Talk:control group

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control group

SOP: control (“a separate group or subject in an experiment against which the results are compared where the primary variable is low or nonexistence”) + group (“a number of things or persons being in some relation to one another”). Compare #experimental_group. - -sche (discuss) 19:50, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that this sense of "control" is restricted to two contexts — (1) science; (2) the phrase "control group" — where context #2 is not a subset of context #1. If I'm right about that, then I think this probably is worth including, as it's essentially non-SOP outside of scientific contexts. —Ruakh_TALK 20:13, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

• Keep: Too many definitions of control for it to be clear. If you're going to delete something, delete the definition for "control", which isn't really used without "group" anyway Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 20:23, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Certainly is used alone. "Sample A was a control." Equinox ◑ 20:42, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

...which is a corruption of "Sample A was in the control group" Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 02:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

If we include common misspellings (& we do), then we certainly include commonly used derived forms, so the definition certainly shouldn't go from control. I am also convinced by Ruakh's argument - coming across "control group" for the first time, I would probably assume "a group that controls," rather than "a group in which variables are controlled for." There is no problem with having information connected with this idea at both pages - A little redundancy is not the end of the world. keep Furius (talk) 05:07, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

(after edit confict) Quite often experiments don't involve groups, so it's quite commonplace to say "we left this one alone as the control". The term "control group" comes from "control", not the other way around (see w:Scientific control). Besides which, "corruption" is just another way of saying "it's different, and I like it better the other way" Its use is usually a good indicator of subjective value judgments. It doesn't matter where this sense of "control" came from (aside from typos and scannos, of course), it's in use- by itself. That means it merits a definition. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• Here is an odd situation. There are a CFI-worthy number of Google Books hits for controlgroup, but the term has a different meaning - something to do with the arrangement of buttons on cell phones. Does WT:COALMINE apply where removing the space changes the meaning of the phrase even while the unspaced version maintains its character is a compound word? bd2412 T 15:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  I would say no. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 16:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  Only if the CFI accepts jQuery to be a language. SpinningSpark 17:02, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  There are some uses of the term in running text, as opposed to transcriptions of code. However, these are still references to the code itself. bd2412 T 18:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

  Coalmine is ambiguous on this point because it might imply but does not explicitly state that the term be compared to "a single word spelling" of that term. One of the two arguments it cites does not apply, since the single word is not an alternative spelling, but the point about search does apply. Since the broader interpretation would require sum-of-parts terms for words in a different language (!), I prefer the narrow interpretation and judgement on a case-by-case basis, where certainly claims in the spirit of WT:COALMINE are still legitimate. DAVilla 05:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Keep, irrespective of the WT:COALMINE question. The phrase requires an unintuitive sense of "control" relative to the group at issue. bd2412 T 21:56, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

  But the purpose of a dictionary is to include words and meaning of word not known intuitively. There are vast numbers phrases and, yea, clauses and sentences that use unintuitive (secondary, specialized) senses of words. Delete to offset that vote, though I a truly undecided. DCDuring TALK 20:26, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

  To whom do you propose the meaning of control group is known intuitively? bd2412 T 03:08, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

kept -- Liliana • 06:00, 23 April 2013 (UTC)