Talk:Color code

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved

Neither the proposer nor the sole supporting editor gives any policy reason for the proposed move. The two opposing editors give cogent reasons against the primary proposal.

No such user supports the secondary but not the primary move. I find no consensus on that point. In any case, I consider it would be irregular to make the secondary move where the consensus is to reject the primary move. A freestanding move of Color-coding should be proposed on that page.

David Eppstein makes a counter-proposal to change the redirect at Color coding (without the hyphen). Whatever the merits of that suggestion, it is out of scope of this RM. (non-admin closure) Havelock Jones (talk) 10:09, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Color code → Color-coding
• Color-coding → Color-coding (graph theory)

– A color code is merely the consequence of using color-coding as a method. I think the method is more prominent. I propose to move this article to "Color-coding" (or "color coding" if that is the more proper title) and merge Color coding technology for visualization into it. BD2412 T 23:31, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• New to wikipedia, but this is a good suggestion. It should be accepted. My background is in Computer Science with graduate studies in Color Science and the moves are logical and make the topics more clear. TDcolor (talk) 02:53, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. The normal name for an article should be its base noun (the code), not a derivative from it (the technique of using colors as codes to convey information). So the current name, "color code", is a better choice. Additionally, this article is primarily about the codes themselves, not about the general technique of choosing codes to convey information (which has a separate article, Color coding technology for visualization). That frees up "color coding" to continue to keep its current meaning, the algorithmic technique which is not really about colors and does not have as clear a choice of base noun. Additionally, the current name is less ambiguous. "Color coding" has at least six meanings in its top Google Scholar hits: (1) the algorithmic technique (far and away the most heavily cited), (2) the use of colors to convey information in visualizations, (3) the ways that biological vision systems encode color in neural transmissions, (4) the encoding of color information in artificial systems, (5) the use of colored markers on surgical instruments to distinguish them from tissue in medical imaging, and (6) the use of stereotyped colors to demark gender norms. It is far from clear to me that the present article should be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, so proposing to usurp that title from a different article is premature. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:00, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The use of colors to encode surgical instruments or signal gender are merely special cases of the broader topic of color coding (i.e. uses of colors to convey distinguishing information). The fact that the algorithmic technique "is not really about colors" seems at least curious for it to have that title. Perhaps color-coding is ambiguous? BD2412 T 05:08, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • They are not the same thing. This article is about standardized assignments of colors to enumerated meanings, to convey those meanings to humans quickly and intelligably, in a broad class of contexts. Color coding technology for visualization is about how to choose new assignments of colors, in a more specific context of information visualization. The use of colors on surgical instruments is more like green screening or camouflage; it's a technical trick to make the instrument stand out in automated analysis of the images. The use of colors to enforce gender norms in society could to some extent be conveying information to others (this child is a boy) but is to a large extent a marketing strategy (girls raised under these norms like pink so let's make this object pink so that girls will like it) rather than about information, and is not standardized in the way that the colors listed here are. The fact that you find it curious that the algorithmic technique is not really about colors suggests to me that you have not even investigated what it is about or how heavily this term is used in that part of the academic literature before making this proposal, something I find curious. But to answer your curiosity: in graph theory, more generally, the idea of a "color" is just used as a convenient and intuitive way of thinking about labeling objects with distinct values. Those values usually aren't RGB values or frequencies or spectra or whatever you think of actual colors as being. Color-coding is an instance of that idea, applied in a particular way to make certain algorithms run fast. As a computer science term, it is not at all ambiguous. What is ambiguous is that other people also use the same phrase "color coding" to mean many other different things. As for ambiguity, a disambiguation page already exists: Color code (disambiguation). Anyway, maybe a more salient question is: why does the CS color-coding article use a hyphen, and why is this move proposing to take over the hyphenated name? The unhyphenated color coding would make more sense in the context of this article (and currently redirects here), but I still think color code is a better choice of title. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:20, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Counter-proposal: keep the list of standardized color meanings in this article and the information visualization methods in its own separate article, as too different from each other to merge. Semaphores, traffic lights, and resistors are not really about information visualization, and for those sorts of topics the existence of a standardized code is more central than the coding process used to come up with it. Leave color-coding alone, as the infoviz meaning does not need a hyphen and the other hyphenated meanings listed at the dab page are not primary. But, change the redirect for color coding to point to Color code (disambiguation) rather than here, so that the Filipinos can more directly find their traffic reduction system and the information visualizers can more directly find the infoviz without being distracted by semaphores, traffic lights, and resistors. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:58, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Support second, neutral on first. I do not see any evidence that the term "color-coding", with a hyphen, dominantly refers to this very specialist topic. Color coding, Color-coding and Color code (as well as their "colour" variants) are near-synonymous terms that all refer to the same WP:BROADCONCEPT topic (this one) and should redirect to the same place. No such user (talk) 13:38, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the second, "graph theory" is not even the right disambiguator. It's not a topic in graph theory. It's a method in algorithms (or more precisely parameterized complexity) that happens to be used for graphs (and hypergraphs, and related structures). That's a different area than graph theory. And try doing a Google Scholar search for these phrases and look at the citation counts to get a very different idea of which topics are specialist. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:35, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • If we went by Google Scholar for topics of general cultural applicability, the primary topic of Monty Hall would be Monty Hall problem. BD2412 T 20:16, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • The use of color codes for real-world meanings like traffic lights (the current meaning of this article) may be of general cultural applicability, but your proposed takeover of that topic by an article about infovis research is not. It is not any less specialized than the algorithmic meaning. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:57, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • I wouldn't consider it a takeover of "Color code" at all. The bulk of the content in the data visualization article is about very common problems of color coding generally - picking the right colors so the coding efficiently serves its purpose. That would be the content below the fold. There is always room to expand the cultural context, if for example material could be introduced on the history of color coding, the earliest instances of human use of the method, etc. BD2412 T 01:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • "picking the right colors so the coding efficiently serves its purpose" is exactly the technical infovis topic. The article you are trying to take over is on a very different topic, the standardized sets of color-encoded information (NOT information visualization, just information, and NOT the process of picking those colors) that everyone knows about already. You are trying to have it both ways, by arguing that the common knowledge of these codes justifies the use of taking over their name for an article about a different and technical topic that is far from the primary meaning of the phrase. Look, I've published at least one technical paper on methods for choosing distinctive colors for visualizations [1]. I think it's an interesting topic. But it's a different topic from the topic of this article, a niche topic, and one that should not take over as the primary topic for this phrase. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:03, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • Do you think that the use of colors to code information is a different topic from the methods for picking those colors? I think it is the common practice to cover both aspects in a single article. Textile, for example, discusses both what textiles are and are used for, and how they are made. BD2412 T 02:13, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
              • I don't think that the methods used to pick colors for information visualizations are in any way related to the methods used to standardize colors for color code standards for safety and engineering information. I think that it would be misleading and wrong to talk about color code standards for safety and engineering information (the widely-used and widely-known application of color codes) as if they are a subtopic of information visualization (a niche topic). —David Eppstein (talk) 02:18, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                • Perhaps a broader restructuring is needed then—one in which we talk about color coding in information visualization as one of several subtopics of color code standards for areas including (as the most significant major component) safety and engineering information. BD2412 T 03:38, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Computer science has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:55, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: WikiProject Graphic design has been notified of this discussion. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:56, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - Noun preferred for an article that enumerates color codes. The article could be about something else but it's currently not so renaming it is putting the cart before the horse. ~Kvng (talk) 14:56, 3 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]