Do we really need a distinction between stone and rock?

We have a few of object pages for stuff like this. Rock. Stone. Brick. Cinder blocks. Boulder. I don't think there's a big enough difference between "rock" and "stone" to merit different pages, as the terms themselves are pretty much interchangeable. Bricks are cool, though. Even if these stay different pages, there needs to be a task to at least try to separate some pages from these objects, move some around, etc. Thoughts?

From what I can gather, it seems that the Rock page is for natural rock, while the Stone page is for masonry. That could also describe the Brick page, but carved stones aren't necessarily rectangular bricks. Boulders I can see being unique, in that they're usually giant rocks that in many games roll down hills and try to kill you. Cinder blocks are specially carved stones, sort of like bricks.

Uh, wow. This is a bit of a jumble here.

@Hailinel: Yeah. I feel like cinder block and brick are fine, but a boulder is just a large rock, and the difference between stone and rock is too minute to require two pages. If that's the case, we should differentiate between things like "cotton shirt" and "polyester shirt" or "lantern" and "lamp."

I say fuck 'em all.

I think at the very least stone could be folded into the rock page and just have a small description about the masonry side of rock.

I feel like a lot of these distinctions could be made and organized inside broader pages, but that's just me.

@TentPole said:

I say fuck 'em all.

Oh myyyy.

@Hailinel said:

@TentPole said:

I say fuck 'em all.

Oh myyyy.

Channelling your inner Takei?

@StarFoxA said:

@Hailinel said:

@TentPole said:

I say fuck 'em all.

Oh myyyy.

Channelling your inner Takei?

I'm sure we all feel the urge to indulge our inner Takei at some point.

Does Scribblenauts list them as separate objects?

For the purpose of distinction, use stone for refined and deliberate shapes of rock.

What does this sentence even mean? Yeah, I would recommend deleting the stone page for the poor description alone, though I also think allowing two separate pages to exist just because the words have slight differences in denotation would set a bad precedent (How about a dirt and a soil page?). Also, the brick and cinder block pages could probably be rolled together since, technically speaking, cinder blocks are a type of brick. Like Hailinel said, though, the phenomenon of duders being crushed by boulders in video games is legitimately widespread enough that that page is fine.

@Praxis said:

For the purpose of distinction, use stone for refined and deliberate shapes of rock.

What does this sentence even mean? Yeah, I would recommend deleting the stone page for the poor description alone, thogh I also think allowing two separate pages to exist just because the words have slight differences in denotation would set a bad precedent (How about a dirt and a soil page?). Also, the brick and cinder block pages could probably be rolled together since, technically speaking, cinder blocks are a type of brick. Like Hailinel said, though, the phenomenon of duders being crushed by boulders in video games is legitimately widespread enough that that page is fine.

It means that the Stone page should be used for any rock that has been altered by human hand or tools. Seems like fairly straight-forward English.

I looked up Masonry in concepts. Nothing.

@Hailinel: Straightforward would be saying "This page is dedicated to masonry stone. For unworked stone, see Rock." Superfluous phrases like "for the purpose of distinction" don't help when trying to disambiguate two pages. Clear, concise sentences do.

As verbs these two words mean very different things.

@VikingCommando said:

As verbs these two words mean very different things.

but this is not a dictionary :D

I'd say there should be a page for the absolute base element (would that be rock?) with all the others entered as aliases so they come up in search queries. then explain the distinctions on the page.

to me, this seems like the most efficient and logical approach. there are already too many pages for similar things.

@Praxis said:

@Hailinel: Straightforward would be saying "This page is dedicated to masonry stone. For unworked stone, see Rock." Superfluous phrases like "for the purpose of distinction" don't help when trying to disambiguate two pages. Clear, concise sentences do.

The phrasing wasn't the best, but was stilly easily understandable.

@StarFoxA said:

@Hailinel I still agree with Praxis. There is a difference, but there's no need to make such minute distinctions. Maybe make a Masonry concept, like Claude suggested? That would open it up more than the stone page, which could be made part of the rock page.

I'm not saying I disagree, only that the wording is more understandable than he's saying. If you want truly incomprehensible English, you should see some of the spambot messages I've received on Twitter. :P

I would think of stone as a material and a rock as an object. Minecraft doesn't contain rocks but it does contain stone, if you see what I mean. You can have a stone, and I think that should be a rock.

@Hailinel: Maybe it's just me, but even calling it serviceable seems overly favorable. Aside from the lead-in phrase serving no purpose, what's left after that does a poor job both of establishing the stone page as the subject and explaining how exactly it differs from rock.