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Twice now in the last week, a discussion that I started has been prematurely archived, without giving Headbomb a chance to answer the question I put to him. So let's forget the question and concentrate on the issue.
First, "What is an IEC prefix?" I hear you ask. Read this for a brief introduction and this for the case against the deprecation of their use on Wikipedia.
There are several reasons to question that consensus was reached for the present deprecation of IEC prefixes:
After those attacks I requested mediation. An offer of mediation was made by Doug and rejected by Greg_L.
And now, because I dare to question the claimed consensus, Greg_L portrays me as some kind of lunatic [6].
See also the theses of Quilbert and Omegatron on their personal spaces
The following WP Policy statements are relevant:
In other words, there is no reason to assign any more weight to the 7-3 vote than to the 11-0 vote before it. The dead horse that anti-IEC editors are so fond of quoting simply doesn't apply here, because there has never been a discussion that concluded in favour of deprecation that has not been dominated by abusive remarks from Greg_L. The result is that editors who wish to take part (like Omegatron and Quilbert) stay away from the discussion because they do not wish to be on the receiving end of such abuse. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to see this block of text be inserted and reverted and inserted and reverted anymore. Let it go. It will be automatically archived by the bot, normally, if the interest in it dies down; there is no hurry to archive it. This is getting dreadfully tiresome and close to warranting protection or issuing blocks. I doubt anyone wants to see that happen. If someone wants to keep beating this dead horse into a pulp, let them. Ignore it, don't get involved in an edit war over it. Sher eth 22:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
User | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Headbomb ( ταλκ · κοντριβς) 05:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC) | X [1] | |||||
Greg L ( talk) 15:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC) | X [2] | |||||
Fnag aton 19:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC) | X [3] | |||||
Woodstone ( talk) 20:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC) | X [4] | |||||
SWTPC6800 ( talk) 18:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC) | X | |||||
Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC) | X [5] | |||||
MJCdetroit 19:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC) | X [6] | |||||
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 07:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC) | X [7] | |||||
Dfmclean 19:00, 28 May 2008 | X [8] | |||||
Pyrotec 22:35 05 June 2008 | X [9] |
The above was after three solid months of debate. No rule of conduct in a decent and civilized society requires that a single holdout can keep on disrupting a system for so long. T-bird: your objections were heard but your persistent silence, when Headbomb asked you (repeatedly) to explain your reasoning, was deafening. You have no one to blame but yourself for failing to persuade others to your way of thinking. As I stated above, we are done with this issue for now. When there is a change in the reality of the situation and there is actually a fair amount of real-world usage of the IEC prefixes, let us know. Until then, please accept with grace that the consensus is that Wikipedia will communicate to its readership the same way all other encyclopedias and computer magazines do: with terminology and symbols that readers actually recognize. Greg L ( talk) 02:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you had an insurmountable objective: arguing a case to make Wikipedia do something foolish and use terminology that no other encyclopedia in the world uses, nor any computer magazine directed to a general-interest audience, nor which any computer manufacturer uses in marketing communications to their customer bases. Further, you were advocating Wikipedia use terminology that you conceded our readership didn’t even recognize (the fifth entry down is your signature). Further, your silence here for six days on this thread and then, after I archived it, your deciding to drag it back here to keep on flogging this dead horse, is just more of the same old stuff from you. Your actions here are tedious at best, and disruptive at the worst, and I will no longer dignify your tactics with any further responses. Goodbye. Forever. Greg L ( talk) 23:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an
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There comes a point in every debate on Wikipedia where the debate itself has come to a natural end. You may have won the debate, you may have lost the debate, or you may have found yourself in an honourable draw. At this point you should drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass.
If a debate, discussion, or general exchange of views has come to a natural end through one party having "won" or (more likely) the community having lost interest in the entire thing, then no matter which side you were on, you should walk away.
If you don't, if you continue to flog the poor old debate, if you try to reopen it, if you continually refer to old news, if you parade your triumph in the faces of others... you're not really winning friends and influencing people. Instead, you are annoying the hell out of everyone nearby.
If you've "won": good for you. Now go about your business, don't keep reminding us of the fact that your "opponent" didn't "win". If you've "lost": sorry, hard luck. Now go about your business, don't keep reminding us of the fact that your "opponent" didn't actually win because of... whatever. If the debate died a natural death: let it remain dead. It is over, let it go. Nobody cared except you. Hard to stomach, but you're going to have to live with it.
So, the next time you find yourself with the body of a horse: please stop beating it. It won't help.
Greg L (
talk)
02:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC))
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 19:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Headbomb and Greg, since Thunderbird2 and Tom have not provided any new substantive arguments on this issue and because if Thunderbird2 had not just posted the same old refuted statements he has repeated ad nauseam then this section would have been archived by the bot and because Thunderbird2 has still not given valid answers to questions directed to him: I propse that this whole section be archived to avoid cluttering up this talk page with Thunderbird2's violations of WP:POINT. In the interests of playing fair Thunderbird2 and Tom can have one last chance to present new substantive arguments and to give valid answers to questions in the talk archive (instead of repeating the same refuted statements from his talk page). If either of them continue to repeat the same old refuted statements (i.e. beat the dead horse) then I propose to archive immediately. Does anyone (apart from Thunderbird2 or Tom, obviously) disagree with this? Fnag aton 04:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I’d truly like him to simply explain what precisely his ultimate objective is here. That’s preferable to listening to him complain about how nobody is listening. OK, we’re all ears Thunderbird2. What is your objective? Do you want the IEC prefixes used here on Wikipedia? Because if you do, we better be consistent here. Even though no one else in the real world is using them (no computer manufacturer to their customer base, no computer magazine to a general-interest readership, and no general encyclopedia), if Wikipedia is to be all alone on this one as far as real-world practice goes, we’re going to be consistent about it. So man-up T-bird! If that is your objective (get Wikipedia using the IEC prefixes), we should run your proposal up the flagpole and see who salutes it. If you can’t answer this simple question (what is it you’re trying to accomplish besides annoying Headbomb, Fnagaton, and me), you really should shoot your damned computer so you can resist the temptation to come here and bother others; that’s not nice. Greg L ( talk) 07:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
For once it is Headbomb you chooses to be offensive while Greg_L is being constructive, in his fashion. I will respond to his challenge directly, disregarding its unnecessarily confrontational nature. My objective is the same now as it always has been: to establish whether or not consensus exists for the present deprecation. You 3 insist that it exists but are unable to demonstrate it. I am completely pragmatic: maybe it exists, maybe not. Let’s find out by asking the question, without insulting those who happen to disagree with one or other point of view. There has never been any need or justification for that. (It goes without saying that archiving the discussion before it has run its course amounts to censorship). Thunderbird2 ( talk) 17:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
To any admin looking at this post: I have clear proof that Thunderbird has lost the right to be presumed to be operating here in good faith since it is a matter of record that he lied and deceived to get his way only about five months ago. He pretended to be a swing-vote moderate and said that to gain his support, he wanted some concessions in wording that watered down arguments against using the IEC prefixes. I gave him precisely what he asked for. But when it was clear that the revised wording would still ban the IEC prefixes, he finally “came out of the closet" ramped up his opposition to what was going on, and in the end, voted *against* the wording after I watered it down per his wishes. He manipulates others and isn’t up front in his dealings. He wastes our time. He is not due an “assumption of good faith” because he has proven his SOP is to not operate in good faith. I utterly reject the notion that any rule in a decent and civilized society requires that civilized men in a party have to endlessly put up with a brute who crashes a party, disrupts all the proceedings, and refuses to behave himself. It’s high time to kick his ass out onto the street curb.
I’ll have none of your B.S. anymore Thunderbird2. Your objective here is clear. There will no longer be inconsistent use of binary prefixes on Wikipedia (where some articles say “256 megabytes (MB)” to denote 10242 bytes, and still other articles say “256 mebibytes (MiB)” to denote the exact same value. We will be consistent here. Further, you will not be permitted to get your way by using procedural maneuvers. What you clearly want—I’d bet a hundred bucks—is to weasel in a MOSNUM guideline that “permits” their use and then you’ll start changing article upon article until we’ve once again got a bastard mess here on Wikipedia. This is the same bullshit Sarenne tried until he got banned for life. No one else in the real world is using the IEC prefixes (no computer manufacturer to their customer base, no computer magazine to a general-interest readership, and no general encyclopedia). If you got what you want, Wikipedia would be all alone on this one as far as real-world practice goes. For God’s sake, everyone agreed—even you—that our readership didn’t even recognize the IEC prefixes. And yet, here you are, agitating for using them anyway. So…
I’m going to do an end run around you Thunderbird2 and put all my chips in. Call my bet or get out of the game. No. We will not argue about whether there was or was not a consensus at various points in the past. We will determine what the consensus would be today if a vote were held on what you ultimately want. No. We will not merely “allow” the IEC prefixes so you can slyly go about your edits and Wikipedia becomes a bastard mix of of inconsistent usage. No. There will be no further debate. There has been a record amount of discussion on this issue already (fifteen archives dedicated exclusively to this one God damned issue). We’ll simply have a new vote. We’ll put a notice on a number of computer-related articles, on WP:MOS, WT:MOS, WP:MOSNUM, and WT:MOSNUM. The vote will be either that we go A) Completely to IEC prefixes for any binary value, or B) use the conventional terminology everyone else on this pale blue dot uses. If the vote is for “A” then we set a bot loose and change all binary values on Wikipedia to kibibyte (KiB), mebibyte (MiB), and gibibyte (GiB).
You know what I think your response to the above will be? You will A) argue on procedural grounds over how our current policy never had a proper consensus. Or B) respond with an RfC or ANI over my mistreatment of you (bring it on: I’m just sick of your continual disruption of Wikipedia; I, at least, try to deal with others honorably and play by the rules). Or C) you will fall silent and duck the inconvenient fact that if a vote was conducted today on standardizing on the consistent and exclusive use of the IEC prefixes for binary values, the motion won’t go at all well.
Now stop ducking and bobbing and weaving and playing your horseshit games. Do you want to have a new vote to see what the true consensus is today(?), or do you just want to keep on being the most annoying Wikipedian who still hasn’t been banned for life? Signed, with pleasure: Greg L ( talk) 19:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Your allegation that there is no consensus for the present wording is patently absurd because it was the product of a 7:3 vote in favor. As also stated above, the leading proponent of the policy it had replaced admitted that our adoption of the IEC prefixes had been done without a consensus, so your argument that the previous policy should be restored is totally bankrupt. Your allegation that we haven’t produced evidence of a consensus is patently absurd because a copy of the ballot table is copied above. Your argument that the consensus is invalid because it was the product of “bullying” is utterly fallacious. The arguments of the pro-SI prefix crowd simply didn’t hold any water and crumbled. The only way you saw fit to sneak around the inconvenient truth that your camp’s arguments weren’t substantive was to simply refuse to answer direct questions from Headbomb and be evasive. That continued refusal still has Headbomb recovering from a near fit. You have no one to blame but yourself for failing to advance arguments to persuade others to your point of view.
Your clear desire to go back to the past wording, which “allowed” the use of the IEC prefixes is beyond unrealistic; no one on Wikipedia but you wants to go back to where we had a bastard mix of the IEC prefixes on some articles and conventional prefixes in others.
The only possible policy decision is whether to have project-wide standardization entirely on the IEC prefixes, or to continue to simply follow what everyone else on this pale blue dot does. You know as well as I do that such a proposal doesn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of passing; ergo, your continual popping up here on WT:MOSNUM with your periodic attempts to sneak in—when Headbomb, Fnagaton, and I aren’t looking—a guideline that would “allow” the IEC prefixes so you can slyly go about your business of converting articles until Wikipedia once again becomes a bastard mix of binary prefix conventions. We tried that for three years and became a laughing stock; people throughout the world just dismissed those who were responsible for our use of the IEC prefixes as being some sort of wide-eyed futurists who go to Star Trek conventions wearing Spock ears.
There has been a record amount of discussion on this single topic (16 “Binary” archives!), and Headbomb’s efforts at mediating the dispute and arrive at a consensus should serve as a paradigm of how other mediators should operate. It’s all over now. Give it up.
To any administrator reading this post: Please read my above, 19:47, 30 October 2008 post. Thunderbird2 is not due a presumption of good faith because he has demonstrated that he consistently operates in an exceedingly frustrating, underhanded manner. “Assumption of good faith” ≠ “suspension of common sense.”
To Thunderbird2: Choose your next post carefully and consider yourself warned. Your behavior as of late bears all the hallmarks of a tendentious, single-purpose editor whose benefits to Wikipedia are wildly offset by the disruption you cause. One remedy for this, which is distinctly possible, is a permanent ban. Please drop the stick and stop flogging the dead horse.
I see that no one is able to point to any kind of consensus. Instead there are the same threats and accusations repeated over and over again, and by the same editors. Very tedious. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
This has been answered about twenty millions times by now and your lack of tackling the real issue has been well documented. I've asked you well over 20 times to give substantial arguments over 3 months and you've failed to do so every time [See ( [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], and on Headbomb's page [28], [29]])]. I've berated Greg for encouraging bad faith when it came to dealing with you ( [30]) , saying that I would rather form my own opinions on this. Greg took numerous swings at me and at my supposed agenda for the promotion of the IEC prefixes. I'm a personal proponent of IEC prefixes in the real world, I use them and I love them. The fact that I side with Greg and Fnag (and Pyrotec, and Marty Goldberg, and SWTPC6800, and MJCdetroit, and Franci Schonken, and Jimp, and Rilak, and Dfmclean ...) on this is a testament to both the weakness of your position and arguments and the strength of theirs. Please drop the stick. You are a single-purpose account who spends >95% of his time pushing for binary prefixes. Go away. Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird2, this is the last chance warning before you are referred for user conduct RFC. The following three items summarise the issues with your edits: 1) Stop using ad hominem to misrepresent other editors (on your talk pages and other pages) and thus only tackle the substance of their arguments. 2) Stop trying to claim there is no consensus because the talk archive shows your claim is baseless. 3) Stop repeatedly copy-pasting/spamming the same content from your talk pages because when you do you violate WP:POINT "Refusal to 'get the point' ". Fnag aton 13:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
As with other computer manufacturers, for Apple’s hard drives, 1 GB equals 1 billion (1,000,000,000) bytes; actual formatted capacities are less.
"because everyone else on this pale blue dot uses the conventional binary prefixes."
Minor quibble about certain persons' claims. i.e. This statement is completely inaccurate. If I buy a 100 gigabyte hard drive, I'm not going to get 104.8576 billion bytes (base 2). Instead I will get 100.0 billion bytes (base 10) therefore the claim "everyone" uses binary is complete and utter..... falsehood. ---- Theaveng ( talk) 17:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
That you would dismiss our adopting real-world practices as a simple case of ‘cause “everyone else is doing it” speaks to precisely why your arguments didn’t hold sway with the majority of other editors. Headbomb was—and is—an advocate of the IEC prefixes but he quickly realized that following real-world practices is the right thing to do and served as the moderator as we worked towards the current consensus. Had you stayed in the dispute to the end, arguments like you just posted above wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome as they are absurd and betray a breathtaking lack of awareness of the most simple fundamentals of technical writing; principally, technical writing’s First and Second Commandments:
(unindent) I have never even heard of Gibibytes and I am a software engineer with a degree in electronics engineering. It is universally understood that for convenience of base 2 digital electronics kilo- refers to 1024, mega- refers to 1024*1024 and giga- refers to 1024*1024*1024. This is universal and exclusive practice. If you buy a 1 kilobyte EEPROM device, it will contain 1024 bytes. In 15 years of industrial engineering I have never come across the terms kibi or gibi. It is current and global practice to use the terms kilo, mega and giga as described. Smart51 ( talk) 16:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird and Tom94022: It would be nice if you two had the courage to explain precisely what it is you want. Is it any of the following(?):
Please answer below. Greg L ( talk) 23:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I live in a different world than the rest of you, but several applications that I use nearly every day use the abbreviations KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB to unambiguously refer to bandwidths and file sizes. One such example? Azureus. -- Cyde Weys 16:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Greg L asked above precisely what I would propose - I'll take his question in good faith not withstanding his alternatives 4 and 5. I have been working on a proposal but in the meantime the shouting goes on and now I find in the fallacious RfC on T2 that the lack of a proposal cited as one reason why this cannot be resolved. My intent is to propose a revision to the section that allows the use of IEC Binary Prefixes to resolve ambiguous meanings. For example, there is no ambiguity in the usage in semiconductor memory so it would inappropriate in such an article. On the other hand the Floppy Disk article is rather confused and would benefit from such consistent, succinct and precise prefixes. This would result in some articles using them and some not, but ... a foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of a small mind ... Putting this into words is difficult so give me some time. Tom94022 ( talk) 02:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like to gauge the level of support behind this assertion:
Any Comments? (In particular, does the statement hold when the units used by the sources are ambiguous?) Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Which units to use
* Broadly accepted units should be given preference. Usually, but not always, this means units approved by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) (SI units, SI derived units, and non-SI units accepted for use with SI) are preferred over other units (e.g., write 25 °C (77 °F) and not 77 °F (25 °C)).
* Since some disciplines use units not approved by the BIPM, or may format them in a way that differs from BIPM-prescribed format, when such units are used by a clear majority of the sources relevant to those disciplines, articles should follow this (e.g., using cc in automotive articles and not cm3). Such use of non-standard units are always linked on first use.
Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
It’s OK to use IEC prefixes in a direct quote. But just because a source in a citation or two uses the IEC prefixes, is no excuse to use them in general body text in our articles. We can’t do this because such terminology isn’t recognized by our readership. “Though shalt not cause needless confusion” is the First Commandment of technical writing.
Teaching our readership the IEC prefixes (by routinely using them in a “Oh, didn’tcha know”-fashion and linking them to the IEC prefixes articles) would be a fruitless exercise for our readership because the lesson would never see any real-world reinforcement after they learned them here. It is naïve to think that by hijacking Wikipedia to promote the IEC prefixes, that we will actually accelerate their adoption; it’s been ten years since the IEC proposal was advanced and it is no closer to achieving real-world adoption today than at the start. Wikipedia does not have that sort of influence in the grand scheme of things and your efforts at flogging this dead horse are simply fruitless and aren’t going well.
Now, in the dictionary under Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, it should say “See User:Thunderbird2.” None of what I just said hasn’t been said before to you a hundred times and, curiously, you seem wholly reluctant to see the truth in what we’re saying and give it up. You have been civilly urged many, many times you to drop this and get on with some productive contributions to Wikipedia that are compliant with MOSNUM and which isn’t tantamount to editing against the consensus. Yet it appears you are hell-bent on being disruptive on this point until you are eventually banned. Is that what you want? Greg L ( talk) 00:06, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
MOSNUM currently contains the text
The IEC standard prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc. (symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc.) are not familiar to most Wikipedia readers, so are not to be used except under the following circumstances:
Until someone can demonstrate that a valid consensus (i.e., one based on civil discussion) exists for the present wording, I propose that the controversial part of this text (the explicit deprecation of IEC prefixes) be removed. Possibilities I see are:
For the latter option I have the following suggestion:
While the IEC standard prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc. (symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc.) are helpful for disambiguation, they are unfamiliar to many Wikipedia readers. Editors should therefore first consider use of alternative disambiguation methods, such as explicit numbers of bytes.
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 17:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems to be agreed that there has been no civil discussion supporting the present wording, from which it follows immediately that there is no consensus for it. The question is not whether the existing text should be replaced, but what to replace it with. If we cannot agree on a revision, the text must go. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 12:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Since Thunderbird2's proposal above has no chance ( WP:SNOW) I will make a counter proposal.
Fnag aton 02:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 13:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
[10] This problem is illustrated by Address space layout randomization, which includes the confusing disambiguation footnote "Transistorized memory, such as RAM and cache sizes (other than solid state disk devices such as USB drives, CompactFlash cards, and so on) as well as CD-based storage size are specified using binary meanings for K (10241), M (10242), G (10243), ..."
As seen above Thunderbird2 is again beating the same dead horse and violating policy by again copy and pasting the same text as he has done before. Everything posted by Thunderbird2 above has been refuted by the much stronger arguments in the talk archive, this is documented in the RfC/U about Thunderbird2. In summary, everthing he has written above has been refuted by the arguments in the talk archive and therefore nothing he has written can change any guideline text. This is blatant forum shopping by Thunderbird2 and therefore disruptive editing. This disruptive editing is documented in the RfC/U and has a long history, therefore please block Thunderbird2 from editing because it is obvious Thunderbird2 is not going to listen to the community and is not going to modify his bad behaviour. Fnag aton 13:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
As I believe many of the people concerned watch this page (others might not), please note that I have nominated the article JEDEC memory standards for deletion for non-notability under the Wikipedia deletion policy, as it seems clear to me that it was created merely to bolster some viewpoints in this apparently everlasting strictly Wikipedia-only discussion and as it concerns only a few frigging term definitions in a standards document, which are by no means central to the standard. If you wish to take part in the discussion, you may do so at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/JEDEC_memory_standards. -- SLi ( talk) 21:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
It looks like a month has gone by without anything new being added so maybe it is time for this page to be closed and archived? Glider87 ( talk) 06:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Twice now in the last week, a discussion that I started has been prematurely archived, without giving Headbomb a chance to answer the question I put to him. So let's forget the question and concentrate on the issue.
First, "What is an IEC prefix?" I hear you ask. Read this for a brief introduction and this for the case against the deprecation of their use on Wikipedia.
There are several reasons to question that consensus was reached for the present deprecation of IEC prefixes:
After those attacks I requested mediation. An offer of mediation was made by Doug and rejected by Greg_L.
And now, because I dare to question the claimed consensus, Greg_L portrays me as some kind of lunatic [6].
See also the theses of Quilbert and Omegatron on their personal spaces
The following WP Policy statements are relevant:
In other words, there is no reason to assign any more weight to the 7-3 vote than to the 11-0 vote before it. The dead horse that anti-IEC editors are so fond of quoting simply doesn't apply here, because there has never been a discussion that concluded in favour of deprecation that has not been dominated by abusive remarks from Greg_L. The result is that editors who wish to take part (like Omegatron and Quilbert) stay away from the discussion because they do not wish to be on the receiving end of such abuse. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to see this block of text be inserted and reverted and inserted and reverted anymore. Let it go. It will be automatically archived by the bot, normally, if the interest in it dies down; there is no hurry to archive it. This is getting dreadfully tiresome and close to warranting protection or issuing blocks. I doubt anyone wants to see that happen. If someone wants to keep beating this dead horse into a pulp, let them. Ignore it, don't get involved in an edit war over it. Sher eth 22:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
User | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Headbomb ( ταλκ · κοντριβς) 05:30, 2 June 2008 (UTC) | X [1] | |||||
Greg L ( talk) 15:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC) | X [2] | |||||
Fnag aton 19:08, 25 May 2008 (UTC) | X [3] | |||||
Woodstone ( talk) 20:42, 2 June 2008 (UTC) | X [4] | |||||
SWTPC6800 ( talk) 18:01, 30 May 2008 (UTC) | X | |||||
Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC) | X [5] | |||||
MJCdetroit 19:50, 27 May 2008 (UTC) | X [6] | |||||
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 07:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC) | X [7] | |||||
Dfmclean 19:00, 28 May 2008 | X [8] | |||||
Pyrotec 22:35 05 June 2008 | X [9] |
The above was after three solid months of debate. No rule of conduct in a decent and civilized society requires that a single holdout can keep on disrupting a system for so long. T-bird: your objections were heard but your persistent silence, when Headbomb asked you (repeatedly) to explain your reasoning, was deafening. You have no one to blame but yourself for failing to persuade others to your way of thinking. As I stated above, we are done with this issue for now. When there is a change in the reality of the situation and there is actually a fair amount of real-world usage of the IEC prefixes, let us know. Until then, please accept with grace that the consensus is that Wikipedia will communicate to its readership the same way all other encyclopedias and computer magazines do: with terminology and symbols that readers actually recognize. Greg L ( talk) 02:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, you had an insurmountable objective: arguing a case to make Wikipedia do something foolish and use terminology that no other encyclopedia in the world uses, nor any computer magazine directed to a general-interest audience, nor which any computer manufacturer uses in marketing communications to their customer bases. Further, you were advocating Wikipedia use terminology that you conceded our readership didn’t even recognize (the fifth entry down is your signature). Further, your silence here for six days on this thread and then, after I archived it, your deciding to drag it back here to keep on flogging this dead horse, is just more of the same old stuff from you. Your actions here are tedious at best, and disruptive at the worst, and I will no longer dignify your tactics with any further responses. Goodbye. Forever. Greg L ( talk) 23:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
There comes a point in every debate on Wikipedia where the debate itself has come to a natural end. You may have won the debate, you may have lost the debate, or you may have found yourself in an honourable draw. At this point you should drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass.
If a debate, discussion, or general exchange of views has come to a natural end through one party having "won" or (more likely) the community having lost interest in the entire thing, then no matter which side you were on, you should walk away.
If you don't, if you continue to flog the poor old debate, if you try to reopen it, if you continually refer to old news, if you parade your triumph in the faces of others... you're not really winning friends and influencing people. Instead, you are annoying the hell out of everyone nearby.
If you've "won": good for you. Now go about your business, don't keep reminding us of the fact that your "opponent" didn't "win". If you've "lost": sorry, hard luck. Now go about your business, don't keep reminding us of the fact that your "opponent" didn't actually win because of... whatever. If the debate died a natural death: let it remain dead. It is over, let it go. Nobody cared except you. Hard to stomach, but you're going to have to live with it.
So, the next time you find yourself with the body of a horse: please stop beating it. It won't help.
Greg L (
talk)
02:47, 25 October 2008 (UTC))
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 19:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Headbomb and Greg, since Thunderbird2 and Tom have not provided any new substantive arguments on this issue and because if Thunderbird2 had not just posted the same old refuted statements he has repeated ad nauseam then this section would have been archived by the bot and because Thunderbird2 has still not given valid answers to questions directed to him: I propse that this whole section be archived to avoid cluttering up this talk page with Thunderbird2's violations of WP:POINT. In the interests of playing fair Thunderbird2 and Tom can have one last chance to present new substantive arguments and to give valid answers to questions in the talk archive (instead of repeating the same refuted statements from his talk page). If either of them continue to repeat the same old refuted statements (i.e. beat the dead horse) then I propose to archive immediately. Does anyone (apart from Thunderbird2 or Tom, obviously) disagree with this? Fnag aton 04:04, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
I’d truly like him to simply explain what precisely his ultimate objective is here. That’s preferable to listening to him complain about how nobody is listening. OK, we’re all ears Thunderbird2. What is your objective? Do you want the IEC prefixes used here on Wikipedia? Because if you do, we better be consistent here. Even though no one else in the real world is using them (no computer manufacturer to their customer base, no computer magazine to a general-interest readership, and no general encyclopedia), if Wikipedia is to be all alone on this one as far as real-world practice goes, we’re going to be consistent about it. So man-up T-bird! If that is your objective (get Wikipedia using the IEC prefixes), we should run your proposal up the flagpole and see who salutes it. If you can’t answer this simple question (what is it you’re trying to accomplish besides annoying Headbomb, Fnagaton, and me), you really should shoot your damned computer so you can resist the temptation to come here and bother others; that’s not nice. Greg L ( talk) 07:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
For once it is Headbomb you chooses to be offensive while Greg_L is being constructive, in his fashion. I will respond to his challenge directly, disregarding its unnecessarily confrontational nature. My objective is the same now as it always has been: to establish whether or not consensus exists for the present deprecation. You 3 insist that it exists but are unable to demonstrate it. I am completely pragmatic: maybe it exists, maybe not. Let’s find out by asking the question, without insulting those who happen to disagree with one or other point of view. There has never been any need or justification for that. (It goes without saying that archiving the discussion before it has run its course amounts to censorship). Thunderbird2 ( talk) 17:13, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
To any admin looking at this post: I have clear proof that Thunderbird has lost the right to be presumed to be operating here in good faith since it is a matter of record that he lied and deceived to get his way only about five months ago. He pretended to be a swing-vote moderate and said that to gain his support, he wanted some concessions in wording that watered down arguments against using the IEC prefixes. I gave him precisely what he asked for. But when it was clear that the revised wording would still ban the IEC prefixes, he finally “came out of the closet" ramped up his opposition to what was going on, and in the end, voted *against* the wording after I watered it down per his wishes. He manipulates others and isn’t up front in his dealings. He wastes our time. He is not due an “assumption of good faith” because he has proven his SOP is to not operate in good faith. I utterly reject the notion that any rule in a decent and civilized society requires that civilized men in a party have to endlessly put up with a brute who crashes a party, disrupts all the proceedings, and refuses to behave himself. It’s high time to kick his ass out onto the street curb.
I’ll have none of your B.S. anymore Thunderbird2. Your objective here is clear. There will no longer be inconsistent use of binary prefixes on Wikipedia (where some articles say “256 megabytes (MB)” to denote 10242 bytes, and still other articles say “256 mebibytes (MiB)” to denote the exact same value. We will be consistent here. Further, you will not be permitted to get your way by using procedural maneuvers. What you clearly want—I’d bet a hundred bucks—is to weasel in a MOSNUM guideline that “permits” their use and then you’ll start changing article upon article until we’ve once again got a bastard mess here on Wikipedia. This is the same bullshit Sarenne tried until he got banned for life. No one else in the real world is using the IEC prefixes (no computer manufacturer to their customer base, no computer magazine to a general-interest readership, and no general encyclopedia). If you got what you want, Wikipedia would be all alone on this one as far as real-world practice goes. For God’s sake, everyone agreed—even you—that our readership didn’t even recognize the IEC prefixes. And yet, here you are, agitating for using them anyway. So…
I’m going to do an end run around you Thunderbird2 and put all my chips in. Call my bet or get out of the game. No. We will not argue about whether there was or was not a consensus at various points in the past. We will determine what the consensus would be today if a vote were held on what you ultimately want. No. We will not merely “allow” the IEC prefixes so you can slyly go about your edits and Wikipedia becomes a bastard mix of of inconsistent usage. No. There will be no further debate. There has been a record amount of discussion on this issue already (fifteen archives dedicated exclusively to this one God damned issue). We’ll simply have a new vote. We’ll put a notice on a number of computer-related articles, on WP:MOS, WT:MOS, WP:MOSNUM, and WT:MOSNUM. The vote will be either that we go A) Completely to IEC prefixes for any binary value, or B) use the conventional terminology everyone else on this pale blue dot uses. If the vote is for “A” then we set a bot loose and change all binary values on Wikipedia to kibibyte (KiB), mebibyte (MiB), and gibibyte (GiB).
You know what I think your response to the above will be? You will A) argue on procedural grounds over how our current policy never had a proper consensus. Or B) respond with an RfC or ANI over my mistreatment of you (bring it on: I’m just sick of your continual disruption of Wikipedia; I, at least, try to deal with others honorably and play by the rules). Or C) you will fall silent and duck the inconvenient fact that if a vote was conducted today on standardizing on the consistent and exclusive use of the IEC prefixes for binary values, the motion won’t go at all well.
Now stop ducking and bobbing and weaving and playing your horseshit games. Do you want to have a new vote to see what the true consensus is today(?), or do you just want to keep on being the most annoying Wikipedian who still hasn’t been banned for life? Signed, with pleasure: Greg L ( talk) 19:47, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
Your allegation that there is no consensus for the present wording is patently absurd because it was the product of a 7:3 vote in favor. As also stated above, the leading proponent of the policy it had replaced admitted that our adoption of the IEC prefixes had been done without a consensus, so your argument that the previous policy should be restored is totally bankrupt. Your allegation that we haven’t produced evidence of a consensus is patently absurd because a copy of the ballot table is copied above. Your argument that the consensus is invalid because it was the product of “bullying” is utterly fallacious. The arguments of the pro-SI prefix crowd simply didn’t hold any water and crumbled. The only way you saw fit to sneak around the inconvenient truth that your camp’s arguments weren’t substantive was to simply refuse to answer direct questions from Headbomb and be evasive. That continued refusal still has Headbomb recovering from a near fit. You have no one to blame but yourself for failing to advance arguments to persuade others to your point of view.
Your clear desire to go back to the past wording, which “allowed” the use of the IEC prefixes is beyond unrealistic; no one on Wikipedia but you wants to go back to where we had a bastard mix of the IEC prefixes on some articles and conventional prefixes in others.
The only possible policy decision is whether to have project-wide standardization entirely on the IEC prefixes, or to continue to simply follow what everyone else on this pale blue dot does. You know as well as I do that such a proposal doesn’t have a snow ball’s chance in hell of passing; ergo, your continual popping up here on WT:MOSNUM with your periodic attempts to sneak in—when Headbomb, Fnagaton, and I aren’t looking—a guideline that would “allow” the IEC prefixes so you can slyly go about your business of converting articles until Wikipedia once again becomes a bastard mix of binary prefix conventions. We tried that for three years and became a laughing stock; people throughout the world just dismissed those who were responsible for our use of the IEC prefixes as being some sort of wide-eyed futurists who go to Star Trek conventions wearing Spock ears.
There has been a record amount of discussion on this single topic (16 “Binary” archives!), and Headbomb’s efforts at mediating the dispute and arrive at a consensus should serve as a paradigm of how other mediators should operate. It’s all over now. Give it up.
To any administrator reading this post: Please read my above, 19:47, 30 October 2008 post. Thunderbird2 is not due a presumption of good faith because he has demonstrated that he consistently operates in an exceedingly frustrating, underhanded manner. “Assumption of good faith” ≠ “suspension of common sense.”
To Thunderbird2: Choose your next post carefully and consider yourself warned. Your behavior as of late bears all the hallmarks of a tendentious, single-purpose editor whose benefits to Wikipedia are wildly offset by the disruption you cause. One remedy for this, which is distinctly possible, is a permanent ban. Please drop the stick and stop flogging the dead horse.
I see that no one is able to point to any kind of consensus. Instead there are the same threats and accusations repeated over and over again, and by the same editors. Very tedious. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:13, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
This has been answered about twenty millions times by now and your lack of tackling the real issue has been well documented. I've asked you well over 20 times to give substantial arguments over 3 months and you've failed to do so every time [See ( [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], and on Headbomb's page [28], [29]])]. I've berated Greg for encouraging bad faith when it came to dealing with you ( [30]) , saying that I would rather form my own opinions on this. Greg took numerous swings at me and at my supposed agenda for the promotion of the IEC prefixes. I'm a personal proponent of IEC prefixes in the real world, I use them and I love them. The fact that I side with Greg and Fnag (and Pyrotec, and Marty Goldberg, and SWTPC6800, and MJCdetroit, and Franci Schonken, and Jimp, and Rilak, and Dfmclean ...) on this is a testament to both the weakness of your position and arguments and the strength of theirs. Please drop the stick. You are a single-purpose account who spends >95% of his time pushing for binary prefixes. Go away. Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 20:36, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird2, this is the last chance warning before you are referred for user conduct RFC. The following three items summarise the issues with your edits: 1) Stop using ad hominem to misrepresent other editors (on your talk pages and other pages) and thus only tackle the substance of their arguments. 2) Stop trying to claim there is no consensus because the talk archive shows your claim is baseless. 3) Stop repeatedly copy-pasting/spamming the same content from your talk pages because when you do you violate WP:POINT "Refusal to 'get the point' ". Fnag aton 13:13, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
As with other computer manufacturers, for Apple’s hard drives, 1 GB equals 1 billion (1,000,000,000) bytes; actual formatted capacities are less.
"because everyone else on this pale blue dot uses the conventional binary prefixes."
Minor quibble about certain persons' claims. i.e. This statement is completely inaccurate. If I buy a 100 gigabyte hard drive, I'm not going to get 104.8576 billion bytes (base 2). Instead I will get 100.0 billion bytes (base 10) therefore the claim "everyone" uses binary is complete and utter..... falsehood. ---- Theaveng ( talk) 17:40, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
That you would dismiss our adopting real-world practices as a simple case of ‘cause “everyone else is doing it” speaks to precisely why your arguments didn’t hold sway with the majority of other editors. Headbomb was—and is—an advocate of the IEC prefixes but he quickly realized that following real-world practices is the right thing to do and served as the moderator as we worked towards the current consensus. Had you stayed in the dispute to the end, arguments like you just posted above wouldn’t have made any difference in the outcome as they are absurd and betray a breathtaking lack of awareness of the most simple fundamentals of technical writing; principally, technical writing’s First and Second Commandments:
(unindent) I have never even heard of Gibibytes and I am a software engineer with a degree in electronics engineering. It is universally understood that for convenience of base 2 digital electronics kilo- refers to 1024, mega- refers to 1024*1024 and giga- refers to 1024*1024*1024. This is universal and exclusive practice. If you buy a 1 kilobyte EEPROM device, it will contain 1024 bytes. In 15 years of industrial engineering I have never come across the terms kibi or gibi. It is current and global practice to use the terms kilo, mega and giga as described. Smart51 ( talk) 16:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird and Tom94022: It would be nice if you two had the courage to explain precisely what it is you want. Is it any of the following(?):
Please answer below. Greg L ( talk) 23:39, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Maybe I live in a different world than the rest of you, but several applications that I use nearly every day use the abbreviations KiB, MiB, GiB, and TiB to unambiguously refer to bandwidths and file sizes. One such example? Azureus. -- Cyde Weys 16:24, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Greg L asked above precisely what I would propose - I'll take his question in good faith not withstanding his alternatives 4 and 5. I have been working on a proposal but in the meantime the shouting goes on and now I find in the fallacious RfC on T2 that the lack of a proposal cited as one reason why this cannot be resolved. My intent is to propose a revision to the section that allows the use of IEC Binary Prefixes to resolve ambiguous meanings. For example, there is no ambiguity in the usage in semiconductor memory so it would inappropriate in such an article. On the other hand the Floppy Disk article is rather confused and would benefit from such consistent, succinct and precise prefixes. This would result in some articles using them and some not, but ... a foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of a small mind ... Putting this into words is difficult so give me some time. Tom94022 ( talk) 02:29, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
I would like to gauge the level of support behind this assertion:
Any Comments? (In particular, does the statement hold when the units used by the sources are ambiguous?) Thunderbird2 ( talk) 18:27, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Which units to use
* Broadly accepted units should be given preference. Usually, but not always, this means units approved by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) (SI units, SI derived units, and non-SI units accepted for use with SI) are preferred over other units (e.g., write 25 °C (77 °F) and not 77 °F (25 °C)).
* Since some disciplines use units not approved by the BIPM, or may format them in a way that differs from BIPM-prescribed format, when such units are used by a clear majority of the sources relevant to those disciplines, articles should follow this (e.g., using cc in automotive articles and not cm3). Such use of non-standard units are always linked on first use.
Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 22:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
It’s OK to use IEC prefixes in a direct quote. But just because a source in a citation or two uses the IEC prefixes, is no excuse to use them in general body text in our articles. We can’t do this because such terminology isn’t recognized by our readership. “Though shalt not cause needless confusion” is the First Commandment of technical writing.
Teaching our readership the IEC prefixes (by routinely using them in a “Oh, didn’tcha know”-fashion and linking them to the IEC prefixes articles) would be a fruitless exercise for our readership because the lesson would never see any real-world reinforcement after they learned them here. It is naïve to think that by hijacking Wikipedia to promote the IEC prefixes, that we will actually accelerate their adoption; it’s been ten years since the IEC proposal was advanced and it is no closer to achieving real-world adoption today than at the start. Wikipedia does not have that sort of influence in the grand scheme of things and your efforts at flogging this dead horse are simply fruitless and aren’t going well.
Now, in the dictionary under Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, it should say “See User:Thunderbird2.” None of what I just said hasn’t been said before to you a hundred times and, curiously, you seem wholly reluctant to see the truth in what we’re saying and give it up. You have been civilly urged many, many times you to drop this and get on with some productive contributions to Wikipedia that are compliant with MOSNUM and which isn’t tantamount to editing against the consensus. Yet it appears you are hell-bent on being disruptive on this point until you are eventually banned. Is that what you want? Greg L ( talk) 00:06, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
MOSNUM currently contains the text
The IEC standard prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc. (symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc.) are not familiar to most Wikipedia readers, so are not to be used except under the following circumstances:
Until someone can demonstrate that a valid consensus (i.e., one based on civil discussion) exists for the present wording, I propose that the controversial part of this text (the explicit deprecation of IEC prefixes) be removed. Possibilities I see are:
For the latter option I have the following suggestion:
While the IEC standard prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, etc. (symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc.) are helpful for disambiguation, they are unfamiliar to many Wikipedia readers. Editors should therefore first consider use of alternative disambiguation methods, such as explicit numbers of bytes.
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 17:58, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
It seems to be agreed that there has been no civil discussion supporting the present wording, from which it follows immediately that there is no consensus for it. The question is not whether the existing text should be replaced, but what to replace it with. If we cannot agree on a revision, the text must go. Thunderbird2 ( talk) 12:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
Since Thunderbird2's proposal above has no chance ( WP:SNOW) I will make a counter proposal.
Fnag aton 02:45, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Thunderbird2 ( talk) 13:52, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
[10] This problem is illustrated by Address space layout randomization, which includes the confusing disambiguation footnote "Transistorized memory, such as RAM and cache sizes (other than solid state disk devices such as USB drives, CompactFlash cards, and so on) as well as CD-based storage size are specified using binary meanings for K (10241), M (10242), G (10243), ..."
As seen above Thunderbird2 is again beating the same dead horse and violating policy by again copy and pasting the same text as he has done before. Everything posted by Thunderbird2 above has been refuted by the much stronger arguments in the talk archive, this is documented in the RfC/U about Thunderbird2. In summary, everthing he has written above has been refuted by the arguments in the talk archive and therefore nothing he has written can change any guideline text. This is blatant forum shopping by Thunderbird2 and therefore disruptive editing. This disruptive editing is documented in the RfC/U and has a long history, therefore please block Thunderbird2 from editing because it is obvious Thunderbird2 is not going to listen to the community and is not going to modify his bad behaviour. Fnag aton 13:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
As I believe many of the people concerned watch this page (others might not), please note that I have nominated the article JEDEC memory standards for deletion for non-notability under the Wikipedia deletion policy, as it seems clear to me that it was created merely to bolster some viewpoints in this apparently everlasting strictly Wikipedia-only discussion and as it concerns only a few frigging term definitions in a standards document, which are by no means central to the standard. If you wish to take part in the discussion, you may do so at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/JEDEC_memory_standards. -- SLi ( talk) 21:58, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
It looks like a month has gone by without anything new being added so maybe it is time for this page to be closed and archived? Glider87 ( talk) 06:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)