Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Table of units that shouldn't be linked *in conversions*

There's been an extensive discussion above. On the basis of the 80%/20% rule, it doesn't matter if we don't have the table complete and/or don't capture all units. It can be updated as required. But the most common 20% of units that are responsible for most of the overlinking and editors need specific guidance. In the absence of any other proposal, I propose the following table

Quantity	Not obscure in US	Not obscure in UK	Not obscure in rest of world
Length, area, volume		Metre/meter	Metre/meter
Length, area, volume	Inch, foot, yard, mile. Square yard	Inch, foot, yard, mile.
Length, area, volume	Litre/liter	Litre/liter	Litre/liter
Length, area, volume	US fluid ounce, pint, quart, gallon	imperial fluid ounce, pint, quart, gallon
Mass		Gram	Gram
Mass	Ounce, pound, short ton	Ounce, pound, stone, tonne	tonne
Time	Second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium	second, minute, hour, day, week, fortnight, month, year, decade, century, millennium	second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium
Speed	Mile per hour	<not-obscure unit of length> divided by time	<not-obscure unit of length> divided by time
Temperature	°F	°C	°C
Power	Watt, Plus prefix kilo	Watt	Watt.
Power	Horsepower
Energy	Kilowatt hour	<not-obscure unit of power> multiplied by time	<not-obscure unit of power> multiplied by time
Energy	Calorie.	Calorie.	Calorie.
Voltage	Volt	Volt	Volt
Frequency	Hertz	Hertz	Hertz
Information	Bit, byte.	Bit, byte.	Bit, byte
Other		Prefixes milli, centi, kilo, mega, giga applied to <not obscure SI units>	Prefixes milli, centi, kilo, mega, giga applied to <not obscure SI units>
Other		Square and cubes of <not obscure units>	Square and cubes of <not obscure units>

I've tried to encapsulate all comments. I think it's time to document consensus for adding a table like that, or even a trimmed down version. Lightmouse (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Support I don't mind if it's modified, as long as there is something where editors see *actual* units listed. Lightmouse (talk) 11:40, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Conditional support We should target the list at reasonably educated users who have not done science. The user I have in mind is my wife, aged 60, started university but never studied science at school. In deference to her, and thousands like her, I think that we shoudl remove units of energy, power, frequency and information form the list. Martinvl (talk) 12:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't your wife ever use domestic appliances or pay electricity bills? :-) I mostly agree with your point, though; also, I'd list compound units individually, as it wouldn't be immediately obvious to people like your wife how fast 12 m/s is, and some prefixes are really uncommon with some units. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 23:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. This is complete rubbish; most UK youngsters have no idea about any of the Imperial Units and plenty of UK oldsters will never be conversant with the metric system. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 12:39, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Not in my experience; even assuming that by any of the Imperial Units you actually mean ‘excluding miles and pints’, I've met plenty of people in their late teens/early twenties from the UK and Ireland who routinely use feet, inches and stone and have no idea of how tall someone 1.70-metres-tall is (or a 15-centimetre penis, or a 88-kilo person). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:55, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

MC Price, these are for conversions: why does a UK old person need a link (not helpful anyway, IMO) when they have two equivalents? And as for young people, if they don't know what basic units are, they should learn them before looking at WP, or type the unit into the search box (again, not much help the way our unit articles are framed). Tony (talk) 10:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

And yards? And Fahrenheit? -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 16:15, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Conditional support: I have no problem with the majority of units not being linked in general, so long as the first instance remains linked for those whom it would benefit. I see no reason to provide the maximum benefit to readers while still maintaining some measure of style, and I think that does it. — Huntster (t @ c) 23:51, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Huntster, you saying that all units should be linked at least once per article, even routine units like "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)"? Lightmouse (talk) 18:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support in principle, and probably in details. Which time units would need to be linked, then? Tony (talk) 10:27, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

• Support. Something definite has to be done, and Lightmouse's scheme looks rational to me. There have to be limits. In Australia we might have a sense of "6 ft tall", and be less sure about "183 cm tall"; but we generally get by with unaided metric really well. I struggle to picture how big a man of 168 lb (12 stone) would be. Metric gets easier year by year. If people didn't move on we'd still be talking cubits, furlongs, and pennyweights. Imagine if those had continued to be "linked" or converted, in an earlier technology. We'd eventually have multiple expressions for every measurement, and never achieve the sort of clarity that an encyclopedia should aspire to. Noetica^Tea? 11:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I agree with the principle and idea of a table such as this; I more or less agree with the classifications. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 13:04, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose as textbook instruction creep. The decision on linking should be made on a case-by-case basis in each individual article, based on factors that can't be distilled as simply as this proposal implies, by editors that are situationally aware of the effect of that link. If there's a disagreement about whether a term should be linked, it should be dealt with via WP:BRD and consensus at the article in question like any other content dispute. If editors find that they're becoming frustrated at 'having to rehash the same arguments over and over' on whether or not a term should be linked, it might be valuable for these editors to reconsider whether the presence of a link on a unit of measurement in an article is worth getting into disputes over, and whether removing the link is going to have a noticeable impact on the quality of the article for the general reader. If it won't, why expend such effort on it?

Frankly, this seems to be a case of attempting to legislate to fix an extremely minor issue that some editors perceive to be bigger than it really is. This kind of prescriptive language isn't necessary and is likely to be used as ammunition to try to win a dispute, rather than assessing the merits of the individual case. I'm generally opposed to this kind of overuse of rules and guidelines. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 07:01, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

This is a guideline, and editors want guidance. Making decisions on a case-by-case basis is possible, but general guidelines are essential, or we're all in the dark. Tony (talk) 07:09, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

As I said, I don't believe that this issue is generic enough for a broad guideline to be of any value. There are a lot of factors influencing the decision to link something and oversimplifying things in a table like this will only lead to it being pointed to in a dispute, instead of being discussed normally. As far as I know, we don't have a guide on specifics of when to use new paragraphs or what threshold of topic difference to use to create new subsections, because these things similarly can't be encapsulated effectively in a general sense. Instead we use very broad language like 'not too long, not too short' and so on. I think a table of this nature is on the 'too specific' side to be useful. TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 23:41, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you that we need to consider whether guidance is needed. I think guidance should:

• document consensus on a wikipedia wide issue that gets discussed frequently at local level
• define how to fix a common and significant problem that wouldn't be fixed by the wiki
• make a difference to what editors actually do

On the basis of at least one of those bullets, if not more, specific guidance is needed. Over the years, well-meaning editors add excessive links due to their own personal interpretation of what 'obscure' means. These rarely get challenged until the article gets put up for review at FA or something like that. If anyone else challenges an excessive link, the generic guidance is inadequate to resolve a difference of opinion between two editors. You can see here that it has taken many days and many comments and we still haven't documented consensus whether there should be links in:

• "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)"

This isn't a new thing. Sample specific units have existed in the guidance for years. We just haven't discussed it at length. Lightmouse (talk) 09:47, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that linking the first instance of a unit of measurement, as our other guidelines recommend, could be considered excessive. If units are being linked repeatedly throughout the article then we already have guidelines for how to deal with overlinking. I don't see any fundamental benefit in removing informative links on the basis that a subset of the intended audience believes their meaning should be obvious. I agree that the current reference to 'obscure' is vague, but I'd prefer to remove that reference and link the first instance of any unit of measurement (subject to context), rather than to simply not link certain units at all.

The link being present on the first instance provides a benefit to people interested in learning more about that unit. What benefit is gained from removing that link? TechnoSymbiosis (talk) 00:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The benefit of removing irrelevant links is that the relevant links become more prominent. If the unit is relevant, I'm all for linking it. JIMp _talk·cont 00:18, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think that we'll get a consensus as we each have our own different ideas as to what units are commonly know and which aren't. I think that we should respect the individual editor's decisions on this issue unless they're overlinking, but I will say that I'm inclined to link more often than not to remove any ambiguities.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 03:26, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

People are talking as if this is a new thing. It isn't. The following units were specified previously:

• 18 °C (64 °F)
• 12 oz (355 mL)
• millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year
• metric units of mass (milligram, gram, kilogram), length (millimetre, centimetre, metre, kilometre), area (mm², etc.) and volume (millilitre, litre, mm³)
• inch, foot, yard, mile
• m/s, ft/s

The table doesn't have to be complete. It just has to name the top 20% units responsible for 80% of excessive linking e.g. "6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg)". Lightmouse (talk) 19:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: date formats in reference sections

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

•  The community is split almost 50/50 on this, no consensus to move forward. -- DQ (t) (e) 08:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Perceived problems of the current guideline as I understand it, excepting for dates within titles and quotations :

• the guideline permits the use of up to two different formats in the reference section in various permutations

1. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication, access and archive dates
2. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication and archive dates and yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for access dates
3. dmy (i.e. 12 August 2011) or mdy (i.e. August 12, 2011) for publication dates and yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for access and archive dates
4. yyyy-mm-dd (i.e. 2011-08-12) for for publication, access dates and archive dates

I propose that henceforth we stipulate that all dates in the reference sections are uniformly consistent, as provided in this version (click on "show" to see it):

Date formats may be the same as prevailing in the body of the text – and may be abbreviated if there are space concerns, or they may be in the yyyy-mm-dd format --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:15, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I would like to see if a new consensus exists based on the following premises:

1. there is no consensus to eliminate ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd date formats from articles, in particular the reference sections
2. a mix of date formats in the reference sections is aesthetically unattractive and difficult to parse
3. there is little reason to insist on ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for access dates whilst leaving the publication date in dmy or mdy format
4. there is little reason to disallow ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for publication dates whilst allowing this for the accessdates
5. there is little reason to insist on ISO 8601 or yyyy-mm-dd formats for archive dates should be treated any differently from publication or access dates
6. dmy or mdy format using abbreviated months can be equally concise as the yyyy-mm-dd format; the only thing we care about is consistency
7. 'reference format' remains undefined and its meaning is unclear.
8. tabular form of presentation where examples of dos and don'ts are juxtaposed is starker and more easily comprehended by the reader.

• Should I make this into RfC? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:18, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. as proposer. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
2. Making this consistent makes a lot of sense. We should be making things consistent for our readers and the scripts that run on our articles. GFHandel ♬  10:04, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
3. I'm all for consistency generally. Nearly always it helps readers, even if it's just a matter of not slowing them down. I see no reason for an exception here. Noetica^Tea? 00:03, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
4. Internal consistency within an article is important, but I do stress that the consistency in the article text should not be taken as the required date format for references. --MASEM (t) 13:47, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   So, in other words, you oppose this "proposal", which would require that all dates in references match the article body, unless all dates in refs are done in yyyy-mm-dd. (And I put quotes around the word "proposal" because the user "proposing" has ensconced his text in the MOS and has refused to remove it.) Gimmetoo (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Your over-vivid imagination is getting the better of you. You want to see this proposal defeated, because you imagine that it amounts to removing all yyyy-mm-dd dates from reference sections. It doesn't, and Masem realised that his comment is spot on with the proposal. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   Hmm, my imagination must be equally over-vivid. "all dates in references match the article body, unless all dates in refs are done in yyyy-mm-dd" does seem to match "Date formats may be the same as prevailing in the body of the text ... or they may be in the yyyy-mm-dd format" and the "Correct"/"Incorrect" table, better than it matches "removing all yyyy-mm-dd dates from reference sections". However, Masem's "consistency in the article text should not be taken as the required date format for references" is compatible with the proposal, which makes yyyy-mm-dd references the only allowed exception to that consistency. Art LaPella (talk) 18:06, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   You're reading something into the proposal that's not there. It basically boils down to 4 cases: (assuming no pre Gregorian source dates are in player)

   1. Article body uses dmy, references use dmy
   2. Article body uses dmy, references use yyyy-mm-dd
   3. Article body uses mdy, references use mdy
   4. Article body uses mdy, references use yyyy-mm-dd

   The choice of dmy or mdy depends on the nationality of the topic and/or the decision of the first author, while the choice to use that format or the ISO-like one is left to first author. --MASEM (t) 12:06, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

5. Strong support. Logical, professional. Gimmetoo, your predilection seems to be for inconsistency and date formats that you find easy but our readers won't understand. Tony (talk) 12:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
6. Support. I think it's important that inconsistency in dates be eliminated. For example, in the case of 1996-7-4, an inconsistent Wikipedia could cause ambiguity as to whether or not the date was July 4 th or April 7 th. Even if this isn't the order that ends up being used, I support an effort to standardize the smaller things that have the potential to cause confusion, and can only echo Noetica and GFHandel. Tutleman (talk) 18:29, 11 August 2011 (UTC)
7. Support. As others have said: makes sense, logical, professional. Having ref dates consistent already comes up almost always as a condition for FAC/FLC. I would maybe just suggest toning it down a bit. Copy the line which reads, "Dates in article body text should all have the same format". If some people still think this is too much, you could even add "generally" to the proposed line...? Nightw 11:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
8. We should be using the same date system throughout the entire article, actually, but that's beside the point. I'm just not sure why some people insist on using YYYY-MM-DD in only part of it. Consistency is a minor detail but makes us look more professional in the long run, as opposed to a bunch of different pieces cobbled together. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 15:39, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
9. Strong support Regardless of what format the rest of the article is using, all of the references should be using a single format. Ideally, the same format used in the body of the article should be used in the reference list. Using two, three or more date formats in the references alone is unprofessional and sloppy. Imzadi 1979 → 19:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
10. Support. I have no idea how we developed the trend of putting most of the dates in one format and all the access dates in another format. I'd hazard a guess that people only do this because they've seen it elsewhere. It's nonsensical, just as mixing British and American language would be. Any date format is fine, but there's no reason to use more than one within an article. The "Oppose" votes seem to boil down to "Our watchlists will be flooded with ugly edits" which isn't a rationale for leaving the articles in a weird state. Get a bot to do it so you can hide it. —Designate (talk) 06:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
11. Support It’s not about what makes wikipedians happiest (“I get to see my preferred date style salted throughout the bottom of this article!”); it’s about our readership. Consistent date formats within an article are better so consistency should be encouraged. Greg L (talk) 22:28, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
12. Support. Consistency is as key in an encyclopaedia as the information it presents. 21655 ^T/₀₁ 22:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
13. Support. It looks more professional to have a consistent date format in the references section. Jenks24 (talk) 22:21, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
14. A reference section that is inconsistent on something as simple as date format, and looks as if it was cobbled together by various people who did not take the time to check what others had done, appears unprofessional. And while many articles are written by multiple editors acting separately, this fact should not be so blatantly apparent in the product that we present to readers. I care little which date format is used in a reference section, but I abhor those which alternate between date formats like drunken square dancers. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 18:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
15. Support. Full support to ISO format. --Dch (talk) 10:27, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
16. Support. I thought this was already the guideline, to be honest. Certainly inconsistency across the references sections of articles just looks untidy and gives the impression that Wikipedia is disorganised and less trustworthy. Ideally, of course, software would be handling date preferences properly, but that seems to be surprisingly complicated (for reasons I've never quite bothered to understand). Whilst it would be good for the references section to have a consistent date format with the article, I think itnernal consistency across the references would at least be a good start. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:08, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
17. At the risk of supporting another date/MOS war I'd say that consistency in dates is generally a good thing. Protonk (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
18. Support. Standardization doesn't confuse readers any more than non-standardization. WikiPuppies! (bark) 00:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
19. Support, no reason I can think of why we should be inconsistent (excluding titles and quotations, as the proposal does), but as this is a guideline then if there is a reason on a specific article to be different then that's fine. As long as nobody goes overboard with enforcement then there wont be any downsides to this. For example, other than perhaps featured articles, there should be no reason to edit a page solely to change the formatting of dates in a reference section. Thryduulf (talk) 17:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
20. Support Consistency is desirable, æsthetically pleasing and logical. Inconsistency is not, it's jarring and serves no purpose. I'd like this to be taken further and have a consistent style throughout the article. JIMp _talk·cont 20:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
21. Support Consistency is desirable. I would support the use of YYYY-MM-DD for access dates, and DMY for everything else. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 23:00, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose. There is no real problem that needs to be solved. Nothing is wrong with a mix of date formats in the references and notes as long as each date is unambiguous. −Woodstone (talk) 10:21, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
2. oppose - although I follow the arguments I don't see this as a problem either: the reference sections I've seen look nothing like the above examples and tend to have so much formatting diversity that whether dates are consistent gets lost in the noise. Making this a guideline will lead to a series of trivial and inconsequential edits as editors 'fix' this. And what is the format that should be preferred? It's more than a simple binary like EngVar, there are a number of variations, so it can't be just the one in the majority. How to decide what to change them to? Looking at the article isn't enough as many articles have no dates in them.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:15, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
3. oppose - by indiscriminately referring to "yyyy-mm-dd" and "ISO-8601" the passage implies two falsehoods, that these are the same thing, and that Wikipedia has taken a position about the use of ISO-8601 in any part of articles. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:51, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   In addition, one format, APA Style, calls for publication dates to be in the format YYYY, Mmmmm DD and for the inline parenthetical citation to be (Surname, YYYY). Note that the month and day are omitted, even if they are present in the publication date. If the article does not add some form of hyperlink between the citation and the bibliography, or if the article has been printed, having the year first in the date format makes it easier to find the bibliography entry. This illustrates that style guides may use a peculiar date format for a functional reason, not just a preference. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:34, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

   Actually, the proposed guideline text doesn't mention ISO at all. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

   It did at the time I made the comment. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:31, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

4. Oppose. This has been discussed before, and there has never been a consensus to either forbid different ref styles in the text and article (because APA style, for one, does that), nor to forbid putting different types of dates in the references in different styles. OhCon's proposal would result in articles like [1] (97 refs, almost entirely with publication dates in mdy and accessdates in yyyy-mm-dd) becoming [2] (all dates in refs changed to mdy, when AFACT no ref had mdy for both types of dates). These sort of changes are bad. They make it difficult for the article's regular editors to read diffs over the edit, and they make the references themselves harder to parse for at least some people. Gimmetoo (talk) 19:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Incredibly, OhCon made [3] just recently. Before, the 107 references were nearly all yyyy-mm-dd, but after, everything was changed to mdy. That sort of edit goes contrary not only to the MOS prior to OhCon's "proposal", but is even contrary to OhCon's own proposal here. Gimmetoo (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

   Yeah, he does that. This older gem also included a date format change to a quote from a printed source as an extra bonus. Quale (talk) 05:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

5. Oppose Per Woodstone, JohnBlackburne, Gimmetoo, et al. The current section does not lead to any problem, and reflects consensus. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 20:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
6. Oppose  I'd go the opposite direction, I'd standardize on yyyy-mm-dd format for access dates, and discourage yyyy-mm-dd format elsewhere in the reference.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:36, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

   I don't know why you voted 'oppose', because the proposal is much closer to what you want than happens today. It doesn't preclude what you want to see, just does not insist upon it for every single article. The advantage is that all date formats will be consistent in the refs section, and they might just all be yyyy-mm-dd. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

   The proposal reads, "all dates in the reference sections are uniformly consistent".  I'm opposed to a consistency that in fact makes it harder to tell the difference between the access date and the publication date.  The access date is information about the citation rather than being a part of the citation itself.  For readability, I would prefer that access dates always use yyyy-mm-dd, and that publication dates never use yyyy-mm-dd.  Unscintillating (talk) 10:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

7. Oppose Proposal lacks guideline for a procedure for deciding what format to use when dates are not consistent. Existing scripts are being used to just remove yyyy-mm-dd whenever there is any discrepancy in date format, ignoring WP:DATERET. Proposer's script talk page says:

   "While I will do my best to comply with the minute detail of style guidelines, I will work with what is on the face of the article, and will target articles where I detect a misalignment of formats by a quick scan. I am unlikely, for reasons of productivity, to comb through each article's history to establish whether an article should be dmy or mdy, or whether a the first date included in a reference section was yyyy-mm-dd or not. If you want articles on your watchlist to retain any given format (or for it to have all yyyy-mm-dd dates in the accessdate field), you should ensure that the all of dates are in aligned in accordance with WP:MOSNUM, otherwise I consider them 'fair game'."

   YYYY-MM-DD is one of the three date formats used in Canada, as a Canadian I do not want it obliterated from wikipedia, and this proposal (+ scripts) seems to be a backdoor way of doing that. In the event that this proposal receives community support, no action should be taken on it without first obtaining agreement on a decision procedure in cases of inconsistency. --JimWae (talk) 09:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

8. I'd go with: The main article text, excluding tables, lists, and the section References, should use either 13 August 2011 or August 13, 2011, consistently; the section References, excluding access dates, should use either the format of the rest of the article or the same format with abbreviated months consistently; access dates should use either the format of the rest of the section References or 2011-08-13 consistently. Each table/list should be handled on a per-case basis depending on column width, sortability etc. using the main article text format, the same with abbreviated months, or (provided all dates are Gregorian in the 1583–9999 ranges) 2011-08-13 (but don't mix them in the same table column). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
9. And stop changing articles with scripts. -- Jeandré, 2011-08-14t11:06z

   This is a request for comment. I don't think your entry can be taken seriously, since it contains only a veiled personal attack. Thank you. Tony (talk) 11:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

   Apologies if it looks like an attack, that wasn't my intention. I meant that I oppose the proposal, as explained on the linked talk page, and that date changes should not be done with scripts. -- Jeandré, 2011-08-15t12:50z

10. Bad idea. I'm not sure even the unification in the current guideline is appropriate. It would make sense for publication dates of weekly magazines, weekly newspapers, or daily newspapers to be MDY for US sources and DMY for UK sources (or with the abbreviations suggested by User:A. di M.. The access date format (and archive date format) should be consistently (1) the article date format, (2) the date format appropriate to the reference, or (3) YYYY-MM-DD. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

    I don't get... are you suggesting that for any given article, that publication dates for all US sources take up the mdy format while if there are citations to The Times or The Guardian that they be in dmy? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

    It seems to me to be a preferable style, but certainly should be an acceptable style; the format of the publication date (if dmy or mdy; my is the same in either case) should be set by the publication. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

    Just curious... If you were citing an article in a Russian journal, would you write the publication date in Russian? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

11. Oppose - Don't think inconsistent date formats within the reference section are a problem. Especially accessdate versus publication date. Rlendog (talk) 15:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
12. Oppose. CITE says that editors may use any citation style they want, including styles that use different date formats to signal different styles of information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
13. Oppose - I think decisions on date formatting in references should be done by humans on an article-by-article basis, with the degree of uniformity needed decided by humans, not scripts or bots. There are valid arguments for the accessdate and publication date to be different formats for readability and for readers to be able to visually distinguish them, and there is also a valid argument that it is best to use the publication's own style for publication date (if necessary, a hidden conversion to Wikipedia publication date style can be included, but the original "untranslated" date style should be recorded somewhere to allow checking for errors in transcription). Carcharoth (talk) 23:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)
14. Oppose There is no real, demonstrable ill effect from this inconsistency, just more MOS nit-picking. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
15. Oppose. Per Headbomb and JimWae. Nanobear (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
16. Oppose Solution in search of a problem. yyyy-mm-dd is often preferable for the accessdate and archivedate due to its brevity and the fact that those fields are often edited programmatically; most readers don't care about them anyway. User:A. di M.'s comment accurately represents my understanding of what the current consensus is, and I would support his comment as a proposal. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:10, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
17. Oppose Current policy is adequate. Perhaps this could become FA criteria, but not a site wide imposition. My76Strat (talk) 20:19, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
18. Oppose The MOS is a style guideline, not a style enforcement rulebook. It would be impossible to ignore the intention behind this RfC, to justify mass, scripted, bike-shed, changes to tens of thousands of articles, steamrolling the inevitable per-article opposition to this that will arise. Gigs (talk) 14:25, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

    That really is the lamest reasoning I've heard for a long long time. Tony (talk) 14:51, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

19. Oppose Utter waste of time. Toohool (talk) 06:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
20. Oppose, rulemaking for the sake of having a rule. Stifle (talk) 13:04, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Notes

Neutral

Discussion

• I notice you still have not reverted your change. Anyway, I reject your point #2 and also #3,4,5. You claim a mix of date formats is "asthetically displeasing and difficult to parse". For you, a "mix of formats" includes a reference section where all the publication dates are one format and all the accessdates are another - a quite common format on Wikipedia. So apparently, there are other people who do not find it "aesthetically displeasing". Likewise, when different types of information is represented in different formats, I would expect at least some people would find that easier to parse. And that is why publication and access dates are treated differently by some editors, and why we have to point this out during past attempts to change the guideline. But I don't need to convince you; you need to convince everyone else. You're the one making the change. Gimmetoo (talk) 09:34, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I am not saying the yyyy-mm-dd format is uncommon; I say having such a mix makes the dates more difficult to parse. I am proposing that they should be a single format for all dates. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:48, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
• To the question of what format should be preferred, it should fall to standard of "first editor choice" as with nearly all other choices of which format to us. I would argue that if the article is tied to a specific nationality and thus has chosen to use US or Int-style dates in the body, then the opposite should be avoided in the reference text. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• The newly revised description of the background to the issue states "the guideline permits the use of up to two different formats in the reference section in various permutations". No. The guideline before Ohconfucius' bold change stated "Publication dates in article references should all have the same format." (An exception for archive and access dates followed.) This wording prevents a conflict with WP:CITE, which allows any citation format, and specifically mentions APA style, which uses YYYY, Mmmm DD for publication dates in the bibliography. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I've been watching this page and am unaware that it had been changed. The state of affairs I mentioned above is attested to by this thread. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:28, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• OK, now I see what you mean; any particular reference section may have up to two date formats, but collectively throughout all the guidelines-compliant articles in the encyclopedia, there may be many date formats, depending on which citation style was followed in each article. Theoretically there could be a citation style that calls for three different date formats, but that seems very unlikely. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

• Question: do the automated citation bots use the style of the publication or do they "translate" it into a preferred Wikipedia style? It would seem silly to have one bot bring in the data and another to tweak it after it arrives here. Carcharoth (talk) 00:02, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

As illustrated by this edit, User:Citation bot adds dates without respect to what format is already in use in the article. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:54, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

• Write out the month, I don't care about ymd/mdy, whatever order, but we should make it policy to write out or abbreviate (January/Jan and not 1/01) the month, as Americans and Europeans generally use different orders (dmy versus mdy) D O N D E groovily Talk to me 23:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Dates without a written-out month are just plain inconsiderate to our international readership. Reference sections with inconsistent date formats are unprofessional. Tony (talk) 01:16, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree, except it's inconsiderate to all our readership. What does 7-9-1981 mean? September 7 or July 9? There's no way to know. Dates like this should never be used. Everything else is secondary compared to this -- whether it should be August or Aug, or whether it should or must be consistent within the article, or whether it should always be 8 June or always June 8 or vary from article to article. It's important and useful to work all that out (or decide to go with laissez faire), but for God's sake we must never use numbers for months outside of quotations or like exceptions. Herostratus (talk) 03:12, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

This "proposal" has nothing to do with dates like 7-9-1981, and nothing to do with reference sections where different references are in different formats. It's mostly about a couple points, really. It's about abbreviations in references, and it's about whether reference sections consistently using date formats such as

• Last, First (29 July 2011). Main Page. WP. Accessed 2011-08-28.

(where the publication date and accessdate are consistently rendered in distinct formats) are to be forbidden. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested modification

I suggest modifying one bullet and adding a new one; additons are underlined:

• Except for titles and quotations, dates in each article's reference section should all have the same format, which may be the format prevailing in the body, the format specified in any style guide the reference section follows, or yyyy-mm-dd:
• The yyyy-mm-dd format shall not be used in any article that is likely to contain dates before 1583 or dates in a non-Gregorian calendar.

Also, change all instances of ISO 8601 to yyyy-mm-dd.

Jc3s5h (talk) 22:26, 7 August 2011 (UTC), modified 23:57 UT

In answer to a question posed on my talk page, "the format specified in any style guide the reference section follows", the MOS does not address itself to references, except to refer to WP:CITE. That guideline indicates any style may be used for citations. At least one citation style, APA style, calls for one format in the body of articles (Mmmm DD, YYYY,) but a different format in the citations (YYYY, Mmmm DD). To disallow following an external style guide in the reference section would place this guideline in conflict with WP:CITE. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:45, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Still unsure. You seem to suggest allowing YYYY, Mmmm DD in the refs section, and not to do so would violate WP:CITE. While it is theoretically allowed, I have come across such use in less than a handful of articles, and even so, only one or two instances in each article. I have seen more instances of erroneously used formats – like 18-1-99, 18-1-1999, 18-01-1999, 18-Jan-1999 – than this, so I believe it is quite moot in practice. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the second bullet point above can be enforced. Some countries use the Revised Julian calendar, which is identical to the Gregorian calendar from 1 March 1600 until at least 28 February 2400.

Isn't ISO 8601 itself unenforceable because some countries object to having the Gregorian calendar rammed down their throats when they have rejected it for something better? 92.24.110.78 (talk) 10:23, 8 August 2011 (UTC

On further consideration, I withdraw my suggestion and instead offer a counter-proposal below. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:33, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Counter-proposal

I suggest removing the text currently in the guideline:

• Except for titles and quotations, dates in each article's reference section should all have the same format, which may be the format prevailing in the body, or yyyy-mm-dd:

Correct	Incorrect
Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved 5 Feb 2009	Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 5 Feb 2009 Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved Feb 5, 2009
Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 5 February 2009	Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved February 5, 2009
Jones, J. (2008-09-20) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05.	Jones, J. (20 Sep 2008) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05 Jones, J. (2008-09-20) ... Retrieved 5 February 2009

I would replace it with the following:

• As with all style issues concerning citations, see Citing sources.

Also, I would add a statement to "Citing sources" that all-numeric date formats in which the first element represents the day or month should not be used, regardless of any recommendation in an external style guide, and any article currently using such a system should be corrected. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:41, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

• Initial reaction: I'm not aware nor am I particularly interested in how the two guidelines evolved, but there's definitely a lot more than dynamic tension here. Wikipedia ought to have a house style for citations, and we should only be referring to external guidelines where we don't have one of our own. And when there is a house style, which we seem to have (more or less), we ought to marginalise external guidelines. The tolerance of other styles in WP:CITE appears counter-intuitive to me, and a recipe for a 'free for all'. The disadvantage, of course, is that same external guidelines are usually inaccessible to a majority of editors, as opposed to wide and full availability for in-house guidelines, thus imperfect information as to how they are to be interpreted and used. Arguments cannot be easily resolved by reference to same (due to said unavailability), thus enforcing the tendency to WP:OWN in some cases. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

• There are arguments for and against a house style, but adopting my counter-proposal would not promote or retard a house style, it would just prevent conflict between this guideline and WP:CITE. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:42, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm in favor of a house style, or limited set of choices, and agree that for citations it would be better at WP:Citing sources#Dates. Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Would an admin close this discussion? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 05:20, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Would an admin close this discussion? Thanks, Cunard (talk) 20:25, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Conversions of ratios embedded in prose

I recently came across a fine example of what I like to call "misconversions". The Gallons per mile section of Fuel economy in automobiles used to read as follows (with a minor typo fixed, the reference removed and the {{convert}} call written out explicitely).

For example, replacing a car that gets 14 mpg_-US (17 mpg_-imp; 17 L/100 km) with a car that gets 25 mpg_-US (30 mpg_-imp; 9.4 L/100 km) saves 3 US gallons (2.5 imp gal; 11 L) of fuel every 100 miles (160 km). Because 1 US gallon (0.83 imp gal; 3.8 L) of fuel emits 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of carbon dioxide, saving 3 US gallons (11 L) of fuel every 100 miles (160 km) saves 3 short tons (2.7 t) of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles (16,000 km) of driving.

I took a look at this through a couple of "filters". Firstly my imperial filter yeilded this.

For example, replacing a car that gets 17 mpg_-imp with a car that gets 30 mpg_-imp saves 2.5 imp gal of fuel every 100 miles. Because 0.83 imperial gallon of fuel emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, saving 2.5 imperial gallons of fuel every 100 miles saves ??? of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles of driving.

It made me wonder what kind of measure 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per 0.83 imperial gal was. 20 pounds per 0.83 imperial gallon. What fancy number is 0.83?

Then I tried on my metric filter. Here's what I got.

For example, replacing a car that uses 17 L/100 km with a car that uses 9.4 L/100 km saves 11 litres of fuel every 160 kilometres. Because 3.8 litres of fuel emits 9.1 kilograms of carbon dioxide, saving 11 litres of fuel every 160 kilometres saves 2.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide every 16,000 kilometres of driving.

"Wow!" though I. Even more fancy numbers. 11 litres per 160 kilometres times 9.1 kilograms per 3.8 litres equals 2.7 tonnes per 16,000 kilometres. Now, I'm feeling much enlightened. 'Cause here in metricland we always measure things by the 3.8 litre and the 1.6 kilometre.

Another thing we tend to to, here in metricland, is measure food energy density in kilojoules per 450 grams. For example, I like to eat Foobars but I'm getting fat because they contain 420 kJ (100 Cal) per 450 grams (1 lb). I also drink Foozypop which contains 630 kJ (150 Cal) per 355 ml (12 US fl oz).

Well, I rewrote the example to give litres per 100 kilometres, pounds per imperial gallon, kilograms per litre, long tons per 10,000 miles and tonnes per 10,000 kilometres. I also tweaked the numbers for accuracy, tweaked the wording for flow and came up with this.

For example, replacing a car that gets 16 mpg_-US (19 mpg_-imp or 15 L/100 km) with a car that gets 30 mpg_-US (36 mpg_-imp or 8 L/100 km) saves 3 US gallons (2.5 imp gal) of fuel every 100 miles (7 L/100 km). Because the combustion of 1 US gallon of fuel emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide (burning 1 imp gal emits 24 lb and burning 1 L emits 2.4 kg), this saves 3 short tons (2.7 long tons) of carbon dioxide every 10,000 miles (1.7 t every 10,000 km) of driving.

This might well be the worst I've see but it's not the first. I wonder whether it's worth adding guidance regarding the conversion of such ratios imbedded in text. Converting the ratio as a whole rather than converting its parts individually seems such common sense to me but I guess it's not so for everyone. What might be a good way to phrase it? JIMp _talk·cont 10:19, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I think guidance can:

• document the outcome of a dispute that may reoccur
• define how to fix a common and significant problem that wouldn't be fixed by the wiki
• make a difference to what editors actually do

Unfortunately, I think guidance on this issue would fail on the last bullet. Lightmouse (talk) 18:39, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you're probably right. JIMp _talk·cont 02:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Request for Comment: date ranges

At present, the following is given: A closing CE or AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year, in which case the full closing year is given (1881–1986). Given that I have never seen this requirement in academic works, in fact, the opposite exists, years are normally expressed in full. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 17:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC).

This also applies to this paragraph: "Year ranges, like all ranges, are normally separated by an en dash, not a hyphen or slash: 2005–06 is a two-year range, whereas 2005/06 is a period of twelve months or less, such as a sports season or a financial year."

In my opinion, years should always be expressed in full, that is, with four digits (no leading zeros) for years after year 999. This is in accordance with "Write out the full year string instead of using the apostrophe (') to abbreviate the first two digits of the year."

A form such as "2005–06" is highly conflictive, since this is also a valid form in the international date format according to ISO 8601, which is the more or less "official" standard date format in many European countries. Many people would simply interpret this as "June 2005", not as "2005–2006". While this cannot happen with "1881–86", it looks odd (to me) and is in conflict with the rule to express years in full. We should change that accordingly. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 10:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

As an aside the bit you quote is not what happens in practice as sports seasons use the en-dash and not the slash as implied by the quote. Keith D (talk) 11:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that date ranges should be written in full, especially given the potential for confusion with ISO 8601 dates. I'm frankly surprised we don't already recommend this. Kaldari (talk) 16:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Two digits are definitely preferable in most AD/CE instances. Tony (talk) 10:29, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

See above, not a requirement nor preferable in most research and academic work. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC).

In the hundreds of articles I have checked or edited the dates have always been expressed in full, ie, four digits. This is also what I was used to in years of technical writing. Only recently have I come across an editor who was engaged in changing the four-digit format back to two digits in a great many biographical articles. I commented on this on his talk page (no response, and the practice continued). However, the MoS seems to say that both forms are OK, and I feel that this is inadequate. Hohenloh ⁺ 14:38, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Google Books searches don't support the claim above. 1941–45, 132,000 hits. 1941–1945, 215,000 hits, not "always", and certainly not always out of "hundreds of articles". 1982–84, 114,000 hits. 1982–1984, 123,000 hits. Again, not always. Art LaPella (talk) 21:51, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I brought this up recently. The resulting discussion is probably in the archives somewhere. My position is that short date ranges are more commonly written with two closing digits (e.g. 1914-18 and 1939-45), but that writing it out in full is also common. I think that when writing out a person's birth and death years, it is vital to write the death year out in full no matter what the context. This is because these years are so central to identifying people, especially those with the same or similar names. It is also a matter of style. Aesthetically, it looks better if the closing year is uniformly written the same way, not varying depending on the context, so the full closing year is best. Finally, as a reader, when looking for information in an article or list, I often know the year something happened and search for that to find it in the article (often I find people have neglected to name the year and that is something that can be corrected). Similarly, when trying to identify people (often relatively obscure 19th century naturalists) when I have a name and no birth or death year, I sometimes find what might be the birth or death year, and then do a new search including that year, and get the results I need. For obvious reasons, it is best to be able to search on the full year, not an abbreviated version. Carcharoth (talk) 15:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Please see RfC on citation style

Please see WT:CITE#Which Wikipedia guideline(s) should establish citation format? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:59, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Where it's being asserted, indirectly, that the advice on this page under Full date formatting insofar as it refers to references, does not represent current consensus. Does anyone have anything to say about that?--Kotniski (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Hello? Is there any further interest in this question? We need to resolve it - it makes no sense to have two guidelines saying apparently different things and not even acknowledging each other's existence.--Kotniski (talk) 07:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

year range in lede

Per MOS biographies, I added a note that if the full dates are provided by an infobox or in the text of the article, a simple span of years is sufficient in the lede. This follows the general principle of reducing clutter in the lede. Although I have added quite a few pronunciations to biography articles, I would encourage those to be moved to an infobox as well. (This has been done systematically with astronomical bodies.) — kwami (talk) 23:24, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

I strongly agree with moving pronunciation to the infobox. Did you start a thread about that somewhere? —Designate (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

The idea that the pronunciation should be moved out of the lede has been in WP:PRON for months. But a thread has been reopened here. — kwami (talk) 22:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I keep arguing to have biographies comply with the same style guidelines as other articles with respect to lead sections only giving context and a notability summary. It was already implied by the "...or days and months would be irrelevant detail" clause but I agree your proposal makes it more explicit. Other editors still often revert to full dates in the lead, alas. My related pet peave is people who put details into the lead or infobox to avoid a citation. Not sure if it needs to be stated here explicitly, every detail in a lead or infobox should be mentioned in the body with a citation. Perhaps not critical for pronunciations, not sure about those, but dates should be in the body too. W Nowicki (talk) 17:57, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

I often see details ref'd in an info box. I mean, as you say, do we really need to repeat the pronunciation in the text? I'm accustomed to astronomy articles, where there are all sorts of orbital and physical details (eccentricity, inclination, semimajor and semiminor axis, major & minor radius, volume, gravitational field) which, if not remarkable, are not mentioned in the text. They're simply sourced in the info box. I know the box is supposed to only summarize what's in the text, but we completely ignore that in linguistics and astronomy articles. For stubs, the box often is the article: A lede to summarize the topic, and a box for all of the actual data. Only when the article is expanded beyond a stub will some of the infobox data appear in the text, but then only if it's noteworthy. It's a lot harder to access it in the text.

I can see leaving in the birth date of, say, Barack Obama, as, although it's not exactly notable, I expect there may be a fair number of people looking for that datum. But it's probably only relevant for living people, and very few of those. Similarly, if someone important just died, I could see leaving the full date in the lead for maybe a year. But once everyone knows they're dead, or in any case it's been more than a year, I can't see how the month and day are particularly relevant. Most of the time, anyway. There will always be exceptions, but IMO we should argue for an exception before adding what amounts to trivia immediately after the bold title phrase in the lede. — kwami (talk) 06:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sure, but I think in general we should avoid people writing unreferenced stubs, as well as stubs with just infoboxes and one sentence. There are way too many already. Assuming "someone else" will expand it in the futureis a bit inconsiderate. If you have the source hand, add the source and type a sentence with the information. Otherwise the source will not be known by the future editor. But of course ened to be practical. W Nowicki (talk) 23:05, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

We're talking at cross purposes. Of course we need to ref things. But that has nothing to do with whether they should go in the lede or in the info box. There's no way most people are going to create a text that is just a string of statistics. That's much more accessible in an info box, even if there's hardly anything left for the text itself. — kwami (talk) 23:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I've been very concerned at the amount of clutter at the very opening of some bio articles; it's chiefly pronunciation, alternative names, and non-roman script equivalents. When I visit such articles, I tend to put ref tags around this information so the rest of the sentence (after the first-give name) isn't four lines down. Any practice of shifting some or all of this secondary information to the infobox is a great idea. Without an infobox, I'll still ref it. Tony (talk) 02:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, very rarely do we need foreign transcriptions in the lede either. Take Genghis Khan as I found it:

Genghis Khan (English pronunciation:/ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/;; Cyrillic: Чингис Хаан, Chingis Khaan, IPA: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ; Mongol script: , Činggis Qaɣan; Chinese: 成吉思汗; pinyin: Chéng Jí Sī Hán; probably May 31, 1162 – August 25, 1227), born Temujin (English pronunciation: /təˈmuːdʒɪn/; Mongolian: Тэмүжин, Temüjin IPA: [tʰemutʃiŋ] ; [Temüjin] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help); traditional Chinese: 鐵木真; simplified Chinese: 铁木真; pinyin: Tiě mù zhēn) and also known by the temple name Taizu (Chinese: 元太祖; pinyin: Yuán Tàizǔ; Wade–Giles: T'ai-Tsu), was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.

How do we expect anyone to read that? Compare the actual lede text:

Genghis Khan (1162?–1227), born Temujin and also known by the temple name Taizu, was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.

Now, the info box of that article is currently overcrowded with all that stuff, but that's because allowance hasn't been made for such things (i.e., no place for birth name, temple name, posthumous name). — kwami (talk) 02:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. If the first sentence doesn't fit into a Google search result, it's unacceptable. —Designate (talk) 03:20, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

@Tony: I think putting stuff between plain vanilla <ref> tags is a very bad idea, as it's impossible for readers to anticipate that the footnote contains stuff other than a citation of a source. With <ref group="Note">, on the other hand... ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 10:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's often a very good way to do it. Also, refs are often in a small font, which we probably don't want to do with notes. However, anything in the infobox will be near the top of the article, whereas the notes will be at the bottom. So IMO full dates belong in the info box (where we currently have them), but Chinese transcriptions of a Mongol name can probably be safely relegated to the notes. IMO the pronunciation of the name used in the article should be in the box, since it may be difficult to read the article without it, whereas you don't need to know the Chinese (or the Mongol, for that matter).

BTW, some time ago I added {{#tag:ref||group="note"}} to the 'Wiki markup' edit window for just these situations. Unlike <ref group="Note">, #tag:ref allows you to place <ref> tags in the notes themselves. — kwami (talk) 10:23, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

A couple of points. Firstly, all the discussion about pronunciation and non-MOSNUM stuff should either be discussed at a different location or unified in a single discussion. In other words, if sweeping changes are to be made to the way biographical articles are written on Wikipedia, a discussion should be opened at WT:BIOGRAPHY and possibly notification left at WP:CENT given the massive number of biography articles on Wikipedia. Also, it would help if a preliminary audit gave an idea of the number of articles this would affect, and how many use the current style? A further point is that many biography articles don't use infoboxes, so it is best to leave infoboxes out of the discussion, or state what should be done where there is no infobox. My view is that a discussion should be undertaken to settle on the style used on biographical articles, rather than piecemeal discussion of different aspects in different places (year range in lede at MOSNUM and pronunciation at PRON is a classic example of splitting up a discussion that should be done altogether in one place). But that discussion should take place at the Biography WikiProject pages, not at MOSNUM. Possibly Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies) is a another venue, but it is vital that input is obtained from those who write biography articles on Wikipedia, rather than those who write manuals of style. My view is that having the birth and death dates in the lead is fine, but everything else should be seen as clutter and relocated. The reason I think birth and death dates should stay in the lead? Because if you remove them, the lamest edit wars you can imagine will break out between people who want to write 1832-1895 and those who want to write 1832-95. Seriously (and that is on-topic for this page!). Carcharoth (talk) 01:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Maybe. But let's not conflate the two issues here... firstly, we have the date, place of birth/death, new-/old-style dates, IPA pronunciation clutter; secondly, we have the hieroglyphics, birth/second/courtesy/alternate names and related pinyin most seen mainly in articles about Chinese subjects. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • When I first started editing biographical articles, I think it was commonplace to include place of birth and death in the lead sentence. That has lessened over time. The standard now seems to be: 'Some version of name (birth date and year - death date and year)' followed by varying amounts of other stuff. The standard now seems to be to mention the nationality (if not too complicated) and profession in the lead, but to wait until the first paragraph of the main body of the article before going into details such as place of birth. The full name and date of birth and date of death tend to be repeated in both the lead and the main article, both because the main article should stand independently from the lead section, and because the main body of the article is often a more convenient place to source things like full name and exact dates and locations. The key is not to remove information if it is not located elsewhere in the article. It would help to survey biographical dictionaries to see what different styles exist, though we can't copy the style used by others, we should use or develop our existing style while avoiding clutter. And please can we move this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)? I see several earlier comments over there from people who state that they are opposed to removing dates of birth and death from the lead section. So the discussion should really be over there. Carcharoth (talk) 13:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Style of lead sections. Carcharoth (talk) 15:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Notes

Abbreviating the word "number"

Is there a policy on abbreviating the word "number"? In articles concerning rail transport, I often see text concerning individual locomotives. Rail locomotives are normally identified by number, and so this text is usually like "No. 123 was built in ..." but sometimes I see text like "Nº 123 was built in ...". Do we have a policy on whether one of these forms is preferable to the other? --Redrose64 (talk) 18:48, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Number_signs. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 19:02, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but although that explicitly forbids # and № it doesn't mention Nº - it might help if the MoS explicitly stated that the only permitted abbreviation was "No." --Redrose64 (talk) 21:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps opinions vary, but I usually avoid all abbreviations. My pet peave is "aka" which slips in too many times. Unlike other encyclopedias that are limited by paper, we should have no constraints. On the other hand, there might be some domain-specific styles that use certain well-known abbreviations almost exclusively, the one I think of is HMS or USS for ship names- these are almost never spelled out. You might also discuss at a relevant project page. But when in doubt, spell it out. W Nowicki (talk) 23:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Renaming the page

We're informed that it was agreed to move MoS pages to subpage format, which means this page ought to be called Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. I can't move it since it's move protected - can someone with admin rights do it (or does someone want to object?)--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for prompting this, Kotniski. Yep, this has consensus at the MoS project, and is being gradually rolled out. Tony (talk) 11:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done Art LaPella (talk) 01:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

“Done” you say?! Was there any decision about talk archives? Maybe I should look through the archives, but currently they appear as a pile of red links :P. I guess it would be less trouble to fix the references on this page rather than move all the existing talk archives, judging by WhatLinksHere/WT:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive 135 versus WhatLinksHere/WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 135. Or perhaps this is a bot’s work? Vadmium (talk) 13:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC).

No need to worry about numerical pages. Most talk pages deem a search box sufficient for access to archives. Lightmouse (talk) 15:21, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

"When days and months [of birth and death] would be irrelevant detail"

I was puzzled by this guidance: When only the years are known, or days and months would be irrelevant detail: "Socrates (470–399 BC) was..."

Under what circumstances would days and months be an irrelevant detail? I assume we omit the exact dates of Socrates' life because we don't know them, not because they're irrelevant. Why would they be irrelevant? Because dates of people who lived long ago are automatically not relevant, and dates of people who live or lived more recently are automatically relevant? Now that I think about it, if we're making determinations based on relevance, it's hard for me to see the relevance of including the birthdates (beyond the year) of the vast majority of living people who are the subject of Wikipedia articles.

I suggest deleting the phrase about "irrelevant detail," but if there is some meaning to it that I'm missing, I suggest the guideline be clarified to explain the distinction between relevance and irrelevance. Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Upon further investigation, I appear to have isolated the discussion that led to this statement being added (under "Full vital dates vs. years"). My understanding is that the main prompt for the change is that editors wanted (for some reason) to include the exact date of birth in the body of the article, and thought it redundant to include the date in the lead, the body, and an infobox, so this change was made to allow them to omit the date from the lead. But isn't that clearly an issue for the MOS on biography articles, not the MOS on how to write the dates? And MOSBIO still says the dates should be included if known, not if they're known and determined relevant. Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:43, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Removing that is fine with me. There is a minor BLP concern with low profile individuals and identity theft. I could write a full page rant about why we shouldn't have notability guidelines that allow us to have articles on individuals so low profile that their birth date might be secret, but that's an argument for another page. Gigs (talk) 17:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Keep Well, at least in the USA exact dates are often considered private even for high profile individuals. For example, birth cirtificates are considered confidential health documents, so releasing one to the press is illegal as I understand. For those who have not been following the story, one certain somewhat high-profile individual was involved. But even if the dates are known, for the vast majority of articles they are a detail that does not belong in the lead or each mention of a person. Not sure why you claim "for some reason" since the reason was openly discussed before I made the change. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section is the best guideline. For example, "The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources...." The lead section should summarize the body, so details not in the body should not be allowed in lead sections by that guideline. Certainly the birthdate of someone is important to themselves and their close family, but rarely is it the reason they are notable. We have rehashed this several times, and some people cling to the claim that birthdates always must be important enough for the lead. Certainly some people believe in astrology which should be respected. But unless someone gives a scientific survey that shows most general Wikipedia readers think vital dates are what makes people notable, it is only an assertion of opinion. W Nowicki (talk) 19:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm kinda surprised there's suddenly interest in discussing this two weeks after I raised the issue and amended the MOS. Anyway, I believe my main objection still stands: whether to include the dates should be an issue at WP:MOSBIO, not here, and that MOS says the dates of birth should be included, if known. However, I just looked again at the current text of this MOS, and noticed that, at some point since it was altered to add that confusing "irrelevant detail" bit that I removed, someone else added this to the end of the first paragraph of that section: "When full dates are provided in the text or in an infobox, year-pairs can be sufficient for the lede in some cases". So if that's what you're going for, it looks like the MOS already does allow it, and I have no objection to keeping that statement. Theoldsparkle (talk) 21:06, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

This discussion belongs at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#Style_of_lead_sections. Designate (talk) 21:25, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, it's not that simple. The statement "Joe Shmoe (birth - death) was..." is at the intersection of WP:MOSBIO and WP:MOSDATE.

There have been a lot of discussions regarding the parenthesized vital information traditionally following a person's name in biographical articles. There was a huge discussion on this last year: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive 132#So what IS the deal with birth/death locations in the opening? (ignore the section title and opening section and jump down to the "Staw Poll" subsection). Over 80 editors participated so this is the operative discussion in my opinion.

Anyway... Some people feel it should be "Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was..." and some that it should be "Charles Robert Darwin (1809 – 1882) was...". And there's no agreement on this, so people do what they they think best. The problem is, one might infer from the example used in MOSDOB that there's a prescription to give the day and month, and that's not true. But if you changed the example to give only the year, that would possibly imply that there's a prescription to not give the day and month, and that's not true either.

It's confusing. There is absolutely not a consensus to use the day and month in the parenthesized vital information. The examples show this, but only because the examples have to show something.

MOSBIO handles this much better, but MOSBIO also has a failing: it says nothing about the parenthesized vital information. It only talks about the lede paragraph as a whole. (The examples there show parenthesized vital information, leaving one to possibly infer that they're at least recommended, but that's it.) If you go by MOSBIO -- what's written, not the examples -- the following lede would be perfectly within the MOS:

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection. He was born in England on February 12, 1809 and died there on April 19th, 1882.

We need to combine the strengths of this two complementary sections, in one place. Here's what I think: MOSDATE should get out of the biography business. (Either that, or MOSBIO should get out of the date business (which would be a lot harder, I think).) MOSDATE's job is telling what kind of dash should separate two dates when they appear in succession, and what kind of punctuation should separate the day from the month and the month of from the year when a full date is given, and so forth. And that's it. It should not saying, or even implying through examples, what level of detail is to be given to the parenthesized vital information at the start of of an article, or whether biographical articles should have the death date in the lede or at the end, and so forth. That's MOSBIOS's job.

It's certainly not a good idea to have two different MOS's talking about the same thing and not agreeing, which is the case now, at least arguably (depending on whether you think examples imply prescription, which I think a lot of people think they do unless this is overtly disclaimed).

This has been a headache for years, and a constant source of confusion. It's time to put paid to this. I propose to work up an RfC on this presently. Herostratus (talk) 06:11, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

An excellent proposal! I would add that a living person's DOB should not be divulged — to avoid making identity theft easier — and that exact dates be used in the lede if — and only if — they are not to be found elsewhere an article (I do not see how they can ever be irrelevant.) — Robert Greer (talk) 15:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Use of the word "present" when representing dates in headers

Maybe I've missed it somewhere, but I see no direct information regarding the use of the word "present" in section headers. For example, I see many headers that list an event that occurred over a series of time and listed as (1980-present). I'm thinking that the same train of thought that applies to use of the word "currently" would also apply here but I'd like to be sure. Would that same rule apply that applies to the article body also apply to the section headers? NJZombie (talk) 18:23, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Era convention

Could someone point me to the discussion that supported the change in wording to WP:ERA? I believe it used to say something along the lines of keeping the article's original era convention unless there was "substantial" reason for the change. Now it says: Do not arbitrarily change from one style to the other on any given article. Instead, attempt to establish a consensus for change at the talk page. This seems to me likely to encourage endless unproductive discussion over a relatively minor point of style; previously, editors who actively watched an article could just say "hey, it's always been this way and there's no substantial reason particular to this article to change it." Less time wasted. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:02, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I didn't find actual discussion of that edit. I did find: Editor's question. Edit. Much longer related discussion. Art LaPella (talk) 22:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, especially for digging up that long discussion. I think I see what the goal was, so perhaps I'll ask the editor to comment here. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:43, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Hm. That editor seems to be blocked for socking. I think I'd rather have the wording go something like Do not change the era style of an article without first seeking consensus on the talk page. Reasons for the proposed change should be specific to the content of the article; a general preference for one style over another is not a reason. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:03, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Surely for the sake of impartiality BCE should be used? Should not a carte blanche be granted allowing articles to be updated to BCE - assuming the article is fully and correctly updated. Thecoshman (talk) 11:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, BCE seems like a more contemporary standard, and as mentioned above, a more impartial one with regards to religion. (Though I'm not sure how much that matters given the date system in question is based off the theoretical year of the death of jeebus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EznorbYar (talk • contribs) 11:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe instead of suddenly replacing BC with BCE in every article, we should begin using BCE in new articles, while slowly phasing BC out. Aromir19 (talk) 14:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I would agree with this sentiment, it makes sense that as a standard practice articles should be written with the sue of BCE opposed to BC. I personally find it strange that the only reason to keep BC is for the most part that people don't want to change the use of BC as it is what the article has always used. With the sentiment we would never move on; what if we think up a better of referring to reference material, surely we would aim to update all the articles to use the new improved system Thecoshman (talk) 15:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In previous discussions of this perennial issue in the archives, I believe the main argument for BC isn't that it exists in a given article. It's that it is more prevalent in writing outside Wikipedia. "1000 BC" gets almost 4 times as many Google hits as "1000 BCE". BC is based on a religion, but so are days of the week ("Thursday" = "Thor's day", etc.) and months, and so is the starting point for BCE. Art LaPella (talk) 15:58, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As for “more contemporary”, note that even in books from the late 2000s BC is nearly 4 times as common as BCE.[4] Maybe in 20 years BCE will be more common than BC, but it's not there yet. ― A. di M.​  20:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

A di M, we might want to look at AD and CE in ngrams also, yes? And it might be best to select whole centuries, and early ones for which the distinction is more likely to be made. This ngram evidence is especially interesting. I add the word "by" (feasible when we get larger samples by the means I just mentioned) to narrow the hits to dates rather than contaminants in which the abbreviations mean something different. Such ngrams are a challenge to analyse. They sample diverse literatures. Noetica^Tea? 21:23, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

AD is more often written before the year number, so it's under-represented in the above. See this. (BTW, I should made clear that my position is for allowing both systems, in case it seemed I was in favour of BC/AD only.) ― A. di M.​  22:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

As a possible solution to this problem, is there any way the wiki engine can be set up so that people can choose between years being shown in BC/AD or showing as BCE/CE? If this would be possible, it would be a fine solution as people can simply choose what data format yo use. Though of course, the question must be asked what should the default data format be? Thecoshman (talk) 15:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it works like that. Aromir19 (talk) 16:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Even if changing the wiki engine were possible, how would readers make the choice? Do you mean like the date format preference (click "My preferences" above, then click "Date and time")? That choice is more useful rhetorically than practically. If you're only a reader, you have no reason to register, so you can't set a preference. If you're also an editor, you should see dates, and BC/BCE, the same way unregistered readers see them, because you're writing for readers not authors; therefore you shouldn't set a preference even though you can. Art LaPella (talk) 16:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

• I have a strong reason to propose a change from BC to BCE on Wikipedia because there is no historical record of Christ. You may discuss Josephus use of the word Chrestus in relation to James at your will, but Wikipedia should not be governed or linked to religion and hence BCE should be adopted as standard for WP:ERA. Would it not be really great to form a battalion of editors, timecops. jedi and assistants here, clever enough to fight the time war and agree that using terminology that refers to a fictional person in Wikipedia articles is irrational? A Timelord (talk) 19:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• How is BCE less based on Jesus Christ? Christians already read it as "Before/Christian Era" anyways. St John Chrysostom ^view/_my bias 13:02, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It will allow the 4.5 billion people (66.7%) of the planet that do not believe in Christ to use the alternative terminology of "Common". 2.28.141.25 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe there are 4.5 billion people who don't believe in God and/or don't believe Jesus was his only son, but I doubt there are that many people who believe Jesus didn't exist. (As for calling him Christ ‘anointed one’, there are plenty of non-Buddhist people who call Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha ‘enlightened one’, not to mention Mahatma (‘great soul’) Gandhi...) ― A. di M.​  19:52, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

For crying out loud, why isn't this listed under WP:PEREN already? There's even less evidence for the existence of Thor, but we still say Thursday, don't we? :-) ― A. di M.​  20:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

This has been argued ad infinitum for the entirety of Wikipedia's history, and the only consensus that has been reached is to use both era notations. As for Wikipedia not being "governed by or linked to religion", does that mean you think we should replace all references to Thursday (named for pagan god Thor) with Common Fourth Day, or January (named for pagan god Janus) with Common First Month? The point being, just because a secular euphemism exists it doesn't mean Wikipedia automatically must use it. Wikipedia uses what is notable, and while BCE/CE are increasing in notability, BC/AD are still by far the most notable and widespread notations. If we don't use the Quakers' euphemisms for the pagan weekdays, we don't need to use the Jews' euphemism for the notable Christian era notations. Whether "Christ" exists or not is entirely irrelevant, because BCE/CE does nothing to change the fact that the era is based around an estimation of his birth, it only excises explicit reference to that. — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 21:13, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• Well done A. di M. and FoxCE, you appear to have spotted the Daleks. These things are consumed by irrational hate. It seems to be some form of mutant created by the Pope. The name Thor seems to be noted in Laurence Waddell's British Edda, and Janus is well referenced in the Roman records, but they do not seem to be figures of worship in any currently practiced religion. This Christ terminology seems to refer to a current, practiced religion called Christianity and hence gives bias to an irrational concept that is not notable in the historical record, in breach of WP:NPOV over other currently practiced religions and should therefore be exterminated in order to save humanity. The time war is on! You can join me and live in peace or continue on your present course co-operating with this irrational enemy and face annihilation. A Timelord (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

  Disclaimer: I believe that Jesus actually existed. (But this is not the reason why I'm OK with BC/AD; in fact, I believe that Jesus was born several years before AD 1. As for currently practised religions... BTW, the reason why I used the particular phrase for crying out loud, rather than any of its numerous synonyms which had sprung to my mind, is that it was the only one which included no mention of any religious figure or any supernatural being or place or state of existence or spiritual practice. In fact, the first one I thought of was for f–––'s sake, but that references a particular aspect of a particular set of religious beliefs too.) ― A. di M.​  22:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC) and (after two edit conflicts) 22:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The Essenes had a Teacher of Righteousness that you can read all about in the work of John M. Allegro and is clearly notable in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Indeed, the last of these figures seems to have been born several years before 1 CE. So in some respects, we are not in total disagreement. Jesus, however, is a Dalek and should be exterminated. A Timelord (talk) 22:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

• I agree the original text should be restored. I'd be prepared to have an addition suggesting a slight preference for BCE etc in articles on Asia and Oceania, but for example the British Museum still uses BC, at least for Europe & the Near East. The discussion dug out above seems pretty fimsy to me, & insufficient to overturn a long-established wording. Johnbod (talk) 23:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
• The British Museum must be infested with Daleks, thanks for the information Johnbod, I had no idea that it was linked so closely to the Wikipedia project. I should go and investigate. A Timelord (talk) 00:38, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

• You do realize that all references to era notations in the Doctor Who universe use BC/AD, not BCE/CE? Including the first episode, which is alternatively called "100,000 BC"? — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 01:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

That episode was written in 1963 when Christianity and irrationality dominated well over one third of the world (and the Pope still considered the Sun revolved around the Earth). 2.28.141.25 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

He seems to be on a campaign to use ASPRO chronology on all relevant pages, without starting any discussions at the relevant Wikiprojects or article talk pages. He refers to it as a 'time war' which he is "waging" or "fighting". Dougweller (talk) 09:10, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I am interested to know how you have determined the fact I am a male Dougweller? Are you gay? ;-) A Timelord (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Because you call yourself “A Timelord” and not “A Timelady”? ― A. di M.​  16:16, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you may have spotted another invading alien here A. di M. although I can find no mention of the Timelady terminology in the records. The terminology to describe a female who lords over time would appear to be the same as that for a male. A Timelord (talk) 23:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Note that this editor has tried to delete any mention of 'Time Lady', including deleting the reference [5] from an article. That lists two incarnations of Romana, "Romana I (Mary Tamm)

First incarnation of Time Lady traveller with the Fourth Doctor" and "Romana II (Lalla Ward) Second incarnation of Time Lady traveller with the Fourth Doctor - mark two." I'm beginning to think this editor is not exactly constructive. Dougweller (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

The full link for your source text [6] refers to Romana as a Time Lord giving equal balance to the argument and hence I AM not being disruptive. A Timelady (talk) 13:50, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

I second the proposal raised by A Timelord. Paul Bedson ❉talk❉ 14:01, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Third. Ban him (and, he changed his name, so WP:SOCKPUPPET). You couldn't tell he was a troll with his very first post about the Christ-myth hypothesis in this thread? St John Chrysostom ^view/_my bias 13:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Fourth. Crucify them! Crucify them! Exterminate the Timelords! Then bow and worship your new masters. Love, The Daleks. 2.28.141.25 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. I hereby declare this the most awesome Wikipedia discussion thread ever. (But I still support allowing both BC/AD and BCE/CE.) ― A. di M.​  19:47, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

logon page

Note that, contrary to the dates section of this manual, the logon screen today reads:

"The Wikimedia Foundation's 2^nd steward election in 2011 has started. Please vote."

With superscript. — Robert Greer (talk) 16:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I made this edit, which apparently needs to be approved by somebody in meta-Wikipedia land, where I seldom edit. The relevant guideline is MOS:NUM#Typography not MOS:NUM#Dates, but it does say 2nd not 2^nd. Art LaPella (talk) 19:52, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Euros again, again.

The plural of euros has been discussed so many times (see the archives of this talk page). Following the latest edit[7] we are now being told the plural is euro. But is the fragment "it is easier to pay for eggs in euro" really in the preferred form? Linguistic issues concerning the euro is sympathetic with "euros" and A handbook for authors and translators in the European Commission (at 20.9) is definite. Also, although I can imagine someone writing "a two-euros pen", English adjectives are not inflected and people do not need to be told this here. Could we not delete this whole bullet point as being far more bother than it is worth? Thincat (talk) 17:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The natural, non-legislative plurals are the preferred form. The article now states this again. Best to leave the bit about adjectival use, however, in the context of this word. -- Evertype·✆ 20:50, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I am a bit confused here, I think you are stating the you think 'Euros' is an acceptable way to pluralise euro. As far as I am aware, the 'correct' form is just 'Euro'. Thecoshman (talk) 11:28, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of South Asian numbering system in articles

I would like to see a statement here regarding the use of the South Asian numbering system in articles. For example the article Ajay Kumar, it says he won by "1.55 lakh votes", is acceptable style? Kevink707 (talk) 17:03, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

On Indian-language Wikipedias, yes; on this (English-language) Wikipedia, no, unless in an historical or literary context (XIX-century Russian novels, for example). — Robert Greer (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, we can't expect readers to know what lakhs and crores are. Use English. JIMp _talk·cont 17:48, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Coordinates vs Lat Long in infoboxes

I'm not sure how (or where) to address this concern. Basically, I'm asking if infoboxes such as "{Infobox cemetery}" need lines for both Lat/Long entries and coordinates. (I've posted a comment on the particular infobox discussion page Template talk:Infobox cemetery.) Comments welcome. --S. Rich (talk) 04:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:DATERET

Hey all.

I wonder if there is anyone who agrees with me, when I question the current DATERET guidelines. I regularly come across articles that have absolutely no relation to US or Canada, and still have a date format that is distinctly North American (or even US, as Canada have both formats). These articles – on topics that are Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Danish, or whatever – were probably once created by an American wikipedian, using his/her own habitual date format. That is no reason for those articles to have a US-centric date format, but the current guidelines seem to prevent changing the articles to a more appropriate format.

Wouldn't it be better if the "Strong national ties" section of the guidelines was altered so that it was permissible to alter the date format to a more appropriate one? (Changes could obviously go both ways.) I mean, just because the first major editor, probably unknowingly, made a poor choice of format, should the article for ever be doomed to keep that? If I had started the article on Tiger Woods or Bill Clinton using the international date format, would that be right?

HandsomeFella (talk) 19:48, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The format that expresses today as "October 14, 2011," is as suitable for an article that is not tied to any particular English-speaking country as any others. The idea that "14 October 2011" is some how more suitable for untied articles is incorrect. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is what the current guidelines say. I'm questioning that. HandsomeFella (talk) 20:28, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Many of the guidelines on Wikipedia have been developed under discussions dominated by editors more oriented to computing than to natural language; "14 October 2011' is near and dear to their hearts. — Robert Greer (talk) 15:50, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It's no more “distinctly North American” than 17 October is “distinctly” British.[8][9][10] Hence, I'd leave the existing guideline the hell alone. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 23:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with A di M. And Robert Greer, sadly, techs seem to prefer the gobbledy ISO numeral-only version. The US armed forces use ddmmyy: what's British about that? Tony (talk) 02:10, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's British, I'm saying it's international. Use of the mdy format is isolated to North America in essence (in Canada both formats are used). Why the American military have chosen the international date format over the normal US format is a question they must answer. HandsomeFella (talk) 07:46, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

These are the current guidelines: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that nation. For the US this is month before day; for most others it is day before month. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently.

The proposition in short is that we strike the English-speaking part, i.e. the new guidelines would read: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular country other than the United States or Canada should generally use the international date format, which is day before month. Articles with strong ties to the US should generally use the US format, which is month before day. Articles related to Canada may use either format consistently.

There is absolutely no reason for articles relating to Argentina, Nigeria or Austria to have a US-centric format. HandsomeFella (talk) 08:12, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

• I agree with HandsomeFella. The Germanophone, Francophone, Espanophone and Slavonic countries use dmy natively, and WP articles should reflect that. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 08:54, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

  According to that logic, articles about China or Japan should use 2011 October 17. :-) ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 09:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

That format is not one of those used in the English-speaking world. HandsomeFella (talk) 09:41, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Following A. di M.'s line of reasoning, "the Germanophone, Francophone, Espanophone and Slavonic" Wikipedias should use M-D-Y format for articles that have to do with American subjects (they do not.) — Robert Greer (talk) 14:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Oh I wish. We cobbled together this patchwork called ENGVAR because consensus could not be reached over a single date or language format. Such is the deficiency of the consensus model. It's a problem unique to en.wp. Unlike French, German, Spanish where there is only one spelling and one date format and the issue never arises – mdy dates would look too weird in any of those languages. Unfortunately, there's no possibility of a single date or spelling system here. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. This idea conflicts directly with WP:ENGVAR. It amounts to effectively restricting mdy to only US and Canadian subjects regardless of the variety of English the article is written in. It's absurd to force an article about a Romanian politician written in American English to use dmy. Roger (talk) 09:44, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I would say that it works together with WP:ENGVAR. Why should an article about a Romanian politician be written in American English? The obvious choice (to me) is to write in an as "neutral" as possible variety of English. HandsomeFella (talk) 10:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

You now seen to be proposing the complete overthrow of ENGVAR - fuhgeddaboudit! Roger (talk) 10:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

---

Yes, using “neutral” English is all what WP:COMMONALITY is about, but unless you want to avoid all the words for which there is no spelling which is correct everywhere (flavo[u]r, travel[l]ing, etc.), you still have to pick an English variety for those words to be written in. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 12:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Compatability of date-stamp guidelines

Questions are in regard to WP:ASOF. It doesn't look like that page sees much traffic, so posting here instead.

• Is this guideline compatable with templated data (like {{Kosovorecognition}}), which is intended to simultaneously update a range of articles? Presumably, it'd defeat the purpose of having such a template, since in each article it's transcluded in the date-stamp would have to be updated separately.
• Should this guideline apply to such data in the first place? Surely, given the above, it would result in a lot of incorrect date-stamps because they weren't updated.

Any responses are appreciated. Thanks, Nightw 14:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ordinal suffix

In Wikipedia:DATESNO it states that the ordinal suffix is never used, but I was told here that there is an exception when the date is preceeded by the day of the week. Is there an exception to this rule? If so, we should cover it here. Thank you. Frietjes (talk) 15:13, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard of that nor does it seem to make any sense. Preceded by a day of the week, what's the difference? You might as well make it that the suffix is used when followed by a word starting with "b". The only exception that seems valid to me is when the month is omitted (e.g. when you're many things which went on on different days in the same month). JIMp _talk·cont 17:25, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

When giving just the month and year...

Which of these is correct:

• ...in September 1944, the..."
• ...in September of 1944, the..."
• Whatever, no preference

The only guidance given is that "September, 1944" is wrong and "September 1944" (no comma) should be used instead. This tells me to remove the comma in that case, but doesn't tell me to remove the "of" if it exists.

I'm fine with "whatever". I think that "...in September of 1944, the..." sounds better and is more idiomatic, but I don't much care. Am I correct in believing that there is no guidance and editors are free to do as they prefer, right? (In which case other editors shouldn't correct whatever the previous editor decided, generally.)

If there should be a standard, it should be added as an entry in the table in the "Dates" section - Incorrect = June of 2001, Correct = June 2001. Herostratus (talk) 18:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I don't think there needs to be a standard. I don't believe in getting down to the level of detail where the MOS is telling editors they can never write "One of the many..." and must always write "Among the many..." instead, and so forth. (It might be nice to make a notation to the effect of "There is no preference between 'September 1944' and 'September of 1944', do as you wish", to clarify the situation.) But is editors think it should be specified that'd be OK I guess. Herostratus (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The first is correct, there is no need for the "of". Frietjes (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

No need, but it's idiomatic. Not seeing any other objection, I've added it to the table of allowed usages. Herostratus (talk) 15:56, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

• 'of' is specifically prohibited at WP:MONTH Hmains (talk) 16:54, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
  • Oh yeah, didn't see that. Well, that's overspecification (WP:CREEP if you will). Somebody added it at sometime in the past, but let's get rid of it, for a couple of reasons.
    • Overspecification, as I said. We don't want to get down to the level where we are telling editors stuff like "You must never write 'One of the few...', you must always write 'Among the few...' and like that. When a rule is not called for, let our writers write.
    • It's idiomatic, as I say. This is how people communicate information about months ("We were married in June of 2009" not "We were married in June 2009" -- both are used, but the former quite often). If this was overly informal, or an archaism, or a verbal tic ("Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-three") ("Two hundred and seventeen"), fine. But it's not. It's both common and acceptable in formal writing. Herostratus (talk) 19:53, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
• Everything you write here is personal opinion. If see no backup for your statements from any formal writing manuals--which is what a great deal of the MOS is based on. You do not reference and quote anything for or against your opinion--which is required for honest evaluation of changes. Hmains (talk) 03:35, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I haven't time to check, but I was sure MOSNUM said no "of" and no comma. That's best practice everywhere. Tony (talk) 08:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

0.1 seconds or 0.1 second?

You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Convert#Numbers greater than 0 but less than or equal to 1 should use singluar nouns. ― A. di M.​  19:12, 24 October 2011 (UTC)Template:Z48

Use of inconsistent date formats within an article's refs

The discussion here may interest some of you. The question is whether it is appropriate to revert an editor who used a consistent date format in refs in an article. So that instead, inconsistent date formats exist (even within the same refs).

Some guidelines at issue are WP:DATESNO, WP:STRONGNAT, and Wikipedia:Citing sources.--Epeefleche (talk) 06:44, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Month abbreviations

Where the refs section, for example, of an article uses 3-letter abbreviation for the month:

• should the full stop be used, as in '28 Feb. 2011' or not?
• and if the answer to the above is affirmative, do we write '30 May. 2011' to be consistent with '28 Feb. 2011'? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:44, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Citation style is a matter for WP:CITE, which in essence says, follow the style guide that has been chosen for the article. If it happens that the article uses Citation templates or Cite xxx templates, follow the style guide for those templates. Oh. There isn't one. I guess some supporter of those templates will have to write one.

I have no objection to summarizing what WP:CITE says in this guideline, but where that guideline is silent, this guideline should be silent too. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:32, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There are at least two schemes in use: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug SeptSep Oct Nov Dec (mainly British) and Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. Nov. Dec. (mainly American), as far as I can tell. ― A. di M.​  15:39, 12 November 2011 (UTC)18:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

So if I read you correctly, whatever the abbreviated form, there should be no full stop after 'May', then... --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:07, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The full stop in "Feb." indicates that "February" has been abbreviated. It is not some weird separator that is only used with month abbreviations; it might be used with any abbreviation. Since "May" is not an abbreviation, no full stop is used. The trend in English usage over the last 50 years or so is toward omitting the full stop from abbreviations, but this trend is still a work in progress. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:15, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, in British English, an abbreviation is only given a full stop if the last letter of the abbreviation is different from the last letter of the word or phrase being abbreviated. However, it's quite normal to omit the full stop from all month abbreviations, even though nine of them should have them. There are actually two patterns in British English: the mixture of three- and four-letter forms as above, and a consistent three-letter form (... Jun Jul Aug Sep ...). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:46, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually the Sept above was a typo of mine. Do people actually do that? ― A. di M.​  18:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes indeed. The date "Sept 9" appears in my (British) newspaper, which omits the full stop from all month and weekday abbreviations. I don't think you can generalise about this. 109.156.59.2 (talk) 20:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• While I don't use abbreviations these days, the one point I would weigh in on is that I agree with those who have indicated that under no circumstance should "May." be used. For the reasons indicated by others.--Epeefleche (talk) 08:46, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Comma after year

An editor inserted this:

When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year (The weather on September 11, 2001, was clear and warm).

I think this is probably correct but I'm not certain and just wanted to see if there was any objection. If anyone objects to this here would be the place to so state. Herostratus (talk) 20:09, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems valid. We merely need to compare The weather on September 11, 2001, was clear and warm with The weather on September 11, 2001 was clear and warm - in the second one the comma seems somehow misplaced, and some well-meaning editor might amend to The weather on September 11 2001, was clear and warm or The weather on September 11 2001 was clear and warm both of which violate established MOSDATE practice. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

This rule is also listed at WP:COPYEDIT#Common edits (search for 1947). I am in the habit of ignoring it if there isn't enough text afterwards: "The weather was clear and warm during the September 11, 2001 attacks." A more extreme example: Not During the September 11, 2001, attacks, the weather was clear and warm. Art LaPella (talk) 22:17, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad you provided the WP:COPYEDIT link; I was sure I had seen the rule mentioned somewhere on WP, but didn't know where (and I'm still not sure it was there, either). The reason for the commas fore and aft is, as it says, that the year is a parenthetical, and could be safely left out on a purely grammatical basis (we might still wonder what year, but the sentence would survive.

As for your bad example (IYKWIM), I'd probably try to avoid it, too, but I'd try to rewrite it as During the attacks on September 11, 2001, the weather was clear and warm. Of course, that also happens to just use (or share) the comma that ought to be there anyway, so it reads extra smoothly and doesn't support my point very well.  :-(   — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 03:41, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, my understanding is that that is indeed the rule. I'm not aware of any exception along the lines of what Art indicates he for his own part ignores -- a common example would be including it in "born January 1, 1999, in Berlin, Germany." I think the rule is that it should be included even there.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The distinction is that in "the September 11, 2001 attacks" the date serves to modify the following noun, whereas in "born January 1, 1999, in Berlin, Germany" the date serves to modify the preceeding verb, and the comma seperates the preceeding words from the following "in Berlin, Germany" (which could in fact be omitted and the statement would still make sense.) One needs to look at the sense and meaning of the words to determine the punctuation unfortunately. — Robert Greer (talk) 08:41, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

But in either case, the year is modifying the rest of the date, and so needs to be enclosed in commas either way. Don't you agree? We also need a trailing comma after Germany when the sentence continues, as in He was born January 1, 1999, in Berlin, Germany, where his father was the U.S. ambassador. Same principle, AFAICT. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 17:11, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree: "the September 11, 2001, attacks" but I don't see the need for a comma after "attacks" in "During the September 11, 2001, attacks the weather was clear and warm." Wouldn't we write "During summer the weather is warm." rather than "During summer, the weather is warm."? JIMp _talk·cont 02:17, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, it'd be good to ask Art LaPella on that one, since it's his example, and because I'm not 100% confident on that usage. However, I believe I would employ the comma (in his as well as in your simplified example), as I'd wish to communicate to the reader that the usual word order (subject-verb-object(s)) is being changed. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 22:53, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

• Personal view: I hate it in some contexts, including the Sept one exemplified. Bumpety bump. Not all Americans use it, and many do it inconsistently. I'm against making this mandatory or even recommended. It could be an option, but only for US variety in mdy, of course. That's my take. Tony (talk) 02:02, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Not all Americans use "its" and "it's" properly, or can spell "receive".  ;-)  If Americans (broadly construed, so as to include some fraction of Canadians) are the only ones to use mdy format, then yes, I guess it would be only in US ENGVAR, by default. But then, we'd only have to recommend it for mdy dates, and that's what we're doing now. Is that still too much for you? It is a standard English rule. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 02:19, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Quite a few newspapers in the UK and Australia, for example, use mdy; but they don't use that comma unless it's unavoidable in a context. Tony (talk) 12:18, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarifying era convention

A bit of a conflagration at Neolithic Revolution has made me realise that the current wording of WP:ERA:

• Do not arbitrarily change from one style to the other on any given article. Instead, attempt to establish a consensus for change at the talk page.

Is slightly ambiguous about what reasons there can be for changing from one style to the other, especially for new editors who aren't totally familiar with our nuanced definition of "consensus" (i.e., it isn't a vote, it's limited, and it should be based on policy). I understand why the wording was changed early this year from a version that was slightly more clear in that regard, but User:Cynwolfe has already suggested a version that gives us the best of both worlds (w/ some slight alterations):

• Do not arbitrarily change from one style to the other on any given article. Instead, attempt to establish a consensus for change at the talk page. Reasons for the proposed change should be specific to the content of the article; a general preference for one style over another is not a valid reason.

Can we go ahead and add this? joe•roe^t•c 12:07, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for incorporating the change before replying here, but believe it or not, I didn't even see your comments here before I decided to make the change! I agree with your points here, it's a good change — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 12:33, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd forgotten I suggested this. I do think the reasons should be specific to the article. Debate over whether there should be a general style guideline should be at MOS talk, not individual article pages. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, and that's an important distinction. Too often we see pointless paragraphs-long debates about the pros and cons of BC/BCE at the talk page of various random articles, when the discussion should be limited to why BCE or BC is more appropriate for the particular subject matter of the article. All discussion about the merits of Common Era or Anno Domini should be directed here. One problem we'll run into, however, is the question of what particular type of subject matter BC or BCE should be used for, and why. Judaism-related articles are typically a given, but what about Hinduism, paganism, Buddhism, etc.? How can we possibly objectively determine that one notation is more appropriate at one given article if Wikipedia considers BC and BCE to be equally valid? — FoxCE (talk | contribs) 12:48, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty "live and let live" about this. I don't think we should dictate the convention by topic area; I think that with sane guidelines, usage will evolve naturally to what's appropriate for the subject, article by article. In some subject areas, modern secondary scholarship will show a clear preference for one convention over the other. If the article is well-written and balanced, I don't have a problem with the lead editors having made the choice through the normal collaborative process. What I find disruptive is someone who hasn't contributed to the article (and has no intention of doing so) swooping in and demanding an era change. That's where "specific to the article" comes into play. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:14, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Foot-pounds and pound-feet

There is a discussion at convert regarding foot-pounds and pound-feet. A number of points raised there deserve a broader consensus that convert's talk page provides.

1. There is a convention (according to Pound-foot (torque) which suggests that it was "apparently first proposed by British physicist Arthur Mason Worthington") that the foot-pound is a unit of energy and the pound-foot is a unit of torque but this convention is not universally followed with the foot-pound sometimes being used for torque (according to Pound-foot (torque) and Foot-pound (energy)). Should WP insist on adherence to this convention or allow foot-pounds for torque?
2. It was suggested that "foot-pound" is incorrect and that the energy unit should be the foot-pound force but that the torque unit is the pound-foot. If "pound-foot" (as opposed to "pound force-foot") is okay, why not "foot-pound" (as opposed to "foot-pound force")? On the other hand, if "foot-pound" is incorrect why is "pound-foot" okay? So, do we allow both "pound-foot" and "pound force-foot" or insist on only one or the other? Likewise, do we allow both "foot-pound" and "foot-pound force" or insist on only one or the other? What influence, if any, should our decision with regards to "pound-foot" verses "pound force-foot" have on our decision with respect to "foot-pound" verses "foot-pound force" and vice-versa?
3. Should the "f" for "force" in "pound force-foot" and "foot-pound force" be subscripted? Is it "lbf·ft" & "ft·lbf" or "lb_f·ft" & "ft·lb_f"? Should we always use a subscript, should we never use it or should we decide on an article-by-article (or project-by-project) basis?

What're your thoughts? JIMp _talk·cont 06:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

We are sort of between a prescriptive rock and a descriptive hard place here. Both "Pound-foot" and "Foot-pound" can be found referring to torque, though using "Pound-foot" for torque and "Foot-pound" or "Foot-pound force" for energy is less ambiguous than using "Foot-pound" for both. It would be overstating the case to assert that one is right and the other is wrong, and it might be overstating the case to argue that "Pound-foot" is the proper torque unit, and "Foot-pound" or "Foot-pound (force)" is the proper energy unit, but it might be understating the case to argue that they are fully and freely interchangeable with no preference either way. I have a wall of shelves full of service and engineering manuals published by the US, UK, South African, and Australian offices of a great many manufacturers of automobiles, engines, and other equipment, as well as basic tool and tech texts such as Stockel and various SAE publications; these are all but uniform in their preference for Lb·ft as the torque unit. I have another wall full of shelves containing mostly popular literature (Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, etc.) which appears to use the two unit expressions interchangeably.

So, given that we are writing an encyclopædia the purpose of which is to edify, illuminate, clarify, and educate, we appear to have an opportunity to further that purpose by disambiguating the units we use for torque and for energy. This appears to be a zero-cost opportunity in that if we disambiguate the units by preferring Pound-foot for torque and Foot-pound for energy, we aren't doing anything that could be called wrong, arbitrary, or otherwise problematic. On the other hand, there's something to squawk about if we ambiguate the units by using "Foot-pound" for both torque and energy. I don't know that the options before us are polar enough to warrant stringent mandates, but I think we ought to nudge and channel our usage convention towards the clearer and less ambiguous usage: Pound-foot for torque and Foot-pound (force) for energy, as for example by using those units for those purposes in {{convert}}. If consensus cannot be reached to do so, then I would drop back to advocating for the disambiguative usage as default, with the ambiguous usage still permitted.

Foot-pound force ought to be abbreviated Ft·lb_f. As for "Pound-foot (force)", expanded or abbreviated, I cannot find any evidence of its usage as a unit of torque, and I think it probably doesn't merit prolonged consideration in this present discussion. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C23:07, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree absolutely that it should be a middle dot separating "ft" and "lb", not a hyphen, not a bullet and definitely not a slash (lb/ft is pounds per foot and ft/lb is feet per pound). However, none of these should be capitalised. Thus it's "ft·lb_f" or "ft·lb" and "lb·ft_f" or "lb·ft" (or "ft·lbf" and "lbf·ft"). This is in accordance with MOSNUM.

• When unit symbols are combined by multiplication, use a middle dot (·) or a non-breaking space ( ) to separate the symbols. ...
• Unit symbols/abbreviations, apart from those listed below, are written in either non-alphabetic characters or in lower-case letters unless they are derived from a proper name, in which case the first letter is a capital letter. ...

Scheinwerfermann, it would seem you prefer "lb_f" over "lbf" or am I misreading you? Should we insist on one? Should we insist on the other?

It has become established practice that we follow the sources. As it is an encyclopædia we're cobbling together, our preference ought to be for the more scholarly source. Assuming that your collection, Scheinwerfermann, is representative of current literature, it seems we have a solid case for adopting Worthington's convention here. Much less the harm if we err in favour of unambiguity. I support restricting "foot-pounds (force)" to energy and "pound (force)-feet" to torque on WP. Further, I support the general case of restricting length-force units to energy and force-length units (e.g. newton-metres) to torque. I propose adding this to the guideline.

How about the "force" in "foot-pounds (force)" and "pound (force)-feet"? Is it manditory, preferable, context dependant,, completely optional, undersirable or to be banned entirely? Is the "force" in "foot-pounds (force)" to be given equal weight as that in "pound (force)-feet" or are they to be given unequal footing? Scheinwerfermann, do I read you wrong that you'd accept "pound-feet" ("lb·ft") but not "pound force-feet" ("lb·ft_f") but you find both "foot-pounds force" ("ft·lb_f") and "foot-pounds" ("ft·lb") acceptable? JIMp _talk·cont 00:46, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I oppose the inclusion of "force" in the torque unit. I am not omniliterate, but in my extensive collection and reading of relevant literature, "pound force foot", whether expanded or abbreviated, is not in formal, popular, or colloquial use as an expression of the torque unit. I don't espouse an I've-never-seen-it-so-it-doesn't-exist stance, but I will be very surprised if substantial evidence could be provided for the existence of lb_f·ft except perhaps as a very recherché term nobody actually uses.

I lean somewhat less fervently towards mandatory inclusion of "force" in the energy unit (to further distinguish it from the torque unit, since "foot-pound" is in popular use as a torque unit). I support ft·lb_f, per se, for the abbreviation of the energy unit.

I agree with all lowercase. —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C01:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I have proposed adopting the convention that a unit written as length times force is a unit of energy and a unit written as force times length is a unit of torque. There being no opposition to and clear advantages in so doing let us add this to the guideline. JIMp _talk·cont 02:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

• Support! —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C03:17, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I have added the following to WP:MOSNUM#Unit names.

When units of torque or energy are formed by multiplication of a unit of force with a unit of length, distinguish these by putting the force unit first for torque (e.g., newton-metres or pound-feet) and the length unit first for energy (e.g., foot-pounds or foot-pounds force).

JIMp _talk·cont 08:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Pound-mole abbreviation

Having just added pound-moles to {{convert}} and wondering whether we abbreviate it as "lbmol", "lb-mol" or either, I brought the question up at MOS Chem. JIMp _talk·cont 03:18, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes soon

All editors are reminded that voting closes for ACE2011 in just over a day's time (Saturday 10 December at 23:59 UTC). To avoid last-minute technical logjams, editors are asked to vote at least an hour before the close, that is, by:

• Saturday 15:00 (3 pm) on the west coast of North America;
• Saturday 18:00 (6 pm) on the east coast of North America;
• Saturday 23:00 (11 pm) in the UK and Ireland;
• Sunday 01:00 (1 am) in South Africa;
• Sunday 06:00 (6 am) on the west coast of Australia; and
• Sunday 10:00 (10 am) on the east coast of Australia; and
• Sunday 12:00 (12 noon) in New Zealand.

For the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Is the implication that people from (say) continental Europe are smart enough to figure out the time themselves? :-) ― A. di M.​  15:56, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

This seems to be yet another good example of anglophone bias in Wikipedia. I wonder when people will learn that English Wikipedia is global and there are editors here from all countries, not just from anglophone ones. Nanobear (talk) 16:03, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Decades: two digits: 1960s and 70s?

Minor question regarding WP:DECADE: It says that four digits (1960s) are preferred over two digits (60s), which makes sense. I've got an article that has "1960s and 70s". That seems superior to "1960s and 1970s". Should WP:DECADE identify that as a permissible use of 2 digits, or is that too obscure? --Noleander (talk) 17:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

How does using 70s help someone searching for the 1970s? If you search for 70s, you get hits for the 1970s, 1870s and so on. So besides the way this is displayed, there is the question of searching. I had many problems doing updates that needed searches for years because of this type of shorthand issue. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Good point. Okay, I'll just leave it as-is. --Noleander (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Thoughtful point. Agree.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:02, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

first decade of any century

Section 2.5 states: "Forms such as the 1700s are normally best avoided since it may be unclear whether a 10- or 100-year period is meant (i.e. 1700–1709 or 1700–1799).". I agree, but no alternative form that should be used is provided. I have been using, for example, 'first decade of the 21st century'; I imagine others might use something else. An agreed upon alternative to 2000s would be helpful if stated here in the MOS. Thanks Hmains (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

There really isn't one, and it's not our business to go inventing one; we, the editors of Wikipedia, have the task of recording things as they really are, not as we wish they were. 1700s means 1700–1799, and there is no way to say 1700–1709 other than "first decade of the XVIII century". — Robert Greer (talk) 21:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Which is 1701-1710! Vegaswikian (talk) 21:36, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Our WP decade articles such as 2000s (decade) indicate that the first decade of a century is 2000 through 2009 so I was going by that in asking my question. Hmains (talk) 03:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

If you need to pinpoint a period so precisely that the one-year difference between the two definitions matters at all, you'd better say from 19XX to 19YY than in the early 20th century anyway. The latter ought to be for vague-ish ranges where whether the 20th century began in 1900 or 1901 is pretty much irrelevant. ― A. di M.​  18:14, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I've seen WP articles using 2000–09 for that, even though that might be excess precisions in some contexts. ― A. di M.​  00:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The articles now seem to be of the form 1700s (decade), rather than 1700–1709. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

That's good enough for article titles, but it's not suitable for use in running text, I think. ― A. di M.​  17:59, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, I have to complicate things. The articles also contain 'early 2000s', 'mid 2000s' and 'late 2000s' phrases. So I end up writing the wordy and awkward 'early years of the first decade of the 21st century', 'middle years of the...', 'late years of the ...' or maybe 'early years of the 2000s (decade)', etc. Help us all! Hmains (talk) 04:19, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
  • I see your point. If obviously historical, 'mid 2000s' and 'late 2000s' are unambiguous. Otherwise, you'll have to talk to a grammarian. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 04:31, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
    • I beg to differ — ever so slightly. "Late 1700s" and "early 1800s" are perfectly clear; "mid 1900s", though commonly used, is not quite. — Robert Greer (talk) 17:27, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
    • What I find in WP articles is that editors are writing 'early 2000s' to mean the first few years of 2000 to 2009 NOT the first years (2, 10, 20, whatever) of the 21st century most of which have not occurred yet; likewise for 'late 2000s' to mean the last few years of 2000 to 2009, not the last years of the 21st century which definitely have not occurred yet. With prior centuries, the reader must go to the effort of trying to figure out what is meant since writers fail to use xx century for the 100 year period regardless that the this MOS says they should do so. So is century or decade meant when you see 1700s or early 1700s or whatever. Hmains (talk) 03:59, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Reichsmarks

I see no guidance on abbreviating this currency, but have always seen it as RM. Ulf Heinsohn has made a series of edits changing it to script ℛℳ, in this edit to Nibelungen Bridge (Regensburg) with the edit summary "typo", elsewhere, (for example this edit to Festhalle Viersen) also replacing Reichsmark with German gold mark and referring only to that change in the edit summary. I believe he's right to regard Reichsmark as anachronistic in those cases, but what is the policy on the script rather than plain text abbreviation? I wanted to determine whether there was one before raising the issue with the editor. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It seems that RM is the common term used for Ringgit Malaysia (the Malaysian currency). So RM is ambiguous and the meaning has to be gleaned from the context. HumphreyW (talk) 06:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistent case in abbreviations for millions and billions

According to Wikipedia:MOSNUM#Large_numbers, millions is abbreviated to upper case M, but billions is abbreviated to lower case bn. This strikes me as being inconsistent (and thus contrary to one of the general rules of MOS). Should we use consistent case? Is there a specific reason why the case is different here? Mitch Ames (talk) 13:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

M is short for Mega, not million, and is in upper case because that is the SI prefix. Lower case m means milli. Upper case M is frequently used to mean million and MOS seems to approve the usage. MOS worries that G for billion would scare the horses (except in scientific contexts). Thincat (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The Manual of Style rule for millions is "M", but in actual practice it's "m" about half the time. Art LaPella (talk) 02:30, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd also prefer to use "m" rather than "M", at least in contexts where we're also using "bn". It doesn't stand for "mega" and can't possibly be confused with any SI prefix, so I don't really see this objection.--Kotniski (talk) 08:36, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I was thinking about currency, eg $20m or $20M, when I raised the matter. Here are the relevant edit, comment and revert. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd echo the words of both you (presumably) and the reverter - I too have always used "m" in such situations.--Kotniski (talk) 12:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

For the edit in question, I believe it would be more appropriate to spell out "million" since the numbers are not located in an area where space is constrained, such as a graph label or a table. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Discussion re application of strongnat

There is a discussion of the application of STRONGNAT here, which may interest some readers of this page.--Epeefleche (talk) 16:41, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite sloppy "In references" section

I've never seen any real consensus to accept sloppy, lazy crap like "30 Sep 2009" and "Sep 30 2009". Not here, not at WP:MOSABBR, not in years and years of debates about date formatting and autoformatting. I correct this mess to proper date formatting every time I encounter it, and this is getting increasingly tedious. Now I know why: Some joker added this to WP:DATESNO on a whim, and it's consequently attracting lazy editors to follow its bad advice. Even the allowance of ISO dates for accessdates is a bad idea with a lot of negative consequences (everyone and their dog has been using them for publication dates in citations, too. Often enough to be worrisome, non-technical non-Americans, used to day-month order in prose wrongly put 2009-30-09, which is "fatally" problematic for any day number under 13.

But this month abbreviation garbage is going to far. For one thing, there's no universal standard. Some people like any of "Sep", "Sep.", "Sept" and "Sept." among probably others. It's a total nightmare for reusability (e.g. parsing by bots). It's even worse for non-native English speakers who don't automatically recognize inconsistent abbreviations through long familiarity. And it's just sloppy, and lazy. It's going to spread to article prose (already is - I've undone it in articles many, many times). There are already too many date formats here. Even being American, I'd prefer we standardized on 30 September 2009 format and deprecated ALL others. At least clean up this particular mess:

=====In references=====
{{See also|Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation style |l1="Citation style " section in "Citing Sources"}}
* Publication dates in article references should all have the same format.
:In the same article, write
:{{xt|
:*Jones, J. (20 September 2008)
:*Smith, H. (August 2002)
:*Garcia, M. (4 May 1999}
}}
:or
:{{xt|
:*Jones, J. (September 20, 2008)
:*Smith, H. (August 2002)
:*Garcia, M. (May 4, 1999}
}}
:but not
:{{!xt|
:*Jones, J. (20 September 2008)
:*Smith, H. (August 2008)
:*Garcia, M. (May 4, 1999}
}}
*Access and archive dates in references should be in either the format used for publication dates, or YYYY-MM-DD.
:In the same article, write
:{{xt|
:*Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved 5 February 2009.
}}
:or
:{{xt|
:*Jones, J. (September 20, 2008) ... Retrieved 2009-02-05.
}}
:but not
:{{!xt|
:*Jones, J. (20 September 2008) ... Retrieved February 5, 2009.
}}

These requirements do not apply to dates in quotations or titles.
}}

Made the examples a bit clearer in the process.

I would (severably) also prose elimination of ISO dates as acceptable for anything, including tables if the current table sorting code can work around the need for being able to sort by date, which appears to be the case. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 15:15, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

• Amen. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:39, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
• Full agreement on the rapid disposal of month abbreviations. I hadn't noticed this was even in there. Maybe this comes from scientific types who are used to journals being cited as Sep 2002 or Mar 97. Eh?

Three reasons to keep ISO dates are (1) that it is (or should be) uniquely understandable, going from most general (year) to most specific (day), (2) there are so damn many instances of it, and (3) it's great for sorting, if not necessarily for reading. If you want to pro[po]se eliminating the format completely, you'll probably want to investigate the possibility of bot conversion of refs and table uses; I have no idea how widespread the format actually is, but I see an awful lot of it. Presumably, some percentage of the ISO usages should be preserved as is, or transformed in a different way (e.g., table sorting).

I think a good approach (at least for now) would be to allow but discourage its use. Editors use that format because other articles have used the format. And when I'm faced with an old article from 2006 where refs with dates were first added in oh, around 2008, I'd rather not trawl through the edit history to determine which of yyyy-mm-dd or mdy to use. This would allow me to just standardize on the mdy (or standardise on the dmy, as the case may be) and save a bunch of time. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

This RfC to ban YYYY-MM-DD dates from footnotes failed. Jc3s5h (talk) 18:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the answer is to use a template, like (but not actually) {{Start date}} which has YYYY-MM-DD input (fewer characters to type) and outputs both machine-readable metadata and human readable dates in whatever format the reader prefers. Or even to have a date-picker in citation template entry forms. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Date picker? Oh, sweet Jeebus; like in Reflinks, for starters. That thing automatically uses only yyyy-mm-dd format and has no option to select anything else. It'll be a great day when I can see an edit summary "(Filling in 23 references using Reflinks)" on a mdy page and not want to slash my wrists. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 19:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Date autoformatting has been rejected after extensive debate. See User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jc3s5h (talk • contribs) 19:05, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be responding to me, although you use the term "autoformatting", and I did not. I know I didn't use the term because I did not know what it means. Having read a bit (here, for instance), I now take it to mean enabling the ability for (registered) users to see dates according to their personal formatting preferences. Maybe you meant to be responding to Andy, then?

In any case, I'm not asking for any such thing. I was just fantasizing about Reflinks beink more useful by letting its users throw a use-this-format switch for its dates. It'd also be cool to have something which automates the conversion of dates in a page. — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 20:23, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

In that case, a template, like (but not actually) {{Start date}} which has YYYY-MM-DD input (fewer characters to type) and outputs both machine-readable metadata and human readable dates in whatever format the editor specifies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

(P.S. and anyway, those debates seem more concerned with date-linking than date-formatting per se. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC))

A bad implementation in one tool shouldn't preclude us from using a well-implemented version elsewhere. If we use a template as I suggest above, the date picker could populate that. Have you raised your concerns about Reflinks with its author? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:42, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

User:Dispenser hasn't edited the User talk:Dispenser/Reflinks page since 23 July. My (our) questions about bug status and the like continue to be ignored. Dispenser still edits regularly but appears to have lost interest in Reflinks, which is an awful shame; it's a useful tool which could be much better, but now requires too much manual correction (which most users seem unprepared to provide). — JohnFromPinckney (talk) 16:53, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

• I agree 100% that we should standardise on the formats and deprecate at least some of the existing acceptable formats. However I disagree with banning ISO 8601 format completely. Its use in tables (where space is limited) and references may still be appropriate. On a philosophical note, ISO 8601 is a consistent standard that does not favour any particular cultural style, and for which we can cite a reliable source as to its usage. Surely that must count for something on Wikipedia. Mitch Ames (talk) 10:02, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

RFC on coordinates in highway articles

There is currently a discussion taking place at WT:HWY regarding the potential use of coordinates in highway articles. Your input is welcomed. --Rschen7754 01:30, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

The proposal would change the MoS to prohibit the use of coordinates in articles about highways (aka roads/ motorways). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:20, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

As has been explained elsewhere, one of the proposals on the table would "change the MoS to prohibit the use of coordinates in articles about highways (aka roads/ motorways)". --Rschen7754 06:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Centuries and hyphens

I have been editing quite a few articles about English villages recently, and a question has arisen in my mind regarding the use of hyphens in centuries. Am I right in thinking that when a century is used as a noun, there is no hyphen between the number denoting which century it is, and the actual word "century", whereas a hyphen is required when the century is used as an adjective (e.g. "the church was built in the 15th century" [used as a noun], contrasting with "a 15th-century church" [used as an adjective])? I could find no mention of this issue in the MoS. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 01:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:ORDINAL, sixth bullet: "Centuries are given in figures or words using adjectival hyphenation where appropriate: the 5th century BCE; nineteenth-century painting." I have interpreted that to mean hyphenate "nth-century" as an adjective but not as a noun. Art LaPella (talk) 02:40, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Per Art. It's like compound-adjective usage in general. Although there's a significant grey area in English at the moment, some examples just can't do without a hyphen in any variety of the language; 19th-century art is one of them. BTW, note MOSNUM's agreement with the ISO's prescription on values and units: 3 mm gap (when the symbol/abbreviation is used), but 3-millimetre gap (when expanded). Tony (talk) 07:17, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't look at that section; I didn't read far enough down the page (I just looked at the bits about calendars etc.) That'll teach me to draw rushed conclusions about a topic not being in the MoS (although finding the required information isn't always easy!) Still, it does back up my own deduction... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

"Later this year"

This phrase should be added to the "never use" category. I'm running into it more and more, added by people who clearly don't realize why it shouldn't be used. I've been able to fix a few based upon context, but there's been a few articles where this isn't possible. 68.146.72.113 (talk) 17:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

DRN thread on UK unit use

There's a thread at the dispute resolution noticeboard at the moment about which units to use in an article on a tunnel in the UK. If the editors here could take some time to share their insights I would be very grateful. The discussion is here: Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Hindhead Tunnel. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 23:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

If I may offer a different interpretation of the nature of the "dispute". I believe that the dispute is not about "which units" to use - the article uses the dual-unit format "imperial (metric)", it is actually about whether sufficient reason was given to to justify swapping the order of presentaion of some of the two-unit-pairs from "imperial (metric)" to "metric (imperial)". -- de Facto (talk). 07:21, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Mixing "main" units

A point of contention in the Hindhead Tunnel dispute is the following bullet point from this guideline:

• Avoid mixing systems of measurement used for primary measures. 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.

Mixsynth tried to edit the point on 2 January, but in my view, Mixsynth's version had other problems so I reverted. I suggest restating the point as follows, so that the scope of the advice is confined to what is illustrated by the example:

• Avoid using the same unit as a main unit at one point in the text and secondary unit in another point in the text. 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. An exception would be where, in the field of the article, a particular unit is generally used for a specific unit type of measurement. For example, in an aviation article that lists distances in metres as the main unit, feet might be used as the main unit for altitude.

Jc3s5h (talk) 15:07, 12 January 2012 (UTC) modified 13:49 13 January 2012 (UT)

Yes, this is what I was trying to clarify too. My own effort was as a direct result of issues raised in the Hindhead discussion, where this particular guideline had been interpreted to mean that articles should use either "all-metric" or "all-imperial" main units throughout, despite the contrary guideline under "which units to use" for UK-related articles advising a specific metric/imperial mix. Jc3s5h's version above appears to correct both the US-specific issues he raises and the UK-specific issues I was concerned with.

However, I might go further and suggest that the point might safely be removed altogether since it seems that, if the guidelines relating to "which units to use" are followed, there shouldn't be a situation where the same unit is used as a main unit at one point in the text and as a secondary unit in another point in the text except for nominal measurements and UK-specific exceptions. I could be missing something, though. Mixsynth (talk) 16:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Is it worth exploring the argument that the units used in the primary source should influence the decision. As an aside, the Hindhead Tunnel article has another interesting question - the tunnel was designed for traffic travelling at 120 km/h (as opposed to 100, 80, 70 or 60 km/h - Britians other standard speeds for road design). However the national speed limit is 70 mph. How should this be be represented? Martinvl (talk) 16:56, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The style in an article should be consistent. I don't know what Martinvl means by a "primary source", but normally various points in articles are supported by different sources. I don't support changing the style to match whichever source supports a given passage. Also, people are always finding sources that are better, more up-to-date, or more freely accessible, so following the style in the source makes the style of the article unstable. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed - I note that there has also been a problem with editors choosing sources not for their appropriateness but for what units they use. It often isn't difficult to find sources that use units contrary to local usage (for example, a discussion of an Australian topic in an article written for a US publication is likely to use US customary units, even though Australia is fully metric) - we ought to aim for consistency and local usage, which a blanket use-the-sources rule fails to provide. Pfainuk talk 18:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree that the sources referenced by an article should have any bearing on the units used in that article, either. More important should be consistent usage of units across articles aimed at similar kinds of audiences by way of a single, coherent style guide. Mixsynth (talk) 19:06, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Design values and legal limits, like other nominal values, should be treated as quasi-quotations and shown with the original unit first no matter what, IMO. ― A. di M.​  17:21, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree - we should be driving cars at 70 mph (110 km/h) through a tunnel with a design speed of 120 km/h (75 mph), because both are defined units - even though that might appear inconsistent. I think MOSNUM already advises this, mind. Pfainuk talk 18:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

We aren't intending to recommend a specific set of units for UK related articles, but rather attempting to guide editors as to how units might legitimately vary in UK-related articles. In particular, there are other contexts where imperial units may be appropriate both in UK contexts and generally. We don't currently make explicit provision for the foot for aircraft altitude, for example. Nor (though it's not a specifically imperial unit) do we mention the year: such a strict interpretation of WP:UNITS would seem not to allow any unit of time longer than a day.

In a UK context, I note that that particular point has a footnote advising that there are strong views on this subject and that in the absence of consensus, historically stable units should remain.

On the original point, may I suggest that this only really makes a difference if the two units are used in the same context? After all, it's not intended to strait-jacket articles into one system or the other. Pfainuk talk 18:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

While it's true that these guidelines are neither exhaustive nor binding, I would argue that they must be regarded as a set of standards to follow or they would have little practical purpose in helping ensure a consistent house style, that being the purpose of MOS. The foot for aircraft altitude is not on the list at the moment, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be added as metres are almost never used in that context in the UK.

I think the note about historically stable units relates only to situations where no overall consensus exists one way or the other. The unit use guidelines should still be the basis of consensus-seeking discussion into to whether or not any unit order change should stand, though.

Regarding the original subject, if removal of the "avoid mixing" point would be a step too far at this stage, let's implement Jc3s5h's amendment. Mixsynth (talk) 09:37, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think my proposal is longer than I would like, and it is really covered well enough by the requirement in the MOS that consistent style be used. So I favor dropping the bullet point altogether. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I can go for that. Pfainuk talk 21:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Clearly, wide consensus expressed through guidelines overrides arguments based on the history of the article - and is more likely to sway outside editors.

The general rule is that editors should follow common British usage on UK-related articles. All else is guidance as to how to meet that rule. Now, the particular instances listed are instances of imperial units that are near-universal in the UK - you can't reasonably claim to be following common British usage if you're measuring distance in kilometres, for example - so in that respect, those bullet points are an inherent part of the standard that we expect people to follow. But in many other circumstances, usage is highly context-dependent and such a blanket rule probably isn't appropriate.

On the foot for aircraft altitude, the advice used to be to use the units most commonly in use internationally (as opposed to SI), except where there are strong national ties or other good reasons. This avoided the whole bit about units that are near-universal in certain contexts but aren't technically endorsed by SI, including the foot for aircraft altitude and the year for time. Pfainuk talk 21:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed and clarified in the article text. -- de Facto (talk). 10:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Reverted as this does not clarify anything. It introduces the vague phrase "common British usage", which is not defined and so is impossible for editors from other parts of the world to follow. The point of the guideline is to define what "common British usage" is as far as the Wikipedia house style is concerned. Any improvement should seek to further clarify the unmentioned contexts (if indeed there are any) where imperial should be used. Mixsynth (talk) 11:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. The phrase "Common British usage" will lead different editors to read into it their often conflicting notions of what common British usage is. It's a recipe for even more disputation. Michael Glass (talk) 13:58, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course there are additional contexts in which it would be a good idea to use imperial units. This is why the text puts the point in general terms, giving only a few common examples of imperial units that are near-universally used in modern Britain (so, that we should be using in our articles). We've already agreed on an example not listed - feet for aircraft altitude.

The fact is that we're never going to have a precise and definitive list of contexts in which imperial units are appropriate, which is what you seem to be looking for. Often this will depend very strongly on context and closely-related contexts may use different units: for example, fuel is sold by the litre but fuel consumption is measured in miles(/yards/feet/inches) per imperial gallon. In some cases there simply is no consensus in usage and trying to enforce one system or another is not realistic. The best advice we can give is that if, after reading WP:UNITS and any additional relevant WikiProject guidelines, you are still in doubt as to what common usage means, apply WP:RETAIN. Pfainuk talk 14:18, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

We agree that feet are always used for aircraft altitude in the UK, and indeed this appears to be the only specific exception made by the Times Style Guide (used as a reference document here for a very long time) that isn't also listed as an exception here. I do believe it should be added to the list as it's surely as universal an exception as miles and mph.

It appears that WP:RETAIN pertains specifically to varieties in the English language and not to measurement units. It also wouldn't seem appropriate for WP:UNITS to be interpreted only to specify certain contexts where measurements must be given as imperial first (e.g. miles but never kilometres) but offer no firm guidance either way on any others, as that would not seem to be balanced advice, permitting all-imperial use but (in many cases) preventing all-metric use. For example, editors who describe a vehicle's fuel consumption using litres per 100 km as main units may be upset at their figures being switched with miles per imperial gallon, but the guidelines are clear which are preferred; it follows that they should also be just as clear in the opposite direction.

If there are further contexts where all agree it is more appropriate to use imperial over metric as main units, and these contexts can be easily summarised, it would not be too difficult to include them in the guidance; however, no further such contexts have yet been agreed on. For example, DeFacto has suggested that road-related articles are a further case where entirely imperial units should be used; do we accept this? Is it "common British usage" to use Fahrenheit, cubic yards, imperial gallons, etc. as main units in any UK article, or would metric be preferable? Do we prefer to measure buildings, tunnels and hills in feet first or metres?

"The main unit is generally a metric unit" with specified exceptions would appear fairly clear as a guiding rule to determine what "common British usage" means for the purposes of Wikipedia. This is not to assert that metric is always a superior choice in every other situation than those specified, but it is at least as clear as should be expected of guidance, particularly when the guidance being sought is "which units to use". Mixsynth (talk) 18:53, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Other contexts in which imperial units are appropriate would include screen size in inches, and many historical contexts. And I'm sure there are others. We don't want to be in a position where we have to list every single conceivable context because it would take up most of MOSNUM.

The point of the advice is not to be precisely balanced between metric and imperial, but to match (as closely as we can) British usage. As there isn't precise balance in British usage, there shouldn't be precise balance in our advice either. It so happens that there are several contexts in which imperial units are near-universal, but few metric usages that are similarly universal.

If you want the local equivalent to WP:RETAIN, read the top of the guideline. It's exactly the same rule: we don't change styles without good reason. Pfainuk talk 23:45, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Screen sizes in inches is an obvious one, and one I'm sure we can all agree on, so let's add it to the exceptions list along with feet for aircraft altitude. I'm not sure what you mean by "historical contexts", but I can't imagine that they would be any different from historical contexts for any other country.

Styles should indeed not be changed without good-reason, but only where the original style is guideline-defined. Styles can of course be changed if they are not consistent with the guidelines.

My description of "balanced advice" doesn't refer to advising use of both systems in equal proportions but to giving equal strength of advice as to use of units of either system, i.e. "use imperial for these contexts and metric for the rest" rather than "use imperial for these and whatever you choose for the rest"; it's a moot point though, as the advice as it stands does appear to advise the former.

There are plenty of metric usages that are near-universal. Weights of objects other than people, volumes other than draught beer or cider, temperatures, construction projects, architecture, and so on. For example, it's clearly not consistent with "British usage" to weigh a car in pounds or long tons, or to measure a jar or bottle in imperial fluid ounces. So, the advice has to be interpreted just as strongly to use metric in these contexts as it is interpreted to use imperial for the specified exceptions.

It's true that we don't change styles without good reason, but a good reason has to be cases when the style currently used isn't consistent with the guideline and a change would make it so. Mixsynth (talk) 11:49, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Mixsynth, "use imperial for these contexts and metric for the rest" isn't balanced, especially in the UK context. If it were balanced it would say: "use imperial for these contexts, use metric for these contexts and prevailing common usage for the rest" - or similar. However, with the UK context as it is, I believe that this would be more appropriate: "use metric for these contexts and imperial for the rest".

Your list of "plenty of metric usages that are near-universal" seems to be based on the erroneous assumption that units that are legally required in trading situations, or units which are used in metricated industries, have somehow been embraced and are now in universal common use. Nothing could be further from reality. Imperial units for volume, distance and weight are in common and everyday use. Heavy object weights are talked about in terms of "tons" and light objects in terms of "ounces". Jam is bought in jars by the pound. Pre-packed sausages are bought by the pound. Apples and potatoes are bought by the pound. Milk is bought in 1, 2, 4 and 6-pint plastic bottles. Distances are talked about in terms of yards or miles. Building sizes are talked about in terms of feet for height and yards for length. For UK articles imperial should prevail, other than for listed universal metric exceptions. -- de Facto (talk). 13:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Once again DeFacto takes it upon himself to speak on behalf of the entire British public without giving any evidence for the claims he makes. The implication that metric units are actively rejected by most of the population does not tally with the country I know.--Charles (talk) 00:08, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you have evidence that metric units are prefered by most of the population to support using them by default in Wikipedia articles, rather than the traditional imperial units? I would suggest that it is that implied assertion that the majority of the British population now prefer metric units, despite their history since the metrication process sarted of empatically rejecting them, that requires robust, credible and reliably sourced evidence. -- de Facto (talk). 10:13, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

Units of measure in common British usage

There seems to be a concerted effort in progress to force the use of metric units into non-science UK-related articles for contexts where some may assert that the "official" unit is a metric one. We need to review this unsatisfactory situation.

The UK has traditionally used the system of imperial units of measurements. However, although many industries (including engineering industries such as the automotive and aerospace industries) have long since chosen to use metric units and the government has introduced legislation attempting to force the use of metric units into certain trading situations and into public administration activities, imperial units are still in common usage in the UK in many, if not most everyday situations.

It is my belief therefore, that these guidelines should explicitly state that imperial units should be used for the main units in all UK-related non-science articles (unless context dictates metric - but a strong reasoning must be provided to justify this exception) and that metric (or imperial where the exception applies) conversions should always be provided where appropriate. This would mirror common British usage as mirrored in the style used by the UK's largest and most respected provider of factual information online - the BBC.

At the moment, the guidelines are being interpreted as only allowing the use of imperial as the main unit for applications where an imperial unit is the only legally allowed unit for that application and not where it is the commonly used unit. Wiki should reflect the real world - not attempt to force change onto the real world. -- de Facto (talk). 14:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto claims "imperial units are still in common usage in the UK in many, if not most everyday situations". However, in the discussion at the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard one UK newspaper style guide, the Guardian's style guide has been found that mostly advocates metric units and the Telegraph's, that mostly advocates "common British weights and measures". As far as I can see it's a tie, so Wikipedia could favor either approach, or could leave it to the first substantial contributor for each article. I favor the metric-first approach because this leads to the greatest ease of comparing quantities from different nations and different fields of study, even if these comparisons are being carried out by the reader, rather than being contained within the article. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:37, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

While I strongly agree with de Facto's point that we should reflect the real world, rather than forcing change on the real world, I don't think that's the effect of his proposal.

There are certain imperial units that are near-universal in British usage and recommended by both those style guides. Using kilograms to measure a person's weight in a UK context, for example, would completely fail in the aim of reflecting the real world: very few British people will have any idea of their weight in kilograms or their height in metres. The specific imperial examples that we list currently are those that are most commonly cited as imperial in British usage - though there are others (like feet for aircraft heights or inches for screen widths). We cannot claim to be reflecting the real world if we are not prepared to accept imperial usage in cases where it is overwhelmingly more common in the real world.

But at the same time, we do need to recognise that metric units have become common in many spheres of modern British life. Go to the supermarket and most of what you see will be in metric units (even if they're often 454 grams or 568 millilitres or similar). If you use measurements for your job, chances are they'll use metric units. Reflecting the real world doesn't just mean accepting imperial units when they're used. It also means using metric units where they are used in the real world.

Yes, it gets complicated sometimes, and there will be circumstances where the best advice we can give is WP:RETAIN. But that's what's necessary to reflect the real world. Pfainuk talk 17:06, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Pfainuk, I agree with most of what you write. Your supermarket examples are interesting. 454 grams equals one pound and 568 millilitres equals one pint. That's not really an example of using metric though is it, it's an example of continuing to use imperial, despite the law dictating that metric must be used. Customers won't be looking for a 454 gram jar of jam, they'll be looking for a one pound jar - and still finding it. It's the same in hardware shops. Wood and board is now compulsorarily labelled in metric (where it was once feet and inches). You now buy wood and board in dimensions which are multiples of 305 mm which happen to be almost identical to the former 12-inch multiples. So shoppers can still ask for, and get, for example: 4ft x 8ft sheets of hardboard (it will be labelled as 1220 mm x 2440 mm though). So that's still imperial too. -- de Facto (talk). 17:34, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jc3s5h, if dual units are used, the ease of comparison remains the same whichever system comes first. The fact that we have one style guide for metric and one for imperial does not imply "a tie", it merely reflects the Guardian's position on metrication. We should reflect (and not try to undermine) the nation's character, customs, traditions, vernacular and preferences by using imperial as the primary system for UK-related articles. After all, even the EU has now formally abandoned its attempts to expunge imperial units from the nation's psyche. -- de Facto (talk). 17:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto claims "We should reflect (and not try to undermine) the nation's character, customs, traditions, vernacular and preferences by using imperial as the primary system for UK-related articles." I do not believe DeFacto. I do not believe that imperial units are in fact the vernacular in the UK, with some specific exceptions such as road mileage and speed. Nor I believe the contrary; since I do not live in the UK, I can only go by reliable sources that are competent to describe what the vernacular is. The preceding statement demonstrates that DeFacto is a political advocate of imperial and his statements about what is or is not the vernacular should carry no weight. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, I resent and refute your assertion that I'm "a political advocate of imperial", I would just like to see the true case represented in Wikipedia - that means using imperial for the main units in UK-related articles and always with metric conversions for the sake of those unfamiliar with imperial. I have also spent a lot of time adding metric conversions to U.S. customery only units in articles for the same reason. I agree that my personal POV should not carry any more weight than anyone else's. That's why I'm happy to support it with reliably sourced information with the hope that I might convince some of the doubters here to agree with me. My statements and my POV are based on my experiences in the UK. Compare what I wrote with this very recent article from the eminently reliable source, the BBC, or this recent finding by the UK's 2nd largest supermaket chain (reported by the country's primary independent consumer campaigning organisation). -- de Facto (talk). 17:55, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I too live in the UK, and my own observations are different from yours. In my experience, metric is used almost universally for everything (except in the handful of well-known excepted contexts), particularly in retail, education, science, business, healthcare, governmental and state affairs, all sport except horse racing and football (soccer) and in almost every field of professional employment. Generally speaking, the only time I see or hear imperial measurements (other than the few main exceptions) is in discussion with those who went to school before the mid-1970s, by reading older literature from before the same period and by reading certain publications of the British press. Mixsynth (talk) 20:49, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Mixsynth, in that case, what do you make of the analysis in the BBC article (cited above too) or the results of the survey here (cited above too)? I wonder what proportion of the population went to school before 1975 too (all those born before 1970 - or now over the age of about 41). -- de Facto (talk). 21:00, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Last time I told an Englishman how many kilos I weighed, he replied “That means nothing to me.” And he was a 20-year-old college student; I suppose older or less educated people would be even less familiar with the SI. (Of course, one data point of anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything, but...) ― A. di M.​  17:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm that we are in a very mixed-up state in the UK. Food etc packaging gives metric, although still sometimes using imperial sizes (454 grams). On the weather I think metric is winning the battle & tv forecasts don't usually give fahrenheit at all. But (human) weight is still mostly stones, & approximate distances tend to be yards & feet, though building is all metric. Johnbod (talk) 18:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Johnbod, which one of the following would you say most characterises the measurement system(s) most commonly used in the UK?

a) Metric only

b) Imperial only

c) Metric and imperial equally

d) Generally metric with a few exceptions using imperial

e) Generally imperial with a few exceptions using metric

f) Something else (please state what)

-- de Facto (talk). 18:25, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

c to d I think Johnbod (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The probable reason that young Englishman did not know his weight in kilos is that Stones, Pounds and Ounces are used for personal weighing using bathroom scales and nothing else, so he could not convert it because he is used to working in metric units otherwise. If we were to go down the route suggested by DeFacto how would we determine what is the "vernacular" usage? It would be no good relying on anecdote, cherry-picked newspaper articles, or just who shouts the loudest. Extensive carefully designed and neutrally conducted surveys would be needed to determine this for each type of unit. It is unlikely anyone will spend that sort of money unless they have a POV to push. There is likely to be a generational difference as older people tend to think imperial while the younger are educated in metric units. I doubt if many people under fifty would see any need to translate the size of their heating oil tank from litres into gallons, even if they knew the ratio to use.--Charles (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

This is the sort of point that resulted in the status quo: we note that usage is mixed, recommend (but do not insist upon) metric units in most situations, but note certain exceptions where imperial units are more appropriate (because those usages are near-universal in the UK). This is based on the style guides of British publications. Pfainuk talk 23:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

As an alternative to the press, why not look at British school text books? All subjects, apart from maths, are entirely metric and maths pays lip service to conversiopns between metric and imperial, but does not teach children how to manipulate numbers using imperial units. The situation is summarised in the article "Metication in teh United Kingdom" as follows: Many aspects of life have been metricated either totally or partially; including industry, building, education and some sports such as rugby union. Many remain without visible evidence of metrication where Imperial units are used or even mandated[citation needed], including road signs, estate agents' advertisements and the non-specialist media.[citation needed] Trade is substantially metric. The citations would have been there if DeFacto had not removed them. On a point of correction - the DIY stores sell timber in multiples of 300 mm, not 305 mm as stated by DeFacto. One of my observations regarding persoanl weights is that journalists seem to alway use stones and pounds, even though people who use the gym tend to use metric units, the medical profession uses metric units as does the armed forces - particularky when assessing a soldiers backpack as a percentage of his weight. SO what we are really seeing is the influence of a few newspaper editors, not the country at large. Finally, Wikipedia is an encyclopeadia, not a newsheet, so should err on using the langauge of academia, rather than the language of the press. Martinvl (talk) 20:04, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl,

1) Do the school textbooks reflect current common usage or the political desire to metricate the UK? I suspect the latter - so how could they be a NPOV alterbative?

2) Were the citations you say that I removed WP:RS compliant?

3) Check the sizes of the hardboard sheets sold in Wickes, B&Q and Jewsons (3 of the UK's largest DIY suppliers) - none of those are 300 mm multiples.

-- de Facto (talk). 20:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The idea that the British all use metric units really to measure their weights is simply inaccurate. The reason why the media always give people's weights in stones is because the public always describe their weights in stones. Where kilograms are used, it's in the context of, well you weigh 14 stone, we'll multiply that by 6.3 and that's the number we'll put into the computer. If that's what goes into the computer then that's what goes into the computer - but it almost certainly doesn't mean anything to you without doing the conversion (which you probably don't know).

Using school textbooks is deliberately choosing one of the metric contexts and saying, oh, that's clearly representative. No, school textbooks do not reflect normal usage in the UK. In fact, a good way of defining the split between metric and imperial units for younger people is that you use metric units for things you learn at school and imperial units for things you learn outside school. Pfainuk talk 22:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree. The later novels of of Kingsley Amis used metric units as in things like "two hundred metres down the road" & it read really oddly. All rulers, tape measures & (contrary to what was said above) weighing machines have both scales. The US also uses metric in science & most industry, but still firmly uses imperial in everyday contexts, & the UK is similar. Johnbod (talk) 23:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Because British usage of units is inconsistent, contested between the pro and anti-metrics and slowly changing towards an increasing use of metric measures in some instances but not in others, it is impossible to draw up a set of guidelines that will satisfy all editors. Here are the possibilities:

• Metric as a general rule. Will be fought tooth and nail by many editors and will be inconsistent with some good sources of information.
• Imperial as a general rule. Will be fought tooth and nail by many editors and will be inconsistent with an increasing number of good sources of information.
• Follow the style guides. Problem: the style guides themselves are inconsistent on many points and may be inconsistent with sources of information.
• Follow the best sources. Problems: even good sources can be inconsistent, and there will still be conflict over which sources are best or whether sources are in accord with real British usage.
• Follow "British usage". Problem: it's an invitation to disputation, as can be seen from above.
• Follow the usage set in the article. Problem: articles can't be updated when more information becomes available.

I believe that the best policy is generally to follow local, authoritative sources. If the sources use Imperial measures, put them first; if they use metric measures, put them first. This seems to be the policy followed by the BBC, which apparently puts metric measures first when the sources are metric, e.g., here and imperial first when the source is imperial e.g., here. Michael Glass (talk) 23:28, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Your claim of a BBC policy must be ignored because it lacks any credible basis. It is purely speculation, a claim of a policy based on individual instances of usage. As to your proposal, to make articles horrendously inconsistent in this way would seem to be a very bad idea. We must also remember that sources frequently do not match local usage because they are not written with a local audience in mind. There is no good reason why UK-related articles should not be allowed to use British usage when every other country in the world gets to use its local units. And it is of course worth pointing out your habit of going through articles with sources that you've decided are "the best" because of the units they use. Pfainuk talk 23:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Your claim that following the units used in the sources would cause horrendous inconsistencies must be ignored because it lacks any evidence whatsoever. It is pure speculation, and must be rejected out of hand. Ignoring the units used by the sources is a very bad idea. We must remember that the best sources will use the best and most widely understood units of measure for the subject at hand. To turn our backs on educated usage is not best practice. And it is of course worth pointing out the habit of a few editors who flip the display of units to their favourite units rather than following the sources.

This is not to defend or justify using poor sources. If a source of information is not the best, it will soon be challenged and either removed or replaced with a better one. That is not at issue. No matter what rule editors follow, there will be inconsistencies.

• If the rule is metric first or Imperial first, there will be inconsistencies.
• If the rule is to follow the style guides, there will be inconsistencies, because the style guides are internally inconsistent and inconsistent with each other.
• If the rule is to follow "British usage" there will be horrendous inconsistencies, because every man and his dog has different ideas about what is British usage. See above!
• As there is a rule to provide both metric and Imperial equivalents, no-one will be badly disadvantaged if their favourite units of measure don't always come first.

Therefore, when deciding which units to put first, the units actually used by the sources of information must carry some weight.

Michael Glass (talk) 06:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm with Michael here. I have little tolerance for the campaign among a few older WPs from the UK to enforce their personal preferences for imperial; they'd reintroduce pounds, shillings, and pence if you let them. The fact that old-style will still be in parentheses shows up the political nature of that push. Tony (talk) 08:47, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I am old enough to have humped around Hundredweight sacks of cement before the slightly lighter 50 Kilo ones came in. Nobody would be allowed to carry anything that heavy now of course. I am also old enough to have done arithmetic using Pounds, Shillings and Pence. What a good thing those went. As it would be impossible to reliably establish what the relative levels usage among the general population actually are, and sources are all over the place, I think it is better to follow the law of the land in using metric units first except for those exceptions specified by UK law. I suspect there will be a fairly quick change to mostly metric usage as the older generation of newspaper/tv editors retire over the next decade.--Charles (talk) 09:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Part of the trouble with that is that people may well be inclined to interpret it narrowly. For example, when measuring distance, I have seen it argued (for months on end) that because the law only mentions distance along roads, and not distances measured as the crow flies, we should draw a distinction as well. As a result, it was, argued, we should be saying (for example) that the road was 40 miles (64 km) long, even though the towns were only 45 kilometres (28 mi) apart. There's no real-world basis for such a distinction, and drawing it is distinctly unhelpful, but we were told that that was what following the law meant. There are circumstances that the law doesn't mention because there's no reason for it to - these are more frequently imperial because they tend to be on the taught-outside-school end of the spectrum.

For my part, I see no compelling reason in this discussion for any significant change of the current advice, which is based on the style guide of the United Kingdom's newspaper of record, in either direction. If Michael and Tony believe that anyone who thinks we should reflect real-world usage, rather than trying to force change on the real world, is a political campaigner - then that's their problem. I would be more inclined to see it the other way around. Pfainuk talk 10:18, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Tony, 1) What campaign? 2) How do you know how old those you perceive to be the campaigners are? Isn't it more a case that you are not comfortable with the argument that Wiki should reflect reality and not attempt to suggest that metric units are in common use in the UK when they aren't? -- de Facto (talk). 10:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Michael, you characterise the contest as being "between the pro and anti-metrics", I perceive it as more between anti-imperial and pro-freedom-of-choice groups. I've seen calls to abolish imperial, but I've never seen calls to abolish metric - just calls to restore the freedom to use either metric or imperial at will. If we are to dictate anything it should only be:

• Use the metric unit as the main unit if UK common usage is near-universally metric.

-- de Facto (talk). 10:24, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Pfainuk: what the hell is wrong with the current guidance? (I'd broaden the thing about science to other specialist topics, but the part about “non-science UK-related articles” looks fine to me.) ― A. di M.​  11:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia should reflect reality, and an excellent way for it to do this would be to note what the reliable sources are saying. Take the conflict about the Hindhead Tunnel. As can be seen from this edit [11], the dispute was about whether the article should put cubic metres or cubic yards first and ditto with gallons and litres. There is not a mile in sight! This dispute seems to be a textbook example of the importance of giving first place to the units given in the sources. For example, the reader should know whether the tunnel was drilled at the rate of a metre a day or a yard a day. Over 1830 metres, the difference in time between the two rates would be 171 days! Taking note of the sources of information is not so much a matter of rewriting the style guide as using common sense and respecting the sources of information. Michael Glass (talk) 12:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Slavishly doing whatever the sources do is actually a very bad approximation to real-life usage, not least because sources have different audiences. You're going to be putting hill elevations in metres in one sentence and feet in the next, because one source happened to prefer metres and the other happened to prefer feet. You're going to be dealing in miles and kilometres in the same sentence because you're mixing an Australian source with an American source. It's a recipe for enormous inconsistency.

It would also create a rule-gamers' charter, as we have seen with your habit of basing the definition of the "best source" on the units used by the sources.

In terms of that article, chances are the tunnel was not dug at exactly a metre a day or exactly a yard a day. Chances are that it varied - some days it went further than that, other days it went nowhere at all. The article notes that it was dug from both ends and implies that it was finished in less than fifteen months - far less than 1830 days. Your claim of 171 days' difference between the two rates is patent nonsense. If we need to know the precise amount of time taken, then doubtless we can provide it. And when it comes down to it, the precise use of units has to come down to the local editors sorting out their differences. Pfainuk talk 13:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I would not put too much emphasis on the BBC. Under UK law is is an offence to stage a political demonstration within one kilometre of Parliament. This has been reported by the BBC on at least two occasions - in both cases they converted "one kilometre" to "half a mile". In both instances I contacted them telling them that they would look very silly if somebody was arrested for protesting 900 metres from Parliament and in hteir defence, they produced the BBC report.´ In both instances I contacted the BBC and they amended their reports within the hour.

In response to DeFacto's comment "Do the school textbooks reflect current common usage or the political desire to metricate the UK? I suspect the latter - so how could they be a NPOV alternative?" - the schools teach what is to be used in business, in engineering and in commerce. For the record, the UK's metrication program was initiated in the UK in 1965 by the CBI for business reasons - Parliament was half-hearted whith the result that we now have a half-baked system. The political element came about when the UK joined the EEC as it then was and as the UK's metrication program was the same as the program persued by the original six (introduction of SI in place of the CGS system, or in Britian's case), the imperial system, there was no problem. In short, DeFacto has got the wrong end of the stick. Martinvl (talk) 20:05, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, it isn't clear what your point is. Are you suggesting that because the CBI was involved, that there is no political desire to metricate the UK or that because the CBI was involved Wikipedia articles should be based on school textbooks regardless of the fact that they don't reflect common usage? And another question: what has EEC/EU involvement got to do with how we represent UK units in Wikipedia?

The newspaper report that the tunnel was dug at teh rate of one yard (or one metre) per day is a load of rubbish - do the maths´- the excavated part of the tunnel is 1770 metres long and it took just over a year to dig. at one metre a day, starting from both ends, about 1000 metres is unaccounted for. There diusmiss that newspapaer report as being totally unreliable. Yet another instance of the unreliablility of the press. Martinvl (talk) 20:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, what newspaper report? As far as I can tell, that unsupported assertion was added in this edit by User:Charlesdrakew. Charles, who has contributed to this discussion may be able to enlighten us on the source of it. -- de Facto (talk). 22:04, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

On checking the source, this BBC South video, which should have replaced or suplemented the existing BBC reference the reporter says "one metre at a time" not one metre per day as I had interpreted it. My bad. The BBC did use metre and not yard though.--Charles (talk) 23:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I feel I must reply to Pfainuk's comments above. Slavishly following any rule will lead to anomalies. However, the idea that following the sources will lead to anomalies in every sentence is a fantasy. Pfainuk has come up with this canard repeatedly and I have challenged him to produce an example of confused usage caused by following the sources again and again. If following the sources is a recipe for enormous inconsistency, a real-life example should be easy to find. The fact that Pfainuk does not or will not provide us with one example of this enormous inconsistency means that his assertion is valueless and should be ignored. Michael Glass (talk) 03:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I also note that Pfainuk made a personal attack. Just because he disagrees with me is no reason for his assumption of bad faith. Referring to the best sources of information is good practice, even though people's selection of sources will be influenced by their assumptions and opinions. Michael Glass (talk) 13:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Units in specialist topics

In the present version of the guideline, science is singled out as the only context where a particular set of units is recommended, but I think it should apply to other topics as well. Hence, I suggest the following changes:

Current text

Proposed text

In science-related articles: generally use only SI units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI. Some sciences use specialist units and these may be used. US Customary and imperial units are not required. For many articles, Wikipedia has adopted a system of writing a "main" unit followed by a conversion in parentheses (see Unit conversions below). In non-science US-related articles: the main unit is generally a US customary unit (97 pounds (44 kg)). In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit (44 kilogram (97 lb)), but imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts, including: miles for geographical distances, miles per hour for speeds, and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption; feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements; imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk. All other articles: the main unit is generally an SI unit or a non-SI unit officially accepted for use with the SI.

In articles about specialized subjects: use the units normally used in the subject (e.g., SI units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI for most scientific topics, yards in American football, or nautical miles in navigation). Conversions to other units are not required at every single instance, even though providing a link and/or conversion factors on the first instance can be useful. For many articles, Wikipedia has adopted a system of writing a "main" unit followed by a conversion in parentheses (see Unit conversions below), where the main unit reflects the one commonly used in the geographic locale of the article topic for the quantity at hand. In non-specialist US-related articles: the main unit is generally a US customary unit (97 pounds (44 kg)). In non-specialist UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit (44 kilograms (97 lb)), but imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts, including: miles for geographical distances, miles per hour for speeds, and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption; feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements; imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk. All other articles: the main units are generally SI units or non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI, or other common everyday units such as the year.

Notes

Discussion (Units in specialist topics)

What do you think? ― A. di M.​  12:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Just an observation, I tend to avoid these discussions of late, as you see the same 3 editors reprising the same arguments they were using when I first starting editing (that was back in 2007). No doubt this will be dismissed as a personal attack but its not so much flogging the dead equine as continuing to beat the bare patch of ground where the long since passed from this mortal coil equine had crumbled to dust and blown away in the breeze.

For those claiming its just the "older WP", may care to note what a young whippersnapper Pfainuk is, although there is quite a sensible head on those young shoulders. No, its not just the older generation, the British have stubbornly continued to use imperial units despite the fact that since the 1970s the education has only taught metric and there has been a strong push to go down the metric route. The attempt to force metrication simply resulted in the metric martyrs.

Nor is it a matter of personal preference, for I as a professional engineer use the metric system almost exclusively in my professional life.

For those who will no doubt decry this as a personal attack, I invite you to consider that I regularly see these discussions degenerate into bad tempered discourses, becuase of the bad faith gross generalisations that its only just the older generation who wish to re-introduce £sd. Again I see the same 3 editors on the metric side but a variety of editors on the other. Particularly so, when they're lecturing residents of this country how they use units. The common denominator is the same 3 editors and I have often wondered whether an RFC/U would be an appropriate route.

The existing guidelines are fine, they reflect British usage in general and as such should continue to be used. If those pushing for universal metrication find this unsettling or offensive, then I suggest you find another more harmonious area to edit. IF you want wikipedia to be exclusively metric, convince other editors of the merits of your case but please stop the offensive gross generalisations as they only entrench opinions. Wee Curry Monster talk 12:32, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Well said WCM! Wiki articles should reflect the culture, traditions and customs of the related region, and not force everything through the same "standardisation" filter. -- de Facto (talk). 15:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Every article that contains measurements must either be written in SI-only units or provide conversions to SI. Anything else is a return to the medieval guild system where each trade had its own system of measurement and all trade knowledge was kept secret among the guild members. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:35, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

This statement: "the main unit reflects the one commonly used in the geographic locale of the article topic for the quantity at hand." is an invitation to disputation, as every man and his dog has an opinion on which unit is commonly used. Please, don't even go there! Michael Glass (talk) 13:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The possibility for dispute is addressed in the section below, in which we explain what we mean by this. When it comes down to it, the units commonly used in a geographic location is the rule we are following and we should be clear about it. I would, incidentally, agree with Curry Monster's points above: fact is this (in the above section) has been the same argument pushed by the same few editors for years and years now, and there's no benefit in repeating it ad infinitum.

On Jc3s5h's point, I'd agree in general, but would extend it: all measurements should have conversions except in cases where all English-speaking countries would generally use the same unit in a given context (which includes - to within the bounds of WP:IAR and WP:COMMONALITY - all units of time and all scientific contexts). The only exception should be the longstanding rule that we should find some way of converting other than inline conversion for articles that are chock full of (for example) yardages in American football.

On the proposal, I support. Pfainuk talk 13:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Pfainuk that for non-SI units that would be used by virtually all English-speakers, both those who learned it as a mother tongue and those who acquired it as a second language, such as year, degree of angle, etc., there is no need for conversion. I also agree that it isn't always necessary to convert every instance of a unit; it may be sufficient to provide a conversion factor for each unit, or to only convert the most important instance of a unit. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, no UK-related article that contains measurements should be metric only, unless the only measurements in it use units that it is accepted are in near-universal use in the UK. -- de Facto (talk). 15:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I fundamentally disagree with the implication that metric is the default unit system for UK-related articles. I'd be happier with this text for the UK bullet:

• In non-specialist UK-related articles: the main units used are generally imperial units (97 pounds (44 kg)), but metric units may be used in contexts where metric units are near-universally in common usage.

I can't think of an example just now where metric is near-universal, but I'm sure someone here will think of one.

-- de Facto (talk). 15:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I live in the UK, but can scarcely recognise the country described in de Facto's comments. Metrication is widespread in the UK - with some specific exceptions such as road distances, pints of beer, &c. Wikipedia, as an encyclopaedia, has a duty to present quantities in units that can be widely understood by readers rather than varying its style of writing to suit every local quirk; so I would support a metric-by-default stance, with common alternatives in brackets. bobrayner (talk) 16:45, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Bobrayner, I haven't said that metrication hasn't been attempted - and in a widespread fashion. I've merely pointed out that it hasn't been accepted or embraced by the people for everyday life. Fair enough, it's taught in schools and most industries and government administration use metric - but outside of school or work life, where metrication cannot be effectively mandated, it is generally rejected. Even where metric units are "officially" used, often just lip service is paid to them; e.g 454 gram (1lb) jars of jam, 1220 mm x 2440 mm (4ft x 8ft) sheets of hardboard, 3.408 litre (6 pint) plastic bottles of milk, the list goes on. Wikipedia's policy is to reflect local language, customs and conventions, not to coldly standardise the language or to dumb everything down to the level of the lowest common denominator or even to attempt, where 40-odd years of government policy has failed, to force the use of an apparently unwanted imposition. -- de Facto (talk). 17:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's worth bearing in mind that Wikipedia articles on UK-related subjects are not likely to have a similar mix of units to those used in everyday life in the UK. Wikipedia is likely to be far heavier on those scientific, engineering and industrial contexts that are near-universally metric in the modern UK, and light on everyday contexts like grocery shopping and cooking. Metric units should be used when they are the near-universal choice, regardless of the mechanism by which they became the near-universal choice.

It's also worth bearing in mind that we're not discussing changing the rule by which nominal or defined units put first the unit in which they are nominal or defined.

As I've made clear, I strongly favour the use of imperial units in contexts where they are near-universal in British usage. For Wikipedia's purposes these are principally the contexts listed in the proposal above, but will include others (clothes sizing comes to mind as another, not particularly common, example). There are several more where some people strongly favour one unit while others equally strongly favour another (the example I'd normally give is land elevation, and in my view WP:RETAIN is the only reasonable answer to those cases). But we will have plenty of UK-related contexts where metric units are appropriate, and it may well work out that there are articles that don't actually have an imperial-first context in them. If that's legitimately how the dice fall (i.e. there's no attempt to force the issue), that's fine by me. Pfainuk talk 17:41, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

@de Facto: Grams of cocaine? :-) (Or, more seriously, most weights below an ounce; also, degrees Celsius, at least for temperatures below 30 °C, and I think litres for bottled soft drinks too.) Anyway, my proposal doesn't change the bullet about non-technical UK articles: the thing about geographical locales was intended as a rationale for the following two points more than anything else; but I wouldn't oppose changing that point to the main units are imperial units for certain quantities and metric units (see "Metrication in the United Kingdom") for other quantities, for example: (and adding a few metric examples to the list). But that's outside the scope of the current proposal, which is about technical fields other than sciences. ― A. di M.​  17:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

It strikes me that there are many less near-universal uses of metric than of imperial in the UK. By-the-way, the BBC offer °F as an option at the top of their weather page.

And the CNN offers °C. ― A. di M.​  10:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps there's a more common usage of metric in the U.S. than in the UK? I think contributors here are making assumptions based, not on knowledge of local population customs and preferrences, but on the theoretical or legal status of metric units in the country. Experience in the UK shows that there is a huge difference between the two, there at least. -- de Facto (talk). 12:54, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Who's experience - yours? If so, please tell us a bit about yourself. Your talk page is completely empty, so nobody has any idea of who you are or of how you arrived at that conclusion. Unless we know a little about you, I must dismiss your comment as being without foundation. Martinvl (talk) 16:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, how could you imagine that I would be writing here about my experience? -- de Facto (talk). 20:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't matter anyway. His saying your opinion is worthless because you value your privacy and/or because your personal connection to the topic is uncertain, is just ad hominem nonsense, and Martinvl surely knows better and may want to rethink what he's said. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm an American (mostly; it's complicated) and do not think in metric, at all, but am generally supportive of a metric default since that is the way the world has been going for a few generations. "Default" means "all things being equal, do it this way, but there may be concerns that override this general preference." There are many cases even in UK English where the metric system's units are not the default for the topic, and putting metric units first would be counterproductive, jarring, even misleading. For example, much cue sports equipment is given in inches and feet, even in England, and this isn't likely to change any time soon (by the same token, cue tip widths are always given in mm, even in the US, so that unit should come first at cue stick regardless of WP:ENGVAR when talking about the cue tip. An I mean niverally; I've been playing pool competitively since ca. 1991, and I have never in my life heard or seen something like "my cue's tip is a half-inch" or "I need a 0.47 in tip on this cue". The article at billiard ball, must, per WP:V, give the units as they are specified by the sport governing body of each type of cue sport, followed by conversions, in that order, because the specifications are exact (whether metric or not) and the conversions are approximate, and are usually not given (i.e., no rounding level is specified) by the governing bodies. Thus, always doing metric first in a case like this would arguably also violate WP:NOR and WP:NOT#SOAPBOX as well as WP:V. While I am a big fan of MOS's general guidance to prefer to do things consistently within an article, all guidelines have exceptions, and an obvious one is to use the customary units of the topic (or subtopic), and convert them as needed, and do so in that specific order, even if it means putting cm first here and inches first there in the same article. You're virtually never, ever going to find any real-world mention of "2.74 × 1.37 m" pool tables, even in sources published in London or Oxford; they're universally called 4.5 (or 4+1⁄2) × 9 ft tables, and a metric conversion is simply a convenience approximation we provide for people so steeped in metrics that they cannot picture what "9 feet" looks like. When it comes to weird units like hands and stone as used with regard to horses, use them (see also furlongs, drams, hundredweight, carats, knots, etc., etc.), but provide metric and "American" (i.e. old English imperial) units as conversions, in that order. Simple, the end. Please drive through, and have a nice day. WP:COMMONSENSE is worth a frequent read. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 04:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

On the accommodation of specialised as opposed to purely scientific subjects, I generally support the principle. That being said, the concept of a "specialised subject" is not something I've seen explained anywhere in a WP context. If it can be readily established what is and is not a "specialised subject" in any one case, this particular part of the proposal makes plenty of sense.

The other part of the proposal, i.e. the additional wording "where the main unit reflects the one commonly used in the geographic locale of the article topic for the quantity at hand", requires editors from the rest of the world to know what the "commonly used" unit for any one quantity in any one geographic locale is, which (based on these very discussions) they often do not. In case of dispute, how will editors with conflicting opinions on usage decide which is the unit most commonly used? If the simple answer is "revert to stable edits", the guidelines become toothless as many editors with strong opinions either way will be able to keep their version in place if it happened to be in place first, regardless of how inappropriate the unit choice is. This is the exact issue with the Hindhead Tunnel article, discussion of which prompted this long, drawn-out debate in which we find ourselves embroiled.

To make the guidelines useful to the whole of the Anglosphere, it would be more useful to explicitly state what the commonly used units are, even if this makes the guidance more verbose. For example, if it's universally agreed that screen measurements, clothing sizes and tyre diameters use inches, one extra line in the exceptions list is all it takes to clarify this for editors. Measurements with no consensus on which unit is prevalent to describe it should default to either system or the other rather than being decided by 'which came first'. The guidelines currently say 'default to metric', in keeping with the Times Style Guide, and there seems little other than politics involved in trying to change this. Mixsynth (talk) 16:48, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

This is, I think, a slightly different discussion. But "where the main unit reflects the one commonly used in the geographic locale of the article topic for the quantity at hand" is a general statement that applies internationally (including to countries like Australia or Singapore that are not listed explicitly).

It appears that we differ on the role of local consensus. In my view, the MOS can't hope to have this much detail. Describing what unit would be appropriate in every reasonably conceivable situation in each of the 200-or-so countries in the world is not realistic. As I implied above, in many cases it will be more complicated by historical usage (which are often more appropriate in historical contexts). So we describe it in more general terms, with specific guidance as to what this means in most cases (the US, the UK and everywhere else).

But a phrase like this makes it clearer what the standard is that the local consensus should be aiming for. Not all-imperial, not all-US customary and not all-metric. Not whatever units happen to be used by whichever metric source a random editor has decided that they want to use, and not whatever the first units used were (unless there is otherwise no clear choice). It may not always be blindingly obvious, but it is at least some clearer direction. Pfainuk talk 18:24, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Readers have Wikipedias in several languages to choose from. If no Wikipedia exists in the reader's favorite language, and the reader has limited skill in English, the reader can use the simple English Wikipedia. So this Wikipedia should cater those who's mother tongue is English, or who's ability approaches that of native speakers. Articles about non-English-speaking areas or people should place metric (usually SI) first with a few exceptions (feet for aircraft altitudes, etc.) and a conversion to a customary UK or US unit second. Of course there would be a few exceptions, such as customary units of the country concerned given in quotes, or used as nominal values.

This point doesn't come up very often, because it appears from the perspective of an English-speaker that the only countries that still make extensive use of pre-metric units are English-speaking. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:11, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

In general, yes. I'm not saying that we should be overriding our rule on obscure units (that will not be familiar to most English-speakers). But I believe that there are a few cases where imperial or US customary units are more appropriate first - even where the most common unit internationally is metric. Burma and Liberia are the general examples, but there are a fair number of countries (mostly in the Americas) where fuel is sold by the gallon. And it's not hard to find sources referring to incomplete conversion from Imperial and US customary units in the Caribbean. In most cases these are actually English-speaking countries - just not the sorts of countries that provide a lot of Wikipedia editors. Pfainuk talk 15:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record, there appear to be moves in both Burma and Liberia to switch to the metric system while an EU aid package to the Carribean countries aimed at developing the infrastructure of those countries includes improvements to the administration of weights and measures. Martinvl (talk) 08:20, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

There have been moves in the United Kingdom and the United States as well. But that doesn't mean that imperial/US customary units are not more commonly used and more appropriate for Wikipedia in many contexts when writing about those countries. Pfainuk talk 10:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

We have a policy on the use of metric units, which in general terms says that we put the metric measure first in articles about most countries of the world. The two exceptions are the United States, where we should put US Customary measures first and in the UK where we put metric measures first with certain exceptions. It appears that some editors want to overturn the rule that applies to the UK and make it Imperial first with certain exceptions. Why? Michael Glass (talk) 07:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael, the rule, in the UK context, doesn't say there are "certain exceptions" to metric. What it actually says is: "... imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts...". Given the varying interpretations of this, it is obvious that there is room for improvement in the wording. So it's not a matter of overturning the rule, it's a matter of clarifying it. If we are to attempt to clarify it, we need to remember the historical fact that the UK traditionally use imperial measures, and we need to reflect the true status of imperial useage in the guideleines. Before we require metric units as the main unit in any context, we need emphatic and reliable evidence to support the assertion that metric has indeed superseded metric in common usage for that context. Imperial is the UK starting position, any deviation from that needs convincing evidence. That way the guidelines will be bullet-proof. -- de Facto (talk). 09:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto, you are right about the wording, except that the contexts listed in MOSNUM are quite limited: miles for geographical distances, miles per hour for speeds, and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption, feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements and imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk. Even some of these are questionable because the football and rugby teams frequently give metric measurements for the height and weight of their players. Because usage is so divided, total consistency is unattainable so it is better to follow the sources. Just remember that though Imperial might have been the starting point, the UK has moved on, and trying to make UK editors follow one rule is about as easy as trying to herd cats. All we can really do is tell editors to follow the local sources of information and try to be consistent. Michael Glass (talk) 12:21, 24 January

DeFacto, at risk of repeating myself - how do we measure "common useage"? Useage in The Daily Mirror? Not likely! For the umpteenth time, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and as such, where there is doubt, it should emulate other encyclopedias and favour academic language over popular language. In fact, if you care to read WP:RF, you will see that the editor suggests that the typical Wikipedia target audeince is high school or college students. In the context of units of measure, it makes sense to align the units of measuire with thsie that the students woudl find in their coursework. Martinvl (talk) 13:00, 24 January 2012 (UTC) 2012 (UTC)

Again, you're saying that we should pick a metric context and announce it's definitive. It isn't - those same students when they get home will be discussing distance miles and speed in miles per hour. They will be measuring their weight in stones and their height in feet. And it's probably worth mentioning that the metric unit we used at school for personal weight was not the kilogram but the Newton (it wasn't something that came up much, but when it did it was when dealing with gravitational acceleration in Physics). WP:RF would mean writing in a way that readers can readily understand, and insisting on putting units first on UK articles that UK readers will be less familiar with does not match this goal.

Michael, you are repeating yourself again. We have discussed all of this before and your arguments have been found wanting. WP:IDHT kicked in about two years ago. Pfainuk talk 18:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, you ask 'how do we measure "common useage"?' Well, if you can't measure it, you can't assert that it is metric - can you? We know for sure that the UK common usage was 100% imperial at one time. Until we can show evidence that metric has superseded imperial in common usage, the best we can do is assume imperial by default. The essay, an opinion piece contributed to by a handful of Wikipedians, offers no guidance for which units to use in UK related articles. -- de Facto (talk). 19:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael, the contexts listed aren't supposed to be exhaustive, they're described as "including:". And the examples given are only those where there is either a legal requirement to use that imperial unit in that context, or where there is no legal requirement to use a metric unit in a related context. There are no examples given where there is a legal requirement to use a metric unit in an associated context, but where common use remains imperial; e.g. although jam, milk in plastic containers and pre-packed sausages have to be traded in metric units (with imperial secondary units permitted), those commodities are more commonly bought in imperial units. That is, shoppers ask for or look for 1lb of jam, 1 pint (or 2, 4 or 6 pints) of milk and 1 lb of sausages. To comply with the law jam is sold in jars labelled "454 g (1lb)" or "340 g (12 oz)", milk in containers labelled "568 ml (1 pt)", "1.136 L (2 pt)", "2.272 L (4 pt)" and "3.408 L (6 pt)" and sausages in packs labelled "340 g (12 oz)", "454 g (1 lb)" or "681 g (1lb 8oz)" - all traditional imperial sizes. Even if teams give member weights in kg, that's not sufficient evidence to suggest metric as the common usage unit for weight amonst followers of that particular sport. If, as you suggest, the UK has "moved on" from imperial, all you need to do is provide ample evidence to support that assertion - and it would become an established, incontrovertible, fact. As it stands, we don't have that evidence. -- de Facto (talk). 13:25, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Out of interest I have just been looking through the fridge. Everything there is purchsed from a couple of the larger supermarket chains where most food is now sold and without paying attention to the weight. As well as milk in multiples of pints and a couple of 340 g jars of jam I found; cranbury sauce 350 g, redcurrant sauce 200g, horseradish sauce 200g, mature cheddar cheese 900 g, mixed nuts 1 kg, whipping cream 600 ml, lemon juice 500 ml, organic yoghurt 1 kg, grapefruit juice 1 litre, cheese biscuits 900 g, smoothie 750 ml and 1.25 litre. Apart from the milk none of these gives an imperial conversion. It seems that a lot of people are managing to survive without knowing the imperial weights of their groceries and I have not seen any riots at the tills over it.--Charles (talk) 19:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Charles, your "research" seems to correlate with one of the things that I said anyway, that even where metric units are legally required to meet the trading laws, that many products are still produced in the traditional imperial sizes, with conversions to metric displayed to pay lip-service to the legal obligations. Do you think you can provide any reliably sourced evidence to support a statement in the guideline allowing jarred sauces and pre-packed cheese as an exception from a general clause that articles about groceries should use imperial measures? -- de Facto (talk). 20:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Did you read the list? A tiny minority of the random products are in sizes that equate to traditional imperial sizes. I find it highly significant that supermarkets, who need to keep their customers happy in an intensly competitive market, do not see any need to provide imperial conversions on the packaging. It shows up your repeated claims that most of the public demand goods in imperial sizes as the crap they really are.--Charles (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I read the list. That's how I know you also found milk and jam are sold in traditional sizes, as I had stated - it correlates with what I wrote. Have you read about the Asda survey, discussed in Metrication in the United Kingdom? In Early 2011 they found that 70% of their customers preferred imperial. Do you have any evidence that that was mistaken, or that things have changed in the last 7 or 8 months? -- de Facto (talk). 07:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no information about how the survey was conducted. Such surveys tend to have a self-selecting sample as only the minority of people who care about an issue are willing to spend time talking on the phone, filling in questionaires or standing talking to a researcher. Older people with time on their hands are also more likely to participate than busy younger people. If there really was a widespread demand for imperial sizes and conversions all the supermarket chains would be doing it in an intensely competitive market. As you are the one wanting to change our interpretation of MOS units the onus is on you to provide reliable evidence.--Charles (talk) 10:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

All speculation though. As for interpretations; your interpretaion of MOSNUM requires evidence to support your implicit assertion that in the UK metric units have now superseded imperial units in common usage for those contexts in question - that evidence is currently lacking. My interpretation, that imperial is still the common use system is also based on the absence of that evidence. You want me to search for the evidence to disprove my interpretation? -- de Facto (talk). 12:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

In the 1970's, some items were metricated using hard metrication (eg butter, sugar, pasta, flour, mineral water, soft drinks etc) and some using soft metrication (eg jam, frozen peas, milk). In other words a bit of this and a bit of that. And yes, I have seen that load of rubbish about Asda - we had a long discussion about it last year and DeFacto was refused to accept that it either never happened or was stopped shortly after it was launched. He might of course be talking about the so-called statistical survey. Again, unless the questions that were asked and the means of identifying the population who were polled, surveys are not worth the paper the are written on. I have already told DeFacto this, but for some reason he does not want to accept this fact. Falacies in this particular case include a very biased sample - the Asda clientelle is heavily biased towards the C and D socio-economic groups whereas I suspect that the UK Wikipedia readership is biased towards the A and B socio-economic groups making the survey irrelevant in respect of the Wikipedia readership. Moreover, what happened to the "don't care" answers? I woudl be very surprised to find that only 10% of the population didn't care. Martinvl (talk) 10:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, have you found any evidence to support your speculation yet, or does it remain unfounded? I won't comment on your misrepresentations of those discussions elsewhere that you mentioned, other than to point out that your allegations of refusals by me are inaccurate. -- de Facto (talk). 12:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

What speculation? Martinvl (talk) 14:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Your speculation about the Asda survey, the speculation that was rejected by the mediator, and others, in this discussion - the discussion that resulted from your refusal to accept that your speculation was nothing more than just that. -- de Facto (talk). 15:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

We have only inconsistent media reports of this supposed ASDA survey to go on, so it's not really evidence of anything. If ASDA did make any reference to a survey on their own website, they appear to have taken it down. Mixsynth (talk) 18:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's evidence that 70% of the Asda shoppers surveyed preferred imperial, I suppose. However it's certainly not evidence that metric has superseded imperial in common usage to the extent that we should insist on metric first by default, with imperial allowed for certain exceptions. And that's what we need to avoid the conclusion that imperial should be the default, with listed metric exceptions. -- de Facto (talk). 18:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

No. It is evidence that 70% of shoppers who responded to the survey preferred imperial. There is no way of knowing how many did not bother to answer.--Charles (talk) 14:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The Asda argument is irrelevant when disucssing how Wikipedia should present its facts - the demographic distribution of the Asda clientelle, relative to the UK as a whole is strongly skewed towards socio-economic groups C and D and weakly skewed towards females whereas the Wikipedia readership is probably strongly skewed towards socio-economic groups A and B, skewed towards males and skewed towards younger people. Martinvl (talk) 10:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The main value of the Asda survey is that it is one of the only recent statements by a nationwide organisation on the imperial/metric question. It gives a hint that the UK population at large may not only have shunned metric where they have the choice, but also where it has been legally forced - as in shops. It may, or may not, represent the national picture, but do we have any better data that does? -- de Facto (talk). 10:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Given that we do not know what questions were asked, given that we do not know how the organisation concerned handled "don't know/don't care" answers, given that the population sampled is vastly different to the population who read Wikipedia, this survey is, for the purposes of Wikipeida, pretty useless - and in case you did not know, bad information is worse than no information. OK, I appreciate that this is about the only bit that you added to the article [[Metrication in the United Kingdom] (apart from loads of "Citation needed" flags") and as a result you might have a parent's attchment to it, but it is still useless. Martinvl (talk) 11:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, I won't comment on that disgraceful contribution other than to point out that it wasn't me who introduced the Asda survey information to the Metrication in the United Kingdom article, it was YOU; in this edit. -- de Facto (talk). 11:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto, we don't even know that the ASDA survey is "evidence that 70% of the ASDA shoppers surveyed preferred imperial"; ASDA tell us nothing. We don't know who was surveyed, how large the sample group was, what the question was, etc. In any event, my own recent observation indicates that, if ASDA ever did go ahead and conduct an "imperial labelling" trial on punnets of strawberries, they have since stopped it. The onus is on those who wish to change WP:UNITS from its long-stated metric default (as per the primary newspaper of record's style guide) to prove that an imperial default is more appropriate. Mixsynth (talk) 12:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Mixsynth, the survey outcome was reported in reliable sources - that's all we know about it, I agree. Were your "recent observations" reported in a reliable source? If they weren't, then I'm afraid we'll have to discard them. We know what the starting point was, it was imperial, so it is the assertion that imperial has been superseded in this context that is in dire need of support at the moment. Was this a leap of faith, or is there evidence produced at some point in the past, do you know? Why do you think that the style guide of one newspaper (amongst many) should be used as the lead for the answer to this common usage question? Do you think that the Times reflects common usage more than it reflects the establishment position on what they would like common usage to be? -- de Facto (talk). 16:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto, how do you think that the publication concerend obtained the information - in all liklihood from an Asda press release. In this instance, the term "reliable source" means that we can be sure that the statement came from Asda, and not from somebody who was trying to discredit Asda. Martinvl (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Without any published methodology or data or any peer review tha ASDA survey is utterly worthless as a source. We can not even be sure it ever happened. It looks as though an ASDA publicity stunt was reported by a few lazy newspaper reporters looking for a cheap easy story. That does not give it any standing. It does not carry any weight as a source. It is beyond pathetic. Get over it.--Charles (talk) 18:29, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Charles, whether it's an accurate reflection of anything, or not - and I've never claimed either to be the case - it was reported in reliable sources, sources with their reputation for factual accuracy to preserve.

However, that we don't have proof that the UK preferences haven't changed to metric isn't the same as proving that they have. And is is that latter proof that we need here, for each of the contexts that we are to assert has metric as the main measurement unit. Until that proof is forthcoming, we are left with no alternative other than to expect imperial main units - and indeed that is allowed with the current wording of the guidelines. -- de Facto (talk). 21:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

A problematical note

I find this note in MOSNUM quite problematical:

Some editors hold strong views for or against metrication in the UK. If a disagreement arises with respect to the main units used in a UK-related article, discuss the matter on the article talk-page and/or at MOSNUM talk. If consensus cannot be reached, refer to historically stable versions of the article and retain the units used in these as the main units. Note the style guides of British publications such as Times Online (under "Metric").

This is a stonewaller's charter. It points out the conflict, but offers no way of sorting out differences, except for rewarding those who refuse to compromise. The reference to British style guides is less helpful than might first appear, because the style guides of "The Telegraph," "The Times" and "The Guardian" are quite inconsistent. I suggest wording that goes something like this:

When editors disagree about whether to put Imperial or metric measurements first in a UK-related article, discuss the matter on the article talk-page and/or at MOSNUM talk. Aim for accurate measurements and consistency of presentation as recommended in MOSNUM. Where the sources of information for the article are consistent, follow the sources. Where the sources of information are not consistent and consensus cannot be reached, retain the usage in historically stable versions of the article."

This puts the emphasis on accuracy and consistency rather than on the conflict between pro and anti-metric editors. It removes the reference to the style guides as they are inconsistent and pushes editors to consider the sources. It retains the reference to the history of the article as a last resort in cases where the sources are inconsistent. Michael Glass (talk) 12:21, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Following the sources used for a particular article has already been discussed over and over and has never been adopted. Reasons against this include the possibility of sources being selected for their use of units rather than their merit, or the style of an article being unstable as less-meritorious or older sources being updated with better or newer sources.

There is only one way to settle the metric mess in the US and the UK. Make enormous campaign contributions and explain to the politicians they are expected to make consistent laws and enforce the policy preferred by the donor. Be prepared to repeat the contributions for a decade or so until the usage becomes entrenched. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree; there are various other reasons, But we've gone through them so many times that it is inconceivable that Michael is not already aware of them. This footnote should remain as-is. Pfainuk talk 18:10, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, if someone put up a source simply because of the units and not on its merits, are you seriously suggesting that this would not be challenged by editors who find better and more authoritative sources? It would make more sense to argue about the merit of sources rather than the appropriateness of systems of measurement.

Jc3s5h, your second argument appears to argue that instead of updating articles with better or newer sources, less meritorious and older sources should continue to be used. This puts stability before accuracy. Is this what you intend? Do you really think that such a position is in the interest of Wikipedia?

Pfainuk, give me one sound argument against the use of sources and I'll gladly stop advocating the use of them. Leaving the footnote as it is means that the stonewaller's charter remains unchanged. My proposal only modifies your stonewallers' charter when the sources are clear in their choice of unit. Michael Glass (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Glass asks

Jc3s5h, your second argument appears to argue that instead of updating articles with better or newer sources, less meritorious and older sources should continue to be used. This puts stability before accuracy. Is this what you intend? Do you really think that such a position is in the interest of Wikipedia?

I intend that the units to list first be established by criteria that exclude the group of sources that are cited in the article in question. Then the article style will be stable no matter what sources for the article come and go. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, I agree with that. -- de Facto (talk). 21:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

You are welcome to go back and read the last three years in which we have discussed this topic, where you will note that I have discussed this with you, and given sound and reasoned objections to source-based-units, on dozens of occasions and in great detail. You choose not to listen. You have a long history of attempting to game the rules in this area, and I see no reason why we should not take this fact into account when you propose that we make such gaming easier for you. Pfainuk talk 20:50, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk, your accusation that I have been trying to game the rules is untrue. Instead of restating your case, you have descended to unfounded accusation and personal abuse. I don't abuse you and I expect the same courtesy in return. Michael Glass (talk) 22:26, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I've restated my case against source-based units at least twenty to thirty times now. If you you want to see it in detail, go to the archives and reread it. This will take a long time - largely because you have brought up this proposal so many times in the past. There is no longer any visible trace of what was once a horse, but you seem insistent on keeping on flogging the ground to see if it'll get up and ride.

I have several examples of your attempts to game the system - mostly from while you were "testing consensus" on full metrication of a UK-based WikiProject every three to four weeks for a period of well over a year (driving away a fair few productive contributors in the process). That you claim that you have never tried to game this rule demonstrates clearly to me (if any demonstration were necessary - it wasn't) that my concerns about your arguments are well-founded. Pfainuk talk 23:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk, years ago I put several pieces of information in a Falkland Islands with the metric measurements first because that was the way they were presented in the sources. You didn't even notice this until I pointed it out to you. Then you went on as if the heavens had fallen in. I now regret that this caused so much anger but at the time I could not believe that the order of units could be so important to people who didn't even notice it until it was pointed out to them.

I have put forward this present suggestion in good faith. However, I think that the main problem for you in following the sources is that so many of them use metric measures and you are trying to prevent them being put first. Michael Glass (talk) 11:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You came to the article and insisted that it had to be fully metric because you had decided to add some metric units. According to the rules at the time, we came to a consensus for imperial units. You then came back every three or four weeks for the next eighteen months to demand metrication. We had exactly the same discussion dozens of times. Until we got wise to your tactics, we would negotiate a position in good faith - only to find you'd then reinterpret the rules to their most metric possible extent. No loophole would go unexploited in your quest to metricate the WikiProject. If you don't like this being brought up, you shouldn't have done it in the first place. Because frankly it is near-impossible for somebody with as much experience of your tactics as I have to accept your assertion that this proposal is in good faith.

And in this case, I refer you to my previous answer. Given that I know full well that you will ignore any objection made to this point (again, years of experience), I see no point in repeating them. It's all in the archives - over and over and over and over and over and over and over... Pfainuk talk 18:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk, your misrepresentations, endlessly repeated, are still misrepresentations. I know full well that total consistency is impossible in UK articles because usage is divided in the UK. In fact, the very reason I proposed to follow the sources was to find way of avoiding disputes. In response to your objection that people could go source shopping and that sources are also inconsistent I further modified my proposal to remove this possibility, as anyone can read above.

The proposal above says is to follow the sources when they are consistent. That's an enormous difference from proposing total metrication and you know it. You also know that you had to partially metricate the Falkland Island articles to reach a consensus, a consensus that has held ever since. You also know that at one stage you fought tooth and nail to keep the weather data Imperial, even though you were clearly outnumbered on this point. More than one editor was pushing for change but you put all the blame on me. You also know full well that I have not disturbed the consensus on Falkland Island articles, but that does not stop you from maintaining your rage.

I believe that you would oppose anything I propose here simply because of personal animosity. Yes, two years ago I showed that you didn't even notice when data was metric first and you still haven't got over it. I am sorry you were offended. However, your comment above has more misrepresentations than a monkey has fleas. Michael Glass (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You are the editor that, when the rule suggested source-based units in case of dispute, you tried to override all of MOSNUM's other unit policy by declaring that you disputed every single unit that didn't match its source on the entire WikiProject. You are the editor that insisted that anything short of unanimity was not consensus to use an imperial unit, but consensus for metric could be carried by simple majority vote. You were the editor who would seize on any metric unit in an otherwise entirely-imperial article (even if you had just added it) as an excuse to metricate the entire article in the name of consistency (one of the issues with converting weather units without agreement on other issues). This is what I mean when I refer to your long history of gaming - all that was par for the course. The sort of behaviour that I have learnt expect when you're involved.

At that project we bent over backward to meet your concerns. When MOSNUM changed to allow mixed units, editors on that topic were perfectly happy to change units with it. Including me - I helped bring forward that change in policy and favoured a mostly-metric mix on those articles. Trouble was, you wouldn't let us change unless we submitted to full metrication. The best compromise we ever got from you was that we could have 100% metrication by the back door instead of by the front. The rest of us were happy to let the whole thing lie, but you insisted on bring it up, again and again and again. And all the time the whole sorry saga was driving good productive editors away.

Oh, and your whole point about my not having noticed the change? That is actually because I trusted your motives. With the years of experience I now have, I think it is fair to say that it's a mistake that I'm less likely to make now. But there are concerns independent of this for this kind of proposal that I have detailed many times in the past. If you have forgotten them, look them up. They have been explained on dozens of separate occasions and in great detail. I see no reason why we need to go through this for what must be the thirtieth time. Pfainuk talk 22:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk, of course I pointed out that applying your rule to article stubs made them inconsistent. However, once the agreement was reached it has stuck. Despite what you have written above, the change happened because a majority of editors wanted it to happen. I was just one of several editors who pushed for change. As for this business about trusting me, Im not aware of any problems with the sources I quoted or with most of my copy edits. The only problem you had was when I put metric figures first. As for not letting things lie, well, I don't think I have edited anything on any Falklands article for months! The controversy certainly drove me away.

Pfainuk, despite our many clashes, I don't feel any particular ill-will towards you. I respect your intellect and I admire your energy and determination. However, when it comes to our interactions your animosity gets in the way. Despite this, I hope that we will be able to work together in future with fewer clashes. Michael Glass (talk) 00:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you have forgotten that you tried to use a Chilean scientific journal as conclusive proof that people in the UK use metric units for distances?

And it wasn't just that. It was all the other rubbish that I have already mentioned. Every time something was drafted, we had to check it like lawyers for loopholes, wordings that might be creatively reinterpreted to force metrication. Every time we seemed to reach agreement, we had to check every single detail because any failure to do so would be treated as agreement to full metrication. Every edit you did had to be scrupulously checked because if we missed even one metric unit in any context on any article in the project (added against clear consensus) you paraded it as proof that all British people actually use kilometres. This went on for eighteen months, during which time it became perfectly clear that any allowance for your kind of "consistency" (bearing in mind that the proposal always made allowances for consistency) was effectively consent to 100% metrication of the entire project. And you wonder why I say I don't trust you?

And you talk of a majority supporting the change. There was - I was part of it. And you weren't, apparently because it wasn't easy enough to game. If you felt you were driven away from those articles, then frankly it's the fault of your own actions. Pfainuk talk 20:19, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again. The article about the Falkland Islands you referred to simply used metric measures and I referred to it. Big deal! And you know what? British people do use actually use kilometres in some contexts. Here is one: [12] to quote: "In total, the structure is over 2.5 km long." As for you being part of the majority for change, that only happened when at long last you realised that a majority of other editors wanted change. Even then you made sure that there was a minimum of change. Certainly I pointed out that this would cause inconsistencies in the article stubs, but when you were not prepared to countenance any more change I said I would not contest it, and I haven't.

As for the tenor of your remarks, I think they are intended to intimidate those who disagree with you. Michael Glass (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If you do not it when others are made aware of your habit of gaming the system, perhaps spending eighteen months persistently gaming the system was a bad idea?

For the record, the eventual compromise was one that I had supported for most of the eighteen months concerned. We couldn't get consensus for it because it wasn't 100% metrication and therefore unacceptable to Michael (and another editor in this discussion). The "minimum of change" referred to is complete metrication in all contexts other than those in which imperial units are overwhelmingly more common in the UK. Given that the status quo was purely imperial, describing it as a "minimum of change" is simply inaccurate. The point about inconsistency was resolved early on as the proposal allowed for such articles to be made consistent - but as imperial units were to be favoured in such situations (an anti-gaming device) Michael apparently preferred inconsistency.

When Michael said he "would not contest" the proposal (and he did several times over the eighteen months), he would then generally contest it within 24 hours, so that wasn't actually meaningful. The Forth Road Bridge is a standard argument of Michael's: if he can find a source that uses metric units then that is necessarily representative. The argument would be that because the Forth Road Bridge site uses kilometres, British people would measure the distance from London to Edinburgh in kilometres (which they wouldn't). And this is itself a problem because he uses it for article sourcing. Pfainuk talk 20:11, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe that all UK people use kilometres; I pointed out one instance where kilometres are used. That does not mean that I believe that UK people use kilometres all the time. Pfainuk's argument above is a straw man. Whatever disagreements happened in the past, I have had nothing to do with the Falkland Islands articles for months and months. As for the original status quo on Falklands articles being Imperial first, it wasn't. The record should note that though the main article was Imperial first, some of the subsidiary articles were substantially or completely metric first when I found them. The final agreement, which has stuck, was applied to all the Falkland Island articles, including the stubs. As I pointed out at the time, this meant that some of the stubs became inconsistent in style. However, that is the agreement that prevailed and it remains the status quo today. As I am not aware of any current dispute about units of measure in Falkland Islands articles, I can't see the relevance of bringing it up now. Michael Glass (talk) 00:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It is difficult to see how it is not relevant to point out that an editor proposing a change to the MOS has a long history of gaming provisions similar to those that he proposes. In terms of the kilometres point, the argument I describe is precisely the argument that he has used on multiple occasions in the past. Arguments with similar reasoning can likely be found on multiple articles. Pfainuk talk 09:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

(And you're still doing it! One newspaper gives its temperatures in Fahrenheit, the other in Celsius and so you derive your own conclusion that usage is divided. It's disallowed original research in articles and not a credible argument in discussion. Pfainuk talk 09:46, 29 January 2012 (UTC))

Point taken about original research. I have recast this information so that no conclusion is drawn. The only information that remains is that one newspaper gives the temperatures in both scales, with Fahrenheit first while the other gives the temperatures only in Celsius. Michael Glass (talk) 11:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Inviting readers to draw an inference that isn't present in the sources is just as bad as stating it outright. Your text did the latter, it now does the former. It's still OR, so I'm rereverting you. Pfainuk talk 12:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It was my intention to simply record the facts about newspaper usage. Perhaps it would be better to discuss any actual wording on the article's talk page. Michael Glass (talk) 08:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

You have no sourced facts about newspaper usage. In both cases, you have an individual instance of usage by a newspaper and attempt to interpret the policy for the entire newspaper from it. This is disallowed original interpretation from a primary source. The weight given to the point is vastly greater than one might reasonably expect, implying that it illustrates a wider trend - again, this is disallowed original research because such implication is not backed by the primary sources. And this is typical of your argument style (there's one instance of a temperature in Celsius, therefore everyone uses Celsius), so it is also something that editors on this page would do well to bear in mind. Pfainuk talk 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The Jamaica Observer uses Celsius for weather forecasts on its main page [13]. The Jamaica Gleaner gives temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius on its main page [14]. I did note both these facts, so accusing me of arguing that there's one instance of a temperature in Celsius and therefore everyone uses Celsius is not rational. Michael Glass (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

And by including that you're doing a vast amount of interpretation. You're claiming that a single instance of usage on a single page of a newspaper's website necessarily and inherently implies a policy on use of units. You use this to strongly imply that Jamaica is in the process of metricating its usage of units in temperature. Neither point - and the strong implication that you propose is effectively the same stating the point outright - is even close to appropriate sourced, but this is typical of your sourcing style and typical of the arguments you have repeatedly used to try and push metrication, including in this discussion. Pfainuk talk 18:25, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Our discussion on the article's talk page appears to be far more constructive. Let's continue the discussion there. Michael Glass (talk) 01:10, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h, the use of units involves accurate measurements. It is not just a matter of style. Any style guide would have to deal with this issue. How would you deal with it? Michael Glass (talk) 22:43, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

My own view is that the determining factor as to which units to use in any one article should be these guidelines and not the unit choice of the sources. Nominal and defined values are the obvious exception.

I'm not sure as to what purpose the "some editors hold strong views" footnote was intended to serve; it seems entirely superfluous to me. "Which units to use" is sufficiently clear to guide consensus and resolve any "disagreement", and if there is still no general consensus, there can be no change anyway. I would suggest removing the footnote whilst preserving the link to the Times Style Guide in the main body of WP:UNITS. Mixsynth (talk) 18:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It serves to highlight the fact that there are strong views on the choice of units, so not to be too surprised if what seems clear or obvious from your POV is challenged. Presumably there would be no objections to adding more style guide examples to improve the balance in the currently unbalanced (just one example) "such as" list. -- de Facto (talk). 19:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The current example is good because The Times is the UK's newspaper of record. This makes it a more appropriate standard to follow in terms of formal writing than others publications might be. It's also the style guide that the current advice is based off - this makes sense because the instances noted are the most common universally-imperial-first contexts in British usage. And it's probably not useful to have a blizzard of style guides with editors picking and choosing which style guide to follow depending on their POV.

The only other style guide that I would suggest including in principle would be the BBC one - but at least last time I checked they made no mention of what units to use at all. Pfainuk talk 20:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Out of interest, why do you think that a "newspaper of note" is likely to reflect common usage, rather than its own political nose, when it comes to choice of unit system? Would to choose them as the guide for the party political bias to give to an article? Secondly why the Times rather than the other UK "newspaper of note", the Telegraph? -- de Facto (talk). 21:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

One tends to expect a higher standard of quality and professionalism from a newspapers of record than of other media outlets, and they are thus likely to be more reliable. Not necessarily unbiased, but more likely to be factually accurate in news reporting and more likely to reflect formal British writing. Newspapers like the Mail or the Sun might very well use units to make a political statement, but the Times is far less likely to. Worth noting also that it's not being recommended blindly: the Times style guide passes a rough sanity check and has been recommended in this manual for this context for years.

Plus I know where this is going because I've been here several times before. The standard arguments on this point promote the Economist style guide instead: the Economist style guide is taken by some as cast-iron proof that all British people use metric units all the time anyway - and presumably just put miles on the road signs to confuse foreigners. Pfainuk talk 21:51, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Reliable and factually trustworthy, maybe, but why go with the prefered units of an upmarket paper when we should be looking for common usage? By the way, you didn't write why you prefer the Times over the Telegraph - both are "newspapers of note". -- de Facto (talk). 22:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

My personal belief is that we should only prescribe what is common between the style guides and leave the rest to the good sense of editors. However, if it was decided to pick just one, then the advice in the Times style guide has two advantages: it is middle of the road as far as the guides go and it has been in MOSNUM for years. However, I support Mixsynth's proposal above. Michael Glass (talk) 00:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

As Pfainuk says, the style guide of the most widely acknowledged UK newspaper of record, The Times, is the most appropriate choice for the purpose of determining "common usage" for WP purposes. Also, it's quite right that referring to several different style guides as "alternatives" will only allow editors to pick and choose as per their POV, thus thwarting the goal of consistency.

As for the Telegraph being a second "newspaper of record", it's interesting that the only source to support this position is a single BBC featured article from 2004 in which one of their political commentators opined how "in the years the Tories were in power, [the Telegraph] even came to be regarded as the paper of record over The Times". This seems rather an anecdotal basis on which to conclude the Telegraph as being on a par with The Times as a newspaper of record (when there are numerous other sources which more definitively acknowledge the latter as such). But that's a matter for the Newspaper of Record editors to discuss. Mixsynth (talk) 01:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

A "newspaper of record" may be known for its factual accuracy, but not necessarily for its neutrality in choice of style, language use, etc. The Times style guide will not reflect common usage, but rather the "establishment"/legal-system view. If we do decide to place any weight on what style guides say, then of course we need to take a balanced look at them all, not just at the one least likely to reflect "common" usage and more likely to reflect the "official" view. What we could use the "newspapers of record" for is as a reliable source of articles detailing UK usage trends of unit systems.

We need to remember that "common usage" doesn't necessarily reflect the narrow Weights and Measures Act requirements placed on trading activities. You may be forced to sell sausages by the kilo (even if that means in multiples of 0.454 kg), but you certainly don't have to publicise the price solely by the kilo, or buy them by the kilo or use them by the kilo or visualise them or talk about them in terms of kilos. -- de Facto (talk). 07:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

If you visit Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources you will see the quote "academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources". Why the discussion about what newspapers say without discussing more scholarly sources at the same time? After all Wikipedia is an encyclopeadia, not a newspaper. Martinvl (talk) 10:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we know about reliable sources. They are sources for the information that they are conveying, not for the style in which they convey it. Newspapers may be reliable sources too. The challenge though is to find reliably sourced (peer-reviewed journals, newspapers, whatever) data that describes unit system usage in the UK, in terms of current common usage. -- de Facto (talk). 10:46, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The English language does not have an Academy which sets in stone what usage must be. I think we must keep a sense of proportion in all this. For example, we are deciding whether Bruiser McThump, the boxer, must be described as 5ft 11 in before we say he's 1.8 metres tall.

Just how much does it matter? Just how much will be taken of our advice? In cases where people have strong feelings each way, I think it would be prudent not to be too prescriptive. The less we say, the better. Michael Glass (talk) 11:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Michael, you asked: "Just how much does it matter?". It matters if we value the diverse cultures, traditions, customs, heritage and preferences of the English-speaking world. Should the English-language Wikipedia be written entirely in American English and using only the US customary units - does it matter? I'm sure that to many the units used matters as much as whether we put ,"London", "London (Londres)", "Londres (London)" or "Londres" when referring to the UK's capital city, in English Wiki articles. We need to be very careful to allow the current mainstream preferences to prevail, and not attempt to force our personal opinions of what they should be. -- de Facto (talk). 14:53, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Hello DeFacto. You certainly have a point about American English or the compulsory use of US Customary Units in Wiki articles about the UK. However, when usage is divided it is impossible to be too prescriptive. For example I am sure that there would be an outcry if Wikipedia prescribed Oxford English spelling for all UK articles. I think you would soon realize/realise that the diverse cultures, traditions, customs, heritage and preferences of UK and other Wikipedians would be compromised, because so many of us prefer to have civilisation and other ise- words spelt with an s and not a z.

Now I agree that some aspects of UK usage are just about set in stone, such as road distances. However, there are other measurements where different people have different preferences. You would of course realise that the preference of The Telegraph, The Times and The Independent and The Economist are different. Who am I or you to say that the preferences of any one of these august journals is beyond the mainstream? I would assert that the mainstream is a river of considerable width, and it cannot be constrained in the narrow confines of your personal preferences or mine.

So, when the English Premier League gives the height and weight of Wayne Rooney [15] in metric measures, who are we to brand its usage as anti-British? Am I arguing here that all football players must be metric first? No! What I am stating is that the diverse customs, traditions and preferences of UK are wide enough to encompass both ways of noting the data. And that's why we should not be too prescriptive. Michael Glass (talk) 02:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

If article units are to reflect source use, we need to realise that primary sources will often follow the establishment "official" line, or even be legally obliged to follow it (especially if they are government agencies, businesses involved in trading or national establishment bodies). We need therefore to be careful to look at a cross-section of secondary sources to see what units the measurements are generally conveyed in, before deciding which units to use in the article. -- de Facto (talk). 07:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

On a practical note, this is asking a great deal of editors, who are hardly in a position to look at a cross-section of secondary sources before deciding between 180cm (5ft 11in) and 5ft 11in (180cm). Your comment seems to take it for granted that official use is at odds with popular usage. I think it is safer to assume either that usage is divided or that the official line is the way to go. If the official line is the way to go, then we might simply follow the usage of each sport. On the other hand if we assume that usage is divided, we can simply leave it to the good sense of editors to choose between the two options. For simplicity's sake it is better to leave it to the good sense of editors to decide which way to go, as long as both Imperial and metric measures are included.

At every step we need to be mindful of the fact that we are deciding between 180cm (5ft 11in) and 5ft 11in (180cm). I think we can safely leave it to editors to decide which of these two options is to be used. Michael Glass (talk) 10:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Given your history, I would suggest that, to you in particular, the difference matters a great deal. We shouldn't be doing a formal survey of sources on units any more than we should be doing a formal survey for sources on spellings. Because we shouldn't be using purely source-based units any more than we use purely source-based spellings. Pfainuk talk 18:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe you're not arguing that football players should be metric-first in theory. But you are arguing for source-based units plus and that a metric site is necessarily the most appropriate source, so you certainly are arguing for it in practice. Nobody is saying that Premier League usage is "anti-British" (and your suggestion that they are misrepresents the argument), only that it does not accord with usages that are near-universal in the UK. One might suggest in this context that as a large majority of the Premier League's audience is overseas, they may be more interested in reflecting usage in their target countries rather than usage in the UK. And if they wanted to get this kind of information, most UK-based fans probably wouldn't go to the Premier League website anyway (they'd go to the club's).

Your point about Oxford English is closer to your suggestion that we rely on official usage rather than common usage, as common usage is "-ise" in these situations. The logical end to your argument as a whole is that we do away with the style guide altogether and instead use whatever style we want in any article. This doesn't make sense. This page is here to help to standardise usage. A widely-used principle in the MOS is that where rules in English-speaking countries are different and an article has strong ties to one country, we use the rule that applies in that country. In the UK, in many cases, that gives a fairly free reign (because usage varies). But we should be here to point out cases where it does not, including using units like stones and pounds for personal weights and feet and inches for personal heights. Pfainuk talk 18:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Michael - use the official units unless there is good reason to the contrary. Furthermore, if you go into WH Smith and look at the magazines of archeology, orthonolgy, philately numismatics and the like you will see that they all use metric units without imperial conversions. This shows that the "man in the street" with an interest in those subjects is quite happy with metric units. Unless you are an expert in the subject concerned, you could end up with the ridiculous situation that the Daily Telegraph was in about twenty years ago - they religiously reported the heights of the tides at Dover in feet and inches with no metric conversions, yet when I was travelling to France by ferry, the depth gauge on the harbour walls was in metres with no imperial units at all. I am pleased to note that they now use metres. Martinvl (talk) 12:08, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, bluntly, you would - official usage being more metric than common usage. I feel that I should also make editors aware of your previous argument that official usage required distances to be measured in kilometres when measured as the crow flies, but in miles when measured along roads - a split in usage that simply does not exist in the United Kingdom.

We ought to be using the units in common usage. That means feet and inches for people's height and stones and pounds for people's weight, when those people have strong national ties to the United Kingdom. Similarly, it means using miles for distance, miles per hour for speed and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption.

In other words, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the advice as it stands. The only point made in this entire discussion that I think would improve the advice is A. di M.'s proposal above. Pfainuk talk 18:33, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Look at the effect of following this to the letter:

• The Premier League website uses only metric units for player statistics on its website: [16]. Follow this rule strictly and every editor would have to use the disp-flip function to ensure that the Imperial units came first, even though this means that the derived units - together with any rounding errors - would have prime of place.
• The Rugby Football Union puts metric units first. Instead of leaving it to the good sense of editors to determine whether to follow this or not, you say they must put the Imperial units first.
• The Bradford Bulls (rugby League) put metric units first in their player profiles [17] Once again, a strict reading of the policy would insist on Imperial units going first.

I don't see any need for compulsion. Englishmen have the right to use Oxford spellings or ise spellings. In the same way I believe they should have the right to choose what units come first when reporting on sporting team members. Michael Glass (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Editors on UK-related articles can use -ize or -ise spellings, maybe. But that's not a parallel situation to this. This is closer to demanding a "right" to refer to the UK "Labor" party in UK-related articles or to the "Sydney Harbor Bridge" in Australia-related articles. The MOS has to exist to give guidance to editors. The fact that you do not like the advice does not mean that it is what we should be doing. You suggestion of "the right to choose" is a red herring, a political slogan that does not match with what you actually demand. Pfainuk talk 19:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Of course I agree with your points about the differences between British and American spelling, but when usage is divided, as it is with some sporting teams in sports with an international following, we need a bit more flexibility. Perhaps that is why the Guardian and Observer style guide says, "Body weights and heights should always be converted in brackets: metres to feet and inches, kilogrammes to stones/pounds." [18]. Michael Glass (talk) 23:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If you're claiming that British sports figures who play in British leagues do not have strong national ties to the United Kingdom, then I am a bit surprised, but to some extent that's a decision that ought to be considered elsewhere. If usage was genuinely divided in British usage then I would agree that there should be a relatively free choice. But this is not such a case because usage here is not in any reasonable sense divided.

Essentially what we have here is a random Wikipedia editor (and one who is not based in the UK) who has decided that he does not like the units that British people use near-universally. It is exactly the same as an American deciding that we should be referring to the "Sydney Harbor Bridge" and then citing the occasional Australian source (aimed at an American audience) to back it up. Pfainuk talk 09:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk's interpretation of my motives is both hostile and wrong. I have quoted some evidence that suggests to me that perhaps usage in the UK is more varied than fans of the old measures might be prepared to admit. Pfainuk has responded with bile and misrepresentations but no concrete evidence. I believe that most people in the UK are more comfortable with the older measures. However, there is some evidence that metric measures are making some inroads. One example is in the National Health Service, which insists on the use of metric scales [19]. Other evidence is in the usage of some sporting codes and some individual clubs that I have already mention. This evidence, of course, needs to be weighed against other evidence of usage, and I would welcome any concrete evidence that Pfainuk or any other editor might supply. Perhaps if Pfainuk used some of his undoubted energy into actually finding some information on this subject, Wikipedia would benefit from his findings and we might both end up better informed. Michael Glass (talk) 11:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to point out that there is a difference between a "requirement" for health workers to use metric scales and common usage. Whether hospital scales are metric, or not, doesn't necessarily translate into the units commonly used by the general population, or even by the health workers themselves. Patients, particularly babies, have had their weights recorded in kilos for decades, but relayed to the patient (or mother) in imperial, and certainly discussed outside the hospital in imperial. It's the same with the sale of loose fruit and veg., especially in the smaller independent shops and market stalls. There is a legal requirement to trade in metric, but prices will generally be given in imperial too (or even only imperial) and, if self-service, scales will be marked in dual units (even in the bigger supermarkets), or if you have to ask for what you want, imperial requests will be served. Supermarket internet shopping systems generally allow requests in imperial too. Don't be fooled by the fact that "officail" requirements are usually for metric - that doesn't translate into accepatance in common use. The evidence we need is of any non-imperial common usage, not of non-metric common usage - and we have yet to see any at all. -- de Facto (talk). 12:12, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record the weights of both my children (born in SE England) were communicated to me in metric units. When DeFacto said that weights of new-born infants are communicated in imperial units, is he talking from expereience or from hearsay? Martinvl (talk) 07:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, neither my nor your recollections are relevent in this debate. You need RS supported evidence for it if you are now claiming that in the UK, kilos are the common-usage unit in the context of the weights of babies. -- de Facto (talk). 11:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto - How about this reference? Martinvl (talk) 07:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, LOL! That's "evidence" of a 100% preference for the use of imperial weights for babies. That's another example then for MOSNUM. -- de Facto (talk). 08:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto, yet again you show your complete ignorance of statistics. OK, 100% of the people in the sample objected - but the sample only contained a few people, all of whom were associated with the Metric Martyrs, so, from the point of view of polling public opinion, that is hardly a reliable source. However, I have no doubt that the factual reporting is reasonably reliable. Martinvl (talk) 16:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, explain for us in what way the Camerons, Blairs and Browns are associated with the Metric Martyrs please. -- de Facto (talk). 16:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't be an idiot all your life. you know exactly what I mean - opinion was rendered by Heron and Thoburn - ie the sample contained 2 people. The views of Blair, Brown and Cameron were never sought. Again, since you did not understand the meaning of the word "sample", you have displayed your ignorance of statistics. Martinvl (talk) 16:56, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, the article stated that the Camerons, Blairs and Browns gave their baby weights in imperial, and that Thorburn thought it should be used. That makes 4 otut of the 4 mentioned = 100%. You then wrote: "but the sample only contained a few people, all of whom were associated with the Metric Martyrs". Didn't you read it? -- de Facto (talk). 17:14, 2 February 2012 (UTC

Drawing together the new born babies here with the BBC's use of units below this BBC News website article might be of interest. They are now using as their unit of weight not kilos or pounds but babies.--Charles (talk) 19:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

about 200kg (441lb)–That's the kind of stuff that makes me cringe. ― A. di M.​  21:06, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Your own source makes the point that British people think of their own weight in stones and pounds. Kilograms are used in the NHS because dosage of drugs is frequently provided in terms of body mass of the patient, measured in kilograms (as, understandably, the Lords concerned were worried that people might get underdosed or overdosed because of unit confusion): this is not evidence that British people all use kilograms really - quite the opposite. Nor for that matter is your own personal speculation (and that's all it is) based on the units that websites related to some professional sports do. Pfainuk talk 12:16, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no issue at all with the facts and opinions raised about popular usage of Imperial measures about heights and weights. Nevertheless, some sporting teams do use kilograms and metres for the heights and weights of the players. Where we differ is whether editors should be free to present this data with the metric measures coming first or whether the guidelines should insist that the Imperial measures should come first, regardless of the usage of the sporting team. As there seems to be no prospect of agreement on that point I can't see any purpose in discussing it further. Michael Glass (talk) 08:42, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It is irrelevant is that the sporting team do this on their website, as our rule does not call for source-based units (these have been rejected yet again in this discussion - for what must be at least your twentieth proposal on the subject). That you continue to act as though the units that happen to be used by a given source have any relevance would appear to be deliberate refusal to accept consensus - deliberate refusal of a kind that I have personally seen from you, again, on dozens of occasions. Pfainuk talk 18:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

A recent BBC article on metrication

This BBC piece from December 2011 seems to support the notion of a general UK preference for imperial measures. We still haven't managed to find any RS that contradicts that suggestion - have we? -- de Facto (talk). 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the comments you will find that opinions are divided. As I stated, preferences are divided. Therefore we should not be too prescriptive. Michael Glass (talk) 03:03, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

We seem to agree then that, at least, the clause "In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit..." is completely at odds with reality, so therefore unacceptable. -- de Facto (talk). 07:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

From the comment above I can see that you disagree with the present policy. Actually I have no problem with the clause that you quote. After all, the word "generally" gives enough room to cope with situations where the information available to editors is expressed in Imperial measures. However, I find the advice about heights and weights of people too restrictive, because written usage is more divided in this area than perhaps some are willing to acknowledge. So both of us have our concerns about different aspects of the present policy: yours with the general thrust of the advice, mine with one of the specific details. Michael Glass (talk) 10:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The fact that you do not like British people measuring their height in feet and inches, or their weight in stones and pounds, does not change the fact that those are the units they use. If you wish this to change, I suggest you start running the public information campaigns. Wikipedia isn't in the business of trying to engineer social change in the way you propose. Pfainuk talk 20:53, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

No, Pfainuk, that's a factoid of your own invention. I am arguing for the right of editors to choose which measurement to put first. Michael Glass (talk) 04:47, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Why are you not then arguing that we should remove all advice altogether? Why are you not opening an MFD seeking to delete the MOS altogether?

I'm sure that there are a lot of people in the United States and United Kingdom would find it convenient if distances in Australian-related articles are given in miles, and the weights of Australian Rules footballers in pounds. Similarly, who would like to translate Australia-related articles into American English. Your contribution history is full of such mass-conversions of UK-related articles.

The whole point of the MOS is that we tell editors what the most appropriate style to use is. The fact that you do not like the units that British people use is not a good reason for all of us to ignore them. Despite your protestations, that appears to be the entire basis for your argument. Pfainuk talk 19:44, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

I should clarify the point I was trying to make. There are instances when British sporting teams use metric measures. In this instance either metric (imperial) or imperial (metric) would be appropriate. Curiously, the Guardian and Observer style guide apparently favours metric (imperial) for heights and weights [20]. Michael Glass (talk) 23:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

So, the position seems to be that the personal opinion of Michael Glass overrides actual usage by British people. It doesn't matter that British people use imperial measures, Michael Glass uses metric measures and his view is more important than the actual usage by millions of British people. And as I have pointed out, you're not really arguing for a free choice here because your edit history demonstrates that you have a habit of mass-converting these figures from imperial to metric in direct violation of WP:RETAIN. Pfainuk talk 09:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Pfainuk, I checked WP:RETAIN. It says nothing about units of measure. I think you are misapplying this section. As for my edit history I note your interest in it. I hope you will find that my edits are true to the sources quoted. If not, please revise them. Michael Glass (talk) 11:53, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The beginning of MOSNUM says:

"The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style".

This is the principle defined by WP:RETAIN and is the principle that you have repeatedly broken. Your claim that it's unrelated is Wikilawyering. Your point about sources should of course be read in the context that WP:UNITS does not dogmatically support source-based units (which is the rule you applied regardless). However, this has been done to thousands of articles (itself disruptive, see WP:FAITACCOMPLI), and unfortunately I don't have the time to sort out all of the mess you've made. Pfainuk talk 12:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I note your reference to WP:FAITACCOMPLI and will bear it in mind in future. I also note your scrutiny of my edit history. Michael Glass (talk) 10:06, 30 January 2012 (UTC) One further note: I reject the charge that correcting players' heights against the official sources is either disruptive or is making a mess. Michael Glass (talk) 23:39, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Difficult to see how mass-converting the units of hundreds of articles, in direct and clear violation of the MOS, is not disruptive. By there we are. Pfainuk talk 21:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Look again. Some of the articles were already metric first and some weren't. What's disruptive about bringing them in line with the official information? Michael Glass (talk) 11:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If you don't understand that flagrantly flouting the MOS on an industrial scale to impose your personal preferences is disruptive, then that is distinctly concerning. Pfainuk talk 18:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Really? If it was as disruptive as you claim, I am sure that the edits would have been reversed, if not by you, then by others. Many of the articles were metric first to start off with and most of the articles had heights that were completely undocumented, and frequently at variance with the official sources. A policy that is frequently ignored is largely a dead letter. However, if it is any help, I can assure you that I have no intention of repeating the procedure. Michael Glass (talk) 12:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

"[F]requently at variance with the official sources" is only relevant, as you are perfectly well aware, if the actual values are different. And if the actual values are different then this does not give you licence to make stylistic changes in clear and direct violation WP:MOSNUM for no better reason than that you don't happen to like MOSNUM's advice. Any more than an incorrect fact in prose would give you licence to switch from British English to American English or vice versa. Pfainuk talk 11:55, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

When I wrote "at variance" that's exactly what I meant. Sometimes heights were given as six feet when the information gave 1.8 metres (a difference of close to 3cm). Occasionally it was even larger and In one instance it was about 10cm. Giving heights in metres or feet is not just a matter of style because even close approximations are not equivalents. Colour is equivalent to color, 140lb equals 10 stone, but 1.83 metres is not equal to 6 feet. So it's not just a question of style when we record the height of a footballer in feet or metres. Michael Glass (talk) 05:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

The above is yet another transparent demonstration of your trying to enforce your views on this subject by the back door when you were unable to do so by the front door. That argument relies entirely on trying to game the system. And I would note that it does most definitely not accord with MOSNUM, which actually tells us to avoid the false precision that you are introducing. Pfainuk talk 18:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Once again you resort to a personal attack. Yes, it would be false precision to quibble about the difference between 1.83 metres and 6 feet, but there is a clear difference between 1.8 metres and 6 feet that would be better expressed by the derived figure of 5'11". When I wrote "at variance" I was referring to figures that were clearly inaccurate. One of the advantages of comparing undocumented heights with the official figures was to check them and correct them and that is what I did. I know you object to my changing many figures from Imperial first to metric first. However, it is not gaming the system to document the information or to correct the information against the official sources. Michael Glass (talk) 11:57, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The above is an excuse, and has no validity in MOSNUM. Your decision to arbitrarily change the units on dozens of articles was a violation of MOSNUM. You're now trying to worm your way out of that, but none of your excuses justify these violations. If you have a problem with 1.8 metres being rendered as 6 feet, then render it as 5 foot 11. This does not require you any MOS violation. That said, your announcement that there is "a clear difference between 1.8 metres and 6 feet" is itself drawing false precision. To within the precision implied by each of those figures, the two are equivalent. Pfainuk talk 18:11, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

What nonsense! Of course I changed the order of units on articles. It is you who won't face up to the fact that I did more than that. What I did was document the height of the various team members, correcting many of them according to the official sources. In quite a number of cases the figures were clearly in error. Pointing this out is not worming out of anything. As for your allegation that rendering 1.8 metres as anything other than 6 feet is falsely precise is laughable. 1.8 metres is slightly less than 5'11". Michael Glass (talk) 12:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Technically, converting 1.8 metres to 5 feet 11 inches is false precision, but if you're talking about the heights of people, nobody actually measures them that coarsely, so unless you're talking about an eyeball estimate rather than an actual measurement I'd just assume the 1.8 is a typo for 1.80. ― A. di M.​  14:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Worth mentioning that 1.8 metres = 6 feet in particular is a common approximation in the UK (based on the common rule of thumb that a foot is about 30 centimetres) - to the extent that it would be entirely unsurprising to find out in the case concerned, the player himself said his height was 6 feet and the person entering the data into the website translated that to 1.8 metres. Worth noting also that it is unusual to give heights to precision of greater than an inch in the UK (and when people do so, they tend to get teased for their self-consciousness about it).

But it's also worth mentioning here that the difference that Michael is arguing is so intolerable that the only solution is industrial-scale metrication is the difference between 5'11" and 1.8 metres. That is to say, a difference in height of 3.4 millimetres. Chances are good that the players' height changes by more than that over the course of each day, and there's no way that any of the measures are that precise. But Michael is arguing that the difference is so significant that it is impossible to be accurate when using an imperial unit.

In other words, it's a trick. He's trying to game the system. He's trying to manipulate editors into accepting metrication in a context that is near-universally imperial-first in the UK by playing on concerns about accuracy - even though there is no objective reason for any such concern. Sure, the source is metric-first - of course it is: chances are good that that's a major part of the reason Michael chose it. This is precisely the sort of behaviour you have to expect when you deal with Michael on the topic of units. Pfainuk talk 18:23, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Here we go again. Heaps of abuse from Pfainuk. It's what I have come to expect from him here. First of all I'm describing what I did when I documented the heights of the players. As far as I am concerned, that activity is at an end, and I have already stated that clearly. It's a lie to say that I am trying to manipulate people. I am stating my views upfront, and people are free to agree or disagree with them. Finally, if people think that 1.8 metres is good enough as an approximation to 6 feet when 5'11" would be more accurate, well, they're welcome to their sloppiness. Michael Glass (talk) 02:50, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not sloppiness, it's rounding a measurement to the proper number of significant figures (though, in the specific case of people's height, it's likely that the original measurement didn't have the proper number of sigfigs to start with). Otherwise, why stop at 5′ 11″? Wouldn't 5′10+7⁄8″ would even more precise? ― A. di M.​  10:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

More precise, but probably less accurate. As I say, chances are good that the original measurement was actually 6 feet, and when it was converted it got turned into 1.8 metres. When people need to do these conversions in real life, they generally don't do them as precisely as is being argued here.

Even if you know the precise conversion factor (and I can't imagine many do - I had to work it out), it is not trivial to divide 180 by exactly 30.48 in your head and then convert the result into base 12. Multiplying 6 by exactly 30.48 in your head is easier, but still potentially daunting. And few people would see the point. If you know that 30 centimetres is about a foot (and that's fairly common), then it's easy to come up with 180 centimetres = 6 feet, from either direction. It's no accident that, in the UK, metric measures of this order tend to be given in even multiples of thirty centimetres.

I would imagine that to most Brits, quibbling over the 3 centimetres' difference would be a sign of pedantry. Even if quibbling over an inch wouldn't be. But let's remember that in this case, the 180-centimetre figure is claimed to be so precisely accurate that any rendering in imperial units is inaccurate. We are told that metric units must be used "because even close approximations are not equivalents". The 3.4 millimetres between 180 cm and 5'11", or the 225 micrometres between 180 cm and 5′10+7⁄8″, mean (we're told) that those measures are not precise enough because they are close approximations and not equivalents. The obvious logical conclusion to this argument being that Michael gets to enforce his source-based system that has been rejected here so many times. Only, it gets applied in practice instead of being applied in theory. In other words, normal service continues. Pfainuk talk 12:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

(The second sentence of my comment was intended to be sarcastic, as I hoped was obvious given the first sentence. ― A. di M.​  16:42, 18 February 2012 (UTC))

(I believe I understood it correctly, though perhaps this was not sufficiently clear from my response. Of course, it's still unexplained why the thing was not rendered as 5′10+110⁄127″. Pfainuk talk 16:58, 18 February 2012 (UTC))

Let's let this discussion rest. Though I would advocate considering the sources, I'm not trying to enforce it or even to argue that it should be the only consideration., It's curious that quibbling over 3 centimetres would be considered pedantry but quibbling over an inch (2.54cm) would not, but so be it. Michael Glass (talk) 01:12, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The BBC article you cite does not appear to be evidence of anything other than the fact that we have still not completed the metrication process.

In fact, WP's Metrication in the United Kingdom article does quite clearly say of the current situation: "as of 2012, imperial units are still used to describe, amongst other things: body measurements, journey distances and vehicle speeds". Strangely enough, this is exactly in line with WP:UNITS. Are you going to argue that that article is "completely at odds with reality" too? Mixsynth (talk) 23:56, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Unclear on {{fl}}

This page says {{fl}} shouldn't be used on disambiguation pages. Does this mean we should use "fl." without a link or that we should avoid it altogether? Thanks. – hysteria18 (talk) 00:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The latter doesn't make much sense. (Also, you could use <abbr title="floruit">fl.</abbr> → fl. so you get a tooltip text even without a blue link, but then again, someone who doesn't know what fl. means likely doesn't know what floruit means either. ― A. di M.​  10:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a lovely solution. Perhaps that problem could be solved by saying "flourished" rather than "floruit'? (As a sort of temporary measure, I went for including the person's period in their description, like: William Farrington, 15th century English soldier and diplomat. Is that sort of thing acceptable?) – hysteria18 (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Currency confusion

WP:£ says "For obsolete currencies, provide if possible an equivalent, formatted as a conversion, in the modern replacement currency (e.g., decimal pounds for historical pre-decimal pounds-and-shillings figures), or at least a US-dollar equivalent as a default in cases where there is no modern equivalent." I can see here that there was some discussion that touched on this sentence but I remain confused by "formatted as a conversion".

Conversion to what? Does this mean, for example, that 19 UK shillings (old currency) should be represented as 95 pence (present, decimal currency)? Or does it mean that we should find some decent location that attempts an inflation-adjusted conversion? Furthermore, does it mean that we should show old and new, and if so then is there something similar to Template:Convert that might do this job? Right now, this issue affects me at John Horsefield but it crops up quite frequently with articles that I create. - Sitush (talk) 14:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this is confusing - if I were to write that in 1826 in the Cape Colony, the rixdaller was redeemed for "1/6", do I convert it to US dollars using the 1826 conversion rate, do I convert GBP 0.075 to US dollars at teh current conversion rate or do I convert ZAR 0.15 to US dollars at the current conversion rate? The historic context is that the South African currency was pegged to the British currency until the late 1960's - however South Africa decionalised her currency in 1961 at the rate of 1/- = 10c. In 1971 the UK decimalised at the rate of 1/- = 5p.

In my view, conversions of currencies that are more than same 50 years old are meaningless.

As an aside, how would one convert Zimbabwean dollars? I have seen a billion [Zimbabwean] dollar which is literally not worth the paper it is printed on - I checked its value again the cost of computer printer paper. Martinvl (talk) 15:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Days of the week

I can't seem to find anything in WP:DATE relating to days of the week. For example, when is it appropriate (if ever) to include the day of the week before the date (e.g. Tuesday 7 February 2012) and when might it be acceptable to abbreviate the day (e.g. Tue). --Jameboy (talk) 23:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

1) When it's relevant (i.e. seldom, but not never), and 2) when space is scarce (e.g. in tables). ― A. di M.​  10:13, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree. Yeah, I struggle to think of a context in which it is relevant, apart from the articles on the days of the week and closely related articles. Tony (talk) 12:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Black Monday (1987) Art LaPella (talk) 23:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There'll probably be a fair few articles about historical events that will only really make sense if you bear the day of the week in mind. During the banking crisis, much use was made of the weekends as breathing room to hammer out rescue deals. Many of the events of the Arab Spring become clearer when you realise the significance of Friday. That sort of thing. Pfainuk talk 18:55, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Pfainuk on that one. Martinvl (talk) 07:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

In articles about elections (usually Tuesday in the U.S. and Thursday in Britain; often Saturday or Sunday in other countries), it's often helpful to readers to anchor the chronology of preceding and succeeding events, and sometimes the dates of press reports, by referring to the day as well as the date. For example a Tuesday election might be affected by something happening late on Friday, over the weekend, or on the day before (Monday). Tuesday election returns reported on a Wednesday might be less complete than those on Thursday or Friday. Saturday and Sunday editions of newspapers often differ from the weekday ones; sometimes smaller and less-read, sometimes much bigger and more widely-read. ¶ I'd think that abbreviating the day would be appropriate (though certainly not compulsory) in about the same circumstances as abbreviating months, when needed to compress table columns or give them a uniform width, and sometimes in footnotes, but very, very rarely in the body prose of an article (unless as part of a direct quotation).—— Shakescene (talk) 09:05, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

All good sensible advice, thankyou. Do you think WP:DATE should be updated with some of this info? --Jameboy (talk) 22:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

“a” as the symbol of the year? How common is that?

In my experience, “y” and “yr” are a lot more common, at least in nuclear physics and cosmology (maybe palaeontology/geology are different?), plus, they are more intuitive IMO. (Also, I think that “Only when SI prefixes are used” should be complemented with “or in tables” or something, as tables such as that in Isotopes of uranium would look weird to me if we used “year” but “Gy”.) ― A. di M.​  15:15, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

"a" is used as an abbreviation for "annum", e.g. "per annum", so you will see it used often. The problem with "y" is that it is also the SI symbol for "yocto" (10-24). However, according to the Wikipedia article for year: There is no universally accepted symbol for the year as a unit of time. The International System of Units does not propose one. A common abbreviation in international use is a (for Latin annus), in English also y or yr.. Most Latin-based languages would use a variant on "annum" instead of "year", so most scientific fields would probably prefer "a". RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:27, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, y and yr are both quite common on Wikipedia, and I think the MOS should acknowledge that. BTW, IMO the yocto- thing isn't much of a problem, because 1) y in that usage always precedes a unit symbol whereas the y for the year would follow any prefix, and 2) yocto- is extremely rare in practice–usually for such small numbers people just use ×10⁻²⁴–whereas year is, like, the third most common noun in English. And FWIW “a” is also the symbol for the are (i.e. square decametre, as in the hectare). ― A. di M.​  16:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The old British Standard on conversion factors (BS 350: Part 1: 1974 amended 1983 and confirmed 1998) listed the symbol 'a' for all years except light ones. - that was "l.y.". Sadly, I don't have the 2004 edition. Perhaps someone else has accesss to it or is inclined the buy it just to help us out - it retails for only £216. NebY (talk) 11:30, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Date format -- "US military usage"?

I read here:

Strong national ties to a topic

Sometimes the customary format differs from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern US military use day before month, in accordance with military usage.

I've read a lot of articles about the history of war, written in various dialects of English, and I've never seen evidence that articles published by American publishers prefer day/month over month/day. One sees day/month sometimes, sure, but that's not evidence that military usage is followed in published texts.

Where is the evidence for this claim? -- if that's the claim being made.

If it can't be provided, this rule should be eliminated.

Samuel Webster (talk) 17:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

The quote from the MoS above isn't a statement about articles about the history of war published by American publishers. It's about Wikipedia articles on the modern US military. You will find these using day-month-year formats; examples include Special Forces (United States Army) and Operation Enduring Freedom. Of course, total consistency has not been imposed so you'll find even articles about NATO operations using m-d-y (Operation Deny Flight) linked with others that use d-m-y (Implementation Force (IFOR)). Articles about American military personnel tend to use m-d-y but you can even find some that use both (Leighton W. Smith, Jr.). NebY (talk) 17:33, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

The MOS is not supposed to be descriptive, it's supposed to be normative. Imagine you found that most WP articles on Shakespeare were written in American English (which wouldn't be surprising, since most Shakespeare scholars are American). Someone then adds a note in the MOS under British English:

"Sometimes the customary spelling differs from the usual national one: for example, articles on Shakespeare use American spelling, in accordance with most usage in Shakespeare scholarship."

That would be bizarre, and totally contrary to the logic of virtually all other Wikipedia style conventions.

Samuel Webster (talk) 03:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Some US military people feel very strongly that international date formats should be used. I usually leave related articles as I find them (well, majority usage if it's mixed ... which it usually isn't). I remember a couple of years ago I gnomed through the US battleships, lots, and found only one or two with md,y format. Tony (talk) 05:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My anecdotal evidence is that the vast majority of such articles are dmy, and I agree that many MILHIST editors prefer it that way. Furthermore, I have received requests to align some such articles to dmy. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:15, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Was the change to the main unit advice for non-science UK articles ever discussed?

I've searched, but failed to find it - so I wondered if anyone still reading here can remember whether a discussion took place to decide on the advice change from this (circa March 2009):

• In general, the primary units are SI (37 kilometres (23 mi)); however, US customary units are the primary units in US-related topics, and it is permissible to have imperial units as primary units in UK-related topics.

To this (circa September 2009):

• With topics strongly associated with places, times or people, put the units most appropriate to them first. In US articles, this will usually be United States customary units; for the UK Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others (see, for example, the Times Online style guide under "Metric").

To this, the current advice:

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit (44 kilogram (97 lb)), but imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts, including:
  • miles for geographical distances, miles per hour for speeds, and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption;
  • feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements;
  • imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk.

-- de Facto (talk). 13:56, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

There was a lot of discussion during this period, though I haven't looked for them. The original advice (stable for years) was that all units in a UK-related article should be from the same system and that we didn't care whether that system was metric or imperial. This was silly, because it meant that we couldn't actually use units that people use: we couldn't put temperature in Celsius unless we put distance in kilometres. If we put distance in miles, temperature had to be measured in Fahrenheit. Never mind that the two have completely different usages and there's no inherent reason why they can be connected.

If you do find those discussions, you will note that most of the users discussing it were the same as in the recent discussion. Pfainuk talk 18:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah. I'd be particularly interested to find the reasoning for the change from the second example above (either system as primary or mixed) to the current position. -- de Facto (talk). 18:33, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Findings (hence action)

After spending a great deal of time researching the changes I discovered the following:-

Up until this edit (when the UK specific advice was removed altogether) of 2009-08-17T17:14:44 by "A. di M." the advice was:

• UK-related topics may have either SI or imperial units as the primary units.

Imperial as an option was restored in this edit of 2009-08-21T11:30:57 by "A. di M." when the advice became:

... and for the UK Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others (see, for example, the Times Online style guide under "Metric").

Then this of 2009-09-08T17:49:39 by "A. di M." edit happened, and it became:

... and for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements, but imperial units for some measurements such as road distances and draught beer (see, for example, Metrication in the United Kingdom and the the Times Online style guide under "Metric").

That last change to being usually metric has persisted, despite no apparent reasoning for it. The accompanying edit summary was a brusque: "clarify", and looking through the discussion page from that era there is nothing I can see on this change, or agreeing to it. For that reason I have restored the content in the current version to reflect, as close as possible without undoing other changes, the state prior to this edit. Such a change certainly needs discussion before being proceeded with. -- de Facto (talk). 20:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry. That change was accepted in 2009, and has stood since then. You can't just revert it now without consensus, and you have seen from the many discussions that you have had that there is no consensus for changing it back now. - David Biddulph (talk) 20:23, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you show where and when it was accepted - I couldn't find it? I think it slipped in under the radar. Without a demonstrated consensus it can't stand. Do you disagree? -- de Facto (talk). 21:47, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The amount of edit activity on this passage proves editors were paying attention to it, as does the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive 123#UK articles: a suggested change in policy to encourage more consistency (which was in April and May of 2009, and seems to have been inconclusive). The fact that the passage was being paid attention to, plus the fact that it has survived more than 2 years, demonstrates consensus even if consensus can't be found in the talk page. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

That it has escaped attention does not imply that the change has achieved consensus, or is therefore justified - it just means that it has escaped attention, and should be dealt with urgently. Without evidence of any consensus the change should be reverted. Discussion about re-appling the change can then commence.

I was amazed to see that clause in the the guidelines, knowing that the UK traditionally uses imperial units, and that there is still strong resistance there to the use of metric units. And now it appears that the change was spirited through, without evidence that imperial had been superseded by metric in common use in the UK. Without that evidence, the guidelines must be changed back to reflect the last known position there. -- de Facto (talk). 22:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on this point that overlaps the time period of the last edit found by DeFacto may be found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive 125#Defining 'internationally accepted units' and getting rid of the phrase 'region-specific'. Due to the length of the discussion, I have not found passages within the discussion that directly explain why the current wording was adopted, but clearly the discussion and the change were contemporaneous. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's the discussion that I read. It tends to support "may have either SI or imperial units as the primary units" (but with no evidence) but certainly doesn't support the change that gave "... and for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements...". And that change, as it represents an assertion of fact and not just a balance of opinion, would require hard reliable evidence to support it too and not merely the opinion (OR) of a few Wikipedia editors. The best we can really say, with the lack of contraditory evidence at the moment, is "UK-related topics should have imperial units as the primary units." -- de Facto (talk). 22:40, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

I interpret "for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements" means that well-written articles that conform to this guideline will usually have metric units as the primary unit, not that most usage of English in the UK will use metric units. The situations are not comparable for many reasons, including that conversions are provided in Wikipedia but not in much other usage, Wikipedia is not a tabloid, Wikipedia is not casual spoken conversation, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. UK usage could vary widely depending on the type of usage that is examined, and much usage, such as casual conversation, is not accessible to language scholars. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

That's a different discussion though. Currently we don't have any evidence that the last change had any backing, let alone evidence to support it. Have you found any yet? -- de Facto (talk). 23:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The fact that the passage was discussed and the current version has been around for over 2 years is sufficient evidence of backing. Every publication is entitled to make its own style rules, including Wikipedia. We usually use metric units followed by an SI conversion in non-scientific UK-related articles because we said so. No evidence is required, just backing, because it is a matter for our collective discretion. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:29, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

The decision to change the advice from allowing either system equally in UK articles to insisting on usually using metric units was not discussed, as far I we know - or have you found that discussion now? -- de Facto (talk). 23:39, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Would DeFacto please check the link that he gave for the Times on-line style guide. The link that he gave appears to be incorrect. Martinvl (talk) 06:15, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the links I gave are perfectly correct - exactly as per the Wiki diffs that I quoted. Here are the same quotes unrendered:

• 2009-08-21T11:30:57: " ... and for the UK [[Imperial units]] for some topics and metric units for others (see, for example, [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/specials/style_guide/article986731.ece the ''Times Online'' style guide] under "Metric")."
• 2009-09-08T17:49:39:"... and for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements, but [[imperial units]] for some measurements such as road distances and draught beer (see, for example, [[Metrication in the United Kingdom]] and the [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/specials/style_guide/article986731.ece the ''Times Online'' style guide] under "Metric")."

-- de Facto (talk). 16:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Looks like the reference has gone behind the paywall then, which is annoying. The guide is available through the wayback machine here. Pfainuk talk 16:34, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Would it be kosher wrt copyright law to link to the Wayback Machine copy on WP:MOSNUM? I'd be tempted to say that if they didn't want people from the future to read that page they should have used robots.txt, but IANAL, and I fear that that would be like if I accidentally left my car open with the keys inside, somebody stole it, and the police told me that if I didn't want that to happen I should have taken the keys out and locked the doors. ― A. di M.​  22:40, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Better not. The Times / News International own the copyright on it and almost certainly haven't given the Wayback Machine the right to reproduce it. Wikipedia does seek to respect copyright holders' rights, as for example in eliminating links to the lyrics of Beatles songs. NebY (talk) 22:58, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to undo an apparently un-discussed and un-agreed change to the guidelines regarding non-scientific UK articles

In the absence then of any rational defence of the current wording, we need to agree what to replace it with. I propose this as being as close as possible to the form of wording most recently agreed upon:

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit will be Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others.

It also reflects the reality and character of the situation in the UK. -- de Facto (talk). 07:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Is your proposal intended to replace this:

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit is generally a metric unit (44 kilogram (97 lb)), but imperial units are still used as the main units in some contexts, including:
  • miles for geographical distances, miles per hour for speeds, and miles per imperial gallon for fuel consumption;
  • feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements;
  • imperial pints for draught beer/cider and bottled milk.

with this?

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit will be Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others.

Michael Glass (talk) 09:22, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Michael, effectively, yes - as there was no apparent discussion, or consensus reached, before that complete re-write of the clause was performed, and saved under the misleading edit summary of "clarify". Read my comments above, and follow the diffs to see what I mean. My proposal is, as far as I can tell, and given that the Times style guide is now inaccessible, as close as now possible the last fully agreed version of that clause. -- de Facto (talk). 09:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto, first of all I would like to thank you for clarifying the scope of your intended wording. Do you think that it could be more concisely expressed like this?

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit may be Imperial units, metric units or a mixture of units.

Michael Glass (talk) 11:11, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

I was using, as close as possible, the last agreed wording. The wording prior to the, apparently un-discussed and un-agreed (no-one has as yet been able to show where it was discussed or agreed), change made in this edit of 2009-09-08T17:49:39, as discussed above. But as your wordng effectively says the same thing, and more concisely, I'd be happy with that. -- de Facto (talk). 11:25, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose. Repeated discussions here and elsewhere have shown clear consensus for keeping the existing wording. As Jc3s5h has pointed out it is entirely up to Wikipedia what style we choose to use for units in British related articles regardless of unsourced speculation as to what current usage may or may not be.--Charles (talk) 09:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Charles, can you direct us to some of that "discussion", particulary that where the change was agreed. I've been searching for it, and have been unable to find it. Presumably it included evidence that imperial use has been superseded by metric use in the UK on the scale required to justify the drastic change in emphasis, from imperial use to metric use, given to the advice by the change. Without evidence of that discussion, we cannot, of course, assume anything other than the change was not discussed or agreed? -- de Facto (talk). 10:04, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Oppose: DeFacto's proposal is made on a false premise that Imperial units "reflect the reality and character of the situation in the UK". If this is DeFacto's own experience, he has obviously:

• Never seen building plans (as opposed to estate agent's plans) (100% metric)
• Never paid any attention when he has gone into a grocery shop (everything is in metric units although many have imeprial as supplementary units).
• Never been into a haberdashery (cloth and cotton are sold by the metre and wool in 100 gram balls). *Never taken notice of motor car specifications (width, length, height, bolt thread sizes are metric, even though speedos are dual unit and tyre specifications are part-imperial).
• Never looked at local authority planning documents.
• Never looked at niche magazines on topics such as archeology, bird watching, numismatics and philately.
• Never looked at his own medical notes.
• Never done compound unit arithmetic at school (ie manipulaiton of lbs/oz, ft/in etc).
• Never checked a water bill (water is sold by the cubic metre).
• Never looked at an ordnance suvey maps (contours at 10 m intervals plus a metre-based grid system.
• Never looked at farming magazines (metric apart from the occasional use of acres for farm avertisements).

He is also blind to the numerous errors that occur in newspapers due to journalists incorrectly converting units for the "benefit" of their readers. Martinvl (talk) 13:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Martinvl, thanks for your comments, but they have absolutely no relevance at all to this discussion. The proposal being discussed is one to simply reverse the changes made to the guidance in this edit; on the basis that they were apparently never discussed prior to the change, and that they were apparently never agreed either. If you can point us to the discussion over them please do. Otherwise will you please reconsider your verdict based, not on what you would like the guidance to ultimately say, but on whether the current proposal is a fair summary of the guidance before the apparently un-discussed and un-agreed changes took place. Once we have re-established the agreed and consensus-based starting point, we can then discuss any subsequent changes or alterations to that sound foundation. Presumably you do not want us to believe that you are happy for un-discussed changes to be sneaked in to the guidelines, and be allowed to remain there in perpetuity even if they are rumbled? -- de Facto (talk). 13:28, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oppose : DeFacto's description is not correctly representing the situation. It is obvious that many people interested in the subject (including some of the strong opponents of the 'primarily metric' view) were well aware of the wording of that section of the page. The discussion leading up to the change in September 2009 is archived here, and it is obvious that many eyes were on the subject at the time, and they were well able to object to the September wording if they had chosen to do so; to describe the change as "sneaked in" is not supportable. It was looked at again in November 2009 when there was further fine tuning to the wording, and in March 2010, so it is not reasonable to suggest that the change made in September 2009 was "sneaked in" and that nobody has noticed it subsequently until DeFacto came along now to point it out to us. There has never been unanimity in this discussion, and I doubt whether there ever will be, but that was the wording which best represented the consensus at the time, and that is why the wording has remained broadly unchanged for the past two and a half years. - David Biddulph (talk) 14:57, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

David, as far as we can see, the edit that I am proposing be undone (as far as is possible after such a delay) was not discussed in that September discussion (that's the discussion I checked through previously, and discus aove) or agreed upon prior to it being performed - so it got in under the radar. That some of its wording may have been discussed in the meantime - perhaps on the mistaken assumption that it was a bona fide and agreed addition - does no legitimise it. That it has survived for so long unchallenged does not mean that that edit must now be treated as if it were correctly accepted. Would you be similarly blasé about such an event if the result was guidance that did not meet with your approval? -- de Facto (talk). 17:16, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

My personal preferences don't come into it, but regardless of what my preferences might be in any hypothetical case I would regard something which has been in place (as this has) for two and a half years as the status quo. You keep saying that the September 2009 change was not discussed, but the editor concerned did suggest it in the talk page before introducing the change to the MoS, and I still fail to believe that all the editors who were watching this part of the MoS so closely might have blinked at the same time and allowed it to slip by "under the radar" as you put it. We'll wait to see how much support there is for your RfC for a change now. - David Biddulph (talk) 19:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

David, it certainly isn't my RfC; it is entirely Jc3s5h's RfC, and based on a misrepresentation of my concerns and my proposal to rectify the situation. -- de Facto (talk). 19:33, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Considering the amount of discussion this went through in 2009, even though we can't find a specific endorsement of the current wording in the 2009 discussion, I believe this proposal should be in the form of a Request for Comment rather than just rehashing it among the group that has been discussing it recently to the point of driving others away from the discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:30, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

If, between us all, we can't find discussion over such a fundamental change, we can surely only assume that it wasn't discussed - especially given the accompanying curt edit summary. Do you think that it's too much to expect contributors here to therefore accept that the correct (and honourable) course of action is to undo that edit? If there is good evidence to support it as a valid change, then a quick "show of hands" would quickly have it reinstated anyway. -- de Facto (talk). 17:35, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The current language, posted with the edit summary, "clarify", is a clarification of the previous text. I think we can assume it was not challenged because it was see as a valuable clarification of the intent of that guidance not a substantive change. To return to the ambiguous and practically useless previous version only makes sense if we can benefit from eliminating meaningful guidance for UK units. Jojalozzo 19:49, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

There is no way that edit could be described as a "clarification" - it was a complete change of emphasis and effective meaning from:

...for the UK Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others...

To:

...and for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements, but imperial units for some measurements such as road distances and draught beer...

Are you opposing my proposal that such a wide-ranging and controversial change should not be accepted without discussion or approval or are you opposing the guideline content that would necessarily result if this un-discussed and un-agreed change was allowed to stand? -- de Facto (talk). 20:08, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to avoid any preference for metric vs. customary units in UK

Should the proposal by DeFacto below, to avoid expressing any preference for the system of units to list first in non-scientific UK-related articles, be adopted? The "Manual of Style/Dates and numbers" currently indicates metric units are generally the main unit (that is, listed first, followed by a conversion if appropriate). Jc3s5h (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

DeFacto's proposal, duplicated here due to DeFacto's heading rearrangement:

In the absence then of any rational defence of the current wording, we need to agree what to replace it with. I propose this as being as close as possible to the form of wording most recently agreed upon:

• In non-science UK-related articles: the main unit will be Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others.

It also reflects the reality and character of the situation in the UK.

-- de Facto (talk). 07:26, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

End Defacto's proposal.

• Comment That is a misrepresentation of the proposal I am making, and why has it been inserted here, above my actual proposal? -- de Facto (talk). 19:11, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Note I've now moved it to after the original discussion content. -- de Facto (talk). 20:17, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose [repeat of what I posted below while headers were being shuffled] - The current language, posted with the edit summary, "clarify", is a clarification of the previous text. I think we can assume it was not challenged because it was see as a valuable clarification of the intent of that guidance not a substantive change. To return to the ambiguous and practically useless previous version only makes sense if we can benefit from eliminating meaningful guidance for UK units. Jojalozzo 19:52, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:TIMEZONE

WP:TIMEZONE seems fairly clear, but its brevity and lack of examples have me questioning whether I have understood it correctly. If I am right, in this article section, 20:45 CEST should be changed to 20:45 UTC+2, because we want the raw UTC offset rather than the name of the timezone or daylight saving. Is that correct? --Jameboy (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

oh, also the MOS doesn't specify whether we should write UTC+2 or UTC+02:00 --Jameboy (talk) 22:36, 16 February 2012 (UTC)