Talk:Diagram

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I think that this page could be improved by putting the intended usages of the various types of diagram.

Contents 1 Philosophical content on diagrams 2 Improvement drive 3 list of diagrams? 4 new summary

[edit] Philosophical content on diagrams

I am writing an essay on diagrams in architectural thought. The field is not clear to me yet. I think there is a lot of philosophical content to be added. One among others is Deleuzes "abstract machine".

This does not seem to be a good idea to me. I haven't read Deleuze but the quotations I can find are abstract gibberish. Some types of diagrams are abstractions of machines or at least processes (e.g. a state machine diagram), but most are not. Rp 08:25, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Improvement drive

Graphics is currently nominated to be improved by WP:IDRIVE. Vote for it if you want to contribute.--Fenice 20:11, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] list of diagrams?

This article seems to be a list of types of diagrams. Should it be renamed to List of Diagram Types or maybe converted into a Category??? Sbwoodside 23:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Simon. I would keep the definition of "diagram" here (due to the links that point here, e.g. USA Today) and split off the list of types to a new article "List of diagram types" (or later a category). We could do that as a first step. However, category would also be fine. The (little) drawback is, that the redlinks will disappear with the cat solution (but they probably aren't that worthy anyway). On the other hand I think the value of this article here might be a bit questionable anyway (beat me if im wrong) so that I'm asking me if it really merits to make an own category of it (there are alrady a lot of categories in wikipedia). A problem might also be that articles like Unified Modeling Language do describe several diagram types at once. Mabe someone (not me?) might want to have all listed here some day (UML class diagram, UML object diagram, UML... ). Just some thoughts. — Adrian | Talk 00:35, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It makes sense that "diagram" should be an article. I'm classifying everything that can fall under information graphics and certainly diagram would seem to be something that deserves it's own article. Definitely this article could also be expanded I think.

As for a category, I see what you mean about the red links... well, you could always do both, a list and a category. A Category:Diagrams would fit nicely under Category:Infographics I think. Definitely there's lots of great diagrams linked to here that should be categorized under infographics somewhere I think.

Or actually another alternative is to fill an at least a stub-sized article for those red links and use Template:Infographics-stub or something like that. Sbwoodside 02:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

If you would like to make a category and change this article, please do so. — Adrian | Talk 11:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Please also have an eye on List of graphical methods. I don't know what to do with that at the moment, but I see some overlap with this article here. — Adrian | Talk 15:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Wow, even more articles.. this might take a little while to sort out Sbwoodside 19:46, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] new summary

I'm working on a new summary. The current summary is A diagram is a simplified and structured visual representation of concepts, ideas, constructions, relations, statistical data, anatomy etc used in all aspects of human activities to visualize and clarify the topic..

Since this was written information graphics has come about with roughly the same description. Diagrams would I think technically be a subset of infographics usually. There are kinds of visuals, like for example animations, street signs, and arguably charts, that are are infographics but probably not diagrams. So I propose to change this article to cover primarily schematics and cross-sections of physical systems (mechanical, electrical, electronic, geological,...); relationship diagrams in software; conceptual diagrams of mathematical models.

Obviously we'd have to include some notations to the point that the word diagram is also sometimes used in a more general sense for many kinds of information graphics. But I've been looking through the google images search for "diagram", the dictionary definitions, etc., and mostly they are the things I've listed above. Anyway, I'm just throwing this out so we don't have to get into an edit war if someone disagrees with me. Sbwoodside 02:11, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Another thing... it seems to me there's also a strong category of diagrams (such as architectural plans, math diagrams, mechanical diagrams, etc..) that are used as part of a design process, as opposed to a lot of other infographics, which are used as a post-hoc explanation. Sbwoodside 03:23, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that the definition of a diagram can be narrowed down much more:

• A diagram is necessarily a flat, two-dimensional picture: e.g. a 3-dimensional visualization cannot be a diagram.
• A diagram is always an instance of what we computer people call vector graphics: the drawing is made up of 0-dimensional points, 1-dimensional lines and curves, and 2-dimensional shapes. E.g. a watercolor sketch cannot be a diagram.
• The elements of a diagram are symbolic: the choices of shapes and the layout do not represent information by direct correspondence to the actual system being represented, but by graphical convention. E.g. an architectural plan is not a diagram.
• (a stronger, more controversial version of the previous point): a diagram is always an instance of a diagram language (known as a diagram technique) that establishes specific ways to express particular information about a system in a graphical way. E.g. a picture consisting of rectangles, diamonds and connecting lines, each labeled with a piece of text, is not, by itself, a diagram; but the same picture interpreted as an entity-relationship diagram is.

Is it OK if I change the definition of "diagram" to reflect this? Rp 12:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)