Talk:Earthenware

Cones, etc.

Thank you for your message. As you note Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia, however the changes I have made to the entries have been to correct errors in what have most certainly not been “existing accurate information”, and these have included: 1. Cones are made of "chemically refined clay" This is meaningless and shows ignorance of how ceramic raw materials and processed and used 2. More than clay is for cones. A range of compositions of different minerals dependent on their rating 3. The entry only mentions Orton cones where other manufacturers exist 4. There is no mention of other pyrometric devices 5. Your messages describes “Wedgewood” .. at least spell the name correctly: Wedgwood 6. I corrected an entry on earthenware, not least to replace the suggestion that potash is an ingredient. Have you ever formulated a body ... if you had you would know that the use potash, or potassium carbonate, is unknown 7. Earthenware again: classically most is not red as many examples are white or off white Kiln entry: they do not ‘chemically refine clay objects’ For a start the objects will be comprised of more than just clay, and again “chemically refine” is a meaningless. Although not definitive something better would be ”To induce permanent physical and chemical changes that converts a relatively weak and porous material consisting of innumerable particles into a strong, single mass composed on a glassy phase interspersed with pores and crystalline material.” 8. Change entry on soft –paste porcelain. The original entry suggested the glass was used .. correct for the early developments but with the very occasionally exception, such as Belleck, its not been used for 200 years. Similarly for soapstone and lime

And with respect your statement "as a working potter, I can assure you that I will evaluate and discuss your contributions and that worthy material" is arrogant. To refer back to your statement that Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopaedia" Have you ever considered that others may have better understanding of the subject than yourself, yet you deem yourself to a worthy moderator?

I’m sorry that my contributions are not welcome, not least as I thought Wikipedia was an open source. How many other knowledgeable contributors do you wish to exclude?

Change & reason: Reference of Hamer & Hamer removed as the information in the article was not taken from there Regards, Andy

I can't evaluate the accuracy of the information you are adding and subtracting, but I observe that every time you edit the page, you break things. On various edits, you have:

• stripped all links out of paragraphs you did not otherwise edit.
• removed the picture
• removed formatting for no obvious reason
• removed information that seems correct, with no explanation
• broken formatting for things like °C (making it 0C instead)

Given these issues with your edits, people naturally do not assume high quality for the information you are attempting to add. If you want to be taken seriously and have your edits "stick", you need to not mess up the article so much in the process. If you make it easier for people to revert your additions than to fix them, they will. I am not personally able to verify any of the information you've added, but I'll try to merge some of it into the article text. Hopefully someone else can fact-check it.

About the reference: Do not delete references from articles. If something is listed as a "reference" it means that a previous editor referred to that book while working on the article. It doesn't matter whether you can tell that some information in the article came from that source. Material need not have been directly quoted from the reference. About the only time it would be acceptable to delete a reference from an article would be if either it was believed to have been added in bad faith, or if one is certain that the material that was influenced by the reference has been deleted. Even then, unless the reference is of no use whatsoever, it would be better to leave it.

--Srleffler 05:26, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

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Hello Srleffler, Thank you for your comments and I’ll take note of the guidance. I’ve correct a few bits of the text, hopefully without damaging the format, and these are:

1. Removed the reference to potash as this is not a raw material

2. As the firing temperatures of all ceramics, including earthenware, vary depending on a number of factors stating a single value would be misleading. However typically earthenware will be fired at a lower temperature than say porcelain. On this entry I’ve added a range of typically found temperatures

3. The temperatures noted for biscuit and glost were 1000 and 1100oC. However generally the glost temperature is lower

Although the emphasis on quartz rather than sand is an inprovement but the inclusion of the latter is not just unnecessory but likely to lead to confusion. Ceramic raw materials are minerals whilst sand is simply a grain size. Althogh some large grain size raw materials find occasional use, such as grog, the quartz used in earthenware bodies is much finer than sand

I’m also unclear about you comments regarding references. When an entry no longer contains information from a reference why should it be kept. Not only is it irrelevant to the text but also would be confusing to a reader

Regards, Andy

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Your edit looks good. I don't know if you missed this before, but when you edit the text of an article you will see many "codes" formed from punctuation characters, which are in the source text but are not displayed in the actual article. These control the formatting of the text. The most important of these are square brackets, which are used to create links to other articles and websites. You can get more information on these codes on the help pages. There are some links to useful information in the welcome message I put on your talk page. If you're not sure what to do with the codes, that's OK. Just edit around them and leave the codes as they are.

About references: in principle, every fact on wikipedia should be supported by references to published sources. Are you asserting that there is not one single fact in this article that can be found in that reference? It need not be a direct quote. If there is any fact in this article that can be found in the reference, then the reference is correctly placed. Besides this, a reference can provide a good resource for further reading. Someone reading the article on earthenware might be interested in the information found in The Potter's Dictionary of Materials and Techniques. In any event, clearly another editor felt that this book was a good reference for this article. You would have to know that book pretty well to be certain that other editor was mistaken.

About potash and sand: I'm wondering if those were included by someone who knew something about ancient earthenware. Early potters would not have known much about the chemistry and minerology of their clays, and might have arrived at formulations by trial and error. Their source of quartz would likely have been sand. Perhaps they used potash, even though this is no longer used. Just speculating. You're probably right that the comment about sand should be deleted unless someone can write a more definite statement about early earthenware clays.

By the way, if you have or know of a book or other reference that confirms your "generic" composition, the name and author, etc., would be a useful piece of information to add to the article.--Srleffler 23:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Firing temperatures. Andy says: "3. The temperatures noted for biscuit and glost were 1000 and 1100oC. However generally the glost temperature is lower." This is not accurate. What is described is the practice in industrial potteries but craft potters follow a different practice in which bisque is fired typically between 900oC and 1050oC and glaze between 1040oC and 1150oC. I am going to make an edit along these lines. Marshall46 11:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Picture

Picture. I think the picture is of stoneware, not of earthenware. If I am right I will replace it in due course. Marshall46 11:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This has been flagged for a long time without comment. I am almost certain that the pottery of Okinawa illustrated is stoneware - see Mingeikan - so I have deleted it. Marshall46 (talk) 09:37, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Terminology and current usage

I have included alternative terminologies where appropriate: "bisque" and "biscuit"; "glaze" and glost". All are used, and so all should be recorded.

One or other has been deleted by certain editors because it is supposedly not the accepted usage, or not the correct usage, or not the usage preferred by particular writers. But there is no such thing as "accepted usage", there is only usage, the existence of a word in current use. If a usage exists, then, by the mere fact of its existence, it is accepted by the people who use it. When an editor says that a usage is accepted, he means that it is accepted by users that he prefers, and when he says that it is not accepted he means that he deprecates that usage. To that extent, "accepted" is a point of view, against which can and should be be set other points of view.

As all the above words are used, none should be removed. If we were talking about removing fringe or obsolete or antiquarian usages, or very obscure ones, that would be another matter, but we are not. Whether "bisque" and "biscuit", "glaze" and glost" are majority or minority usages, or usages that vary by region, or by different parts of the ceramic industry, or between industrial and art ceramics, they are all in current use and all should be given due weight, as they are in the present version of this page. Marshall46 (talk) 09:54, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, glost-fired and glaze-fired are both in common use and as such it makes sense to include both.Theroadislong (talk) 15:13, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand why this terminology causes such strong feeling. It is quite right that a block has been put on the person who has been edit-warring over it. But this conflict has been going on for a long time, anonymous editors reverting without discussion. It will arise again. I suggest therefore that the page is locked against anonymous editors. Marshall46 (talk) 10:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

From the tone of the edit summaries and the similarities of the IP addresses, it looks like it's just one person. Hopefully this person will try using the talk page and explain their reasoning (I'd guess that it's a regional variation, that "glaze" is widely used in some English-speaking countries, but sounds ridiculously archaic in others? Or that "glost" is a professional term and "glaze" is a layman's term, and the editor thinks it looks unprofessional to use the word here?), but if they go back to flat "you are wrong" edit warring, sure, we can consider page protection. --McGeddon (talk) 10:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The page is now semi-protected. Marshall46 (talk) 22:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

In Japan, and different counties to I have been, the name is biscuit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.160.218.95 (talk) 08:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Hamer and Hamer, who write for the studio potter, say that the term glost firing "has come to us from the industry". There is no reason to prefer the usage of industry over the usage of the studio. Marshall46 (talk) 19:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Hammer & Hammer is renowned for being riddled with errors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.187.78.196 (talk) 14:13, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

How reliable is an editor who mis-spells "Hamer and Hamer"? Marshall46 (talk) 11:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Touché, but an ad hominem-style insinuation based on a simple spelling mistake does not negate the validity of the observation that “The Potter’s Dictionary Of Materials and Techniques” is riddled with flawed content and inaccuracies. For a starter, consider the entry for Cornish stone on pages 82 – 83 of the 5th edition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.187.78.188 (talk) 09:45, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We'd need more than anecdotal evidence to throw out an entire source as questionable, but if the book made a mistake on a matter, it should be easy enough to find other, more reliable sources that contradict this, and to use those instead. --McGeddon (talk) 10:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

The entry on Cornish stone is beside the point. Hamer and Hamer were cited for their statement that the term glost firing has come to us from the industry. Is that not the case? The Leeds editor keeps talking about what is correct and erroneous usage, but usage is neither correct nor erroneous, it is simply usage. The terms "glost", "glaze", "bisque" and "biscuit" are all used, and this article ought to reflect the fact. Marshall46 (talk) 10:12, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Removed

"Although body formulations vary between countries and even between individual makers, a generic composition is 25% ball clay, 28% kaolin, 32% quartz and 15% feldspar." - surely nonsense for earthenware in general - removed. Johnbod (talk) 12:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Frit

A Frit (according to Dora M.Millington in her book The Technique of Pottery) is the name for a kind of glass or incomplete glaze made by fusing together certain of it's constituents. It does not relate to earthenware clay in particular? Theroadislong (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

thank you for the change to fritware now it makes more sense. Theroadislong (talk) 13:42, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Billington. Pelarmian (talk) 18:36, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Dora Billington Johnbod (talk) 21:05, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Earthenware & terracotta

Hello all - about the follwing content <<As a rule, with some exceptions such as flower pots, if an object could have been made on a potter's wheel it is called earthenware, if not it is called terracotta. Unglazed earthenware is also more likely to be called terracotta.>>:- *There is no such rule, and plenty of terracotta is thrown on a Potter's wheel or could have been. Examples include:

• Tagines
• Jars
• Bowl
• Plate
• Teapot
• Coffee mug
• Tagines - video
• Storage pot - video
• Birdhouse- video
• Plate - video

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.163.103.14 (talk)

The use of the term is very loose and messy, hence the uncategorical language. Some of these are clearly using "terracotta" as a colour indicator (Terra cotta (color)), which might be done for objects in any material, and very often is for textiles and paint for example. Many of these are glazed, which most references exclude from their definitions (probably not correctly, I agree - a drainage pipe is terracotta whether or not it is glazed or part-glazed). Personally I would call many of these earthenware, but unfortunately this term is not considered good for marketing purposes, and is becoming unfamiliar to many people. Johnbod (talk) 14:24, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Rather than being used loosely I'd suggest that there may be different interpretations. For exampe I assume that archaeologists use the term for unglazed earthenware objects which could not have been shaped on a potter's wheel. For others, such as those involved with making the wares, it is the name for the material itself irrespective of any shaping technique, or whether glazed or not. For many there is a difference between earthenware and terracotta. I see nothing on the above links that suggests terracotta is used for solely marketing purposes, instead it is being used for the material from which the articles are made. Also, I see nothing on the above links that suggest the wares are made of earthenware, although [1] looks more stoneware to me: but this is my view, and neither mine nor yours have validity in the article. And I would suggest that to claim it is unfortunate that the term is used differently between disciplines risks being accused of being parochial and disingenuous. Equally to note <<becoming unfamiliar to many people>> is edging towards a 'only my use is correct' view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.163.103.14 (talk)

I agree with Johnbod: usage is messy and it's futile trying to tidy it up. Pelarmian (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

No one has tried to tidy up. The discussion has simply been about differences in interpretations of the term terracotta, and from my side to avoid absolute statements using one interpretation.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.163.103.14 (talk)

And from mine - my whole point is that there are a bunch of different meanings for the term which have grown up by historical accident. I think you are the one who is trying to narrow and over-simplify the different senses. For example art historians and archaeologists use the term (but not very consistently) for all earthenware objects which could not have been shaped on a potter's wheel - eg the works of Luca della Robbia. And try finding internet pages offering any modern consumer pottery that they describe as "earthenware". Johnbod (talk) 16:01, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I can not understand how you can claim <<I think you are the one who is trying to narrow and over-simplify the different senses.>> It was you and not me who added <<As a rule, if an object could have been made on a potter's wheel it is called earthenware, if not it is called terracotta.>> This is a very narrow view, and makes no allowance for any different sense. And I have not tried to narrow a defintion, for example I wrote <<I'd suggest that there may be different interpretations>>

And <<try finding internet pages offering any modern consumer pottery that they describe as "earthenware".>> Firstly, the internet is neither the world nor the only source of information. But for online sources of earthenware, how about

• Earthewnare mugs for sale in the UK
• Earthenware teapots for sale in Canada
• A studio potter making earthenware in Ireland
• A studio potter making earthenware in the US
• Prepared earthenware bodies for sale in the UK
• Prepared earthenware bodies for sale in the Australia
• Prepared earthenware bodies for sale in the US
• A factory producing earthenware in the UK
• A factory producing earthenware in France
• A factory producing earthenware in Thailand — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.163.103.14 (talk) 00:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

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Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page or its Wikidata item have been nominated for deletion:

• Red cup, Earthenware, Early Neolithic period, Xinglongwa Culture, 紅陶杯 IMG 3965 03.jpg
• Tripod cup, Earthenware, Neolithic period, Manchuria Culture, 9 cm, 三腳杯, 陶器, 滿洲文化, 新石器時代, IMG 7288 09.jpg
• 豬, 陶器，興隆窪文化，新石器時代, earthenware pig, Xinglongwa Culture, Early Neolithic period, IMG 4435 10.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:46, 4 July 2022 (UTC)