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Talk:Time sink

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Should timesink be written as two words?

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Like the term "heat sink", should this not be written as two words as well? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevitivity (talkcontribs) 21:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)Reply

Article too narrow?

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This article is almost entirely dedicated to the specific use of the term "time sink" for online/gaming applications. It is a far broader term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.118.213.47 (talk) 15:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC) Yes.Reply

I agree, we use this in software engineering all the time, as in "We could implement [this feature], or fix [that bug], or do [blah], but it would be a huge time sink. It may take [X] days/weeks; Instead, we recommend the following more cost effective approach..." BrainSlugs83 (talk) 18:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

"Sink" is a MUCH more general term than what is conveyed here. A "time sink" (noun) is something that "sinks" (verb) time. Heat sink, and Time sink are not the only terms like this... There are a ton!

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Off the top of my head "Voltage Sink Source" ("VSS" a common electrical engineering acronym for something that "Sinks voltage", i.e. ground). I'm sure there are many others. Heck here's a wikipedia article about current sources and sinks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_sources_and_sinks BrainSlugs83 (talk) 18:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Found a possibly redundant article to the one posted above: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_and_sourcing -- also sink is used as a verb a lot in this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_network -- and finally another article which assumes sink (in computing no less!) has only one meaning, "an event sink" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sink_(computing) -- again, this seems like common English to me, the first linked article in my previous post described it well -- something that moves something away from the observer is a sink. Yes, MMOs are a great time sink source for some, but really the term time "sink" has nothing to do with MMOs, it's common English and we use it all over the field of engineering for all kinds of things. I feel ridiculous that I should even have to post this.... BrainSlugs83 (talk) 18:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Reply
Great description from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_and_sourcing" -- "In a more general sense in science and technology, sinking and sourcing are used to describe processes which absorb (sink) or generate (source) something. For example, a heat sink takes up heat from electronic components that generate heat, heat sources." BrainSlugs83 (talk) 19:01, 25 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Cooldowns?

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Okay, I've never, ever, ever heard these two terms being mistaken and I've played many hours of several MMORPGs. Who are these people and how common is this confusion? 72.200.151.13 (talk) 07:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)Reply

This was removed, so I’m putting it back in the Talk page here

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Don’t know why somebody REMOVED this from the talk page. Here is the comment:

”One of the most poorly written articles on Wikipedia currently. No, I will not improve it, as I can't be improving the Wikipedia article on time sink, because that would be a time sink.”

199.127.116.26 (talk) 15:03, 31 August 2025 (UTC)Reply