Talk:E-cigarette

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[edit] Link Removals?

Why are links for USA retailers of this product being deleted? There is room for everyone here. By the way, I think I should probably be on the list, as it is my original picture being used in the article. incidentally, I am not a manufacturer, but I am an importer of this product, unlike several of the others listed who are actually drop-shippers. Caveat Emptor. - Jakemaheu (talk) 20:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] External links

I have removed several external links for various reasons, per Wikipedia:External links: links to fora (not the purpose of an article), the map was removed because it's of little informative value (it appears to be related to a forum, it shows who else uses e-cigarettes and where to get them; I don't think it's relevant to the readers of this English language Wikipedia as it only shows locations in the Netherlands - not counting the few dots elsewhere) and finally, the review doesn't add to the information that's already in the article. - Simeon87 (talk) 20:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dead link

During several automated bot runs the following external link was found to be unavailable. Please check if the link is in fact down and fix or remove it in that case!

--Stwalkerbot 23:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Legal Situation

Before I edited this text today it looked as if one Austrian agency had made the decision for the rest of the European Union... except for the UK. Of course the Austrian agency writes no European legislation and as far as I know they do not write Austrian legislation either. Personally I agree more with the UK point of view that the electronic cigarette is a harmless device with which people can enjoy vaporised liquids in just about any taste (a.o. apple, cinnamon, chocolate, coffee, vanilla) with or without the addition of nicotine. Of course nicotine is potentially poisonous (not in this concentration) and it is addictive. But nobody can get hooked by this device, only smokers who are already hooked on nicotine will use nicotine fluid. And by my personal experience I can tell you that it's indeed extremely easy to lower the concentration over time. But what's wrong with those people who just love to get a fix of nicotine? Live and let live. Let them get it through this device instead of condemning them to killing tobacco products. Maggy Rond (talk) 18:54, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Link spam

What is the use of that long list of commercial links to manufacturers and resellers? It seems that every commercial company in the e-cigarette bussiness wants to place a link to their website in this article. The links don't add anything to the article. They're just link spam and should be removed, unless the link actually adds some usefull information. Anyone has a good reason to keep the links? If not, I will remove them some time later. Waninge (talk) 14:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I would support the removal of the company listings. There's been a bit of tampering of the lists to boost the profile of particular companies. It's not helping the article at all, anyway. Some checking of the External links section would probably also be a good idea. Dancter (talk) 22:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I decided to go ahead, and in fact performed a full sweep of external links, to avoid complaints about favoritism. A bit extreme, but good links can always be added back after reviewed by a couple impartial eyes. Dancter (talk) 20:23, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Good thing that the spam links are gone. But what about the image captions? One says: "A SafeSmokes.net e-cigarette" and the other says: "People Smoking Gamucci Cigarette". Aren't that just tricks to advertise a website and a brand respectively? Waninge (talk) 22:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I removed the watermarking from the Gamucci photo (which is permissible according to the licensing indicated by the original uploader), so that should be some improvement. As for the SafeSmokes.net caption, I'm a bit skeptical of whether the cigarette is distinguished by manufacturer or vendor. I have no problem removing the mention pending a clarification. As the uploader the image indicated above, the company is an importer, and not an original manufacturer of the product sold. Dancter (talk) 23:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
The image comes from this page on www.safesmokes.net, so it is really displaying a product from the company Safe Smokes. The uploader is Jakemaheu, whose only contributions to Wikipedia are a few edits to E-cigarette and this image. The domain safesmokes.net is registered to someone called Maheu, so Jakemaheu is probably the owner of Safe Smokes and likely a reseller. Anyway, I like the picture but not the brand name (or any other brand name) in the caption. I think we should remove the brand name and keep the picture. Waninge (talk) 01:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Looking again at the article I feel that the Gamucci picture doesn't add any useful information to the article. I believe we better remove it and just keep the safesmokes picture. Waninge (talk) 01:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I won't stand in your way. My point was that if the item depicted was distinctive enough, that it may not be such a bad thing to mention which model it was. It looks fairly generic, though. If you feel the SafeSmokes website is only mentioned to lend it more visibility, then it's probably best that it be removed. Same probably goes for the Gamucci photo. Marketing for e-cigarettes is not really covered at all in the article, so it doesn't really add that much. It seems more decorative than informative. Dancter (talk) 04:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] References need cleaning up

In my opinion the references in this article are a bit of a mess and need cleaning up.

  • There are too many of them. It's not neccessary to give a reference for every bit of information in an article.
  • We have two references to patent applications which are more or less the same, we could do with just one.
  • Most references to news articles are not neccessary because we have a reference to the patent application, which contains a lot of information.
  • We have 2 references to German articles, they do not belong in the English wikipedia.

When I can find the time I will start working on this. Or perhaps someone else feels like it? Waninge (talk) 16:16, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I should point out that the descriptions in patent literature often don't match the actual products. Sometimes this is intentional, to make it more difficult for competitors to use the information to develop their own variant that circumvents the patent. Frankly, I don't see a need for the complete table of ingredients, unless we're going to explain the purpose of the 2% geranyl butyrate in one of the formulations.
The patent application is a primary source, which can be prone to misinterpretation. It's usually preferable to cite reputable secondary sources such as news sources, which can properly digest and contextualize the information. See WP:PSTS for more on this idea. Dancter (talk) 19:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Atomization or nebulization?

User:Dancter removed the info about ultrasound vaporization, because "all mention of ultrasound-based atomization was removed from the revised citation". Now I have 2 questions:

  • Where can I find this revised citation?
  • If it isn't ultrasound-based atomization then what is the mechanism in the e-cigarette? Perhaps it's not atomization at all, but actually nebulization that is used? Nebulizers are sometimes called atomizers, perhaps that's the reason for the confusion. Waninge (talk) 22:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
My answers to both questions:
  • The citation is in the article. I don't know quite why Histrion changed it, but upon reviewing both pages, I considered that the original text was potentially misleading, for the reasons I touched on in my comment above.
  • There could be a couple of different methods, not necessarily restricted to ultrasound. Again, as I mentioned above, competitors often develop variants that are designed to circumvent the original patent. Not everything's going to be the same as in that application document, as I hopefully illustrated in my recent edit. As for the issue of nebulization vs. atomization, in the context of e-cigarettes, I'm not sure there is a notable distinction. I'm assuming that all mentions of "atomizers" are actually referring to nebulizers. Atomic spectroscopy involves breaking down molecular material into its atomic elements, which I sincerely doubt is happening in e-cigarettes. Dancter (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)