Comments on Tagline/Mission Statement/etc.
Parent
Tagline/Mission Statement/etc.
The line at the top of the list of Questions is currently:
General Q&A about the design and function of electronic and electric power systems, their theory, and tools specific to those fields.
As I suggested for the recent Codidact update email, I think "power systems" is not really the right terminology here. As currently phrased, the emphasis appears to be specifically things like:
- Power supply design
- Power transmission (generating plant to end-user)
- Power generation - e.g., solar panels, wind turbines, etc.
- Batteries
All of that is included in this community, but so are many other things - components for all electronic systems (resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, integrated circuits, switches, etc.), design of microcontroller based systems, radio frequency issues (generation, detection, communication), and much, much more.
I don't know what the best replacement phrase, as I am not a key person here (my participation here is likely to be similar to on EE SE - lurk a lot, post rarely, as I don't consider myself a topic-matter expert). It might be as simple as dropping "power" from the phrase.
Post
The short phrase is trying to capture the two broad classes of topics here:
- Electronic things, like opamps, transistors, microcontrollers, 20 W power supplies, and the like.
- Utility-scale power systems, like multi-MW generators, large over-land transmission lines, local distribution systems of "just" a few 10s of kV, etc.
Unfortunately, there are different terms for these around the world. I've seen cases where the first was referred to as "Electronic Engineering", and the second as "Electrical Engineering". Where I went to school (RPI late 1970s to 1980) they were called "Electrical Engineering" and "Electric power engineering". Different institutions at different times, and different parts of the world use somewhat different terms. In some case, the same name is used to refer to the other thing.
Having limited space and not wanting to go into all the detail above, I tried to find short names that created the most contrast between the two, hence use of the terms "Electronic" and "Electric Power".
If anyone thinks they can unambiguously show both these disciplines are included with two different short terms, please let us know. I figured no two such universally understood short terms exist, so I went with what I thought would work most of the time. Again, if you have something better, let us know.
Note that the catch phrase isn't meant to define the site. It's purpose is to give someone a quick idea what the site is roughly about. If they're looking for help with basket weaving or what to do when you're an elf and a unicorn sneaks up on you and steals your lunch, they'll know they're in the wrong place. Anyone that thinks the site might be for them is expected to dig deeper and read the more detailed Allowed Topics help page.
Resolution
The first sentence of the quick description of this site should be changed to
General Q&A about the design and function of electronic systems, electric power systems and infrastructure, their theory, and tools specific to those fields.
It doesn't seem that I can edit this, and I'm not sure how to get someone's attention that can.
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