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I notice that you are adding kilometers to distances expressed in nautical miles, as at Mount Desert Light. I think it deserves a little discussion. I wrote many of the articles you are are changing and deliberately used only nautical miles, as that is the measure used by virtually all mariners. I can't argue with the premise that we ought to use landlubbers' units, at least for statements like,
- "...Mount Desert Rock, a small island about 18 nautical miles (33 km) south of Mount Desert Island."
I think, though, that if we're going that way, then it should be both statute miles and kilometers -- after all most of the readers of articles on US lighthouses are going to be US residents and therefore more or less metric illiterate. A nautical mile is no more likely to be understood by an American that by a European, unless they are water people.
I might even go farther and suggest that we eliminate nautical miles entirely from locations -- and keep them only for the range of the light, without conversion. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 10:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
- You make some interesting points. The place for a house-style discussion like this is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Would you mind reposting your comments there? Lightmouse ( talk) 11:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think it needs discussion there -- what I am proposing is closer to existing policy, which suggests using both statute miles and kilometers in articles. Note that this usage is already implicit in in {{ convert}}, where we have
- {{convert|19|nmi}} which yields 19 nautical miles (35 km; 22 mi) or
- {{convert|19|nmi|abbr=none}} which yields 19 nautical miles (35 kilometres; 22 miles)
- That is, you can force {{ convert}} to show only km, as you did, but it naturally shows both km and miles. If, however, you really want to discuss it, I suggest that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lighthouses is a better forum.
- . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 11:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The more people ensuring conversions to km are provided, the better. It would be great if you guys at the lighthouse project could go through the articles and ensure that km is provided (my main concern) in whatever way suits you. I'm less keen on the suggestion that km would not be provided for the range of the light. Lightmouse ( talk) 12:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
- I trust you know that no one -- American, British, European, Chinese, whatever, uses km at sea -- the nautical mile is the only unit used, for good reason. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972, with approximately 170 signatories, uses only nautical miles for long distances (short distances -- the lengths of vessels and tows -- are in meters). Hence our choice of only nautical miles for the range of lights, an essentially nautical measurement.. . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 22:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I could give you my opinion but it's more a matter for the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). It currently allows or even encourages editors to provide a 'km' value for the range of lights. If this is to be forbidden in future, then it would be best to discuss it there. Would you like to make a posting there along the lines you suggest or would you prefer it if I started it? Lightmouse ( talk) 14:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
- Well, first I would quote the MOS
- "use the units in most widespread use worldwide for the type of measurement in question."
- That is, as I point out above, clearly the Nautical Mile and nothing else. Km are not used at sea by anyone.
- However, I have no problem with adding km to provided that you also add statute miles. I have the impression from your comments above that you believe that somehow the nautical mile is a US/UK creature that is properly balanced by the km and only the km. That is not correct -- the nautical mile is a generally accepted international unit. I have no problem with stating light ranges in nautical miles, km, and statue miles, but I think it is within the spirit of the MOS to favor metric system landlubbers with distances in km while leaving American and British landlubbers in the dark. If you insist on adding land distance to sea measurements, then please add both metric and customary, as required by the MOS. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 16:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Can we please have comments from others on this issue? Lightmouse ( talk) 16:51, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm much the same as you, Offliner. It's too much of a constraint to say that a metric editor cannot add metric units if they don't know, and implement, non-metric units that are applicable for the domain, region, and era. The addition of a conversion into km does not prevent lighthouse specialists from adding more conversions. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Can't see why nautical miles can't just be converted to both miles and km. Those not familiar with nautical miles will generally be familiar with either miles or km, and I can't see a good reason for boxing out one or the other. We are not here to try and force people to use units we happen to like, but to make WP accessible for everyone. Similarly of course knots, mph and km/h. Richard New Forest ( talk) 18:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Richard New Forest ( talk) 20:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
“ | Mount Desert Light is a lighthouse on Mount Desert Rock, a small island about 18 nautical miles (33 kilometres; 21 miles) south of Mount Desert Island, which is part of the state of Maine in the United States. It was first established in 1830. | ” |
←I was thinking more like this (assuming first appearance in an article):
10 nmi (11 mi; 18 km) from X, 20 nmi from Y.
That is, after you get the idea of the proportions, it's nmi only. What happens with knots? Tony (talk) 07:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
MOS:TIME doesn't state explicitly whether or not one should use leading zeros for 12 hour clock times, eg 1:38:09 pm or 01:38:09 pm, but I think it should. Currently it only implies by example. For 24-hour clocks, it states explicitly that "discretion may be used as to whether the hour has a leading zero". I suggest that MOS:TIME should state an explict guideline for leading zeros in 12-hour clock times. Presumably that would be either "no leading zero" or "leading zero is optional". Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:48, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I might add that military-related articles should be no exception. We don’t have military personnel coming to our articles to find out at what time their duty begins to man the guardhouse; common sense tells us our military-related articles are overwhelming read by civilians; ergo, it would be unwise to start using unnatural looking time formats just because the subject matter is of a military nature. Quite correctly, our article here on ‘Death of Linda Norgrove’ wisely states that the rescue attempt began at 3:30 AM and not 03:30. One should never write in a fashion that unnecessarily draws attention to the writing style; it interferes with the the objective of transparently communicating thought. As always, exceptions would be direct quotes and articles discussing time formats. Greg L ( talk) 17:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
My observations are that in the UK, leading zeros do not appear on 12 hour times. Moreover, in the UK (unlike the US), the 24 hour clock is used for railway and airline timetables so a Brit would ask whether "1:00" was "am or pm", but would accept that "01:00" was an hour after midnight. The Continent does not have these problems - the terms "am" and "pm" (or the foreign equivalent thereof) are hardly ever used there. Martinvl ( talk) 13:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I think too many young, would-be technical writers think they’ve done a good job by ralphing abstruse stuff like this onto pages because it looks advanced and they have mastered the techniques and feel proud. MOSNUM would do well to help steer such inexperienced editors towards technical writing techniques that promote clarity and make our articles as accessible as possible to a general-interest readership. Greg L ( talk) 17:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
For instance, in American cinema, even in movies showing a military setting, like in A Few Good Men, the screenwriter will, for the benefit of the audience, find a way to have someone cluelessly paraphrase an expression like “catch an oh-six hundred flight” by asking “That flight to Cuba, was that 0600 in the morning? Sir?” That’s because 24-hour time is pretty much used in the American civilian world only be emergency workers and at hospitals. Back when Western Electric actually made stuff in America (before cheap Chinese, battery-operated clocks) 24-hour clocks were surprisingly ubiquitous in hospitals. Now, even there, 12-hour clocks are now the norm; medical workers just do the math mentally.
I certainly see no point confusing 1% of Europeans at a tradeoff of confusing most Americans. Greg L ( talk) 22:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I’d hate to lose inertia on this, but my first step would be to suggest we turn over that slimy rock that nobody wants to turn over for fear of what might be found underneath: Whether it should be 3:30 p.m. or 3:30 pm or 3:30 PM. I would propose that we look towards the practices of the Associated Press since their manual of style is observed by virtually every subscribing newspaper in the English-speaking world and is what our English-speaking readership have become most accustomed to. The AP’s on-line version of their manual of style is $19 and I’ve never had an occasion to need it. I’ve gotten by whenever I had a question (such as how the AP abbreviates the months) by simply calling my local newspaper; the editors there seem happy to refer to their print copy (you can hear a metal drawer slide open) and look things up for me.
Does anyone think we can resolve this formatting question by looking towards the AP(?), or might the resultant answer produce Turkish butt-stabbings and ArbCom inquisitions where tongues are torn out those dragged before the court? If we can agree to look towards the AP, then the next question is “what does it say?” If someone has a copy and can post what it says below, great. Failing that, I’ll call my local paper tomorrow. Greg L ( talk) 01:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
When we update MOS:TIME, we should probably ensure consistency between it and the lead sentence in our 12-hour clock article, which says: ante meridiem ("a.m., English: "before midday") and post meridiem (p.m., English: "after midday"). Also in the Typography section it says It is technically correct to write "a.m." and "p.m." .... Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
I suspect too that Reuters’ advise on a parenthetical to GMT 1600 GMT is to ensure that newspaper editors in other time zones—even in other countries—can properly calculate the timing of an event and the expectation is that GMT will be stripped out before publication in a local paper. When I check with my local paper on AP practices, I’ll look into this too. Clearly, providing accurate GMT information to the editors of subscribing newspapers can be crucial when it is an article mentioning, say, the time at which a lunar eclipse will reach totality.
Practices are all over the map on Wikipedia: I see that one article, ‘ 2002 Bali bombings’ mentions local time using a 24-hour clock and gives GMT 00:15 Local time (17:15 GMT). That article appears to have been influenced by an editor who deeply believes in all-things-ISO. But, as exemplified by our ‘ September 11 attacks’ article, the timing of an event in local time is all that is sufficient to convey the nature of the event; the one in Bali was shortly after midnight and 9/11 was the product of early morning flights. Unless one is a military officer planning flight arrival times of cruise missiles crossing times zones, I’m not so sure that time-stamping a placed article with GMT adds anything at all meaningful for a general-interest readership. Clearly, we as Wikipedians interested in time nuances like date delinking, UTC, GMT, ISO, etc. understand this stuff. But we also understand HTML and wikimarkup; a general-interest readership does not have nearly as much facility with such things.
As for en.Wikipedia being read by others for whom English is not their first language (like Pakistanis), I note that the the Početna-language Wikipedia article on 9/11 has the time that a flight crashed into a tower as U 9:03:11. While that is interesting, I see no need to shortchange our English-speaking readership by writing in a fashion where the writing style unnecessarily calls attention to itself. There is certainly some good that can come of exposing other cultures to the full measure of English-speaking practices. You may take comfort in that I am quite familiar with the fact that en.Wikipedia’s readership that speaks English as its first language includes New Zealand, British, Australian, and Canadian (and those kooky Brits, for whom the language is named after). That is, after all, why I proposed looking towards the Associated Press: subscribing papers are found all over the world.
All this discussion is good because it reminds us that to write a good guideline requires thoughtful attention to the exceptions that it ought to mention. For instance, if the article is on the time of a supernova, like ‘ SN 1987A’ and one is writing about the time the neutrinos flashed clean through the earth and were detected by three neutrino detectors dispersed around the world, mentioning GMT might be more-than appropriate. Greg L ( talk) 15:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
As I wrote above, articles that are of a military nature are no exception; the readership of our military-related articles are not military personnel going online to see what time they are due to report to their duty station. Quite correctly, our article here on ‘Death of Linda Norgrove’ states that the rescue attempt began at 3:30 AM and not 03:30 (though it should now correctly be a.m. and not the uppercase version).
I also spoke with the editor about Reuters’ practice of mentioning (1600 GMT). He hasn’t seen such a thing in AP feed but agreed that it is likely to allow unambiguous conversion to local time for a subscribing publication. We also discussed the ambiguity—or at least confusing nature—of 12:00 p.m. He said their practice is to use noon and midnight.
I’ll write up a guideline later today that addresses the fundamentals as well as some or all of the above-mentioned exceptions and inclusions (like time-critical astronomical events not closely associated with a particular spot on earth such as ‘ SN 1987A’). I don’t know whether I will post it here first as a draft for talking points, or post it as a guideline with a copy here for continued discussion; either way, if there isn’t a community consensus for something, nothing sticks. And I often do best when I sleep on something and shave once before acting, so it may be some number of hours. Greg L ( talk) 18:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Γιάννης Α., you speak of using “common sense” in suggesting that any editor who wants to use 24-hour time should be free to do so. But it couldn’t be more well established now that 24-hour format is not used in daily life by either Americans or Canadians; clocks on their walls at home and at work and on time/temp digital displays in front of banks are virtually all 12-hour clocks (no leading zero). All regular digital-display clocks one would buy at a housegoods store say 3:00 in the afternoon and not 15:00. It is a simple fact that the 24-hour clock is unnatural to those who use only 12-hour in their daily life. Certainly many can *figure out* what 15:25 means, but many others would be thoroughly stumped as they stared at such an expression.
That underlies why both Reuters and the Associated Press use 12-hour clock. Consequently, if someone abroad picks up an English-language newspaper in, say Morocco, and if that newspaper is a subscriber to AP or Reuters news feed, time is in 12-hour format. These practices followed by so many major English-language newspapers throughout the world are by no accident. Moreover, our readership for whom English is their first language but who are not Americans are perfectly fluent in a.m./p.m. 12-hour clocks. So…
It makes zero sense for some of Wikipedia’s articles to mention that something happened at 15:30 while still other articles—totally randomly—use 12-hour time. You mentioned “people of certain ethnicities around the world who are used to the 24-hour clock” but they invariably have their own-language wikipedias and the last thing we need is for en.Wikipedia to have articles randomly using two different time formats depending on editor preference just because en.Wikipedia is so expansive, non-English-speaking peoples visit it.
So if you believe 24-hour time is such a clear and natural way to express time in a manner that isn’t confusing and doesn’t draw attention to itself, I expect you to explain why all our articles shouldn’t be using 24-hour time. But an argument of “just let editors and ISO-fans do what they want” sounds like more of an accommodation to make certain editors happy and less so about concern for what is best for our readership.
In my view, an attitude of “whichever way makes an editor happy” makes just as much sense as when Wikipedia—only a few years ago—had some computer-related articles using expressions like the computer came with 512 mebibytes of RAM while still other articles spoke of 512 megabytes of RAM. I find inconsistent practices to be bad ‘cess and a complete violation of Technical Writing 101. In the end, such nonsense proved to be the product of an extremely small cabal of editors who wanted Wikipedia to go contrary to the way the real world worked. I think Wikipedia has had enough of “either of two entirely different ways may be used depending on the editor’s personal preference.” Greg L ( talk) 21:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
←Hans, I know you're from Germany, but I think you significantly understate the usage of the 24-hour clock on the continent (and to a lesser extent in the UK). IMO, both 24- and 12-hour clocks should continue to be mandated on WP. Tony (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
This simple understanding of what confuses least is why both AP and Reuters require “3:30 p.m.”
We could solve this just by looking to The New York Times practices as well as the Chicago Manual of Style as well as the AP’s manual of style. But Wikipedia is going to educate the masses to a Better Way™©® because we have believers who hide their reasoning behind absurd statements like how other cultures (who, by the way, have their own-language Wikipedias) somehow magically have such standing that we can now confuse a significant fraction of our English-speaking readership—or at least make give their brains a pause as they stumble across a rare time format they seldom use in real life. BTW, the parenthetical Reuters (1600 GMT) that they add to their articles is for the benefit of subscribing editors in various time zones so they can convert to 12-hour time in their time zone.
I can see that a fundamental consideration like universal understandability and following the practices of all the leading manuals of style doesn’t matter. We all know why: because having a consistent practice that confuses absolutely no one takes a backseat to “but… 24-hour time is logical and superior and I like it and I want to use it in articles I write and readers will understand it after they stumble and stare at it and somewhere someone is gonna have to be taught 24-hour time and, by God, I’m gonna teach them on any article of mine they land on.” It’s most unfortunate that Wikipedia’s MOS and MOSNUM suffers from this phenomenon. I see that I am utterly wasting my time and this is just another “mebibyte” thing where making some editors happy takes a back seat to the needs of our readership.
I was tempted to start a straw man poll asking whether editors agreed with the premise that 12-hour time is universally understood by all peoples for whom English is their first language and that 24-hour time is not used in daily life by most English-speaking people. I’m not so sure everyone could have seen past their personal biases to have answered that honestly. Since intellectual dishonesty disgusts me and so too does imposing personal biases in the overwhelming face of how all English-language manuals of style call for 12-hour time in order to communicate clearly, I’m dropping this. Greg L ( talk) 16:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
This debate is all very interesting, but can I please remind everyone that my original question - as per the section heading - was about the leading zero in 12 hour clock times, not about whether we should use 12 or 24 hour clocks. Can I suggest that we at least temporarily defer (or, better, move to a different section) the question of whether to use a 12 or 24 hour clock, and address the original question. Given that some articles do use a 12 hour clock - and we apparently have no clear consensus to change that - should we mandate "no leading zero", or should we state explicitly "leading zero is optional"? (I assume that not many people will want to mandate a leading zero.) As per my initial post, I still think that the MOS should state one way or the other, as it does for 24 hour clock. Thanks, Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
I propose a slight change to the wording of the Calendars section, as follows, with my additions underlined:
Without these additions the literal meaning of the sentences doesn't necessarily match what I believe our intentions are. Mitch Ames ( talk) 11:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Should we make it clear in WP:Mosnum#Fractions that the ordinal suffix should not be used in numerically written fractions ( e.g. 1/100 is correct - not 1/100th)? Clearly if someone is spelling out one one-hundredth they will use the suffix, but I think we need to give clear guidance on whether they should use it when the fraction is written as a number. It is made clear in WP:DATESNO that we don't use it for dates.
I suggest we add the following to the Fractions section:
* Use of the ordinal suffix (e.g., th) in fractions expressed in numerals is discouraged (e.g. 1/100, not 1/100th)
Make sense, or not needed? 7 04:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
While I understand that this issue has been visited more than once before, and that some may be irritated with digging it back up, but I feel that the indecisiveness regarding whether to favor either
AD or
CE on Wikipedia needs to end. Or, at the very least, I think we need to form a compromise that would dictate the use of one era notation for certain topics only (ex. Common Era for
, and the other notation elsewhere. The current recommendation—to use whichever notation you'd like as long as you are consistent within an article and do not arbitrarily change from one notation to another—isn't working. There are a couple of problems with it that I'm coming across quite a bit lately:
non-Christian religion-related articles)
I'm hoping to gather some responses and comments about these issues, and perhaps we will be able to flesh out our thoughts on what type of solution we want to go ahead with, if any.
My proposed solutions would be, either: (1) AD/BC ubiquitously; (2) CE/BCE ubiquitously [this would require moving all BC year articles, ex. 1 BC, 1st century BC; or (3) One notation for specifically outlined articles, and the other notation for the remainder of articles. Thank you for reading and replying. — CIS ( talk | stalk) 16:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
British-English}}
and {{
American English}}
can limit disputes by putting the chosen option for a given article on the record.
LeadSongDog
come howl! 18:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
The only difference between the two is BCE is the form for elementary schools and those who want to trip all over themselves to be as inoffensive as possible so that even Oprah and Jerry Springer couldn’t find someone crying all over their Hostess Twinkies at 4:00 p.m. over how they are so deeply offended for [yadda-yadda] reason.
I couldn’t really care less one way or another except for noting that BCE hasn’t caught on real well in the real world and that’s why the spoken version of it sounds so odd that it is seldom, if ever, used in narration on TV documentaries—no matter how modern they might be. I suppose those Jerry Springer whiners can’t fuss over TV science documentaries using “BC” because they don’t watch those types of shows (busy watching Dukes of Hazard). IMO, use of BCE appears awkward in written form as well and unnecessarily draws attention to itself and that’s why I would never use it myself as I find it interferes with transparent communication of thought.
Since everybody has an opinion on this and Wikipedia’s MOS is in a near continual state of chaos as different volunteers here spout about how Their Way Is the Right Way©™®, it’s unrealistic to expect any change to the current guidelines (everyone has a half-baked reason to do as they do). So it would be best if we all just dropped it since, as in previous occasions this issue has come up, it’s not going to go anywhere. You are free to do as you like. Greg L ( talk) 22:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. I’d normally suggest we just do as the Associated Press, Reuters, and the Chicago Manual of Style suggest. However, that would no-doubt be met with the observation that en.Wikipedia—unlike all the other-language Wikipedias that suck by comparison—is an especially International encyclopedia and how things are done way differently above 12,000 feet of altitude in Tibet.
Greg L (
talk) 23:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I've just moved this sub-discussion about ISO 8601 and negative years into a separate sub-section, so as to separate it from any serious proposal. As I said in the first line of my original post: This [use of ISO 8601] isn't a serious suggestion. (Nonetheless, it is interesting - well I think so, anyway.)
There's a continuing drip feed into Wikipedia of SI prefix and symbol errors e.g. 'Kw' instead of 'kW', 'Kms' instead of 'km', 'centigrade' instead of 'Celsius', 'mHz' instead of 'MHz', 'cm' to indicate cubic metre, etc. Several gnoming editors keep correcting these. From time to time, somebody will disagree with the corrections and say (correctly) that we have no documented consensus for a particular SI symbol or format. We saw this with the claim that 'km/h' wasn't acceptable. This could have been resolved quickly and without the swearing by global guidance in mosnum.
Can we reprint SI guidance within mosnum? Lightmouse ( talk) 23:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. As our ‘ Stone (mass)’ article states: “the stone remains widely used within the United Kingdom”. Having stood on a bathroom scale in England, looked down, and had my eyes bug out, I can attest to the truthfulness of that statement. I couldn’t care less what moronic practice goes on over there on those islands; it doesn’t have to blight Wikipedia (you sure as heck won’t find stones used in our ‘ Obesity’ article) just because England invented the dog-gone language used on en.Wikipedia. The rest of the English-speaking world moves on. Greg L ( talk) 01:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid this suggested guideline won't have the intended effect:
The cubic centimeter is part of SI so the rule of the SI must be rigorously followed: the symbol is cm3. I can't think of any way to reword this proposal that will allow the nonstandard abbreviations some of us like (cc) and disallow the nonstandard abbreviations all of us frown upon (Kms). Jc3s5h ( talk) 01:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, A. di M., I like your attitude but I think your proposal relies too greatly upon common sense. Given the collaborative writing environment here and the spectacular range of skills in contributing editors, it would be good to have what you just wrote and some added specificity. Let’s try this one on for size and see where it goes. As Jc3s5h alluded to above, the second and third bullet points could still be seen as being in conflict if one wikilawyers a bit. But I think a common-sense interpretation based on the provided examples avoids any real conflict or problem in grokking the mix. The green-div would be as follows:
This ought to resolve what poor ol’ Lightmouse is being frustrated over right now. Poor guy. Greg L ( talk) 02:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I think we're making progress. Mosnum has grown like coral and has a lot of fuzziness and too much trivia. It's time for a rewrite. There are three principles that seem to have agreement:
1. Wikipedia uses
official SI guidance.
2. Wikipedia has a list of acceptable deviations from SI guidance.
3. Wikipedia has a method of changing the list of acceptable deviations.
Unfortunately the current mosnum text suggests that SI guidance is merely an option. I think this opt-in system is why we have such long rambling mosnum text and lengthy discussion outside mosnum. Anyone can demand proof of consensus that normal metric formats apply for any edit. We need to state that SI guidance applies by default, and the list of acceptable deviations are available as opt-outs. We can then purge a lot of the metric trivia. It'll be shorter, clearer, and more usable in article talk pages.
Lightmouse (
talk) 15:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
(New stand-alone paragraph here): But other issues that are flat incorrect still exist and if MOSNUM remains silent on those other issues, Lightmouse will no-doubt experience continuing problems on them.
It simply doesn’t matter, Headbomb, if “plenty of units have multiple names”; just because “micron” jumps off a bridge all the time is no reason for “centigrade” to do so. The proper term has been “Celsius” since 1948 and the vast majority of most-reliable sources use “Celsius”. That simple fact drives a silver spike through the heart of “centigrade” and settles the issue. Finito for that one. There are no-doubt other sources in the U.S. that still use “centigrade” (the Alfa Romeo collectors’ car repair shop down the road?) but that doesn’t make the practice right nor a “be politically correct to ignorant sources”-issue. Manuals of style exist for a reason and having MOSNUM here in a collaborative writing environment requires less timidity—not more—in the face of stupid writing practices that passed into history along with the DC‑3. Any example of Hexane’s boiling point is a range spanning 20 degrees centigrade needs to be corrected the instant it is encountered. Arguments that the editor who greatly expand the ‘ Hexane’ article hails from Zamia and en.Wikipedia is so-very *international* so the “other name” ought to stick due to ENGVAR would be absurd. Greg L ( talk) 17:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Given that MOSNUM supposedly already addresses plural unit symbols (I haven’t seen it personally but I’ll take Headbomb’s word for it), I’ve trimmed that point out and arrive with the following:
I’m just not seeing “bloat” here since three of the above bullet points are copied over from what’s currently on MOSNUM. It’s two additional bullet points to help Lightmouse out with legitimate concerns on which he is absolutely correct. Greg L ( talk) 17:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Responding to you, Jc3s5h: “We” (the volunteer editors cybersquatting at WT:MOSNUM this week) don’t resolve issues of what units are used in any particular discipline; that is left up to the editors specializing in their respective articles if a disagreement over fact arrises. We set only global principals and stay out of day-to-day editwarring. The bedrock principle (When a clear majority of most-reliable sources…) is perfectly clear and there is no need to change it. Your suggestion—listed as the preferred term by one or more reliable sources that provide general coverage of the dicipline (especially specialized dictionaries or style guides of relevant scholarly societies)—is just a prescription for editwarring because all an editor has to do is point to a single source and whine “But my source uses this unit so I want my waaaaaay.” We need none of that. Greg L ( talk) 19:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. …or the entire quote, which is this: “The degree Celsius is not an SI unit. The SI unit for temperature is the Kelvin. Centigrade is an acceptable alternative (for non-scientific uses) as it is still commonly used, especially in Britain.”
As for "clear majority of reliable sources" (this thread has become so huge I won't bother to locate the right way to place this post), IMO the point should be that if an unit is called "A" by more than about 80% of the sources and "B" by less than about 20%, we should call it "A"; if it's called "A" by less than about 20% and "B" by more than about 80% we should call it "B", and if the numbers are less different than that we should just pick one for each article and then stick with it unless a really compelling reason for changing it exists; and if A and B are different units rather than different names for the same unit, in the third of the cases above whichever one we choose there should be a conversion to the other, e.g. 25 parsecs (82 ly). (By "about 20%" rather than a specific fraction I mean "common enough that most people familiar with the field will likely have encountered it before. As a rule of thumb, if two English-language mainstream reliable sources independent of each other and published in the last decade use the unit B, it shouldn't considered to be marginal unless there's some evidence of the contrary.) Whether A, B or both are approved or not by the BIPM should not by itself have any relevance. A. di M. ( talk) 16:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Is "cc" a good example of a nonstandard abbreviation for an SI unit, when explaining in Wikipedia's Manual of Style (dates and numbers) that in some fields nonstandard abbreviations should be preferred over the standard symbol? Jc3s5h ( talk) 12:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
This article or section appears to contradict itself. |
I challenge the statement "it is cc in automotive articles and not cm3". In the absence of qualification, "automotive articles" includes everything from antique cars to 2011 models, and all aspects from economic impact of the auto industry to mechanical engineering aspects of autos.
It would be better to use an example that will not require extensive qualification and for which strong evidence can presented. I would suggest the abbreviation "mcg" for microgram in medicine, but I do not have access to a wide range of reliable medical sources to determine whether a clear majority of them use "mcg" and frown upon "μg". Jc3s5h ( talk) 12:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Since the point of contention over “automotive” applications (Honda motorcycle engines is an irrefutable example), I removed the RfC tag. I don’t know if only admins can do that, so if this was an error, please revert. Greg L ( talk) 18:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Do people here think MOSNUM is clear enough for those contributors who think they are being *scientificy* and are actually writing clearly when they make the first sentence of the lede like this?
“ | SN 1979C was a supernova about 50 Mlys away in Messier 100, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices. | ” |
What’s that unit of measure? Milkies? That was from this version of ‘SN 1979C’.
MOSNUM currently says this:
Where space is limited, such as in tables, infoboxes, and parenthetical notes, and in mathematical formulas, unit symbols are preferable. In prose it is usually better to spell out unit names, but symbols may also be used when a unit (especially one with a very long name) is used many times in an article.
Maybe that point needs to be punched up a bit. Maybe a “Hey! LISTEN UP:” added to the start of it. Seriously, I suggest only this:
It is generally best to write out the full names of units of measure in regular body text. Unit symbols may be used when a unit—especially one with a very long name—is used many times in an article, but the symbol should be introduced parenthetically at least once, particularly if it is a unit symbol not used or encountered in daily life by a general-interest readership. Where space is limited, such as in tables, infoboxes, and parenthetical notes, and in mathematical formulas, unit symbols are preferable.
P.S. I’ve been *into* astronomy for forty years and subscribe to Sky & Telescope. I was being disingenuous when I feigned about “milkies.” The point is that that SN 1979C was recently the subject of an AP article picked up by many of their subscribers and Wikipedia should have a bot running about fixing this sort of stuff. Greg L ( talk) 22:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
“Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. So let’s *celebrate diversity* and show how eighth-graders really can teach the 50-year-old professional technical writers a thing or two. All technical writing practices are equally good. Whatever you want is just fiiiine. M‘kay?”
Seriously, all MOSNUM needs is a wholesale reorganization since it suffers dearly from “too many cooks in the kitchen-itis.” MOSNUM is even worse than AutoCAD 10. I’d volunteer to do it but I’d have acid stomach from volunteers with as much say as I have where they write how they wished they had a time machine so they could prevent me from being born. And why be so frustrated with me? Because I am so wrong for thinking that Celsius is part of the SI. You know, that sort of silly stuff from me; I can’t help myself. Greg L ( talk) 01:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
An important point that I feel gets overlooked in some of these discussions is that MOS guidance is not necessary for the vast majority of editors. Does the average editor need to know the difference between "K", "k", "kb", "Kb", "kB" or "kilobyte" if they are trying to improve an article? No; and no one should make someone who is adding content feel less welcome because they get it "wrong". However the MOS is very useful for the people who come along after the edits in the attempt to standardize the articles (to improve the reading experience for all visitors to WP). Therefore, I feel the MOS can lean towards being more complex and providing more instruction and examples (to assist the tidy-up editors). I like the strategy for each point in the MOS of providing a simple summary followed by description and examples. Perhaps the further description and examples could go in a collapsed division after each point in the MOS (if people want a more straightforward-looking MOS)? GFHandel . 03:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
The proposed text contains:
If the dispute is about 'kW', that is fine. But that wouldn't resolve the recent dispute where one editor claimed 'kph' was proper and 'km/h' improper. Other editors think 'mtr' is proper instead of 'm'. The issue of 'mHz' and 'Mhz' rather than 'MHz' is the same. All disputes about writing metric units are because of competing definitions of 'properly'. It should be relatively easy for mosnum to help resolve such disputes.
Still seeking clarity. Lightmouse ( talk) 09:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the guidance is scattered into a maze of twisty little passages. The proposed text just needs to make explicit the definition of 'properly'. Thus:
Lightmouse ( talk) 11:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
The examples provided in this bullet point illustrate the intent for those who are not as familiar with this issue as we are. The links are an acknowledgment to a point in the previous thread raised by GFHandel and Art LaPella pointing out the simple reality that Wikipedia receives its share of novice contributors who can foul things up quickly and could use assistance to help them learn how to do things correctly. Such guidance can only help minimize the followup clean-up required by the rest of us. Greg L ( talk) 18:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Lightmouse just made an that I had thought about making myself. I decided not to because a full explanation would have been too wordy, and I wasen't sure how a really short explanation would go over. Of course % is not an SI symbol, but the BIPM's SI brochure claims that when it is used with SI units, there should be a space before it; this manual and some external style manuals disagree. I think we could justify our decision in two ways:
So should we leave Lightmouse's edit as it is, or is there a short way to touch on the full explanation that I have not thought of? Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I appreciate you all raising and discussing this issue here. The community voted on proposed wording above and now there shouldn’t be an endless stream of edits that seriously affect its scope or implications. I fear things might degrade into editwars where undiscussed “minor” edits to the placed text has fairly substantial change in meaning.
With regard to the percent symbol, indeed, the percent symbol is not an SI unit. However, the percent symbol represents a dimensionless quantity (as with “parts per million”, the percent symbol means parts per hundred) and the percent symbol is approved for use with the SI. More to the point, the BIPM specifically addresses how to format the percent symbol via their SI brochure, Section 5.3.7 Stating values of dimensionless quantities, or quantities of dimension one. It states as follows:
“ | When it is used, a space separates the number and the symbol %. | ” |
It is this specific aspect of SI writing style that MOSNUM (and the rest of the planet except perhaps for scientific papers) specifically flouts. The first bullet point in the version of MOSNUM as I write this requires conformance with SI writing style. That is just fabulous as far as its scope applies as indicated by the provided examples; Lightmouse should not have had to put up with flack from the community when his bot corrects stuff like “Kw”. That bullet point is sweeping and explicit. However, MOSNUM—like the rest of the general-interest world—has long ignored the rule of the SI with regard to writing style as it applies to the percent symbol. So it is important that MOSNUM not appear to be internally in conflict where some bullet points contradict others.
I might add that I disagree with Jc3s5h where he wrote how the BIPM exceeded its authority by attempting to make rules about a non-SI, non-metric unit that existed before they did. The full scope of the BIPM’s rules are just fine for the intended audience: readers of peer-reviewed scientific papers that are published internationally. For the rest of us (a general-interest readership), most of the SI’s rules have been adopted, but not all. In acknowledgement of this simple reality, even NASA ignores some aspects of the SI (using the name “micron”) when communicating to a general-interest readership.
The BIPM also has such advise as how there are certain countries that still use the long number system for named numbers (like billion). To address this ambiguity, they call for writing A carbon monoxide concentration of 35×10−6 instead of 35 ppm. Quite wisely, our ‘Carbon monoxide’ article, here flouts SI writing style with regard to not using “ppm.” Why? Because MOSNUM declares that named numbers on en.Wikipedia are from the short-scale, expressions like “ppm” and “ppb” are consistent with this convention, and that’s how we least confuse a general-interest readership that is not accustomed to reading internationally distributed, peer-reviewed scientific papers. Greg L ( talk) 17:45, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
There have been some comments about the BIPM brochure being a recommendation. I don't know how the BIPM views the brochure, but in the US SI as defined by the CGPM (which controls the BIPM) as interpreted by the Secretary of Commerce is the law. There is a Federal Register notice in which the Secretary adopts NIST Special Publication 330 as the official interpretation of SI for the US. That publication is virtually identical to the NIST brochure, except for a few spelling and capitalization changes ("meter", "liter", symbol for liter is capitalized, a few others). So BIPM does not employ censors, but each state employs weights and measures officials who can seize improperly labeled goods. They can't censor encyclopedias, but they can censor product labels.
I think it is quite unlikely that goods would be seized over minor misuse of symbols, but the official interpretation could be used as a basis for disciplining any weights and measures official who tries to enforce erroneous pet peeves. Jc3s5h ( talk) 19:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I find this change unacceptable:
*When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation.
This would force us to change the order of units from one statement to the next, depending which source supports it. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to assemble sources into a cohesive whole, not cut and paste passages together. Jc3s5h ( talk) 19:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
It would be nice, Jc3s5h, if you would provide edit differences in your post. We’re all volunteers here with limited time and shouldn’t have to hunt for the edit difference underlying your objections. You are apparently referring to this edit diff by PMA, yes?
The old version was this:
“ | When a mesurement can only be verified in one set of units, generally put that one first; likewise if the quantity is defined in a given set of units and is therefore exact in them. The exclusion zone is ten nautical miles (about 11 statute miles, 18.5 km) in radius | ” |
PMA’s new is this:
“ | When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation. Likewise, if the quantity is defined in a given set of units and is therefore exact in them, put it first. The exclusion zone is ten nautical miles (about 11 statute miles, 18.5 km) in radius | ” |
I’m not seeing a big problem here. Your statement here of what an encyclopedia supposedly is (The purpose of an encyclopedia is to assemble sources into a cohesive whole) seems to be a paraphrasing of another thing you wrote earlier above: The whole world allows, and most of the world requires, SI in most situations because the world has judged that people should be able to move from field to field without having to learn a new set of units. We should respect the world's judgment. That “respecting the world’s judgment”-bit sounds awfully noble but is clearly contrary to the consensus view here and the reason for that is such views simply flout Technical Writing 101. Wikipedia simply goes with the flow for any given discipline and is not to be hijacked by lovers of all-things-SI to promote earth’s adoption into the United Federation of Planets at the expense of either accuracy or clarity. The bullet point in question pertains to maintaining accuracy and scientific rigor with measures.
I am so reluctant to get mired in this argument. The basic principle as evidenced in the bullet point’s {xt} example seems perfectly clear. I’m curious; what precipitated PMA’s edit. Was PMA’s move a response to an edit conflict? And if so, was it one in which you were active, Jc3s5h? Either way, I wish he would weigh in here and you two resolve your differences. Greg L ( talk) 19:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
My question to both of you is this: If you were tasked with adding that bit to our Gamma ray article, how would your proposed wording deal with this? Greg L ( talk) 01:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
On a separate note: I’m not even sure the conversion to grains would be necessary. At least in the U.S., about the only people accustomed to grains are handloaders who make their own ammunition (both bullets and powder are measured in grains). Given that this would be in a scientific article, the fact that it is a rice grain conveys the general magnitude of the beast ten-thousand times better than a parenthetical to grains.
How about you guys, Jc3s5h and PMA? Would you address the issue differently than A. di M.? Greg L ( talk) 17:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
“ | To understand just how energetic this is, if all the energy in an ordinary green photon from the Sun was converted to kinetic energy, it would be sufficient to make a 25 milligram rice grain jump upwards against Earth’s gravity by half the diameter of a helium-4 nucleus. If all the energy of an 18 TeV<ref>The teraelectronvolt is an energy unit equal to about 160 nanojoules.</ref> gamma ray photon was converted to kinetic energy, it would be sufficient to make that same rice grain jump upwards by 13 millimetres (0.5 in). | ” |
I think PMAnderson is correctly identifying the hazard we need to avoid when quoting sources. Jc3s5h’s above method of paraphrasing a cited source falls victim to not heeding this lesson. I note that A. di M., who hails from Italy where the metric system is used, recognized the pitfalls of trying to paraphrase a source in a manner that would reverse the order of the primary unit of measure to one not originally used by a reliable source. This occurs because conversions are understood to be generally close and mustn’t be used in a manner that introduces false precision.
In the above scenario, the mass of the rice grain can be taken to be defining (it is 25 milligrams). So too is the energy of 18 TeV as it is the subject of interest (“what is 18 TeV like?). Even if the two values have uncertainties of one part each (one part in 25 and one part in 18), since the math in converting to velocity (height) uses the two terms in division, the precision statistically would be one part in 14.6. Accordingly, it would have been appropriate for the original RS to express the value to the nearest millimeter had they chosen to do so. Unless one can cite all the way back to the original scientific paper or do the math themselves (math doesn’t have to be cited), the value of interest (18 TeV) converted to kinetic energy would cause a defining mass of 25 mg to jump upwards against one standard gravity by 11.763 millimeters, or 0.46311 inch.
In this hypothetical, a scientist who wrote a technical paper (or a consulting technical writer for Scientific American) calculated the value and a copy editor for Scientific American wrote “0.5 inch”, which is true; 0.46311 inch rounds to 0.5 inch. As mere wikipedians, we should properly quote the RS and do our best with the available information. As A. di M. wrote, it would be …jump 0.5 inch (13 mm). Accurately quoting like this instantly conveys that the measure is expressed in relatively low precision (somewhere between 0.451 and 0.549 inch) and the parenthetical is provided to make the magnitude of the measure more accessible for those readers who think in metric terms.
Assuming one hasn’t crunched the math (or can’t because mathematical pieces of the puzzle are missing), the approach A. di M. used above is the only one that does not introduce implied precision and accuracy where none exists. It is incorrect practices for mere wikipedians to write …13 mm (0.5 inch) because doing so would introduce false precision and would suggest that it is the conversion that is approximate. That is not the case. If Scientific American had elected to convey the measure with greater precision, they would have written “12 mm” or “0.46 inch” and we would have had more to work with. But they didn’t in this hypothetical. Greg L ( talk) 19:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
We’ve flogged this more than enough now; it shouldn’t have to drag on any further. And, as evidenced by the above RfC, it is unrealistic to try to get any more issues addressed in the green-div. I propose a straw poll. How say the community on the following green-div:
“ | Units in articles for any given topic should be used in a way that reflects thier usage in the majority of reliable sources for that topic | ” |
Now we’re arguing about spaces between the numeric value and the unit symbol “cc”??? Just how is it that we so easily allow ourselves to fall into playing another editor’s argument-game? We are not here to solve whether or not Harley Davidson or Honda or Wikipedia are all washed up for leaving a space out from between the “750” and the “cc” or any other such silly details. It suffices to say that List of Honda motorcycles uses “cc” and the practice was clearly not the product of some CGS-nazi who snuck around when everyone else was asleep and changed hundreds of articles overnight. If one follows the links from that list, one comes for instance to CB750A Hondamatic, which has a template box that reads 736.6 cc (44.95 cu in) and doesn’t even link the “cc”. Go fight these battles about the missing space (or excess space depending upon your SI religion) or the lack of the link on the Honda motorcycle pages. If the community there discusses the issue and decides by general consensus to ignore the principal outlined here that “cc” should be linked on the first occurrence or in the template box, that’s their prerogative. The only principal we’re acknowledging and addressing here is that non-SI or specialty units like “cc” are fine for those disciplines that consistently use them. We are not worrying about the atomic-level details of what goes on in the motorcycle world; that’s left for the wikipedians specializing in those Honda articles. Greg L ( talk) 03:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
: |page=
has extra text (
help)"The air-cooled, fuel-injected, four-valve-per-cylinder 1,854cc motor …"
Please see the new page Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly).
Perhaps this will be a motivation for greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—
Wavelength (
talk) 21:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Under "How to present the units" in Units of measurement, we have this example:
What does "a 600-metre hill with a 650-metre hill" mean? I suspect that this is just a long standing typo, and that it should be something like "a 600-metre hill with a 650-metre peak/circumference/plateau/...", but not being a geomorphologist, I don't know. Could someone either fix the example, or explain what it means? Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:12, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The guideline speaks to not mixing systems used for primary (non-parenthetical) units of measure. The sentence fragment used for the {{xt}} example can’t be expected to convey a complete coherent thought precisely because it is a fragment. But, I could suggest the below to address Mitch’s observation:
Write They could see the peak of a 600-metre (2,000 ft) hill from a nearby 650-metre (2,100 ft) hill, not …a 2,000-foot (610 m) hill from a nearby 650-metre (2,100 ft) hill.
I’ll put it in now since doing so ought to be uncontroversial. Greg L ( talk) 16:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
An editor added:
Why is that necessary, or even helpful? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
On the substance of the matter: What MOS now says is that AD and CE should not be used "unless the date would be ambiguous without it". But fourth-century Greek writer is ambiguous; the first page of Google Book hits for the phrase includes Xenophon and Ephorus (of the 300s BC, although the text quoted doesn't say so) and Athenaeus and Cyril of Jerusalem (of the 300s AD). Why should our readers have to guess which is meant for Aeneas Tacticus or Longus or Horapollon or Theron? The solution may be to include one of these as a bad example (probably Theron, because there is a genuine controversy whether he is third century AD or BC, which adds a layer of richness). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:42, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
The important thing here is that, in Greek literary history, "third century" is not by default AD; until quite recently, it was by default BC, because the Greeks under the Roman Empire were held to be degenerate and uninteresting. I don't know the literature on China well enough, but it may do the same thing; Confucius is more studied that the literature of the Sui. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Currently: Do not use CE or AD unless the date would be ambiguous without it (e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066" not 1066 CE or AD 1066).
Suggested: CE or AD should only be used to prevent ambiguity, which generally arises only with the first several centuries CE/AD: e.g. [acceptable example from antiquity]. CE/AD is not used with more recent dates: e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066," not 1066 CE or AD 1066.
I'm optimistic, following Arthur Rubin's agreement, that we are pretty much ready for this discussion, though I don't want to be the person to add back the text I wrote before. The bottom line is that the guidelines should give an example of an appropriate CE/AD, so that editors can understand the real possibility of ambiguity, and remove superfluous CE/AD's while leaving disambiguating ones in place. Wareh ( talk) 15:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
To further confuse things, we have many Arab/Islam articles written with AH indicating Hijri year. These articles have AD/CE dates also included for the AH dates--some/many/all depending on the article. To avoid confusion, should all AD/CE dates be labeled as such in any article that contains any AH dates? Similarly, should Arab/Islam articles without AH dates also have all their AD/CE dates labeled as such so that readers will not think that AH dates are being assumed in the writing? This MOS does not cover this. Hmains ( talk) 01:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
And we have Bikram Samwat dates in many South Asia articles (India, Nepal, etc). These are variously indicated by V.S. or B.S. and vary from AD/CE dates by years/months/days, not just years. These articles have AD/CE dates also included for V.S./B.S. dates--some/many/all depending on the article. To avoid confusion, should all AD/CE dates be labeled as such in any article that contains any V.S./B.S. dates? Similarly, should South Asia articles without V.S.,B.S. dates also have all their AD/CE dates labeled as such so that readers will not think that V.S./B.S. dates are being assumed in the writing? This MOS does not cover this. Hmains ( talk) 01:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I notice that "per cent" was removed from the sentence "Percent or per cent are commonly used to indicate percentages in the body of an article". This was reverted but then removed again. Yet MOS:PERCENT still includes the "per cent" variant. "Per cent" appears in the OED, which notes that the "percent" form is chiefly American English. As the manual of style shouldn't be prescribing which variant of English to use, and because "per cent" is in wide use, I suggest that we reinstate it here. Cordless Larry ( talk) 16:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Fine Cordless Larry. You have established that some English sources use “per cent”. In light of A. di M.’s evidence, above, I think it is entirely proper to expect you to provide convincing evidence that *most* British-English sources use that spelling before it becomes yet another ENGVAR-thing to make a few editors happy. Just because some subscribers on an island might read 55 per cent of readers voted “LOVE ‘EM” for the jugs of Page Three girl #2 comes up short. I can’t see why any practice that isn’t universally observed by people on a group of islands should be adopted as a *good practice* here until then.
I note too that in the French language, it is “cinquante pour cent” for “fifty percent.” Nevertheless, for English-language publications, the French BIPM recommends “percent” and doesn’t mention “per cent” in their manual on SI writing style, 5.3.7 Stating values of dimensionless quantities, or quantities of dimension one. Note that this spelling is from the people who don’t go with the ‘American flow’ on the spelling of “meter”. Greg L ( talk) 00:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
As for your I don't think it matters how many people use "per cent"-comment, have you considered the scope of such a statement? There are a number of places where English is now a peoples’ first language. Just because some people in the Seychelles (see ‘ List of countries where English is an official language’) might have a weird spelling for some word (they have their own RSs on the Seychelles don’t-cha know) is no reason for spelling chaos to confuse the majority of our readership. Remember, Wikipedia is about doing what is best for our readership; it is not about making every single volunteer editor who is still in 8th grade happy as long as he has sufficient intelligence to register on en.Wikipedia. Greg L ( talk) 00:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The correct BNC data (thanks Cordless Larry) settles it, IMO. Unless we have some evidence that it changed since 1993, British usage is "per cent" in more than 90% of the cases (though my spell checker doesn't mark "percent" as incorrect). A. di M. ( talk) 13:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Grokking the mix: I would concede that just because the BIPM says it is “percent”, doesn’t mean they are correct on all matters; they are still being ridiculously obstinate that the unit symbol for the term have a space between it and the value (75 %). However, the BIPM stays out of spelling wars with regard to words used in general prose and only weighs in on spelling that is germane to communicating measures to an international readership consistently and unambiguously. So issues pertaining to the rule of SI and its writing style should certainly not be dismissed easily.
The test: It seems that only decision lies in balancing the BIPM’s recommended practice for international consumption of English-language material against allowing editors from all over the English-speaking world to contribute to Wikipedia without untoward discouragement. So what MOSNUM guideline best serves the interests of our global readership?
Suggestion: In this case, I would suggest that we follow the BIPM’s advise. Even in the case of MOSNUM’s ignoring the BIPM with regard to the space before the percent symbol, we are clearly being consistent about which practice to use across the project. But I don’t feel strongly one way or another because I don’t know how discouraged our British contributors would be over this issue. I would think they could take the BIPM’s recommended practice on the chin in this instance, but I might be wrong. Greg L ( talk) 16:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
In light of all of the above, may I suggest that we restore the "per cent" option to the text, thus making it consistent with MOS:PERCENT? I think it has been demonstrated that "per cent" is the common spelling in British English, so including it as an option avoids there being a conflict between the manual of style and WP:ENGVAR. Cordless Larry ( talk) 08:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
There was some confusion about the SI standard and how it relates to percent and spelling. I've now added two bullets relating to non-SI units and indicated that mosnum specifies deviations. The improved clarity allowed the removal of duplicate/redundant sections. This goes towards the objectives of making mosnum more succinct and suited to debates on talk pages. As far as I can see, the changes don't change the intended meaning of mosnum. Lightmouse ( talk) 15:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the section titles are a mishmash. You've also revealed some gaps that were previously there but obscured by the unclear text. It might be better to have a section like "Specific units" which could contain a lot of the detail that is currently scattered. It could list micron, cc, astronomical units, fermi, and any other units where a decision has been recorded. Then another section that describes the process for resolving disputes about units e.g. "When you want to do something else". This would contain the current text about how to measure which units is most popular, most understandable, most cross-cultural, etc. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:26, 26 November 2010 (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. |
Archive 125 | ← | Archive 129 | Archive 130 | Archive 131 | Archive 132 | Archive 133 | → | Archive 135 |
Comments moved from Lightmouse talk page:
I notice that you are adding kilometers to distances expressed in nautical miles, as at Mount Desert Light. I think it deserves a little discussion. I wrote many of the articles you are are changing and deliberately used only nautical miles, as that is the measure used by virtually all mariners. I can't argue with the premise that we ought to use landlubbers' units, at least for statements like,
- "...Mount Desert Rock, a small island about 18 nautical miles (33 km) south of Mount Desert Island."
I think, though, that if we're going that way, then it should be both statute miles and kilometers -- after all most of the readers of articles on US lighthouses are going to be US residents and therefore more or less metric illiterate. A nautical mile is no more likely to be understood by an American that by a European, unless they are water people.
I might even go farther and suggest that we eliminate nautical miles entirely from locations -- and keep them only for the range of the light, without conversion. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 10:50, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
- You make some interesting points. The place for a house-style discussion like this is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Would you mind reposting your comments there? Lightmouse ( talk) 11:23, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
- I don't think it needs discussion there -- what I am proposing is closer to existing policy, which suggests using both statute miles and kilometers in articles. Note that this usage is already implicit in in {{ convert}}, where we have
- {{convert|19|nmi}} which yields 19 nautical miles (35 km; 22 mi) or
- {{convert|19|nmi|abbr=none}} which yields 19 nautical miles (35 kilometres; 22 miles)
- That is, you can force {{ convert}} to show only km, as you did, but it naturally shows both km and miles. If, however, you really want to discuss it, I suggest that Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lighthouses is a better forum.
- . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 11:50, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
The more people ensuring conversions to km are provided, the better. It would be great if you guys at the lighthouse project could go through the articles and ensure that km is provided (my main concern) in whatever way suits you. I'm less keen on the suggestion that km would not be provided for the range of the light. Lightmouse ( talk) 12:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
- I trust you know that no one -- American, British, European, Chinese, whatever, uses km at sea -- the nautical mile is the only unit used, for good reason. The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972, with approximately 170 signatories, uses only nautical miles for long distances (short distances -- the lengths of vessels and tows -- are in meters). Hence our choice of only nautical miles for the range of lights, an essentially nautical measurement.. . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 22:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I could give you my opinion but it's more a matter for the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). It currently allows or even encourages editors to provide a 'km' value for the range of lights. If this is to be forbidden in future, then it would be best to discuss it there. Would you like to make a posting there along the lines you suggest or would you prefer it if I started it? Lightmouse ( talk) 14:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
- Well, first I would quote the MOS
- "use the units in most widespread use worldwide for the type of measurement in question."
- That is, as I point out above, clearly the Nautical Mile and nothing else. Km are not used at sea by anyone.
- However, I have no problem with adding km to provided that you also add statute miles. I have the impression from your comments above that you believe that somehow the nautical mile is a US/UK creature that is properly balanced by the km and only the km. That is not correct -- the nautical mile is a generally accepted international unit. I have no problem with stating light ranges in nautical miles, km, and statue miles, but I think it is within the spirit of the MOS to favor metric system landlubbers with distances in km while leaving American and British landlubbers in the dark. If you insist on adding land distance to sea measurements, then please add both metric and customary, as required by the MOS. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward ( talk to me • contribs) 16:21, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Can we please have comments from others on this issue? Lightmouse ( talk) 16:51, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm much the same as you, Offliner. It's too much of a constraint to say that a metric editor cannot add metric units if they don't know, and implement, non-metric units that are applicable for the domain, region, and era. The addition of a conversion into km does not prevent lighthouse specialists from adding more conversions. Lightmouse ( talk) 17:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Can't see why nautical miles can't just be converted to both miles and km. Those not familiar with nautical miles will generally be familiar with either miles or km, and I can't see a good reason for boxing out one or the other. We are not here to try and force people to use units we happen to like, but to make WP accessible for everyone. Similarly of course knots, mph and km/h. Richard New Forest ( talk) 18:41, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Indeed. Richard New Forest ( talk) 20:46, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
“ | Mount Desert Light is a lighthouse on Mount Desert Rock, a small island about 18 nautical miles (33 kilometres; 21 miles) south of Mount Desert Island, which is part of the state of Maine in the United States. It was first established in 1830. | ” |
←I was thinking more like this (assuming first appearance in an article):
10 nmi (11 mi; 18 km) from X, 20 nmi from Y.
That is, after you get the idea of the proportions, it's nmi only. What happens with knots? Tony (talk) 07:42, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
MOS:TIME doesn't state explicitly whether or not one should use leading zeros for 12 hour clock times, eg 1:38:09 pm or 01:38:09 pm, but I think it should. Currently it only implies by example. For 24-hour clocks, it states explicitly that "discretion may be used as to whether the hour has a leading zero". I suggest that MOS:TIME should state an explict guideline for leading zeros in 12-hour clock times. Presumably that would be either "no leading zero" or "leading zero is optional". Mitch Ames ( talk) 01:48, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I might add that military-related articles should be no exception. We don’t have military personnel coming to our articles to find out at what time their duty begins to man the guardhouse; common sense tells us our military-related articles are overwhelming read by civilians; ergo, it would be unwise to start using unnatural looking time formats just because the subject matter is of a military nature. Quite correctly, our article here on ‘Death of Linda Norgrove’ wisely states that the rescue attempt began at 3:30 AM and not 03:30. One should never write in a fashion that unnecessarily draws attention to the writing style; it interferes with the the objective of transparently communicating thought. As always, exceptions would be direct quotes and articles discussing time formats. Greg L ( talk) 17:38, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
My observations are that in the UK, leading zeros do not appear on 12 hour times. Moreover, in the UK (unlike the US), the 24 hour clock is used for railway and airline timetables so a Brit would ask whether "1:00" was "am or pm", but would accept that "01:00" was an hour after midnight. The Continent does not have these problems - the terms "am" and "pm" (or the foreign equivalent thereof) are hardly ever used there. Martinvl ( talk) 13:14, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I think too many young, would-be technical writers think they’ve done a good job by ralphing abstruse stuff like this onto pages because it looks advanced and they have mastered the techniques and feel proud. MOSNUM would do well to help steer such inexperienced editors towards technical writing techniques that promote clarity and make our articles as accessible as possible to a general-interest readership. Greg L ( talk) 17:49, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
For instance, in American cinema, even in movies showing a military setting, like in A Few Good Men, the screenwriter will, for the benefit of the audience, find a way to have someone cluelessly paraphrase an expression like “catch an oh-six hundred flight” by asking “That flight to Cuba, was that 0600 in the morning? Sir?” That’s because 24-hour time is pretty much used in the American civilian world only be emergency workers and at hospitals. Back when Western Electric actually made stuff in America (before cheap Chinese, battery-operated clocks) 24-hour clocks were surprisingly ubiquitous in hospitals. Now, even there, 12-hour clocks are now the norm; medical workers just do the math mentally.
I certainly see no point confusing 1% of Europeans at a tradeoff of confusing most Americans. Greg L ( talk) 22:39, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
I’d hate to lose inertia on this, but my first step would be to suggest we turn over that slimy rock that nobody wants to turn over for fear of what might be found underneath: Whether it should be 3:30 p.m. or 3:30 pm or 3:30 PM. I would propose that we look towards the practices of the Associated Press since their manual of style is observed by virtually every subscribing newspaper in the English-speaking world and is what our English-speaking readership have become most accustomed to. The AP’s on-line version of their manual of style is $19 and I’ve never had an occasion to need it. I’ve gotten by whenever I had a question (such as how the AP abbreviates the months) by simply calling my local newspaper; the editors there seem happy to refer to their print copy (you can hear a metal drawer slide open) and look things up for me.
Does anyone think we can resolve this formatting question by looking towards the AP(?), or might the resultant answer produce Turkish butt-stabbings and ArbCom inquisitions where tongues are torn out those dragged before the court? If we can agree to look towards the AP, then the next question is “what does it say?” If someone has a copy and can post what it says below, great. Failing that, I’ll call my local paper tomorrow. Greg L ( talk) 01:06, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
When we update MOS:TIME, we should probably ensure consistency between it and the lead sentence in our 12-hour clock article, which says: ante meridiem ("a.m., English: "before midday") and post meridiem (p.m., English: "after midday"). Also in the Typography section it says It is technically correct to write "a.m." and "p.m." .... Mitch Ames ( talk) 10:15, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
I suspect too that Reuters’ advise on a parenthetical to GMT 1600 GMT is to ensure that newspaper editors in other time zones—even in other countries—can properly calculate the timing of an event and the expectation is that GMT will be stripped out before publication in a local paper. When I check with my local paper on AP practices, I’ll look into this too. Clearly, providing accurate GMT information to the editors of subscribing newspapers can be crucial when it is an article mentioning, say, the time at which a lunar eclipse will reach totality.
Practices are all over the map on Wikipedia: I see that one article, ‘ 2002 Bali bombings’ mentions local time using a 24-hour clock and gives GMT 00:15 Local time (17:15 GMT). That article appears to have been influenced by an editor who deeply believes in all-things-ISO. But, as exemplified by our ‘ September 11 attacks’ article, the timing of an event in local time is all that is sufficient to convey the nature of the event; the one in Bali was shortly after midnight and 9/11 was the product of early morning flights. Unless one is a military officer planning flight arrival times of cruise missiles crossing times zones, I’m not so sure that time-stamping a placed article with GMT adds anything at all meaningful for a general-interest readership. Clearly, we as Wikipedians interested in time nuances like date delinking, UTC, GMT, ISO, etc. understand this stuff. But we also understand HTML and wikimarkup; a general-interest readership does not have nearly as much facility with such things.
As for en.Wikipedia being read by others for whom English is not their first language (like Pakistanis), I note that the the Početna-language Wikipedia article on 9/11 has the time that a flight crashed into a tower as U 9:03:11. While that is interesting, I see no need to shortchange our English-speaking readership by writing in a fashion where the writing style unnecessarily calls attention to itself. There is certainly some good that can come of exposing other cultures to the full measure of English-speaking practices. You may take comfort in that I am quite familiar with the fact that en.Wikipedia’s readership that speaks English as its first language includes New Zealand, British, Australian, and Canadian (and those kooky Brits, for whom the language is named after). That is, after all, why I proposed looking towards the Associated Press: subscribing papers are found all over the world.
All this discussion is good because it reminds us that to write a good guideline requires thoughtful attention to the exceptions that it ought to mention. For instance, if the article is on the time of a supernova, like ‘ SN 1987A’ and one is writing about the time the neutrinos flashed clean through the earth and were detected by three neutrino detectors dispersed around the world, mentioning GMT might be more-than appropriate. Greg L ( talk) 15:23, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
As I wrote above, articles that are of a military nature are no exception; the readership of our military-related articles are not military personnel going online to see what time they are due to report to their duty station. Quite correctly, our article here on ‘Death of Linda Norgrove’ states that the rescue attempt began at 3:30 AM and not 03:30 (though it should now correctly be a.m. and not the uppercase version).
I also spoke with the editor about Reuters’ practice of mentioning (1600 GMT). He hasn’t seen such a thing in AP feed but agreed that it is likely to allow unambiguous conversion to local time for a subscribing publication. We also discussed the ambiguity—or at least confusing nature—of 12:00 p.m. He said their practice is to use noon and midnight.
I’ll write up a guideline later today that addresses the fundamentals as well as some or all of the above-mentioned exceptions and inclusions (like time-critical astronomical events not closely associated with a particular spot on earth such as ‘ SN 1987A’). I don’t know whether I will post it here first as a draft for talking points, or post it as a guideline with a copy here for continued discussion; either way, if there isn’t a community consensus for something, nothing sticks. And I often do best when I sleep on something and shave once before acting, so it may be some number of hours. Greg L ( talk) 18:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Γιάννης Α., you speak of using “common sense” in suggesting that any editor who wants to use 24-hour time should be free to do so. But it couldn’t be more well established now that 24-hour format is not used in daily life by either Americans or Canadians; clocks on their walls at home and at work and on time/temp digital displays in front of banks are virtually all 12-hour clocks (no leading zero). All regular digital-display clocks one would buy at a housegoods store say 3:00 in the afternoon and not 15:00. It is a simple fact that the 24-hour clock is unnatural to those who use only 12-hour in their daily life. Certainly many can *figure out* what 15:25 means, but many others would be thoroughly stumped as they stared at such an expression.
That underlies why both Reuters and the Associated Press use 12-hour clock. Consequently, if someone abroad picks up an English-language newspaper in, say Morocco, and if that newspaper is a subscriber to AP or Reuters news feed, time is in 12-hour format. These practices followed by so many major English-language newspapers throughout the world are by no accident. Moreover, our readership for whom English is their first language but who are not Americans are perfectly fluent in a.m./p.m. 12-hour clocks. So…
It makes zero sense for some of Wikipedia’s articles to mention that something happened at 15:30 while still other articles—totally randomly—use 12-hour time. You mentioned “people of certain ethnicities around the world who are used to the 24-hour clock” but they invariably have their own-language wikipedias and the last thing we need is for en.Wikipedia to have articles randomly using two different time formats depending on editor preference just because en.Wikipedia is so expansive, non-English-speaking peoples visit it.
So if you believe 24-hour time is such a clear and natural way to express time in a manner that isn’t confusing and doesn’t draw attention to itself, I expect you to explain why all our articles shouldn’t be using 24-hour time. But an argument of “just let editors and ISO-fans do what they want” sounds like more of an accommodation to make certain editors happy and less so about concern for what is best for our readership.
In my view, an attitude of “whichever way makes an editor happy” makes just as much sense as when Wikipedia—only a few years ago—had some computer-related articles using expressions like the computer came with 512 mebibytes of RAM while still other articles spoke of 512 megabytes of RAM. I find inconsistent practices to be bad ‘cess and a complete violation of Technical Writing 101. In the end, such nonsense proved to be the product of an extremely small cabal of editors who wanted Wikipedia to go contrary to the way the real world worked. I think Wikipedia has had enough of “either of two entirely different ways may be used depending on the editor’s personal preference.” Greg L ( talk) 21:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
←Hans, I know you're from Germany, but I think you significantly understate the usage of the 24-hour clock on the continent (and to a lesser extent in the UK). IMO, both 24- and 12-hour clocks should continue to be mandated on WP. Tony (talk) 15:29, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
This simple understanding of what confuses least is why both AP and Reuters require “3:30 p.m.”
We could solve this just by looking to The New York Times practices as well as the Chicago Manual of Style as well as the AP’s manual of style. But Wikipedia is going to educate the masses to a Better Way™©® because we have believers who hide their reasoning behind absurd statements like how other cultures (who, by the way, have their own-language Wikipedias) somehow magically have such standing that we can now confuse a significant fraction of our English-speaking readership—or at least make give their brains a pause as they stumble across a rare time format they seldom use in real life. BTW, the parenthetical Reuters (1600 GMT) that they add to their articles is for the benefit of subscribing editors in various time zones so they can convert to 12-hour time in their time zone.
I can see that a fundamental consideration like universal understandability and following the practices of all the leading manuals of style doesn’t matter. We all know why: because having a consistent practice that confuses absolutely no one takes a backseat to “but… 24-hour time is logical and superior and I like it and I want to use it in articles I write and readers will understand it after they stumble and stare at it and somewhere someone is gonna have to be taught 24-hour time and, by God, I’m gonna teach them on any article of mine they land on.” It’s most unfortunate that Wikipedia’s MOS and MOSNUM suffers from this phenomenon. I see that I am utterly wasting my time and this is just another “mebibyte” thing where making some editors happy takes a back seat to the needs of our readership.
I was tempted to start a straw man poll asking whether editors agreed with the premise that 12-hour time is universally understood by all peoples for whom English is their first language and that 24-hour time is not used in daily life by most English-speaking people. I’m not so sure everyone could have seen past their personal biases to have answered that honestly. Since intellectual dishonesty disgusts me and so too does imposing personal biases in the overwhelming face of how all English-language manuals of style call for 12-hour time in order to communicate clearly, I’m dropping this. Greg L ( talk) 16:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
This debate is all very interesting, but can I please remind everyone that my original question - as per the section heading - was about the leading zero in 12 hour clock times, not about whether we should use 12 or 24 hour clocks. Can I suggest that we at least temporarily defer (or, better, move to a different section) the question of whether to use a 12 or 24 hour clock, and address the original question. Given that some articles do use a 12 hour clock - and we apparently have no clear consensus to change that - should we mandate "no leading zero", or should we state explicitly "leading zero is optional"? (I assume that not many people will want to mandate a leading zero.) As per my initial post, I still think that the MOS should state one way or the other, as it does for 24 hour clock. Thanks, Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:10, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
I propose a slight change to the wording of the Calendars section, as follows, with my additions underlined:
Without these additions the literal meaning of the sentences doesn't necessarily match what I believe our intentions are. Mitch Ames ( talk) 11:24, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
Should we make it clear in WP:Mosnum#Fractions that the ordinal suffix should not be used in numerically written fractions ( e.g. 1/100 is correct - not 1/100th)? Clearly if someone is spelling out one one-hundredth they will use the suffix, but I think we need to give clear guidance on whether they should use it when the fraction is written as a number. It is made clear in WP:DATESNO that we don't use it for dates.
I suggest we add the following to the Fractions section:
* Use of the ordinal suffix (e.g., th) in fractions expressed in numerals is discouraged (e.g. 1/100, not 1/100th)
Make sense, or not needed? 7 04:09, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
While I understand that this issue has been visited more than once before, and that some may be irritated with digging it back up, but I feel that the indecisiveness regarding whether to favor either
AD or
CE on Wikipedia needs to end. Or, at the very least, I think we need to form a compromise that would dictate the use of one era notation for certain topics only (ex. Common Era for
, and the other notation elsewhere. The current recommendation—to use whichever notation you'd like as long as you are consistent within an article and do not arbitrarily change from one notation to another—isn't working. There are a couple of problems with it that I'm coming across quite a bit lately:
non-Christian religion-related articles)
I'm hoping to gather some responses and comments about these issues, and perhaps we will be able to flesh out our thoughts on what type of solution we want to go ahead with, if any.
My proposed solutions would be, either: (1) AD/BC ubiquitously; (2) CE/BCE ubiquitously [this would require moving all BC year articles, ex. 1 BC, 1st century BC; or (3) One notation for specifically outlined articles, and the other notation for the remainder of articles. Thank you for reading and replying. — CIS ( talk | stalk) 16:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
British-English}}
and {{
American English}}
can limit disputes by putting the chosen option for a given article on the record.
LeadSongDog
come howl! 18:18, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
The only difference between the two is BCE is the form for elementary schools and those who want to trip all over themselves to be as inoffensive as possible so that even Oprah and Jerry Springer couldn’t find someone crying all over their Hostess Twinkies at 4:00 p.m. over how they are so deeply offended for [yadda-yadda] reason.
I couldn’t really care less one way or another except for noting that BCE hasn’t caught on real well in the real world and that’s why the spoken version of it sounds so odd that it is seldom, if ever, used in narration on TV documentaries—no matter how modern they might be. I suppose those Jerry Springer whiners can’t fuss over TV science documentaries using “BC” because they don’t watch those types of shows (busy watching Dukes of Hazard). IMO, use of BCE appears awkward in written form as well and unnecessarily draws attention to itself and that’s why I would never use it myself as I find it interferes with transparent communication of thought.
Since everybody has an opinion on this and Wikipedia’s MOS is in a near continual state of chaos as different volunteers here spout about how Their Way Is the Right Way©™®, it’s unrealistic to expect any change to the current guidelines (everyone has a half-baked reason to do as they do). So it would be best if we all just dropped it since, as in previous occasions this issue has come up, it’s not going to go anywhere. You are free to do as you like. Greg L ( talk) 22:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. I’d normally suggest we just do as the Associated Press, Reuters, and the Chicago Manual of Style suggest. However, that would no-doubt be met with the observation that en.Wikipedia—unlike all the other-language Wikipedias that suck by comparison—is an especially International encyclopedia and how things are done way differently above 12,000 feet of altitude in Tibet.
Greg L (
talk) 23:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
I've just moved this sub-discussion about ISO 8601 and negative years into a separate sub-section, so as to separate it from any serious proposal. As I said in the first line of my original post: This [use of ISO 8601] isn't a serious suggestion. (Nonetheless, it is interesting - well I think so, anyway.)
There's a continuing drip feed into Wikipedia of SI prefix and symbol errors e.g. 'Kw' instead of 'kW', 'Kms' instead of 'km', 'centigrade' instead of 'Celsius', 'mHz' instead of 'MHz', 'cm' to indicate cubic metre, etc. Several gnoming editors keep correcting these. From time to time, somebody will disagree with the corrections and say (correctly) that we have no documented consensus for a particular SI symbol or format. We saw this with the claim that 'km/h' wasn't acceptable. This could have been resolved quickly and without the swearing by global guidance in mosnum.
Can we reprint SI guidance within mosnum? Lightmouse ( talk) 23:49, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. As our ‘ Stone (mass)’ article states: “the stone remains widely used within the United Kingdom”. Having stood on a bathroom scale in England, looked down, and had my eyes bug out, I can attest to the truthfulness of that statement. I couldn’t care less what moronic practice goes on over there on those islands; it doesn’t have to blight Wikipedia (you sure as heck won’t find stones used in our ‘ Obesity’ article) just because England invented the dog-gone language used on en.Wikipedia. The rest of the English-speaking world moves on. Greg L ( talk) 01:26, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm afraid this suggested guideline won't have the intended effect:
The cubic centimeter is part of SI so the rule of the SI must be rigorously followed: the symbol is cm3. I can't think of any way to reword this proposal that will allow the nonstandard abbreviations some of us like (cc) and disallow the nonstandard abbreviations all of us frown upon (Kms). Jc3s5h ( talk) 01:29, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Well, A. di M., I like your attitude but I think your proposal relies too greatly upon common sense. Given the collaborative writing environment here and the spectacular range of skills in contributing editors, it would be good to have what you just wrote and some added specificity. Let’s try this one on for size and see where it goes. As Jc3s5h alluded to above, the second and third bullet points could still be seen as being in conflict if one wikilawyers a bit. But I think a common-sense interpretation based on the provided examples avoids any real conflict or problem in grokking the mix. The green-div would be as follows:
This ought to resolve what poor ol’ Lightmouse is being frustrated over right now. Poor guy. Greg L ( talk) 02:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
I think we're making progress. Mosnum has grown like coral and has a lot of fuzziness and too much trivia. It's time for a rewrite. There are three principles that seem to have agreement:
1. Wikipedia uses
official SI guidance.
2. Wikipedia has a list of acceptable deviations from SI guidance.
3. Wikipedia has a method of changing the list of acceptable deviations.
Unfortunately the current mosnum text suggests that SI guidance is merely an option. I think this opt-in system is why we have such long rambling mosnum text and lengthy discussion outside mosnum. Anyone can demand proof of consensus that normal metric formats apply for any edit. We need to state that SI guidance applies by default, and the list of acceptable deviations are available as opt-outs. We can then purge a lot of the metric trivia. It'll be shorter, clearer, and more usable in article talk pages.
Lightmouse (
talk) 15:02, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
(New stand-alone paragraph here): But other issues that are flat incorrect still exist and if MOSNUM remains silent on those other issues, Lightmouse will no-doubt experience continuing problems on them.
It simply doesn’t matter, Headbomb, if “plenty of units have multiple names”; just because “micron” jumps off a bridge all the time is no reason for “centigrade” to do so. The proper term has been “Celsius” since 1948 and the vast majority of most-reliable sources use “Celsius”. That simple fact drives a silver spike through the heart of “centigrade” and settles the issue. Finito for that one. There are no-doubt other sources in the U.S. that still use “centigrade” (the Alfa Romeo collectors’ car repair shop down the road?) but that doesn’t make the practice right nor a “be politically correct to ignorant sources”-issue. Manuals of style exist for a reason and having MOSNUM here in a collaborative writing environment requires less timidity—not more—in the face of stupid writing practices that passed into history along with the DC‑3. Any example of Hexane’s boiling point is a range spanning 20 degrees centigrade needs to be corrected the instant it is encountered. Arguments that the editor who greatly expand the ‘ Hexane’ article hails from Zamia and en.Wikipedia is so-very *international* so the “other name” ought to stick due to ENGVAR would be absurd. Greg L ( talk) 17:06, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Given that MOSNUM supposedly already addresses plural unit symbols (I haven’t seen it personally but I’ll take Headbomb’s word for it), I’ve trimmed that point out and arrive with the following:
I’m just not seeing “bloat” here since three of the above bullet points are copied over from what’s currently on MOSNUM. It’s two additional bullet points to help Lightmouse out with legitimate concerns on which he is absolutely correct. Greg L ( talk) 17:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Responding to you, Jc3s5h: “We” (the volunteer editors cybersquatting at WT:MOSNUM this week) don’t resolve issues of what units are used in any particular discipline; that is left up to the editors specializing in their respective articles if a disagreement over fact arrises. We set only global principals and stay out of day-to-day editwarring. The bedrock principle (When a clear majority of most-reliable sources…) is perfectly clear and there is no need to change it. Your suggestion—listed as the preferred term by one or more reliable sources that provide general coverage of the dicipline (especially specialized dictionaries or style guides of relevant scholarly societies)—is just a prescription for editwarring because all an editor has to do is point to a single source and whine “But my source uses this unit so I want my waaaaaay.” We need none of that. Greg L ( talk) 19:12, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. …or the entire quote, which is this: “The degree Celsius is not an SI unit. The SI unit for temperature is the Kelvin. Centigrade is an acceptable alternative (for non-scientific uses) as it is still commonly used, especially in Britain.”
As for "clear majority of reliable sources" (this thread has become so huge I won't bother to locate the right way to place this post), IMO the point should be that if an unit is called "A" by more than about 80% of the sources and "B" by less than about 20%, we should call it "A"; if it's called "A" by less than about 20% and "B" by more than about 80% we should call it "B", and if the numbers are less different than that we should just pick one for each article and then stick with it unless a really compelling reason for changing it exists; and if A and B are different units rather than different names for the same unit, in the third of the cases above whichever one we choose there should be a conversion to the other, e.g. 25 parsecs (82 ly). (By "about 20%" rather than a specific fraction I mean "common enough that most people familiar with the field will likely have encountered it before. As a rule of thumb, if two English-language mainstream reliable sources independent of each other and published in the last decade use the unit B, it shouldn't considered to be marginal unless there's some evidence of the contrary.) Whether A, B or both are approved or not by the BIPM should not by itself have any relevance. A. di M. ( talk) 16:56, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Is "cc" a good example of a nonstandard abbreviation for an SI unit, when explaining in Wikipedia's Manual of Style (dates and numbers) that in some fields nonstandard abbreviations should be preferred over the standard symbol? Jc3s5h ( talk) 12:20, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
This article or section appears to contradict itself. |
I challenge the statement "it is cc in automotive articles and not cm3". In the absence of qualification, "automotive articles" includes everything from antique cars to 2011 models, and all aspects from economic impact of the auto industry to mechanical engineering aspects of autos.
It would be better to use an example that will not require extensive qualification and for which strong evidence can presented. I would suggest the abbreviation "mcg" for microgram in medicine, but I do not have access to a wide range of reliable medical sources to determine whether a clear majority of them use "mcg" and frown upon "μg". Jc3s5h ( talk) 12:12, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
P.S. Since the point of contention over “automotive” applications (Honda motorcycle engines is an irrefutable example), I removed the RfC tag. I don’t know if only admins can do that, so if this was an error, please revert. Greg L ( talk) 18:02, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
Do people here think MOSNUM is clear enough for those contributors who think they are being *scientificy* and are actually writing clearly when they make the first sentence of the lede like this?
“ | SN 1979C was a supernova about 50 Mlys away in Messier 100, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices. | ” |
What’s that unit of measure? Milkies? That was from this version of ‘SN 1979C’.
MOSNUM currently says this:
Where space is limited, such as in tables, infoboxes, and parenthetical notes, and in mathematical formulas, unit symbols are preferable. In prose it is usually better to spell out unit names, but symbols may also be used when a unit (especially one with a very long name) is used many times in an article.
Maybe that point needs to be punched up a bit. Maybe a “Hey! LISTEN UP:” added to the start of it. Seriously, I suggest only this:
It is generally best to write out the full names of units of measure in regular body text. Unit symbols may be used when a unit—especially one with a very long name—is used many times in an article, but the symbol should be introduced parenthetically at least once, particularly if it is a unit symbol not used or encountered in daily life by a general-interest readership. Where space is limited, such as in tables, infoboxes, and parenthetical notes, and in mathematical formulas, unit symbols are preferable.
P.S. I’ve been *into* astronomy for forty years and subscribe to Sky & Telescope. I was being disingenuous when I feigned about “milkies.” The point is that that SN 1979C was recently the subject of an AP article picked up by many of their subscribers and Wikipedia should have a bot running about fixing this sort of stuff. Greg L ( talk) 22:24, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
“Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. So let’s *celebrate diversity* and show how eighth-graders really can teach the 50-year-old professional technical writers a thing or two. All technical writing practices are equally good. Whatever you want is just fiiiine. M‘kay?”
Seriously, all MOSNUM needs is a wholesale reorganization since it suffers dearly from “too many cooks in the kitchen-itis.” MOSNUM is even worse than AutoCAD 10. I’d volunteer to do it but I’d have acid stomach from volunteers with as much say as I have where they write how they wished they had a time machine so they could prevent me from being born. And why be so frustrated with me? Because I am so wrong for thinking that Celsius is part of the SI. You know, that sort of silly stuff from me; I can’t help myself. Greg L ( talk) 01:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
An important point that I feel gets overlooked in some of these discussions is that MOS guidance is not necessary for the vast majority of editors. Does the average editor need to know the difference between "K", "k", "kb", "Kb", "kB" or "kilobyte" if they are trying to improve an article? No; and no one should make someone who is adding content feel less welcome because they get it "wrong". However the MOS is very useful for the people who come along after the edits in the attempt to standardize the articles (to improve the reading experience for all visitors to WP). Therefore, I feel the MOS can lean towards being more complex and providing more instruction and examples (to assist the tidy-up editors). I like the strategy for each point in the MOS of providing a simple summary followed by description and examples. Perhaps the further description and examples could go in a collapsed division after each point in the MOS (if people want a more straightforward-looking MOS)? GFHandel . 03:42, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
The proposed text contains:
If the dispute is about 'kW', that is fine. But that wouldn't resolve the recent dispute where one editor claimed 'kph' was proper and 'km/h' improper. Other editors think 'mtr' is proper instead of 'm'. The issue of 'mHz' and 'Mhz' rather than 'MHz' is the same. All disputes about writing metric units are because of competing definitions of 'properly'. It should be relatively easy for mosnum to help resolve such disputes.
Still seeking clarity. Lightmouse ( talk) 09:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the guidance is scattered into a maze of twisty little passages. The proposed text just needs to make explicit the definition of 'properly'. Thus:
Lightmouse ( talk) 11:00, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
The examples provided in this bullet point illustrate the intent for those who are not as familiar with this issue as we are. The links are an acknowledgment to a point in the previous thread raised by GFHandel and Art LaPella pointing out the simple reality that Wikipedia receives its share of novice contributors who can foul things up quickly and could use assistance to help them learn how to do things correctly. Such guidance can only help minimize the followup clean-up required by the rest of us. Greg L ( talk) 18:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
Lightmouse just made an that I had thought about making myself. I decided not to because a full explanation would have been too wordy, and I wasen't sure how a really short explanation would go over. Of course % is not an SI symbol, but the BIPM's SI brochure claims that when it is used with SI units, there should be a space before it; this manual and some external style manuals disagree. I think we could justify our decision in two ways:
So should we leave Lightmouse's edit as it is, or is there a short way to touch on the full explanation that I have not thought of? Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I appreciate you all raising and discussing this issue here. The community voted on proposed wording above and now there shouldn’t be an endless stream of edits that seriously affect its scope or implications. I fear things might degrade into editwars where undiscussed “minor” edits to the placed text has fairly substantial change in meaning.
With regard to the percent symbol, indeed, the percent symbol is not an SI unit. However, the percent symbol represents a dimensionless quantity (as with “parts per million”, the percent symbol means parts per hundred) and the percent symbol is approved for use with the SI. More to the point, the BIPM specifically addresses how to format the percent symbol via their SI brochure, Section 5.3.7 Stating values of dimensionless quantities, or quantities of dimension one. It states as follows:
“ | When it is used, a space separates the number and the symbol %. | ” |
It is this specific aspect of SI writing style that MOSNUM (and the rest of the planet except perhaps for scientific papers) specifically flouts. The first bullet point in the version of MOSNUM as I write this requires conformance with SI writing style. That is just fabulous as far as its scope applies as indicated by the provided examples; Lightmouse should not have had to put up with flack from the community when his bot corrects stuff like “Kw”. That bullet point is sweeping and explicit. However, MOSNUM—like the rest of the general-interest world—has long ignored the rule of the SI with regard to writing style as it applies to the percent symbol. So it is important that MOSNUM not appear to be internally in conflict where some bullet points contradict others.
I might add that I disagree with Jc3s5h where he wrote how the BIPM exceeded its authority by attempting to make rules about a non-SI, non-metric unit that existed before they did. The full scope of the BIPM’s rules are just fine for the intended audience: readers of peer-reviewed scientific papers that are published internationally. For the rest of us (a general-interest readership), most of the SI’s rules have been adopted, but not all. In acknowledgement of this simple reality, even NASA ignores some aspects of the SI (using the name “micron”) when communicating to a general-interest readership.
The BIPM also has such advise as how there are certain countries that still use the long number system for named numbers (like billion). To address this ambiguity, they call for writing A carbon monoxide concentration of 35×10−6 instead of 35 ppm. Quite wisely, our ‘Carbon monoxide’ article, here flouts SI writing style with regard to not using “ppm.” Why? Because MOSNUM declares that named numbers on en.Wikipedia are from the short-scale, expressions like “ppm” and “ppb” are consistent with this convention, and that’s how we least confuse a general-interest readership that is not accustomed to reading internationally distributed, peer-reviewed scientific papers. Greg L ( talk) 17:45, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
There have been some comments about the BIPM brochure being a recommendation. I don't know how the BIPM views the brochure, but in the US SI as defined by the CGPM (which controls the BIPM) as interpreted by the Secretary of Commerce is the law. There is a Federal Register notice in which the Secretary adopts NIST Special Publication 330 as the official interpretation of SI for the US. That publication is virtually identical to the NIST brochure, except for a few spelling and capitalization changes ("meter", "liter", symbol for liter is capitalized, a few others). So BIPM does not employ censors, but each state employs weights and measures officials who can seize improperly labeled goods. They can't censor encyclopedias, but they can censor product labels.
I think it is quite unlikely that goods would be seized over minor misuse of symbols, but the official interpretation could be used as a basis for disciplining any weights and measures official who tries to enforce erroneous pet peeves. Jc3s5h ( talk) 19:25, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
I find this change unacceptable:
*When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation.
This would force us to change the order of units from one statement to the next, depending which source supports it. The purpose of an encyclopedia is to assemble sources into a cohesive whole, not cut and paste passages together. Jc3s5h ( talk) 19:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
It would be nice, Jc3s5h, if you would provide edit differences in your post. We’re all volunteers here with limited time and shouldn’t have to hunt for the edit difference underlying your objections. You are apparently referring to this edit diff by PMA, yes?
The old version was this:
“ | When a mesurement can only be verified in one set of units, generally put that one first; likewise if the quantity is defined in a given set of units and is therefore exact in them. The exclusion zone is ten nautical miles (about 11 statute miles, 18.5 km) in radius | ” |
PMA’s new is this:
“ | When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation. Likewise, if the quantity is defined in a given set of units and is therefore exact in them, put it first. The exclusion zone is ten nautical miles (about 11 statute miles, 18.5 km) in radius | ” |
I’m not seeing a big problem here. Your statement here of what an encyclopedia supposedly is (The purpose of an encyclopedia is to assemble sources into a cohesive whole) seems to be a paraphrasing of another thing you wrote earlier above: The whole world allows, and most of the world requires, SI in most situations because the world has judged that people should be able to move from field to field without having to learn a new set of units. We should respect the world's judgment. That “respecting the world’s judgment”-bit sounds awfully noble but is clearly contrary to the consensus view here and the reason for that is such views simply flout Technical Writing 101. Wikipedia simply goes with the flow for any given discipline and is not to be hijacked by lovers of all-things-SI to promote earth’s adoption into the United Federation of Planets at the expense of either accuracy or clarity. The bullet point in question pertains to maintaining accuracy and scientific rigor with measures.
I am so reluctant to get mired in this argument. The basic principle as evidenced in the bullet point’s {xt} example seems perfectly clear. I’m curious; what precipitated PMA’s edit. Was PMA’s move a response to an edit conflict? And if so, was it one in which you were active, Jc3s5h? Either way, I wish he would weigh in here and you two resolve your differences. Greg L ( talk) 19:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
My question to both of you is this: If you were tasked with adding that bit to our Gamma ray article, how would your proposed wording deal with this? Greg L ( talk) 01:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
On a separate note: I’m not even sure the conversion to grains would be necessary. At least in the U.S., about the only people accustomed to grains are handloaders who make their own ammunition (both bullets and powder are measured in grains). Given that this would be in a scientific article, the fact that it is a rice grain conveys the general magnitude of the beast ten-thousand times better than a parenthetical to grains.
How about you guys, Jc3s5h and PMA? Would you address the issue differently than A. di M.? Greg L ( talk) 17:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
“ | To understand just how energetic this is, if all the energy in an ordinary green photon from the Sun was converted to kinetic energy, it would be sufficient to make a 25 milligram rice grain jump upwards against Earth’s gravity by half the diameter of a helium-4 nucleus. If all the energy of an 18 TeV<ref>The teraelectronvolt is an energy unit equal to about 160 nanojoules.</ref> gamma ray photon was converted to kinetic energy, it would be sufficient to make that same rice grain jump upwards by 13 millimetres (0.5 in). | ” |
I think PMAnderson is correctly identifying the hazard we need to avoid when quoting sources. Jc3s5h’s above method of paraphrasing a cited source falls victim to not heeding this lesson. I note that A. di M., who hails from Italy where the metric system is used, recognized the pitfalls of trying to paraphrase a source in a manner that would reverse the order of the primary unit of measure to one not originally used by a reliable source. This occurs because conversions are understood to be generally close and mustn’t be used in a manner that introduces false precision.
In the above scenario, the mass of the rice grain can be taken to be defining (it is 25 milligrams). So too is the energy of 18 TeV as it is the subject of interest (“what is 18 TeV like?). Even if the two values have uncertainties of one part each (one part in 25 and one part in 18), since the math in converting to velocity (height) uses the two terms in division, the precision statistically would be one part in 14.6. Accordingly, it would have been appropriate for the original RS to express the value to the nearest millimeter had they chosen to do so. Unless one can cite all the way back to the original scientific paper or do the math themselves (math doesn’t have to be cited), the value of interest (18 TeV) converted to kinetic energy would cause a defining mass of 25 mg to jump upwards against one standard gravity by 11.763 millimeters, or 0.46311 inch.
In this hypothetical, a scientist who wrote a technical paper (or a consulting technical writer for Scientific American) calculated the value and a copy editor for Scientific American wrote “0.5 inch”, which is true; 0.46311 inch rounds to 0.5 inch. As mere wikipedians, we should properly quote the RS and do our best with the available information. As A. di M. wrote, it would be …jump 0.5 inch (13 mm). Accurately quoting like this instantly conveys that the measure is expressed in relatively low precision (somewhere between 0.451 and 0.549 inch) and the parenthetical is provided to make the magnitude of the measure more accessible for those readers who think in metric terms.
Assuming one hasn’t crunched the math (or can’t because mathematical pieces of the puzzle are missing), the approach A. di M. used above is the only one that does not introduce implied precision and accuracy where none exists. It is incorrect practices for mere wikipedians to write …13 mm (0.5 inch) because doing so would introduce false precision and would suggest that it is the conversion that is approximate. That is not the case. If Scientific American had elected to convey the measure with greater precision, they would have written “12 mm” or “0.46 inch” and we would have had more to work with. But they didn’t in this hypothetical. Greg L ( talk) 19:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
We’ve flogged this more than enough now; it shouldn’t have to drag on any further. And, as evidenced by the above RfC, it is unrealistic to try to get any more issues addressed in the green-div. I propose a straw poll. How say the community on the following green-div:
“ | Units in articles for any given topic should be used in a way that reflects thier usage in the majority of reliable sources for that topic | ” |
Now we’re arguing about spaces between the numeric value and the unit symbol “cc”??? Just how is it that we so easily allow ourselves to fall into playing another editor’s argument-game? We are not here to solve whether or not Harley Davidson or Honda or Wikipedia are all washed up for leaving a space out from between the “750” and the “cc” or any other such silly details. It suffices to say that List of Honda motorcycles uses “cc” and the practice was clearly not the product of some CGS-nazi who snuck around when everyone else was asleep and changed hundreds of articles overnight. If one follows the links from that list, one comes for instance to CB750A Hondamatic, which has a template box that reads 736.6 cc (44.95 cu in) and doesn’t even link the “cc”. Go fight these battles about the missing space (or excess space depending upon your SI religion) or the lack of the link on the Honda motorcycle pages. If the community there discusses the issue and decides by general consensus to ignore the principal outlined here that “cc” should be linked on the first occurrence or in the template box, that’s their prerogative. The only principal we’re acknowledging and addressing here is that non-SI or specialty units like “cc” are fine for those disciplines that consistently use them. We are not worrying about the atomic-level details of what goes on in the motorcycle world; that’s left for the wikipedians specializing in those Honda articles. Greg L ( talk) 03:18, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
{{
cite journal}}
: |page=
has extra text (
help)"The air-cooled, fuel-injected, four-valve-per-cylinder 1,854cc motor …"
Please see the new page Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly).
Perhaps this will be a motivation for greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—
Wavelength (
talk) 21:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Under "How to present the units" in Units of measurement, we have this example:
What does "a 600-metre hill with a 650-metre hill" mean? I suspect that this is just a long standing typo, and that it should be something like "a 600-metre hill with a 650-metre peak/circumference/plateau/...", but not being a geomorphologist, I don't know. Could someone either fix the example, or explain what it means? Mitch Ames ( talk) 06:12, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
The guideline speaks to not mixing systems used for primary (non-parenthetical) units of measure. The sentence fragment used for the {{xt}} example can’t be expected to convey a complete coherent thought precisely because it is a fragment. But, I could suggest the below to address Mitch’s observation:
Write They could see the peak of a 600-metre (2,000 ft) hill from a nearby 650-metre (2,100 ft) hill, not …a 2,000-foot (610 m) hill from a nearby 650-metre (2,100 ft) hill.
I’ll put it in now since doing so ought to be uncontroversial. Greg L ( talk) 16:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
An editor added:
Why is that necessary, or even helpful? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
On the substance of the matter: What MOS now says is that AD and CE should not be used "unless the date would be ambiguous without it". But fourth-century Greek writer is ambiguous; the first page of Google Book hits for the phrase includes Xenophon and Ephorus (of the 300s BC, although the text quoted doesn't say so) and Athenaeus and Cyril of Jerusalem (of the 300s AD). Why should our readers have to guess which is meant for Aeneas Tacticus or Longus or Horapollon or Theron? The solution may be to include one of these as a bad example (probably Theron, because there is a genuine controversy whether he is third century AD or BC, which adds a layer of richness). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:42, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
The important thing here is that, in Greek literary history, "third century" is not by default AD; until quite recently, it was by default BC, because the Greeks under the Roman Empire were held to be degenerate and uninteresting. I don't know the literature on China well enough, but it may do the same thing; Confucius is more studied that the literature of the Sui. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
Currently: Do not use CE or AD unless the date would be ambiguous without it (e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066" not 1066 CE or AD 1066).
Suggested: CE or AD should only be used to prevent ambiguity, which generally arises only with the first several centuries CE/AD: e.g. [acceptable example from antiquity]. CE/AD is not used with more recent dates: e.g. "The Norman Conquest took place in 1066," not 1066 CE or AD 1066.
I'm optimistic, following Arthur Rubin's agreement, that we are pretty much ready for this discussion, though I don't want to be the person to add back the text I wrote before. The bottom line is that the guidelines should give an example of an appropriate CE/AD, so that editors can understand the real possibility of ambiguity, and remove superfluous CE/AD's while leaving disambiguating ones in place. Wareh ( talk) 15:15, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
To further confuse things, we have many Arab/Islam articles written with AH indicating Hijri year. These articles have AD/CE dates also included for the AH dates--some/many/all depending on the article. To avoid confusion, should all AD/CE dates be labeled as such in any article that contains any AH dates? Similarly, should Arab/Islam articles without AH dates also have all their AD/CE dates labeled as such so that readers will not think that AH dates are being assumed in the writing? This MOS does not cover this. Hmains ( talk) 01:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
And we have Bikram Samwat dates in many South Asia articles (India, Nepal, etc). These are variously indicated by V.S. or B.S. and vary from AD/CE dates by years/months/days, not just years. These articles have AD/CE dates also included for V.S./B.S. dates--some/many/all depending on the article. To avoid confusion, should all AD/CE dates be labeled as such in any article that contains any V.S./B.S. dates? Similarly, should South Asia articles without V.S.,B.S. dates also have all their AD/CE dates labeled as such so that readers will not think that V.S./B.S. dates are being assumed in the writing? This MOS does not cover this. Hmains ( talk) 01:19, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
I notice that "per cent" was removed from the sentence "Percent or per cent are commonly used to indicate percentages in the body of an article". This was reverted but then removed again. Yet MOS:PERCENT still includes the "per cent" variant. "Per cent" appears in the OED, which notes that the "percent" form is chiefly American English. As the manual of style shouldn't be prescribing which variant of English to use, and because "per cent" is in wide use, I suggest that we reinstate it here. Cordless Larry ( talk) 16:10, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
Fine Cordless Larry. You have established that some English sources use “per cent”. In light of A. di M.’s evidence, above, I think it is entirely proper to expect you to provide convincing evidence that *most* British-English sources use that spelling before it becomes yet another ENGVAR-thing to make a few editors happy. Just because some subscribers on an island might read 55 per cent of readers voted “LOVE ‘EM” for the jugs of Page Three girl #2 comes up short. I can’t see why any practice that isn’t universally observed by people on a group of islands should be adopted as a *good practice* here until then.
I note too that in the French language, it is “cinquante pour cent” for “fifty percent.” Nevertheless, for English-language publications, the French BIPM recommends “percent” and doesn’t mention “per cent” in their manual on SI writing style, 5.3.7 Stating values of dimensionless quantities, or quantities of dimension one. Note that this spelling is from the people who don’t go with the ‘American flow’ on the spelling of “meter”. Greg L ( talk) 00:15, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
As for your I don't think it matters how many people use "per cent"-comment, have you considered the scope of such a statement? There are a number of places where English is now a peoples’ first language. Just because some people in the Seychelles (see ‘ List of countries where English is an official language’) might have a weird spelling for some word (they have their own RSs on the Seychelles don’t-cha know) is no reason for spelling chaos to confuse the majority of our readership. Remember, Wikipedia is about doing what is best for our readership; it is not about making every single volunteer editor who is still in 8th grade happy as long as he has sufficient intelligence to register on en.Wikipedia. Greg L ( talk) 00:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The correct BNC data (thanks Cordless Larry) settles it, IMO. Unless we have some evidence that it changed since 1993, British usage is "per cent" in more than 90% of the cases (though my spell checker doesn't mark "percent" as incorrect). A. di M. ( talk) 13:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
Grokking the mix: I would concede that just because the BIPM says it is “percent”, doesn’t mean they are correct on all matters; they are still being ridiculously obstinate that the unit symbol for the term have a space between it and the value (75 %). However, the BIPM stays out of spelling wars with regard to words used in general prose and only weighs in on spelling that is germane to communicating measures to an international readership consistently and unambiguously. So issues pertaining to the rule of SI and its writing style should certainly not be dismissed easily.
The test: It seems that only decision lies in balancing the BIPM’s recommended practice for international consumption of English-language material against allowing editors from all over the English-speaking world to contribute to Wikipedia without untoward discouragement. So what MOSNUM guideline best serves the interests of our global readership?
Suggestion: In this case, I would suggest that we follow the BIPM’s advise. Even in the case of MOSNUM’s ignoring the BIPM with regard to the space before the percent symbol, we are clearly being consistent about which practice to use across the project. But I don’t feel strongly one way or another because I don’t know how discouraged our British contributors would be over this issue. I would think they could take the BIPM’s recommended practice on the chin in this instance, but I might be wrong. Greg L ( talk) 16:49, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
In light of all of the above, may I suggest that we restore the "per cent" option to the text, thus making it consistent with MOS:PERCENT? I think it has been demonstrated that "per cent" is the common spelling in British English, so including it as an option avoids there being a conflict between the manual of style and WP:ENGVAR. Cordless Larry ( talk) 08:32, 24 November 2010 (UTC)
There was some confusion about the SI standard and how it relates to percent and spelling. I've now added two bullets relating to non-SI units and indicated that mosnum specifies deviations. The improved clarity allowed the removal of duplicate/redundant sections. This goes towards the objectives of making mosnum more succinct and suited to debates on talk pages. As far as I can see, the changes don't change the intended meaning of mosnum. Lightmouse ( talk) 15:34, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
I agree, the section titles are a mishmash. You've also revealed some gaps that were previously there but obscured by the unclear text. It might be better to have a section like "Specific units" which could contain a lot of the detail that is currently scattered. It could list micron, cc, astronomical units, fermi, and any other units where a decision has been recorded. Then another section that describes the process for resolving disputes about units e.g. "When you want to do something else". This would contain the current text about how to measure which units is most popular, most understandable, most cross-cultural, etc. Lightmouse ( talk) 20:26, 26 November 2010 (UTC)