Nameless Concept

This page is intended to serve two purposes, one of which is recursive: describe the problem (and give it a sensible name), and list other instances of this problem so names can be found for those too.

It happens often that one stumbles on an idea or "invents" something, and it has no obvious name. Therefore, finding it on the Web or in a Wiki can be quite hard. It is often the case that the idea is not original, but in order to realise this you must find the earlier instance in order to use the appropriate name.

My suggestion is that ideas like these (so far as they are OnTopic in this Wiki) could be added and then punted around until a name is found. [later] Or perhaps it would be better to preserve context, and use 'NamelessConcept' as an in-situ WikiTag?

I don't have a good name for these NamelessConcepts, hence this page is to some extent a SelfReference. Suggestions are welcome!

Example

For example, suppose I am looking for some sort of "voltage to illuminated distance" converter. An existing example would be the bargraph LED module, which can be used to represent signal strength etc.. I have an "original" idea for such a device, and it involves a neon lamp containing some sort of long electrode in a tube. As the voltage on the electrode is increased, the glow should spread along the tube. Searching for information about neon lights is hopeless, because there is far too much of it.

The resolution comes from mentioning the idea to someone who has seen it before. "That's called a Tuneon", says my Dad. "They were invented in about 1930, and were made obsolete a few years later by the Magic Eye valve". Asking Google about the Tuneon then takes to to an online valve museum and another page (which I had in fact already seen, without making the connection).

So much for originality!

This is where NamelessConcepts can start to cause problems. One can be left with the impression that an idea is new, simply because it doesn't seem to have a name already.

Explanations and solutions

Sometimes it can be a simple vocabulary problem; one can end up using the nearest matching word instead, or substituting a long-winded explanation. For example, "underhanded" fits less well than "disingenuous" when applied to "stuff you needed to read, hidden a la SmallPrint? at the bottom of a topposted (TopPosting) email reply".

Other times, I suspect, it may be a failure to properly follow the guidelines offered in WelcomeVisitors and its friends. In fact it is quite possible that I'm doing this now, and for this I apologise. It now becomes clear to me that NamelessConcepts are intimately connected with WikiNature in some way I haven't quite grasped. See also HaveThisPattern.

ChoosingWikiNames can be hard to do well in some cases, but RefactoringCorrectsMistakes?. While this only applies to the WikiWikiWeb and not RealLife, some claim (maybe) that WikiIsaRealLifeAnalog?.

I will read, and I will edit. Then I will refactor. -- MatthewAstley

One possibility is to throw out a list of several possible WikiNames which might fit, and see which gets populated first.

Another possibility is LabelEverythingNot?.

The great un-named

Having now provided a worked example, I wish to use this page to find a name for this age-old trick:

Many years ago, the stories tell us, the braver monarchs would walk the land in disguise. Sometimes they did this to find out what their subjects thought of their rule; other times he might be trying to root out those who would conspire against him. If and when his identity is later revealed, the locals are then suitably astonished/amazed/horrified.

Related concepts include masked balls (seeking a suitor anonymously?) and anonymous writings such as the FederalistPapers ( http://www.anonymity.org/ch2.html ) .

More recently (and this is why I've dragged this into the Wiki) we have WalkingIncognito? by proxy, in the form of AstroTurfing and shills.

It seems likely that the search engine maintainers do this too, to catch web masters who offer different content to the web crawlers.

-- MatthewAstley

I like this idea intensely. It would be wonderful to come up with a matching name for this concept; it's something I would like to use on occasion when talking to clients. Finding a name could be quite problematic.

Naming concepts in general is a difficult proposition. One client/partner of mine was trying to come up with a metaphor for his firm, Lean Flexible Systems. His intention was to sell a collection of concepts, training, electronics, and software that combined to provide a total process auditing system. We struggled together for months to find some noun to use as a metaphor. What a pain. The closest I ever came was "equipment." The idea was to "equip" the customer's staff with what they needed to track everything -- and I mean everything -- in the creation, production, distribution, and sales of a product. The only other term I had was "outfit." That word could be used as both noun and verb, so it fit quite well.

Sadly, this client/partner fell by the wayside when other duties crowded out the development of Lean Flexible Systems. Oh, well.

-- MartySchrader

 Once the whole is divided, the parts need names.
 There are already enough names.
 One must know when to stop.
 Knowing when to stop averts trouble.
   -- LaoTsu

So one might try numbers, see: NumbersWithoutDigits