details that differentiate SABS 164, BS 564, Indian Standard IA16A3, GOST 7396 B1, etc. That indifference to anything other than gross physical dimensions also makes them useful to this article. The main deficiency in that Dept. of Commerce report is that it hasn't been significantly updated in quite some time, and thus is somewhat out of date, especially in the case of countries that have adopted plug and socket combinations not in use anywhere the last time the report was revised. If there were something better than that report that does what it does, I'd cheerfully use welcome its use in this article. Until then, it's something that works well enough to be useful, and is in use outside Wikipedia and thus deserves a mention. Carolina wren (talk) 05:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh I am not at all opposed to it being mentioned or even used as a reference, what I am opposed to is having it be the index of the article. It is widely used only in the US. I apologise for my snarky earlier post - Many of us non-American Wikipedians face constant (uphill) struggles to counteract the pro-US sytemic bias across the entire 'pedia and at times unfortunately some heat may be generated. Don't forget that WP is not a travellers guide. Roger (talk) 06:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
The types references are hard to search for, because the word type is already used for a huge number of other purposes related to electrical engineering and technology.
    • For mounting one 3kVA thru 50kVA transformer, recloser or sectionalizer, having 12” ANSI/NEMA type A lugs (no adapter plate required)
    • Meter Types: 1. Type A (e.g. PD690) meter bezel dimensions: 4.25 x 2.3 x 0.6 (108 x 59 x 15), depth behind panel: 4.7 (119) not including clearance for wiring
    • CMB-Type (NEMA BRACKETS), Cutout & Arrester Mounts, NEMA Type A
    • Class I motor control centers can be provided in NEMA. Type A or B construction
    • USB Type A/Female
    • SINAMICS G150 NEMA. Type A enclosed drive 150 – 800HP.
    • Motor Control Centers - 5071 Seismic Applications NEMA Enclosure Type ... control centers can be provided in NEMA Type A or B construction
    • Schneider Electric - Contactors and Starters > Manual Starters / Protectors and Switches > Type A and B Reversing Drum Switches
    • Type A Series Miniature Pressure Switches Watertight Stainless
    • Display: 8 lines x 40 characters; Keyboards: 3 x 4 navigation and 4 x 4 data entry keypads. Cabinet interfaces. NEMA Port 1 C15S; NEMA TS2 Type A connector
    • Specification for Traffic Signal Cabinet Assemblies, Type A detectors (2-channel)
    • Learn About Tubing, Type A – Acrylic resin coated
    • Industrial Control NEMA 30MM NEMA OL Relays, Coil, Breakers NEMA 30mm Thermal Unit Type A
    • Insulated Cable Engineers Assoc., Type A Flame Test
And that's just "Type A", nevermind B,C,D... Lots of unrelated stuff to wade through, so no suprise anyone else hasn't attempted wasting a few hours to satisfy Scheinwerferman's demands.
After selectively excluding all that, this search is starting to look promising. Lots of "clean" results:
Google: NEMA "Type A" -meter -TS-2 -TS2 -USB -induction -winding -drum -lugs -thermal -drives -enclosure -acrylic -arrester -bracket -pressure
DMahalko (talk) 07:10, 31 October 2011 (UTC)


Off topic terminology section

Instead of the much-loved Wikipedia technique of reciting over and over the differences between US and Indian English, could we put the terminological stuff away somewhere and stay on topic for this article? --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:52, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

German book source

Alles über Strom: So Funktioniert Alltagselektronik By Christian Synwoldt, shows up in a Google Books search. Lots of pictures of strange-looking sockets there, but I don't read German and Google Translate only gives tantalizing hints of what could be there. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

...but you don't want to know how he classifies plugs. Don't look at page 204! The really weird looking ones are phone jacks, not power plugs...what a relief. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Organization

I think that grounding and polarization should be described earlier in the article; it would seem to make sense to say "Here are the issues a plug and socket combination has to address, now look at all the different ways people have answered these points". And putting the interchange hazards section up front is a way of avoiding endless repetition of things like "Plug X will fit socket Y if hit hard enough with hammer Z, but the result may not be safe or even usable". --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:27, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

You may be right. It seemed to me that the article took a long time to get to the point, so I moved these two sections to the end and banished the pointless terminology section altogether. However, the grounding and polarization section could also be trimmed substantially, possibly as a short section about compatibility, and moved up again. The history section is also too long, and it seems that beginning with "Design for safety" it ceases being a history section and a higher-level header is required. This part could be rewritten to incorporate the grounding/polarization/compatibility issues. ProhibitOnions (T) 07:04, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Here's a try at my proposed organization, and I've distilled some of the key points. I think a Wikipedia article is most interesting and valuable when it just doesn't recite a catalog of how things are now, but instead explains a little of how we got to where we are now. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
Nice work - it flows a lot better, and the background and concepts are much better organized. As I see it, the next issue is to line up all the pictures so that they line up with their respective headings - I'm guessing a large number of readers come here to look at plug and socket types, so this should be as well-ordered as possible. I'd suspect a consistent pix width would be a good idea, but tables or text boxes might be options, too. Cheers, ProhibitOnions (T) 10:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
I'd be tempted to make some use of <br clear=all>, sure it adds some whitespace for people with wide screens but it's far less confusing to have that whitespace than it is to have photos displayed next to the wrong section. Plugwash (talk) 14:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Dual ratings

Why are the BS 546 plugs given as 5/6 amp or 15/16 amp ratings? 5 Amps for commoners, 6 amps for nobles or ? --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:24, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Well prior to this edit by you the titles of those sections said "BS 546 (United Kingdom, 5 A/250 V grounded), equivalent to IA6A3 (India), rated at 6 A / 250 V" and "BS 546 (United Kingdom, 15 A/250 V grounded), equivalent to IA16A3 (India) and SABS 164 (South Africa), rated at 16 A / 250 V". I haven't read any indian or south african standards but my guess is they tweaked the nominal current rating to match that of some other major electrical component (maybe to quell arguments as to whether it was OK to put a (n)A socket on a (n+1)A MCB). IMO the titles of the sections should use the british standard ratings and if equivilent types in other countries do indeed have higher ratings this should be mentioned in the text. Plugwash (talk) 15:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
Tis sport to see the engineer hoist by his own petard. I've unscrewed this. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:29, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

New format is almost unintelligible to the casual reader.

I understand the concerns regarding there not being a global standard terminology, but arranging the article by names of countries' different standards makes it harder for the reader to understand what he/she is reading. Even if the alphabet types are unacceptable, there should still be a better way to name the sections. The haphazard arrangement of images also doesn't help.

As a reader, one of the first things I want to know from the article is: What are the major compatible groups of plug and socket types? The article should provide an overview of the major types before presenting the details of each and every one of them. I need to know the general difference between plug types which use flat pins and round pins before the difference between the 5-ampere and 15-ampere versions of the BS 546 plug. Perhaps it would be best to begin the types section with a comparison of the main features of each group, accompanied by a drawing, before breaking into detail. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:05, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

If Wikipedia protrayed the situation as simpler than it really is, then Wikipedia was in error. There aren't "major compatible groups", only a whole bunch of ad-hoc work-arounds so that travellers from East Prussia can use their electrical gadgets in West Ipswich. It's messy and complicated, except for the 3000 km radius around my home that standardized on IEC 60906-2 long before the IEC got round to declaring it a standard. Agree that if we could find some authoritative sources discussing flat vs. round pins, we could benefit from plagiarizing researching those sources. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
...and I forgot to mention: The table has the same "groups" as before, just substituting the actual name of the plug/socket standard for the arbitrarily-assigned letters. There's a summary table later on which still has the Department of COmmerce letters, which could be bumped up in the article, I suppose. If we could find a copy of the IEC technical report, that might give a more authoritative basis for the letter codes. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:52, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
"the general difference between plug types which use flat pins and round pins" <-- there isn't really much of one from a practical perspective, an australian plug and an american plug are completely incompatible. Heck even a 5A BS546 and a 15 BS546 are completely incompatible.
Having said that I do think we should try to go for a layout that groups all the mainland european sockets together at least. They all accept the europlug and there are other intercompatibilties (both safe and unsafe) too.
It would also be nice to have a set of images near the start of the article with links to the relavent sections. Many people coming to this article will have seen a plug or socket but will have no idea what it is called. Plugwash (talk) 19:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
Having seen no objection to grouping the mainland european types together again I have done so. Plugwash (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Swiss IP complaint

Can an admin have a look at this page? It used to be quite good before Wytmanski unilaterally removed all the standardized plug names and reverts anything anyone else does to it. He is just one guy with a fixed idea and shouldnt have the power to push his own agenda.

You can sign your talk page entries with a dash and four tildes. This Wytmanski sounds like a bad influence. You are right to put an obscure request for help here; no-doubt Jimbo Wales himself is preparing his response. What are the "standardized" plug names and what standard do you recommend? Someone from Switzerland could pop into IEC (3, rue de Varembé , Geneva)headquarters and look at their library for the current edition of Technical Report 83 and tell us if the numbers had any legitimacy other than the US Department of Commerce obsolete PDF? --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:29, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
On the contary recent edits to the article have replaced the letter names for which we could find no reliable sources with the actual names of the standards that define the plug types.
If you are calling the letters "standardised" please provide a reliable source which defines what plug type each letter refers to either by providing dimensioned drawings or by referencing standards that do so. A travel guide that only has non-dimensioned drawings and vauge descriptions cannot IMO be considered a reliable source even if it was published by a US government department. Plugwash (talk) 00:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
The real problem we have is that Mains electricity by country basically needs a rewrite from scratch to replace the vauge letters from the US government travelers guide with the actual standards that are in use. However to do so would mean someone would have to first pay for the IEC technical report (other sources can be added later but I think the IEC report is the only place one could get the information in one big lump) and then put a lot of effort to build a page based on it. So far no editor has stepped up to do this. A simple search and replace would only make the problem worse by adding information that is likely false. Plugwash (talk) 00:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I shouldn't expect someone to drive 3 hours from Zurich to Geneva, when my own city main library branch is on my bus route home and only 3 blocks from my workplace...and it's been weeks since I've checked out a library book to back up a Wikipedia article. Sadly, though my employer subscribes to a range of electrical standards, IEC TR 60083 isn't one of them. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Drive? Of course not; I'd expect them to take the train ;) Jeh (talk) 19:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
It turns out our standards subscription lets me look at the first few pages of IEC TR 60083; just the table of contents and pages about Australian and first part of Austrian standards, but it does show the letter sybmols used by the US DOC aren't used in this document. It seems IEC style is to refer to 83 and abbreviations such as NO-3, (third type for Norway). --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
IEC 60083 costs $342 US - which is why no-one has a copy kicking around. That blows a big hole in most editor's beer and pizza budget. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
If you think that's expensive, check out what a copy of "The Internet Encyclopedia" goes for. [3] --Tothwolf (talk) 03:50, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
I've checked the online catalogs of my county public library, the public libraries in the next two counties over, the two public universities in my county, and two other nearby U's known for their EE programs. One of those even has a specialty in power engineering (but that does tend to be more about Very Large Stuff, not consumer-accessible plugs and outlets). Nada. I did find a few other documents via Author: International Electrotechnical Commission, so I'm pretty confident of my search method. An interested editor in Switzerland, or even elsewhere in Europe, might check public and university libraries there. Jeh (talk) 19:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

BS 1363 info

Moved to Talk:BS 1363 --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Archived old discussions

Threads that haven't been active in a few weeks have been moved to Archive 4. See the navigation box at the top of the talk page. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Obsolete?

The UK clock connector is far from obsolete. it is still in the current MK catalogue, for a start:

http://www.mkelectric.com/en-gb/Products/WD/BoxesandAncillaryProducts/AncillaryProducts/Cloakconnectors/Pages/995WHI.aspx

I have also seen them in buildings in Norway and Germany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.100.57.22 (talk) 07:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Engvar

Per this original version, this article appears to have been written in British English. --John (talk) 10:10, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Plugs and Sockets

I notice that a skirmish has broken out on the use of the term 'plug' in British English.

It should be noted that the part of the pair that has holes is technically (and correctly) known as a 'socket' but some technical sources will also call it a 'power point'. Since this is an encyclopedia, the technical useage is the one that should prevail. However, one editor is entirely correct in that the term 'plug' is used by a large proportion of the (non technical) British English speaking population to refer to the part that is screwed to the wall, though I have the terms used in this manner by electricians as well. Such usage is much more common in the northern part of England, but is also used in the more southern climes. Consequent on this, the part that goes on the end of the appliance lead is frequently called a 'plug top' (don't ask me why). I am wondering, that although the correct usage should, of course, be in the article, whether a note should be made somewhere of the more common (mis)usage. Opinions?

A far more common misusage (though not strictly relevant to this article) is that if you buy USB leads, the packaging is always marked that the lead is a 'Type A plug' to a 'Type B plug' or maybe 'Type A male' to 'Type B male'. Even a cursory look at the connectors on such a cable and a check of the strict definition of male (plug) and female (socket) will reveal that the free connectors are in fact female sockets and it is the fixed equipment mounted 'receptacles' that are male plugs. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 16:33, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

If the "plug" (on wall) and "plug top" (on end of cable cord) usage can be reliably supported, then it can be added here. Otherwise, no, it's just hearsay and isn't admissible. USB usage is not apposite. —Scheinwerfermann T·C18:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Why did you feel the need to point out that which he had already stated? 86.166.70.84 (talk) 13:48, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
Well, gosh, anonymous friend…why did you feel the need to point out that which I pointed out he had already stated? —Scheinwerfermann T·C23:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

19 mm and congratulations

1. Who came up with the 19 mm distance, historically? In 1904 Hubbell had round plugs, but they must have bben much nearer together. Knapp’s patent shows an "Australian" plug with blades, rather than round pins. 19 mm = 3/4". Please let me know by email too, Fritz@Joern.De
2. Thank you for the fine historical explanation of the Italian plugs, not even to be found in the Italian version.
– Fritz Jörn (talk) 21:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Stupid Dangerous Design of the socket/plug in use in the USA

No thinking Engineer would design a socket/plug which allows one to see hot voltage carrying metal when in use. This is such an obvious fire hazard -- one only needs to drop some small piece of metal (like aluminium confetti) and whola -- a fire created. Is this why I'm hearing the fire truck siren all the time here in california? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.73.228.23 (talk) 21:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

If we could start all over from the beginning, things might be different. Homes and other buildings across North America are filled with all kinds of old electrical practices that are seen as dangerous today. The design of the NEMA plugs is among the least of those dangers and doesn't cause enough of a problem to justify changing to anything different. Yerocus (talk) 17:09, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
The "bit of metal" would have to be physically large enough to bridge the contacts and yet high resistance enough to get hot rather than just tripping the breaker. I'm not saying it's impossible but it seems pretty damn unlikely. Plugwash (talk) 00:41, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
With enough outlets in use, eventually anything that can happen, does happen. This page [4] at the bottom has an illustration of why some electricians install NEMA 5-15 receptacles with the ground pin upward.Personal experience confirms that a circuit breaker can take a surprisingly long time to trip after a pretty substantial spark. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:12, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
192.73.228.23: And no self-respecting American engineer would design a sidearm like the Luger P08, which includes so many fine-tolerance moving parts that a few grains of fine sand can render it inoperable, and which cannot reliably accept replacement parts from a seemingly identical sample of the same model. Contrast with the M1911 pistol, which can be buried on a beach for three months, dug out, given a quick-and-dirty field cleaning (using urine to deal with stuck-on bits) to clear the barrel, and fired without concern. Now that we've played jingoistic point and counterpoint, can we please move on? Jeh (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

"Electric Current Abroad" is out to lunch

There's no entry for "United Kingdom" or "Great Britain" but if you look up England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, the Department of Commerce is trying to tell us that Brits use types A, C and H plugs and sockets. "A" is the nongrounding NEMA style parallel blade, "C" is the round nongrounding 2-round-pins plug, and "H" is the IsraeliAustralian-style slanted blade plug. And page 12 of the linked bulletin doesn't have a "Type M" plug at all. Does anyone ever read the references, I wonder? I haven't till now and I'm shocked...shocked... to find an error of this magnitude. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:26, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The IEC "Worldplugs" page appears much more up to date and accurate. And since it's based in Switzerland instead of the USA, why, that neatly pre-empts all the rabid anti-Americanism of Wiki editors. Now we can put the letters back in! --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

"Dorman Smith" or "Dorman & Smith"?

Google Books finds "The History of Dorman Smith, 1878-1972" by Norman Lee, Peter C. Stubbs, sadly with no preview. Other Google Books searches give references to "Dorman Smith" without the ampersand going back at least to 1961. The Tyco Electronics Web site doesn't use the ampersand when talking about circuit breakers, etc. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Good question, Dorman Smith is the familiar form to me, but take a look here: http://www.fam-oud.nl/~plugsocket/DormanSmith1.html and you will see that both DS and D&S appeared on their products. Mautby (talk) 21:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Up until very recently I thought "Sarkes Tarzian" was two people. The patents appear to have been taken out by a company called "Dorman & Smith" so I'm putting back the ampersand. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:41, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
The company is 'Dorman and Smith'. The plugs were frequently referred to simply as 'D&S plugs' They were typically five times the price of the BS1363 plugs. I B Wright (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Dorman and Smith would be nice as an article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:15, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm wondering...

There's an awful lot in this article and yet I still wonder about some points.

  1. Does a British shaver plug BS4573 take a CEE 7/16 Europlug? The spacing is less, but the holes are bigger. The Europlug pins are longer than the BS4573 pins, so maybe it woud stick out? If a BS4573 is fused for less than 2.5 A, the Europlug may blow it with some appliances. The BS4573 pins look to be too big to fit into any European 4.0/4.8 mm socket holes.
  2. And what about plugging a Europlug rated 2.5 amps into a socket protected for 16 amps? Are European appliance cords tested for this combination? (In North America our 0.4 sq mm clock cords and Christmas light sets are supposedly protected by a 15 amp panelboard circuit breaker).
  3. Is there actually, currently, a Europlug socket meant to take a CEE 7/16 plug? If there is an official socket, does it have a CEE style sheet?
  4. Why did the IEC create something *nearly* like the Swiss plug and then change the offset of the ground pin? Why not make the Schuko the standard? ( Couldn't pick one from NEMA WD-1, that goes without saying.)
  5. Why doesn't the IEC Web site know about the Thai Type I plug? Or the British shaver plug?
  6. There's a line of compatibility from "You can break a pin off and carve a notch in the plug to make it fit socket X" through "You can hammer plug Y into Socket X and it will sort-of work but you may lose grounding and it might wear out quickly" to "Plug Y fits Socket X" to "Plug Y to national standards P,Q, R... fits Socket X made to national standard S and is an approved combination that is equivalent in performance and safety to S plugs in an S socket". I'd like to know more about testing of the use of "foreign" plugs with national standard sockets. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
"Does a British shaver plug BS4573 take a CEE 7/16 Europlug?" AUIT a pure british shaver socket doesn't but such sockets don't seem to actually exist. Pretty much all shaver sockets are hybrids that can take europlugs and american and australian 2 pin plugs as well as the british shaver plug.
"And what about plugging a Europlug rated 2.5 amps into a socket protected for 16 amps? Are European appliance cords tested for this combination? (In North America our 0.4 sq mm clock cords and Christmas light sets are supposedly protected by a 15 amp panelboard circuit breaker)."
It's certainly how the europlug was intended to be used. I guess they rely on the short length of the flex to ensure the resistance is low enough in the event of a short to trip the breaker quickly and that the design of the appliance limits the possibility of overloading. We brits seem to be the only country who obsess about matching the rating of the protection to that of the flexible cord.
"Is there actually, currently, a Europlug socket meant to take a CEE 7/16 plug?"
Such sockets certainly exist on adaptors and extension leads and as pass through sockets on equipment. From a quick image search it looks like they exist as wall sockets too File:Triple-Euro-socket.JPG.
"If there is an official socket, does it have a CEE style sheet?"
no idea
" Why did the IEC create something *nearly* like the Swiss plug and then change the offset of the ground pin?"
no idea
"Why not make the Schuko the standard? ( Couldn't pick one from NEMA WD-1, that goes without saying.)"
Schuko has a few problems. Firstly it's unpolarised, secondly it's basically impossible to hybridise it with BS1363. Thirdly it's rather bulky (though so is BS1363) Nevertheless it seems the schuko/french hybrid plug is becoming the de-facto standard in Europe for earthed appliances with just a few holdouts.
-- Plugwash (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
If I had to venture a guess as to why the IEC didn't simply use the Swiss plug, I can come up with three logical speculations. First, the Swiss sockets may suffer from the same problem as the French sockets, in that while mechanically it could enforce polarization, lack of wiring standards when initially introduced means that it can't be assumed. Second, the Swiss socket is rated for only 10A whereas the IEC wanted a 16A plug, which means they had to ensure their plug couldn't go in the Swiss socket. Of course that doesn't explain why they didn't use something like the later Brazilian solution of different pin sizes with the same offset so that the Swiss plug could go in their socket. Thirdly, they may have had to come up with something that was by design incompatible with everything except the Europlug to get it out of committee, lest one nation get an advantage over the rest by having its design chosen. Carolina wren (talk) 06:36, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Reorganisation back into Alphabet types?

It's been mentioned above that the IEC's Wolrd Plugs page now names plug types A to M. The alphabet types may or may not be mentioned in the standards, and we may never know due to their outrageous pricing, but shouldn't the World Plugs page, an unofficial publication of the IEC, be reliable enough for Wikipedia? The main argument against the old format was that it wasn't supported by sources. There now seems to be one. Should the page be reorganised to list the plugs by alphabet type? --125.25.136.212 (talk) 18:24, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the letter types aren't going to be in any of the more technical IEC publications, the Web site is more of a guide to tourists than a technical standards document. You notice teh IEC plugs page doesn't even give the standards numbers that each of the plugs are made to.
The big drawbacks to the Department of Commerce publication were a) it encouraged hysterical anti-Americanism and b) it was wrong. The IEC Web page is at least more subtly wrong. I'd recommend against using the letter codes as the basis for this article because they are reasonably random anyway and we might as well use the national standard names or CEE names where we haven't yet found the national standards. Besides, we don't want the article dinged again because the USA plug is type A, therefore taking pride of place over less enlightened countries. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:43, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
While the IEC site is a little better than the US government document it still has the fundamental problem of not providing enough information on exactly which plug type they are talking about leaving readers to try and make an educated guess from based on a vauge description (edit: some but not all of the descriptions do contain some dimensions), a picture and knowlege of local standards in the countries where thet claim it is used. It also fails to maintain proper distinctions between similar but slightly different types (in particular the various variants of "two round pins" found in mainland europe). Their pictures are also highly misleading, from the text D and M are probablly supposed to be BS546 plugs but the body shape in their illustrations is totally wrong for a BS546 plug. IMO any "plug types" reference that doesn't either provide dimensional information or cite standards is pretty much useless. Plugwash (talk) 00:51, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I agree with Wtshymanski and Plugwash, for the reasons they gave. Jeh (talk) 04:01, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
I also agree with Wtshymanski and Plugwash, for the reasons they gave. Mautby (talk) 12:12, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Too many hands turn articles to jokes

I just needed to check something regarding plugs. Did I use the information on this article now? Of course not. The article back in 2009 was where I got my information. It happens all too many times. All too often people who have POV issues come along and screw up things up on this site!! Now even a article about plugs is all nationalistic: South American, European, Asian or American nothing about their class types. I need to know about similarities not jingoism on electrical items. Sorry but this site has sunk to a new low of patheticness seeing this page. 86.179.180.196 (talk) 19:10, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The "class types" to which you refer were supported by no recognized international standards body. They were (as far anyone was able to tell) invented by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce for a pamphlet. Thus they did not meet WP's standards for inclusion, let alone for the basic design of the article's narrative.
I'd think if you are offended by nationalism in articles then you would not like to see a US-invented nomenclature (one not even supported by a standards body within the US!) being described as if it was applicable and accepted throughout the world.
Nevertheless, even though the "class types" were removed, this article does describe similarities. Take a look at the table of contents and see all the section heads that include the word "compatible." There you go. Similarly the North American (NEMA) and Japan plugs, which are similar enough to sometimes be interconnected,
Oh, and if you'll look at jingoism I don't really think you'll find that it's applicable here:

Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.

In no case I can see does this article describe one country's plugs with respect to another's with bias, let alone "excessive bias." Jeh (talk) 19:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
86.179.180.196, you'll find information directly apposite to your complaint here, here, here, here, and here. —Scheinwerfermann T·C19:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
What's really odd is that the info the anon was complaining about being gone is still in the article, just no longer used as the organizing principle. Carolina wren (talk) 00:30, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Some people wouldn't be happy if you hung them with a brand-new rope. Luckily we have enough editors from the UK to correct the errors in "Electric Current Abroad" which is wrong about UK sockets. I'd still like to know who defined "Type M", since it's not in ECA. It seems to refer to the 16 amp South African plug similar to a BS546. I don't know if a SANS 164 plug fits into a BS546 socket, or vice versa, or if this is an approved combination at either end. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
The letter types are now defined on the IEC "World Plugs" Web page [5], with types M and N added to those defined in "Electric Current Abroad". IEC's page shows "Type G" (BS1363) for the UK but doesn't mention BS546 or shaver plugs - oh well, at least they don't say type A, C or H. No mention there of the new Thai plug, so even IEC isn't right up to date. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:35, 20 December 2012 (UTC)
"but doesn't mention BS546 or shaver plugs" -- while these plugs and sockets are used in the UK they are NOT used as normal "general purpose sockets". Someone arriving in the UK with a 15A BS546 would find themselves pretty much out of luck unless they had come to work in a theatre. Someone arriving with a 5A BS546 would have to use a "visitor adaptor" like other visitors do. Plugwash (talk) 11:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Plugs Sockets Connectors and Gender

I innocently corrected what I thought was a simply oversight/misunderstanding on this page; which came about because of a kit that tried to build a "plug" into chassis, and then connect a plug (in- over- round-?) it, but on later reading this talk page (read: rookie) by DieSchwarzPunkt I was rather surprised at the extent. Plugs fill holes (sockets, which may or may not be shrouded, shielded, internal, external.) Connecting pins are designated male or female and have nothing to do with plugs and sockets, which can be male or female.

The text "Plugs have male circuit contacts, while sockets have female contacts" contradicts both ASME_Y14.44-2008 which follows the same commonsense of Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners <IEEE STD 100 and ANSI Y32.16 (identical to IEEE 200-1975 and replaced by ASME Y14.44-2008) which define "Plug" and "Jack" by location or mobility, rather than gender.[3][4]>

and partly the picture with explanatory text to the right. To clear up confusion, because the hermaphroditic socket with the male earth pin shown in the picture is normally never energized (and this plug/socket combination, incompatible with surrounding countries, is likely to disappear into the museum one day) a picture of a male socket (eg a portable cement mixer might be more useful. It does not contradict Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners:- <In some cases (notably electrical power connectors), the gender of connectors is selected according to rigid rules, to enforce a sense of one-way directionality (e.g. a flow of power from one device to another). This gender distinction is implemented to enhance safety or ensure proper functionality by preventing unsafe or non-functional configurations from being set up.> because the term connectors is used which like plugs and sockets may also be of any gender and the female connector must of course be the energized one. Referring to these as sockets on cables as in common usage ( on extension leads/cables) is as bad as (audio) 'jack' plugs being shortened to jacks.Spaghettij (talk) 14:52, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

"Connectors" can be of any gender but the situation with plugs and sockets (and jacks, and inlets, and receptacles for that matter) is a lot more complicated in actual usage than ASME Y14.44-2008 would like us to believe. Consider the very widely used wording in which putting something in a hole is referred to as "plugging the hole." Hence, it would seem that electrical plugs, whether chassis-mounted or cord-mounted, have protruding electrical contacts that can fill holes. That makes them male, and the connectors that mate with them therefore must be female; a female-shaped contact cannot possibly fill any holes. This has nothing to do with which connector is at the end of a cord and which is mounted on something.
Now you are probably going to say "but Wikipedia has to follow ASME". And you are probably going to think that that settles it. Surprise! —No, we don't, and no, it doesn't. Wikipedia has to follow the usage found in reliable sources. And I can link you to dozens of different product catalogs listing tens of thousands of products that refer to things with male contacts as "plugs" and female as "sockets", "jacks", etc., regardless of cable-mount or chassis-mount.
Just for example, here is a collection of D-sub connectors from the DigiKey catalog. I selected for DB25, and then for all three varieties of "panel mount". The online catalog comes up with items with both "plug, male pins" and "receptacle, female sockets". Hm, a panel mount plug.
Or, here are some cable-mount phone jacks (female).
Just like here at Markertek.
Is this just an American thing? How about Japanese? "Yaosheng electric co.,ltd is releasing many kinds of extension cords.which is a length of flexible electrical power cord (flex) with a plug on one end and one or more sockets on the other end (usually of the same type as the plug)."
That's just three catalogs. There are dozens more. (And, yes, you'll find counterexamples too. For example.)
We went through this "follow the standard, or follow the vast majority of reliable sources?" problem awhile back regarding the IEC Binary prefixes (GiB for "binary gigabyte", etc.): Many of us, including myself, like the IEC prefixes and so felt WP should use them. However, despite the existence of an IEC standard promoting their use, the rule here is that WP must follow usage in its sources. And the number of reliable sources that completely ignore the IEC (and other organizations') standards on this point is overwhelming. Hence, we ignore that particular IEC standard, except when writing about the standard itself, or in articles where the majority of sources use the IEC prefixes.
We can ignore ASME Y14.44-2008 too (except of course in the article that covers that standard), with the same justification. To follow it blindly on this point would, I believe, confuse our readers.
Perhaps we should document the discrepancy, but we cannot ignore popular usage as documented in our sources. To a great many people, and in a great many catalogs, a female connector at the end of an AC extension cord (or of an IEC power cord for that matter) is a socket, not a plug. (It is, after all, quite different from the male connector at the other end of the cable. Why should it have the same name? Aside from the generic "connector", of course.)
btw, the term "jack plugs" is to me an abomination. If you're talking about the things with male contacts, that term is properly shortened to "plugs", not to "jacks." Again, a plug is something that fills a hole, therefore the only term that is left for the hole is "jack". Or "socket" or "receptacle." I would also note that the term "jack" is very, very rarely used with power connectors, so I'm not sure what it's doing in your note at all. Nor do we want it in the AC power plugs and sockets article. Jeh (talk) 20:05, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I'm with Jeh on this, but I believe that we should limit any discussion to the context which is described in the title, "AC power plugs and sockets". Since the late 19th century (when plugs and sockets were first introduced into British homes) the socket has been that which is mounted to the building etc, and the plug is that which has pins to engage with the socket and is attached to the appliance power cord. The usage of the terms in contexts other than "AC power plugs and sockets" is not relevant to this article. Connectors which are used at the interface between power cord and appliance are NOT plugs and sockets, they are "Appliance Couplers" as defined in IEC 60320 3.1 as the "means enabling the connection and disconnection at will, of a cord to an appliance or other equipment, it consists of two parts, a connector and an appliance inlet". IEC 60320 3.2 defines the connector as "part of the appliance coupler integral with, or intended to be attached to, the cord connected to the supply" and IEC 60320 3.3 defines the appliance inlet as "part of the appliance coupler integrated or incorporated in the appliance or equipment or intended to be fixed to it". The description as reverted by Jeh is appropriate. Mautby (talk) 21:56, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the reasoning of your arguments but not the outcomes. Yes rules are there to be broken if there's good reason, but the usage of plug and socket as I describe has a long and continuing history which should not be contradicted by one WP page, and the example I gave of false usage just caused me great confusion that led me to 'correct' this page. Additionally you have the example of light sockets on this same page, one of the common apparent exceptions which however still follows the rule because the more mobile light bulb plugs into it. Blocks of fixed sockets of course also exist on the ends of extension cords, consistent with the principle, single plugs are more mobile. Rules vs usage found in reliable sources: If you regard recent cherry-picked exception examples as more reliable than a standard which is no more than a modern repetition of many prior standards embodied in general language usage then fine, but this is not my approach. Instead, I searched on terms like "male/female plug/socket/connector chassis/mounted/extension" etc looking at the number of hits and pictures, evaluating the quality of the source, especially limiting it to AC power, unlike your examples, to build up an overview. Chassis mounted plugs are a rarity (typically shielded male sockets), as are cable mounted sockets (female plugs). "To a great many people" does not constitute a reliable source either, unless you can proove its a sizeable majority. It does not appear that the general view has changed, nor do I find any WP pages that contradict my view. IEC 60320 in fact contains a link close to a picture showing a female plug as listed, pointing straight back to this page in direct contradiction. Couplers are generally synonymous with connectors, and connectors which are used at the interface between power cord and appliance certainly ARE plugs and sockets in general usage. Or have you seen consumer appliance instructions which say "Attach the appliance coupler to the power entry module via the appliance inlet" in general? It is unfortunate that many domestic AC power plugs don't "plug their socket" except for the connecting pins, thus leading to the common misconception male=plug.
I concede this page is not the place to mention "jack" whether for socket(correct) or plug, its history is correctly described in Gender_of_connectors_and_fasteners Sorry if I trod on your royal territory.Spaghettij (talk) 07:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Spaghettij, thanks for drawing attention to some errors and inconsistencies on the IEC 60320 page which I have endeavoured to correct. There is no reason to import those errors to this page! Mautby (talk) 15:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Mautby There were of course no errors, plug and connector can be interchanged and most users will continue to plug in their PC regardless. The erroneous link is still in there for power plug under C13/C14, but if you continue on this route you have a number of other pages to 'correct' for consistency which may be less amenable to correction. May I suggest to adopt the corrections I proposed with a note and link to IEC 60320 which is missing here.Spaghettij (talk) 17:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the comments made by Jeh and Mautby. I find it hard to understand what Spaghettij is trying to achieve by dumbing down this article? I also do not understand the point that Spaghettij is making by writing "The erroneous link is still in there for power plug under C13/C14". It appears to be referring to this: "A power cord with a suitable power plug for the locality in which the appliance is used on one end and a C13 connector on the other is commonly called an IEC cord." The reference is clearly to the power plug on the opposite end of the cable to the C13 connector, where else would Spaghettij prefer that link to go? Deucharman (talk) 19:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Mautby , plug and connector should be combined per [[6]] in the Appliance section. I changed IEC 60320 to reflect this. A backtrack on Plug (not with connector) which IS (in a prior IEC section) defined as male and fitting the energized socket-outlet (but not a socket-inlet = appliance inlet). Limiting the scope of the page to Domestic AC power plugs and sockets the Section Generally the plug is the ... should read:- The plug is the movable connector attached to an electrically operated device's mains cable, and the energized socket-outlet is fixed on equipment or a building structure. Plugs have protruding prongs, blades, or pins (male) circuit contacts, while sockets have matching slots or holes (female) contacts. A socket is also called a receptacle, outlet, or power point (British English) The links are then consistent and the page consistent with the rest of WP Spaghettij (talk) 14:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
Spaghettij, you appear to be confusing interconnection couplers as defined in IEC 60320-2-2 with appliance couplers as defined in IEC 60320-1. The link you provide is to a definition of plug connector, the part of the interconnection coupler integral with or intended to be attached to the flexible cable, it is not a term which is used for any part of an appliance coupler. I note that Wtshymanski has already reverted your erroneous edit of the table in IEC 60320 which deals only with appliance couplers. (If you want to make a contribution to IEC 60320 that is actually useful, you may wish to consider adding information to the article on the various interconnection couplers specified in IEC 60320-2-2 as there is currently only a general description of that standard.) I do not see the need for your suggested change to AC power plugs and sockets. Any further discussion of IEC 60320 should take place on the talk page for that article only, accordingly I have copied across all of this section. Mautby (talk) 23:21, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Consistency with IEC 60083

As IEC 60083 is the overarching document describing "Plugs and socket-outlets for domestic and similar general use standardized in member countries of IEC" it must be that the terms "plug" and "socket outlet" are the correct terms for use in this article. Quote from abstract: "IEC/TR 60083:2009 is to give general information about the systems of plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes which are used in the IEC countries. The report only contains National Systems which are commonly used in homes and offices. It is therefore limited to systems for a.c. with a rated voltage above 50 V but not exceeding 440 V, intended for household and similar purposes, either indoors or outdoors. The report only contains systems for which standard sheets have been published in a National Standard, which may be a National Standard of the country itself or any other IEC member country." I have updated the article to mostly use the term "socket-outlet". Mautby (talk) 23:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I notice that the IEC's own "World Plugs" Web site just calls them "sockets", not "socket outlets" - so even the IEC uses one word instead of two, when not writing in standards-ese. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:26, 18 February 2013 (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 back to AC power plugs and sockets, per WP:TITLECHANGES as the old title had been stable since 2004 and there was no clear consensus to make the move. This article will be move protected for 30 days. Mike Cline (talk) 17:37, 26 February 2013 (UTC)


General discussion re article name

AC power plugs and socket-outlets → AC power plugs and sockets – Reqeust to restore the previous name of this article. The un-lovely hyphenated term is a peculairity of certain IEC standards and not the common name for the objects described. This undiscussed move seems to be collateral damage after a long running low-grade edit war. Wtshymanski (talk) 14:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC) --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The change from AC power plugs and sockets to "AC power plugs and socket-outlets" was not anticipated to be controversial, therefore was not advertised. The change was instituted because it has become clear that the use of the abbreviated term "socket" does not conform with any standard which has been examined by this editor, and the use of the abbreviated term rather than the correct term "socket-outlet" has led to misunderstanding and incorrect edits. The title used is NOT "a peculiarity of certain IEC standards" but the term used in the IEC standard which has been referenced by this article since 17th April 2005, IEC 60083. "Socket-outlet" is also the normal term used in English Language standards, and translated standards, and the name under which products are sold. The exception are the standards used in the US and Canada which refer to "Wiring Devices" in the title, and use the term "receptacle" for a socket-outlet. As this article is written in British English then the existing words in the introduction "A socket-outlet is also called a receptacle, outlet, or power point" cover that.
Here are some examples of use in standards from around the world:
Chinese standards: "GB 1002: Single phase plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes Types, basic parameters and dimensions (2008)" and "GB 2099-1: Plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes, Part 1: General requirements (2008)"
Indian standard: "IS 1293 : 2005 PLUGS AND SOCKET-OUTLETS OF RATED VOLTAGE UP TO AND INCLUDING 250 VOLTS AND RATED CURRENT UP TO AND INCLUDING 16 AMPERES — SPECIFICATION"
South African standard: "SANS 164-0:2007 Plug and socket-outlet systems for household and similar purposes for use in South Africa"
Australian/New Zealand Standard: "AS/NZS 3112:2004 Approval and test specification —- Plugs and socket-outlets"
French standard "NFC 61 314:2008 Plugs And Socket-outlets For Household And Similar Purposes - 6 A/250 V And 16 A/250 V Systems"
German standard: "DIN VDE 0620-1 VDE 0620-1:2010-02 Plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes"
UK standard: "BS 1363 - 13 A plugs, socket-outlets, adaptors and connection units"
IEC standards: "IEC/TR 60083 ed6.0 Plugs and socket-outlets for domestic and similar general use standardized in member countries of IEC" and "IEC 60906-1 ed2.0 (2009-04) IEC system of plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes - Part 1: Plugs and socket-outlets 16 A 250 V a.c" and "IEC 60906-2 ed3.0 (2011-05) IEC system of plugs and socket-outlets for household and similar purposes - Part 2: Plugs and socket-outlets 15 A 125 V a.c. and 20 A 125 V a.c." (The latter is the International standard for NEMA type plugs and receptacles).
And also examples of its use in products from Australia: Clipsal, and UK: Honeywell/MK, Legrand
Apart from being both technically correct and unambiguous, the title "AC power plugs and socket-outlets" also has the advantage that it incorporates the common English words used on both sides of the Atlantic: "socket" and "outlet", thus it cannot be described as not being WP:COMMONNAME.
The proposal to undo this improvement in the title has no merit and should be rejected. Mautby (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Too long, didn't read. WP:COMMONNAME and common sense should prevail oveer standards-ese. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:13, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Mautby's changes seem to me to be very sensible and improve the article, it should also avoid the type of dispute due to misunderstanding which recently took place with Spaghettij. Wtshymanski's comment immediately above is very sad, but not untypical of his combative and unhelpful style, see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wtshymanski. Wtshymanski, if you cannot be bothered to read another's work, please stay away. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deucharman (talk • contribs) 22:29, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Of course "socket-outlet" does not comply with WP:COMMONNAME, because this term is not at all in common use! Mautby's argument that it "combines the words in common use on both sides of the Atlantic" is without merit. If we had an article on the part of a car that covers the engine, would we title it "Automobile hood-bonnets"? Nonsense. As Wtshymanski said in his previous edit comment (and I wish he'd put it in his comments here), nobody ever asks "I need to charge my phone. Is there a socket-outlet nearby?" In fact, I've never heard anyone use this term outside of a couple of standards, nor seen it in any manufacturer's, distributor's, or retailer's catalog. (I never heard it while visiting the UK either, and since I'm always asking for someplace to plug in my laptop while at various clients', I'd think I would have.) This undiscussed, ridiculous, and WP:POINTy move should be undone immediately. Jeh (talk) 22:47, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
Jeh, you say you have not seen socket-outlet "in any manufacturer's, distributor's, or retailer's catalog". I suggest that before leaping into posting, you take the trouble to follow the three links whch I provided above, the first is to the company I believe to be the most important supplier of Australian socket-outlets, the other two are the major UK manufacturers, you will see that "socket-outlet" is exactly the term they use. Also, try googling "socket-outlet", particularly images, you may be surprised. Your lack of knowledge of the appropriate term is no excuse to claim that it is wrong. Your attempt to equate "socket-outlet" to "Automobile hood-bonnets" is not at all helpful as the latter is a non-existent term. Mautby (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
I confirm that "socket-outlet" is the correct term to distinguish between a wall mounted AC power outlet and a generic socket - a term which covers many other things. I wonder why this article has been wrong for so long? Why are editors who have little knowledge, and who cannot trouble themselves to read what has been written by others who appear to have knowledge, so arrogant that they simply over-ride the others? I see from Deuchar's reference to Wtshymanski's record that he is well known for this sort of thing. As someone who has been watching WP for a long time but has rarely contributed, I find such behaviour highly reprehensible. FF-UK (talk) 01:18, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Per WP:COMMONNAME, the article has not been "wrong for so long." That is the point.
Mautby, I did read your links. So I left out "before reading Mautby's links". The fact remains that in my college EE program, in 40 years of buying and installing not a few AC wiring devices, and in specifying and overseeing installation of many many more in business and technical scenarios, I never once heard nor read the term in either spoken or common written usage, catalogs not excepted. So, no, in my experience (which is not inconsiderable) it doesn't comply with WP:COMMONNAME.
Mautby, Deucharman, FF-UK: Can you honestly tell me that you use and hear this term in common use?
Frankly I doubt it, and I base that conclusion on your own words. You see, in extensive discussion both here and at talk:BS 1363, none of you three ever seem to have typed "socket-outlet", nor even on the BS 1363 page itself, except, again, in quotes from the titles of standards documents and the like... until now, when you've decided to support this rename.
So I have to wonder if you're not just having a little joke. If this is the correct term, and it's in common use, why aren't you using it?
FF-UK (talk · contribs) in particular has previously identified himself as associated with the UK group "Fatally Flawed". And that group's web site does not use the term "socket-outlet", except in quotes from equipment maker MK and from an article written by an official at a UK standards institute. In FF's own writing on their site they simply use the common term "socket." Nor have any of these three WP editors ever supported FF's position about "socket-outlet covers", only referring to "socket covers".
I therefore must conclude that none of Mautby, Deucharman, or FF-UK actually use or hear this awkward term in common use. So, WP:COMMONNAME? I don't think so. We might as well rename the Switzerland article to "Swiss Confederation".
I must give you credit, though: as an example of the idiocy of insisting on "correct" names for articles instead of following WP:COMMONNAME, this will serve on WP for many years. Jeh (talk) 03:40, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Definition of socket outlet from Oxford Dictionary: "noun, a socket for an electric plug that is fixed to a wall and connected to an electricity supply."
Definition of socket outlet from [The Free Dictionary
Another web reference from diyfixit
An article from Voltimum, the leading internet portal for the electrical industry in Europe. Mautby (talk) 03:59, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Support: "Socket-outlet" is technically correct, and used by the professionals. "Socket" or "Outlet" (but not both together) are used by the general public, depending on locale. None of the following websites mention "outlet" on the search results or item descriptions for sockets:
B&Q
Wickes
Screwfix
I would also look for non-UK sites, but off the top of my head, I don't know of any.
Which of the previous two groups is the article aimed at? I would support the change to plain "socket" on the grounds of commonname. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:58, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Support per COMMONNAME. The form as used in the standards should be mentioned at the start of the lead, but can't be said to be in common use. These are used by everyone, everyday & the correct technical term is not always the appropriate article title. Mautby was clearly totally wrong to think his undiscussed move would be uncontroversial (it seems little is with this article) & should consider carefully whether he is right here. Johnbod (talk) 11:09, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I agree with the common use and sense too, and the British usage is sockets or sometimes outlets but rarely socket-outlet except in written documentation. If the title should change I propose Domestic AC plugs and sockets. Any search on plugs and sockets will arrive here anyway, and the primary readers of this article will likely only be interested in the domestic/international/maybe historical aspects. It is interesting how the conversation wandered, but irrelevant. The major issue remains, are plugs and sockets defined by mobility (plug is always more mobile, socket is more fixed, even if its attached to a cable, like a light socket) or is the, plugs have pins and are therefore male (power from the female!) idea which is correct from a safety network point of view, but is unfortunately "logically" extended in reverse as :- all male connectors are plugs therefore all females are sockets idea correct, which I disagree with from either a standards or common usage point of view as argued above and makes "Generally the plug is the movable connector..." false.Spaghettij (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Chaheel Riens draws attention to terminology used on three major UK websites which sell electrical accessories. Let's look at that more closely by taking a very common product from a leading manufacturer, the MK Electric model K781WHI in the "Logic Plus" white range, it is properly described as a Socket Outlet, 13A 2 gang. B&Q describe it as an "MK Double Socket White 13A" , Wickes as an "MK Logic Plus Unswitched Double Socket" and Screwfix| as an "MK Logic Plus 13A 2-Gang DP Unswitched Plug Socket White". Which would be considered WP:reliable sources? I suggest that MK Electric know what they are talking about, having led innovation in British electrical accessories since the 1920s. The suppliers are all fine companies, but non-specialist and clearly none have a particular interest in precisely describing their products. In this example MK Electric must be considered the WP:reliable source. Deucharman (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
Disagree with your conclusion. You miss the point about commonname and reliable sources - there is no denying that socket-outlet is the a correct name, but we are talking about which is the most applicable and appropriate commonname for the article - an article which is not being published in a specialist trade medium, but one that is used and viewed by the general public. The clue is in the title - which of the terms is the commonname? Which is used more than the other? The answer is socket. It may not be the most correct - especially to those who have an intimate knowledge of the subject - of which there are obviously a few here - but it is the name used by the greater percentage of the population and readership. Chaheel Riens (talk) 21:14, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
I see that WP:Article titles tells us that "Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources.". WP:reliable sources tells us that "Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources" I believe that National and International Standards, which are produced by committees of experts (so are inherently peer reviewed), fall into that category. WP:COMMONNAME is used in this discussion as if it is the only thing which matters, which clearly it is not. There also seems to be an assumption that WP:COMMONNAME supports changing this article back to the previous name, but clearly those claiming this have not understood WP:Article titles. WP:COMMONNAME tells us that "The most common name for a subject, as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources, is often used as a title because it is recognizable and natural." but also "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources."

So what is ambiguous? There is no question that there are a variety of common names for socket-outlets in everyday use. In North America there seems to be confusion as to whether "receptacle" or "outlet" is the correct term, outlet is certainly in common use, but what is specified by NEMA and also sold in stores is a receptacle. A single page document from the US "Electrical Safety Foundation International" which describes "tamper resistant receptacles" uses the terms "receptacles", "outlets", "wall outlet", "electrical outlets" and "electrical receptacles", just one indication of that confusion. This article as it stands lists some alternative names: "A socket-outlet is also called a receptacle, outlet, or power point" but there are others. See the talk section "Plugs and Sockets" near the top of this page, it includes this: "It should be noted that the part of the pair that has holes is technically (and correctly) known as a 'socket' but some technical sources will also call it a 'power point'. Since this is an encyclopaedia, the technical usage is the one that should prevail. However, one editor is entirely correct in that the term 'plug' is used by a large proportion of the (non technical) British English speaking population to refer to the part that is screwed to the wall, though I have the terms used in this manner by electricians as well." (originally posted by DieSwartzPunkt). To that list I would add "plug socket", "wall socket", "wall plug", "13 amp socket" and "the electric" (as in "plug it into the electric"), all in common use. I agree with DieSwartzPunkt that "Since this is an encyclopaedia, the technical usage is the one that should prevail.", but the correct and unambiguous technical term is "socket-outlet".

Early catalogues for plugs and sockets, such as the GEC catalogues of 1893 and 1911, make it clear that accessories were sold in sets (a plug and a socket) and that the set was normally referred to as a "plug" or a "wall plug", so at that time a "socket" was part of a "plug"! It is probable that the term "plug top" (also mentioned by DieSwartzPunkt, and still in common use in the UK) originates from that era, used as a way of distinguishing the portable part of the plug from the fixed part (the socket). The records of the British "Directorate of Post-War Planning Electrical Installations (Study) Committee" include a 1943 memo which included this: "Two standard plug tops for the uprated 10-ampere B.S.S. three-pin socket, one accommodating a 5 ampere cartridge fuse and, the other without a fuse for loads between 5 and 10 amperes." so "plug top" was clearly in use by experts in the 1940s.

The use of "socket-outlet" as a means of defining precisely a "a socket for an electric plug that is fixed to a wall and connected to an electricity supply" (as opposed to some other socket) dates back to at least the early 1930s, BS 546:1934 is entitled "Two-Pole and Earthing-Pin Plugs and Socket Outlets", whereas earlier standards simply referred to plugs and sockets, eg: the 1930 standard BS 372 "Side-Entry Wall Plugs and Sockets for Domestic Purposes". It appears that a need was recognized to use an unambiguous term, and all subsequent plug and socket standards in the UK refer to "socket-outlets". As Mautby has pointed out, the term "socket-outlets" is now common to international and other standards (with the exception of NEMA).

Those who wish this article to be a serious contribution to reference works on the subject should open their eyes. By using only one of a number of common names in the title, rather than the established correct name, the article is degraded to the level of the inaccurate variety of descriptions given on retail websites, as illustrated by Mautby's examples. I gather that Jeh is probably American, his/her statement that he/she "never heard anyone use this term outside of a couple of standards, nor seen it in any manufacturer's, distributor's, or retailer's catalog. (I never heard it while visiting the UK either)" is clearly of no significance whatever. We are told that WP:reliable sources are required, Jeh's personal anecdotes fail any reasonable test for such. FF-UK (talk) 00:17, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

UK retailer Maplin. In these search results for "socket" there is ONE occurrence of "outlet socket" on that page and it is for TV antenna and satellite connections.
UK retailer Radio Shack: The word "outlet" appears nowhere on the page listing a number of AC line sockets.
UK retailer Wickes: The category "electrical switches and sockets" finds almost 300 products, some of them being AC line sockets. None of them are called "socket-outlets". All are just called "sockets".
A BBC writer does not use the term "socket-outlet" in an article on the subject, even though he quotes someone else using the term, he sees fit to ignore it.
Shall we try the US?
US manufacturer Leviton does not use the term "socket-outlet".
US manufacturer Harvey Hubell does not use the term "socket-outlet".
There are many more, but I believe that should be enough to establish that no, this isn't just my "personal anecdotes".
And I'm still waiting for the explanation of why Mautby, FF-UK, and Deucharman never themselves used the term "socket-outlet" in their own writing on WP, before they embarked on this particular little tear. If they're so insistent that "socket-outlet" is the correct name, why haven't they been using it? Jeh (talk) 04:34, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
FF-UK has discussed all the various terms used for socket-outlets in both the US and elsewhere, neither the terms "socket-outlet" nor "socket" are generally used here in the US, but as FF-UK pointed out, there is US confusion between "receptacle" and "outlet", with "outlet" being possibly the more common term. The article is, however, written in British English, and there are many more terms used in that form of the language, again as reviewed by FF-UK. I have nothing to add to FF-UKs explanation of why the usage on retail-sites cannot be considered as WP:reliable sources. Mautby (talk) 14:20, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Jeh, are you seriously offering up Peter Day, a BBC "global business correspondent", as a WP:reliable sources for an electrical engineering article? The writer shows a complete ignorance of the actual reasons why plug designs vary in different countries, which is simply that technical development took place to satisfy a local market place before anyone had given consideration to the idea that one day we would be moving appliances between countries as a result of frequent global travel. The reason why developed countries are unwilling to adopt the electrical systems of another nation has nothing to do with protectionism, but everything to do with the unjustifiable economics of changing out all of the existing fixed accessories. The situation would be even worse in the UK, Ireland and other countries using the ring circuit (which require the use of fused plugs) as the entire wiring infrastructure in domestic and commercial buildings would need to be replaced! Peter Day's research is not up to normal BBC standards as he completely failed to grasp that products of the type he is praising are highly dangerous (they do not make good contact with plug pins because they are attempt to accommodate so many different shapes and sizes, and they also fail to provide any earthing contact for Schuko type plugs!) The sale of such non-conforming accessories is completely illegal in the UK, a point on which Day also seems to be blissfully unaware. The only item in Day's piece which is of relevance to this discussion is his use of the term "plug socket" as further evidence of that term being one of the many commonly used in place of the correct term "socket outlet"
A quote from a WP:reliable source, the IET, has been inserted by the editor of the piece. The quote, from Mark Coles, Technical Regulations Manager at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, does, of course, use the correct term. When I first saw this article at the time it was published I was surprised by Mark's association with it, so I contacted him. It turns out that BBC simply asked him for a comment on universal sockets without telling him anything about Day's piece, Mark's comments are not a reaction to the article.
Most references on the FatllyFlawed site are to "socket covers" rather than "sockets" or "socket-outlets". The term "socket-outlet cover" does not appear on the site because a "socket-outlet cover" would be something which covered the entire outlet, whereas a "socket cover" (which is what FatallyFlawed is concerned with) is something which plugs into the socket. FatallyFlawed attempts to use the terms "socket-outlet" and "socket" as appropriate, but I will ask those responsible for the website content to review whether we have the right balance. FF-UK (talk) 16:19, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
I am seriously using both an article on the BBC web site and various manufacturers' and retailers' sites as evidence of common usage. There is not a question about what the standard says, but there is most certainly a question about what the article should be titled, and per WP:COMMONNAME, common usage should hold sway. WP:ASTONISH also applies; the article title should not be surprising to most readers. It is quite evident that term term "socket-outlet" is not in common use, at least not by any sensible interpretation of the term "common." Jeh (talk) 19:51, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
We know that there are many common names used to refer to "socket-outlets", that is not in dispute, but there is only one correct and unambiguous term which can be verified by reference to WP:reliable sources. As FF-UK has correctly reminded us, WP:reliable sources tells us that "Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources". Retailer sites and blogs from BBC correspondents do not fall into that category, standards bodies and professional institutions clearly do, and the evidence from the latter group cannot be trumped by the former. On the other hand, I agree with your edit comment that "manufacturers are most definitely reliable sources about what they themselves call their products" which is why I wrote the following in an earlier post: "examples of its use in products from Australia: Clipsal, and UK: Honeywell/MK, Legrand" Clearly, as "socket-outlet" is not a term in use here in North America, then Hubble and Leviton websites are not going to use that term, just as they do not call their products "sockets" either. Mautby (talk) 20:39, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Mautby, the mental gymnastics you will go through to defend your position are truly amazing. Per you, links showing use of "socket-outlet" by manufacturers (even though these could not be considered "scholarly works") do provide support for your preferred article title, but links showing use of other terms and non-use of "socket-outlet" are somehow irrelevant. Jeh (talk) 22:02, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Not mental gymnastics, just a logical case. The links which show the multitude of other terms simply demonstrate the confusion which exists, what cannot be justified is to claim such sources as being WP:reliable sources. The evidence of the confusion of common names is an excellent reason to adopt the only term which is agreed on by standards bodies, professional institutions and leading manufacturers. There is simply no valid argument for doing anything else. Mautby (talk) 03:20, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that nobody is claiming that "socket-outlet" is not the proper term, the dispute is about whether it is the best term to use here. Socket-outlet is a combination of two words, socket describes the form, and outlet describes the function. In America the terms receptacle (form) and outlet (function) are used, but they do not seem to be used combined. One of the reasons for this could be that NEMA receptacles are mostly sold as bare components which are then installed in a box and finished with a wall plate, it becomes an outlet. In Britain and Australia a socket-outlet is generally an integrated device, you cannot normally separate the socket from the faceplate. In European countries there is a mix of modular and integrated accessories. We have seen that there are a great variety of names used in British English, sometimes socket is used alone, but often with a qualifying term such as power socket, wall socket, plug socket, mains socket etc. those qualifying terms help to define what sort of socket is being discussed. A socket alone could be many things, even "AC power socket" does not define the subject of this article, "socket-outlet" does. There can be no doubt that "socket-outlet" is a self-explanatory term, its meaning is not in doubt and it is unambiguous. "Socket-outlet" is the both the correct term and the most accurate term to use in this article. Deucharman (talk) 12:33, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
Observation: This looks to me nothing more than a dispute over personal preferences which is unlikely to get anywhere. Everyone contributing here seems determined to have, as the article name, their own preferred title. Personally, I had no problem with "... sockets". Realisticly, I cannot come up with a convincing argument not to use "... socket-outlets" given that a significant number of standards and references use the term (hence there is no shortage of citations for the usage). I agree that few people will actually use the term "socket-outlet" in everyday conversation, but there is most likely a split between those that abbreviate it to "socket" and those that abbreviate it to "outlet". I can see no reason not to retain the current title. Clearly, redirects from "AC power plugs and sockets" and "AC power plugs and outlets", not to mention "AC power plugs and receptacles", is entirely in order, and the article can note in the lede paragraph, the general usages. I B Wright (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Deucharman, your after-the-fact rationalizations make no sense. Even though you can certainly order a part by specifying a "socket-outlet" from various suppliers it most certainly is not an "outlet" for anything until it's connected to a live branch circuit. And your claim that "AC power socket" does not define the subject of the article makes less than no sense. What else could it refer to, especially in the context of the full title, "AC power plugs and sockets"?
Wright, the "convincing reason" is WP:COMMONNAME. (I would add to the examples there the RS-232 article, which is not called TIA-232-F, which has been the current name of the standard for 16 years!) The fact that IEC itself does not use "socket-outlet" in ordinary prose on their own pages written for a general audience shows that even they realize that it is an unfamiliar and awkward term, more evocative of questions than helpful. Jeh (talk) 20:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Participants in this discussion are reminded that there is a statement near the top of this page explicitly declaring that this article is written in British English. Roger (talk) 20:58, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think British English is at all the issue here. The use of "socket-outlet" is far from universal within the UK (see various links above; the manufacturer MK uses it, but several retailers do not). Nor, as Mautby has pointed out, is "socket" particularly American; more manufacturers and retailers tend to use the term "receptacle" than "socket". Rather, "socket-outlet" is being pushed due to its appearance in relevant IEC standards. The IEC's full name is of course "International Electrotechnical Commission" and it is based in Switzerland, not the UK. So I see no connection between "socket-outlet" and British English. If there were a strong connection, I would suggest that since AC outlets/receptacles/whatever are used in many places and the article covers many non-English-speaking countries, promoting a term with strong ties to one country in an article of international scope would not be the best thing for an international encyclopedia and amounts to POV-pushing. Please see WP:ENGVAR - "this article is written in British English" is not an excuse to be exclusionary. Jeh (talk) 21:53, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Jeh, I know that you are intent on playing down the use of the term "socket-outlet" but reference to what terms retailers use is really not helpful unless you are honest and acknowledge that retailers are not WP:reliable sources by any stretch of the imagination, and as been previously demonstrated in this discussion, there is no consistency in the terms they use. I gave an example earlier as to how three leading retailers mangled the description of the MK Electric model K781WHI in the "Logic Plus" white range, it is properly described as a Socket Outlet, 13A 2 gang. But, B&Q describe it as an "MK Double Socket White 13A" , Wickes as an "MK Logic Plus Unswitched Double Socket" and Screwfix| as an "MK Logic Plus 13A 2-Gang DP Unswitched Plug Socket White", that sort of evidence proves nothing.
Jeh, another thing that you should really not do is try to dismiss "socket-outlet" as just something that IEC standards use, (and what has the office location of an international body got do with it?) "Socket-outlet" is the (English) term used in all the standards I have found other than NEMA. In national standards, European standards and IEC standards, "socket-outlet" is completely consistent, outside North America!
Although I am British I live in the US, yesterday I had breakfast with 10 American friends, evenly split M/F, and tried a little informal research to find what those folk (ages from 14 to 80) called the thing into which they plugged the vacuum cleaner, nobody said receptacle, 4 said "outlet", 4 said "socket", and the big surprise was that 2 of the older gentlemen said "plug". My look of surprise at that was probably obvious, I would have expected it back in the UK, but in the US? they both assured me that it really was the term they used! I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, claiming my friends to be WP:reliable sources, just a further indication that there is NO unambiguous single WP:COMMONNAME, only one correct name and a variety of other names. My understanding is that one of the key properties of an encyclopaedia is that it is authoritative, that demands an accurate correct name, if that is also the WP:COMMONNAME, then all well and good, but it should not be one picked from a jumble of many terms in common use. WP:Article titles tells us that "Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources.", that should take precedent. Mautby (talk) 22:44, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
Not only is "socket-outlet" something promoted by IEC and related standards, it is not even used by the IEC in writing intended for a general audience! Would MK call their product a "socket-outlet" if not for the standard? I seriously doubt it. They'd use a more familiar term.
You continue to ignore the point of WP:COMMONNAME. It contains numerous examples of cases where the "accurate correct name" is not the preferred article title, even though the "accurate correct name" obviously does appear in RSs. For two more examples, consider "Switzerland" (article title) vs. "Swiss Confederacy" (the real name of the country), or most appropriately here, "RS-232" (article title) vs. "TIA-232-F" (the actual name of the standard). Remember, WP is intended to be written for a general audience, not a technical one. Jeh (talk) 03:33, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I have noticed that Jeh cannot seem to get past WP:COMMONNAME and consider all of the other guidance which WP provides. He also prefers to concentrate on attempting to provide "evidence of absence", this somewhat negative approach I find rather unhelpful, and it certainly does not prove anything in a general sense. There is plenty of real evidence from standards institutions and from manufacturers to guide us in the correct terminology, but I would like to add to that a few of the non-standards publications from the 22,000+ results produced by a search for "socket-outlets" on Google Books.

Let's start with non-engineering publications from around the world.

Australia: Horse Sense: The Guide to Horse Care in Australia and New Zealand

USA: Encyclopedia Of Family Health, Popular Science

UK: The new illustrated science and invention encyclopedia, Terence Conran's New house book, The Complete Guide To Business Risk Management, The Manual of Museum Planning, Sustainable Consumption: The Implications Of Changing Infrastructures Of Provision, Converting to an Eco Friendly Home, The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques, New Scientist Jan 10, 1980, Hospital and Health Management, Volume 26, Architectural Details 2003: Annual Selected Edition from Detail Review of Architecture

And some engineering publications from around the world.

Australia: Operate computing package Access 2002

Austria: Safety of Electromedical Devices: Law - Risk - Chances

Germany: Overvoltage Protection of Low-Voltage Systems, Siemens Review, Electrical installations handbook, Training in Injection Molding, Plastics Flammability Handbook

Hong Kong: Modern Electric Vehicle Technology

India: Engineering Practices, Basic Elec Engg,2e, A Text Book of Design of Electrical Installations

Kenya: Kenya Gazette

South Africa: FCS Electrical Principles and Practice L4

UK: The Stage Lighting Handbook, Electricity in your French house, Practical Grounding, Bonding, Shielding and Surge Protection, Electrical services supply and distribution, International Symposium for the Organization and Management of Construction, Newnes Electrical Pocket Book, Electrical Design Estimating And Costing, Handbook on Bs7671: The Iee Wiring Regulations - A Handbook of Compliance, Building Surveys and Reports, Architect's Pocket Book, Laxton's Building Price Book 2007, Barry's Introduction to Construction of Buildings, Basic Electrical Installation Work, Design of Electrical Services for Buildings, Plumbing, Electronic Protection & Security Systems

Do we really have to continue this debate when there is so much incontrovertible evidence that "socket-outlet" (with or without hyphen) is the correct term use in an encyclopaedia? Mautby (talk) 19:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I guess you didn't look at any other terms? I get 41,000 hits for { "wall socket" AC } alone. I don't think I need bother adding up all the other variants I can think of. By the way, it would make this debate a lot more pleasant if you would drop the absolutism. There is "incontrovertible evidence" that the "socket-outlet" is not unheard-of in professional/technical circles, particularly in standards, but WP is supposed to be written for a general audience. And I think the general audience is going to look at "socket-outlet" and say "huh, what?" See WP:ASTONISH. I have given you numerous examples of cases where WP articles are not titled in accordance with relevant standards, but rather with popular usage. This should be another one—as it had been for a very long time, before you took it upon yourself to change it without discussion. Jeh (talk) 19:59, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
As examples from your list, Popular Science, Operate computing package Access 2002 and The New Illustrated Science and Invention Encyclopedia - all return more results for "sockets" (2!) than they do for "socket-outlets" (1!), and FCS Electrical Principles and Practice L4 uses both terms on the same page - "socket-outlet" in the text, and "socket" in the diagram. Modern Electric Vehicle Technology uses both in equal measure. Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Does Jeh really think that Mautby was trying to win a google count race? I read it as being just a way of demonstrating that Jeh's continued assertions that "socket-outlet" is only used in standards is simply untrue. And by the way, I just tried searching google books for "wall socket" AC and only got 5,650 results (I am not about to waste time analyzing them, but a quick look at the top 100 results seemed to show that they were almost all American). I also only got 15,400 for "socket-outlet". As far as searching Wikipedia goes, anyone looking for "socket" or "outlet" is going to quickly find this article, search "electric socket" or "electric outlet" or "socket outlet" and you get here directly. Had the technical term been something obscure I could have understood the reaction, but as "socket-cover" includes both key elements of most of the common terms that people call these objects no one will be astonished, and objecting to the use of the proper term seems bizarre. It's time to stop throwing rattles out of the pram and accept that we now have the right title. Deucharman (talk) 21:28, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
I think that Chaheel Riens should explain to us what point he is trying to make. The problem with "socket" is that it is imprecise and ambiguous unless further qualified, which appears to be the reason that Mautby did what he did. Chaheel Riens' discoveries do a good job of demonstrating that ambiguity. He finds that there are two uses of "socket" in the same issue of Popular Science, but that is not very helpful when one of the instances is for a candlestick socket (that which holds a candle) and the other (for a radio receiver project) is for octal sockets for valves (or tubes in American usage). Similarly, in FCS Electrical Principles and Practice he has found some sort of non-standard socket for a stove, and a socket for the end cap of a fluorescent lamp. So what? Deucharman (talk) 21:56, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
So the point is that Mautby's "incontrovertible evidence" is not that. He is claiming that usage of the term in these articles is undeniable proof that the term should be used as the basis of the article title and content. I am using the same articles to show that the use of the term "socket" is equally prevalent, and so his incontrovertible evidence is not incontrovertible evidence.
Based therefore on his own evidence he should accept that "socket" is a valid - if not more prevalent - usage of the term, and so accept the reversion back to the original title. By the way, instead of "non-standard socket for a stove", don't you mean "non-standard socket-outlet for a stove"? Oh, the irony. Chaheel Riens (talk) 09:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Chaheel Riens should think more carefully before commenting. We all know that Jeh would like us to believe that "socket outlet" is used only in standards, and by manufacturers only because it is used in standards. Mautby seems to have demonstrated that this concept is not true. Those pointing out that "socket-outlet" is the appropriate term for use in an encyclopaedia have acknowledged that there are many other terms in common use, that neither needs to be proved or disproved, but "socket-outlet" is the only unambiguous term fully supported by reliable sources and is the term used in standards and by professional bodies. Regarding the stove reference, I note that the first usage for that subject (p28) is "specialised socket outlet", following on from that, on p29, there is a reference to a "specialised socket" and an illustration of a "recessed range receptacle". I am not familiar with South African wiring, but I do understand that the familiar British method of using a wired cooker connection unit is not used there and the preferred method is to use a stove coupler compliant with IEC 60309-1. It is not at all clear which "specialised socket" the piece refers to, an industrial socket outlet or a stove coupler. Just more evidence of the need to use precise terms! Deucharman (talk) 13:08, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Deucharman. Chaheel Riens is very hard to fathom, seeming from contributions to other articles to be mainly interested in Science Fiction and Fantasy, indeed, "Chaheel Riens" is a character in a Science Fiction book. However, I am more interested in science and engineering facts than fiction and fantasy, and I fail to see what knowledge, experience or understanding Chaheel Riens brings to this subject. Someone who is unable to distinguish between a wax candle socket, an octal valve socket and a socket outlet does not inspire confidence! Chaheel Riens appears to be on a crusade to dumb the article down, but why? Mautby (talk) 14:32, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
I fail to see what my editing history has to do with this conversation, apart from to show that I edit a vast number of articles, that in general my edits are well received and not considered controversial, and that in such a history rarely have I come across such an obsession with technical minuatae and the opinion that anything not begining with the term "BS" is of no importance to anybody or anything. Whilst yes, I am no accredited expert on technical matters within this realm, that in fact puts me in a good place to recognise when others are falling into the trap of ownership and obsessive editing - believing that their opinion is the only one that matters and whether it is of value to the article - and to those who may read it, which includes using terminology that will be familiar to them.
My sole objection to the naming and excessive use of the term "socket-outlet" is based not on its accuracy, of which I readily admit - but of the fact that it is not the recognised term used by the wider public. There is no point in having an article name that may be correct, but that is never used, and thus is not a common name - I note that in Mautbys charming after dinner story, not one of the guests referred to the socket as a "socket-outlet", instead using different terms, all of which are acceptable. I wonder what the reaction of his guests would have been had Mautby then insisted that his guests forever use the term "socket-outlet", because that's the correct term, and they are sadly misinformed and inaccurate in their understanding of such things?
I am not attempting to "dumb down" the article, merely keep it at a level where it does not turn into a technical journal, and confuse or dissuade readers from further study.
Anyhoo, I would dearly love to carry on this discussion, as entertained as I am by Mautby's clear ignorance of anything that happens outside a technical journal - such as the real world - but I must now jump aboard my spaceship and return to the planet Klep, where I will recharge my boogatron powered spaceship by plugging it into an anti-dodecahedral-quantum-biased-socket-inlet. There, that should give you enough ammunition for a good while yet.
In all seriousness, circumstances are forcing a wikibreak on me, so I am unable to continue this riveting discourse - good luck with your crusade, and remember If you don't agree with anybody, just revert and claim that they were being unreasonable. Seems to have worked for you so far. Chaheel Riens (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
Thank you to Chaheel Riens for a further demonstration of complete failure to comprehend what is written. My story clearly referred to breakfast, Chaheel Riens read that as "dinner". I did not suggest in any way that these folk were my guests, it was just a typical Sunday morning gathering at a local breakfast place. This was a group of Americans, and one thing that is not disputed is that Americans do not use the term "socket-outlet", but they do know do what it means! Suggestions that "socket-outlet" is in some way too technical are simply laughable. The point of the story was to reinforce understanding that there are a variety of terms in common use, "socket" by itself has no greater claim to be THE WP:common name than any of the other common terms, which is why it makes sense to use the correct and fully descriptive term (completely understandable to the majority), rather than one of a jumble of common but ambiguous terms. Mautby (talk) 21:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment:Common sense seems to have taken flight here. While I have no particular view either way whether the article is called "AC power plugs and sockets" or "AC power plugs and socket-outlets", all it requires is a note in the opening lede as to the alternative usages. The continuing use of 'socket-outlet' throughout the article is both unnecessary and cumbersome. Pick one term and stick with it. Since the article is written in British English the term 'socket' would be prefereble. DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 13:08, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Reverted content to "socket" not "socket-outlet"

Morning all. I've had a look through the history, and it is apparent the above discussion is not only related to the title of the article, but the use of the term throughout and in general. As per Bold, revert, discuss the addition of this content into the article was made - Bold, and was reverted, revert, and we are now in the discuss stage. The addition has turned out to be fairly controversial, and as evidenced, discussion over its validity is still ongoing. As per BRD the original instance - ie prior to the changes - should remain until discussion is complete and consensus has been reached - hence I've reverted.

Please note - this is policy, so do not re-instate unless the culmination of the discussion agrees to the insertion: (Quoted from the page itself)

  • Do not edit war. The BRD cycle does not contain another "R" after the "D". Discussion and a move toward consensus must occur before starting the cycle again. If one skips the Discussion part, then restoring one's edit is a hostile act of edit warring and is not only uncollaborative, but can get one into trouble. The objective is to seek consensus, not force one's own will upon other editors. That never works.

Chaheel Riens (talk) 06:45, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Chaheel Riens, yours was not a reversion, but a wholsale culling of the term "socket-outlet", which is indisputably the correct term for the item. It is apparent that some editors would prefer an ambiguous term to be used in preference to the correct term, but that is not in line with WP policy! To remove the term "socket-outlet" from the titles of all of the standards which use it (they were shown in this document prior to this unexpected controversy arising) is an act of juvenile irresponsibilitty. There may possibly be an argument for using a different mix of "socket" and "socket-outlet" in the article (you will note that the article as edited by me uses both terms), but such changes are better left while the discussion is ongoing. There is no justification for deliberately introducing inaccuracy! As you say, please do not edit war. Mautby (talk) 13:23, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Chaheel Riens, If you want to start a new section then please do that, not just simulate a section title which damages the flow of the conversation. I have corrected your error. Mautby was quite right to reverse your attempt at editing the article also, you caused quite a lot of damage to it! FF-UK (talk) 15:20, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
(ec)The sub heading was correct because this topic is directly related to the title of the article, hence I have reverted your incorrect change. Please read my comments below and understand what wp:brd is all about, because none of you do right now, and are likely to be blocked if you are not careful.
Please read the above statement again. BRD requires that discussion is conducted, but while doing so the original terms remain in the article. If you believe them to be incorrect, then you make that your argument for the change, but you do not get to keep your preferred version in the meantime.
A bold change was made here - adding in the term "socket-outlet" however it was contested and removed here. Note that it was not originally removed by me, so this is not some single editor partisan war, but removed by a different editor. We now discuss. This is how Wikipedia works. If you revert again in the face of agreed consensus there will be no other option but to report you to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring, albeit reluctantly, as your changes are in good faith, just inappropriate while discussion is still ongoing. Chaheel Riens (talk) 15:28, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Chaheel Riens, As Mautby attempted to explain to you, what you did was not revert to the state of the article before this discussion started, but removed ALL references to "socket-outlets" including those which were previously present, and by so doing you have committed an act of vandalism. The state in which you have twice left the article had a number of inaccurate titles of standards in it. You must not undertake such crude slashing. I am not convinced that every one of Mautby's modifications is strictly necessary, but I think most are. I am about to edit it on that basis, but in the meantime I have undone your edit to allow me to proceed. FF-UK (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2013 (UTC)
Can't say you weren't warned - off to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring we all go. Chaheel Riens (talk) 17:11, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Dispute resolution?

One - I have put the above section as a subsection as 1) Mautby is not entitled to refactor the discussion and 2) these are clearly related discussions.

Two - This dispute is clearly not going to be resolved here. It appears to me that everyone has presented all the arguments they have, and nobody is acknowledging the validity of anyone else's arguments. I think opening a dispute resolution case at WP:DRN would be a good next step. I will agree to abide by the decisions of such a process. Will the rest of you also agree? Jeh (talk) 22:10, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed - that was going to be my next step, however you've beaten me to the suggestion. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:22, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
The dispute resolution noticeboard won't accept a dispute if it's in process anywhere else. So you might want to withdraw your complaint at WP:AN/EW, if you support going to DR. Jeh (talk) 22:08, 18 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.
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