Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Unofficial anagram of the Manual of Style

Metric units for List of heat waves

WP:METRIC doesn't quite address pages that are geographically diverse: I see wiggle room in the sentence "In non-scientific articles relating to the United States, the primary units are US customary". I posted on Talk:List of heat waves#Celsius first? soliciting comment, but I'd like to clarify the MOS guidance for other articles too. The MOS should emphasize consistency, as a list of heat waves from India to Boston to Tokyo shouldn't flip-flop based on the unit of measurement used where the temperature was recorded. I'd like to clarify "relating to the United States" to mean "U.S.-centric" articles". Any objections or things I didn't think of?-Ich (talk) 12:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

The flip-flopping in that article between F and C is quite silly. Consistency trumps other rules. I see no reason not to use deg C as the primary unit throughout, but consistently deg F would be better than the present schizophrenia. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Please stop dragging Trump into everything. EEng 00:16, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is about as stupid as it gets; give all temperatures as XX °C (YY °F) and be done with it. While we're here: writing such as "the mercury peaking at" and "claimed the lives" and "the heatwave blew transformers and the power grid was overloaded" have no place in articles; write "temperatures reached" and "killed" and "power systems failed". (Very few people know what "the grid" actually is, or what it means for a transformer to "blow", which rarely happens in these circumstances.) EEng 21:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed that consistency intra-article is king. This is already said at the main MOS page: Style and formatting should be consistent within an article. --Izno (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Absolutely. There izno reason to switch back and forth. EEng 21:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

• The quote for "articles relating to the United States" means that the article is primarily concerned about the US. If the US is just one country among others then it is not primarily a US article and therefore metric is king. Of course, there is no prohibition from using {{cvt|45|C|F}} → 45 °C (113 °F) or {{cvt|115|F|C|order=flip}} → 46 °C (115 °F) - with metric first of course.  Stepho  talk  22:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks - I'll add the word "primarily" to the MOS if nobody objects.-Ich (talk) 08:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  No doubt someone will, but go ahead. EEng 11:54, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  @EEng: You weren't kidding. I appreciate your sense of humor! I like the wp:ties formulation better too.-Ich (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

  Du bist welcome. EEng 06:32, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Make Wikipedia consistently metric

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.

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Since this is an international encyclopedia, I propose as a rule that only metric units should be used. There should be no mention of imperial units, unless the article is relating to the U.S. and U.K. I also propose for articles relating to the U.S. and U.K., that metric units always be used first, with imperial units in parenthesis. The madness has to stop. Sauer202 (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• Proposal: In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States or the United Kingdom, the primary units chosen will be SI units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sauer202 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for same reason we don't force dates nor spelling due to region. If there's a choice (in that RSes covering the topic consistently use either SI or not) then we should prefer metric, but to force this is brewing for trouble. --Masem (t) 16:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Comment The "Proposal" isn't very well or clearly worded, & doesn't seem to say what the initial spiel does: "a rule that only metric units should be used". A rule saying that metric units should always be given, even if imperial ones also are, might have a better chance of success. Note that some other (rather small) countries continue to use the mile for example. Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2019 (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.

• rule saying that metric units should always be given, even if imperial ones also are – we already have such a rule, more or less: MOS:CONVERSIONS. EEng 17:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

And the other way too - who knew? Thanks. Johnbod (talk) 17:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

ERA style solutions

Since there are still problems with era style I have been brainstorming potential fixes.

Many people find the use of BCE/CE to be offensive, or difficult to understand. However there are some people that insist don't like to use other era styles.

• The fix could be this (I'm sorry if I get some of the technical terms wrong);
• Add formatting to the edit toolbar that will allow editors to type the year. The formatting will be coding that can display any format depending on preference.
• Users on the site will select the era style that they prefer when they login.
• The coding will automatically display all dates in their selected format.

Something like this would be better for all users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickgold81 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Bots could err, for example miss the other meanings of CE or change the era when it's inside block quotes. I think it might be slightly more feasible if an editor manually and deliberately uses code that signals that there is a changeable era (ideas from Help:Convert might be a starting point). But I think it might be even more feasible to do nothing, unless the "problem" of the current current WP:ERA compromise is big. I don't know that it is. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:13, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Nonstarter. We originally had auto formatting of MDY vs DMY dates based on user preference but that was abandoned 10+ years ago. People just gotta learn to accept things. EEng 14:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

  To be fair, the DMY/MDY debacle was mostly due to the formatting issue of how to handle MDY's comma - which was highly context sensitive. Selecting BC/BCE or AD/CE/blank doesn't have that problem.  Stepho  talk  20:59, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

  Whatever the story details, there is more chance of Jupiter leaving its orbit than there is of date autoformatting of any kind being reinstated. One thing people need to remember is that 98% [note: pretty much made-up number] of people reading articles aren't logged in. We big-time editors forget that. So all this talk of "readers" customizing what they see is almost completely incestuous. EEng 21:42, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• It is good for people to see that there is a world beyond the boundaries of the Shire that has many different perspectives. If we start bowdlerising, where does it end? For people whose eyeballs melt at the sight of a CE, then there is the isolation ward called Conservapedia. Oppose. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Accirding to our article, Conservapedia's founder thinks WP has a "substantial anti-intellectual element. EEng 15:30, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Reading material: User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. This material doesn't get into era; it's largely about 2019-07-04 vs. 4 July 2019 vs. July 4, 2019. But the problems of reformatting dates depending on user preference is the same. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• With the improvement in technology over the years it's likely more feasible now to add formatting to allow for era preferences. Recommendation: find an editor that is knowledgeable about writing code about adding this feature. To me it seems like it's possible. On a side note similar formatting could also be used for imperial or metric measurements. Let's kill 2 birds with one stone.
• The bot solution also seems like a good option.
• For the readers that don't login there could be a preference menu added as a header to each page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickgold81 (talk • contribs) 06:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Or "nonstarter", as EEng cogently explains. FWIW, personally the "CE/BCE" thing annoys me, because it is so utterly stupid. If a secular society requires all traces of religious history to be expunged (a nasty, dangerous concept in iteself), we can call Wednesday "midweek", and Tuesday "washday", but what on earth do we do with Thursday? But we live in a stupid world, so it's important that WP conveys that. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:03, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Traditionally:

Monday - washing day,

Tuesday - ironing day,

Wednesday - mending day,

Thursday - cleaning day,

Friday - shopping day,

Saturday - cooking day,

Sunday - rest day.

Thursday and Friday are swapped in some sources, presumably it depends upon when the local market day was. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:53, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

This article should not fork wp:ERA

The section on Days and Months, Era style, should not fork WP:ERA by asserting a preference for one religious notation. There is a revert war going on which needs to be discussed here. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Why did you restore "citation needed" diff? The text is trying to say that a date like 1 April 2019 does not need an era specification—by default, none of the interesting alternatives at calendar era apply. What is the problem, and why should cn be used in a guideline? Johnuniq (talk) 09:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

John Maynard Friedman, could you be more specific? I followed WP:ERA and it took me to this very article's section on Days and Months, Era style. So how can they differ? Also, when I read it, I saw credence being given to both BC/AD and BCE/CE with no preference. So I don't see the preference for one religious notation unless you are talking about the preference of the Western style over other styles such as Middle Eastern, Japanese, Chinese dates.  Stepho  talk  09:53, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a guideline, not an article. The title of this section, "This article should not fork wp:ERA" as of 09:53, 13 July 2019‎ UT, significantly errs by calling the work in question an article when it is actually a guideline, because WP:V applies to articles but not to guidelines.

The term "fork", in computing projects of all sort, tends to refer to one project dividing into two (or more) due to disagreements among the developers. In the English Wikipedia, it tends to refer to a situation where no agreement can be reached about what should be said on a page, so two pages are created, where the different viewpoints can exist in isolation. This has happened with Anno Domini and Common Era. Contradictions within a single page are not normally called "forks", they are usually called "contradictions".

The contentious {{Citation needed}} template was added 04:12, 11 June 2019 UT by Shenme. The gist of the edit summaries seems to indicate a dispute not over the operational advice given, but with the term "Western Dionysian era system", which (perhaps ironically) is wikilinked to "Anno Domini". The objection by some seems to be this phrase is invented by a few Wikipedians and nobody else uses it. The accusation seems to be that Wikipedians are so anti-Christian that they refuse to call a concept by the name everybody else uses, "Anno Domini". Jc3s5h (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• Eh. I took a shot at fixing it. Just say the default is both. The years pop out the same, according to Common Era. --Izno (talk) 13:32, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
• This tern "Western Dionysian" sounds impressively scholarly but I can't find it anywhere; it appears to be just made up and there Izno reason to use it that I can see. The key changes (all in May 2009) were: [1] and [2] and [3] and those diffs may be handy in making further adjustments to the guideline. EEng 13:45, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• First, a credible citation request was reverted without reasonable explanation. Others reinstated and it was again reverted without reasonable explanation That is why I repeated the reinstatement. Procedural. Second, and to my mind more important, is the attempt to imply that the AD notation has primacy. Per wp:era, it does not. I have no intention of reprising the debate that led to wp:era being established. The fact remains that it is policy and the MOS should not be used to weasel-word around it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:18, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  First, stop referring to this guideline as an article; it's not an article. Second, what did you mean by "this article" forking WP:ERA? This is the talk page for MOSNUM, and ERA is part of MOSNUM. EEng 16:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  On re-reading, I see that I mis-construed WP:ERA as a policy, when it just redirects to MOS:ERA. I have stricken my comment above and withdraw. My apologies to anyone whose time I wasted. --19:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  Whoever came up with the idea of having MOS: and WP: as parallel namespaces is burning in hell even as we speak. EEng 19:30, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• The 'term' "Western Dionysian era" stood out like a sore thumb. As did EEng, I looked to see what the hey this meant. It has little or no status here at WP, inasmuch as the only explications are as by-blow in the article on the person and in Anno Domini. It fails as description. It might as well be "Iatrogenic idiopathic conjugate", which would describe this 'term' well. That is what caught my eye, not WP:V but rather the WP:BS aspect (ah, artfully redirected to something insipid). And that is what forced a "why would someone do this?" comment. It really did appear to be used solely to submerge the linked term. I thought the comment made that clear enough.

My irritation re: BC/BCE is entirely congruous with my irritation at all the shallow editing here at WP, both the judgementless and judgemental varieties. MOS:VAR utterly fails when brains are not engaged, and also when inspired editors must deposit their vowel movements / movement vowels. Scan any page of RecentChanges not dominated by bots - you will see at least one instance of someone translating WP to Simple English / Golden Shower. Shenme (talk) 19:40, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, well, um ... shall we move on to other business? EEng 19:54, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Fractions in chess articles

@Quale: Greetings! For your benefit and any other editors who are interested, let me explain what happened...

I've been changing ½ to {{frac|1|2}} (1⁄2) in general articles, following MOS:FRAC. Quale reverted these changes on Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Tilburg chess tournament, FIDE Grand Prix 2008–10, Russian Chess Championship, and Tal Memorial, saying they were too visually clunky for chess scores, or out of proportion. The MOS guideline says to never use ½; {{frac}} is not used for math articles; by my reading that's what is supposed to be used in general articles. It would be nice to come to some consensus about how chess articles should be handled - should they follow the existing rule, or should the rule be changed so they would use ½ or {{sfrac}} (1/2) or something else? -- Beland (talk) 16:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I should mention, there are lots of other articles that have ½ in tables, so if we're making a new rule, we might want to make one that applies to tables in general, if it's a typographic size concern. -- Beland (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

As I understand it, the objection to ½ is the fact that Unicode does not provide similar representations of other fractions. If you're dealing with halves and twelfths (for example), it looks odd to mix ½ and 1⁄12 (or in fact any other means of representing "one twelfth" in Unicode). When this is the reason to avoid it, allowing the ½ in tables doesn't make a lot of sense in the general case.

OTOH, in chess, the only fraction you're ever likely to use is "½", a symbol with a specific meaning in that context (match drawn).

Per the banner at the top of the page, MOSNUM is "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". If in the specific context of chess there is good reason to make an exception to this rule (because it's standard notation and the reasons not to use it do not apply), then it seems to me that that falls within the bounds of "occasional exceptions may apply". Kahastok talk 17:34, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, given that rationale, for the existing line:

• Do not use special characters such as ½ (deprecated markup: ½ or ½).

does it make sense to add something like:

• Unicode does not have special characters to represent most fractions, and it is better to be consistent than have a mixture like ½ and 5⁄8 in the same article, since those are often rendered in different sizes.
  • For the purpose of keeping row height consistent, it is OK acceptable to use ½ in tables if that is the only fraction that would be expected to appear in the article (for example, in summarizing chess matches)

? -- Beland (talk) 20:31, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

"OK" is not formal English. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Project pages aren't formal. But this if that is the only fraction that would be expected stuff is too fussy. I think it's OK for the precomposed fraction to be used in this special chess case, but I don't think we need a MOS section for it. AFAICS this hasn't been a problem before. EEng 22:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

For myself, I always prefer what is easier to read in the wiki text. an isolated ½ is a lot easier to read than {{frac|1|2}} or {{sfrac|1|2}}. However, if I was making a table with lots of weird fractions (eg 13/17) than I would make all of the TABLE use frac or sfrac for consistency (it's hard to read something that changes format every second line).

But I remember that previous discussions on this said that software that reads screens out to people with impaired vision had trouble with ½ and friends. Or possibly it was that they had trouble with whatever tortured HTML/CSS construct was emitted from the frac and sfrac templates. We should ask for the opinion of some vision impaired people.  Stepho  talk  22:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Compare the current Tata Steel Chess Tournament#Event crosstables (using ½) with the frac version (which has an extra 66,206 bytes of wikitext!). The version using ½ is much clearer. See "The character "½" is one of the few fraction characters that consistently works well with screen readers (the others are "¼" and "¾")" by Graham87 from August 2014. Johnuniq (talk) 23:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

A web page from 2014 lists the following as the only safe characters for the major screen readers: @ & / © ® ™ • $ € £ ¥ % ½ ¼ ¾ °. So ½ ¼ ¾ should be okay. But I still hold to not mixing those characters and frac or sfrac within a single table.

John, I'm not which I prefer of those 2 tables. One has tiny little characters that I have to squint a little to read. The other has clearly readable characters for my ageing eyes (my prescription is changing slowly every year) but no white space and they run into each and seem crowded. The point is taken for the extra disk space taken but I don't believe we should compromise the reader's experience. As a professional programmer, I am paid to make the end user's experience better, not my own.  Stepho  talk  00:59, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I have to say that I think the table using {{frac}} is much more readable; I don't think we should be using the single character here. Another good option is using an inline 1/2, especially if it's not part of a mixed number so there's no risk of misreading. Even 0.5 could be used. But we really should be going for readability as the main factor here. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not a beauty competition—the aim is to convey chess scores in a concise and clear manner, on the assumption that the reader knows a little about chess. Using the character ½ means all the cells have a uniform and concise appearance, and the ½ is in proper proportion to its importance. Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Except using the precomposed character isn't clear, and it's only a few pixels more concise. And I don't even understand the "proper proportion to its importance" bit. Are you saying by making the text more readable, we're somehow subtly exaggerating its importance? What? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 04:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Part of what I've been trying to do is make wikitext easier to use for editors (who are almost entirely unpaid volunteers) who don't know HTML or much about template syntax, in which case the single character is probably nicer. Though there's something to be said for having only one way of doing something, so everyone just learns that once, and we need templates for some fractions. Part of me wonders if readers who are having trouble reading small print shouldn't just increase the zoom level in their web browsers. That's what I do; everyone's screen size and resolution is different. (Though I'm also sympathetic to the idea that having text be consistently the same size would be helpful.) -- Beland (talk) 01:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Then also on a side note, having all these tables hard-coded is pretty ludicrous. There really should be templates (possibly driven by a module) for these. This would probably even make entering new data or modifying existing data to be easier than trying to mess with table syntax. It would also give a consistent style to these tables across all articles that use them. Then a decision to change from one style of 1/2 to another could be handled in one single location, rather than having to modify every single table. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:58, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

• I understand why editors sometimes want to replace ½ with 1⁄2 in chess articles to better comply with the dictates of MOS, but I don't think it's a good idea and I don't think it improves the articles or the encyclopedia. I also don't understand the claim that 1⁄2 is easier to read than ½ in these articles, since there's nothing to read. In a chess score ½ is an atom, an indivisible particle. This is a chess score, not a math equation, and the value will never be 1⁄3 or 3⁄4 – there's absolutely nothing to read or parse out of that symbol. (When reporting individual game scores in a crosstable sometimes = can be used instead of ½, but this doesn't work with tournament or match total scores since = has a different meaning there.) Basically the reason that 1⁄2 is unfortunate in chess scores is that in the continuum of the scores 1, 1⁄2, and 0, the highest score is 1 and the lowest score is 0, but 1⁄2 is wide and tall (obtruding above the line height and below the baseline) making it visually a couple times bulkier than 1. It's a bad idea to make a smaller score so much taller and wider than the higher score because this makes chess scores harder to read, not easier. The fact that ½ is visually small is ideal in this context, since 3, 2½, 2, 1½, 1, ½, 0 reads naturally and the visual impact of the scores is in line with their value. We naturally see that 2½ is a little larger than 2, not more than two times larger (21⁄2), and ½ is a little smaller than 1, not two times bigger (1⁄2). Compare 3, 21⁄2, 2, 11⁄2, 1, 1⁄2, 0. Frankly, that's awful, and if anyone thinks that's a better visual representation of the value of the scores then I will simply have to disagree. Quale (talk) 06:18, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

  I'm somewhat more than ½ convinced that in a chess context ½ is, as Quale says, a "particle" akin to, say, ♣ in contract bridge. EEng 06:44, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I think the previous poster meant "harder to read" in the sense of "the 1 and the 2 are so small I have to squint or get closer to the screen to see what they even are", not in terms of an overall harmonious aestheic where the tops and bottoms of all the characters in a line align nicely. -- Beland (talk) 18:57, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It seems clear that chess articles should be an exception as the ½ is the only fraction which will occur in articles and is a character which screen readers can handle, and the articles and their tables look better when this character is used. To avoid future confusion it would be useful to state this explicitly in the paragraph of MOSNUM on fractions. PamD 06:54, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree on the last point. There is no way that MOSNUM can sustainably include every topic-specific exception to every rule - and if we tried, we'd end up with a guideline that would be far too long and far too complicated and we'd miss out too much. This is precisely why we have a banner at the top, that says:

“ This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

”

OTOH, it may not be a bad idea for WP:CHESS to add something to their conventions section preferring this notation. Kahastok talk 08:11, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that might work - something which acknowledges the existence of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Fractions_and_ratios, draws attention to the hatnote quoted above, and states that chess articles are considered to be an exception within the scope of that hatnote as regards the use of ½. Then there's something explicit to point to next time the question comes up. PamD 08:35, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Suggested addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess#Conventions

Use of ½

The ½ character is used to represent drawn matches. Although MOS:FRAC deprecates its use and requires {{frac|1|2}} (1⁄2), the hatnote to WP:MOSNUM states that "Occasional exceptions may occur" and this is such an exception.

I'm not a chess project member, just a passing wikignome, so the wording probably needs tweaking, but something like this might help. Could optionally include another sentence to explain the thinking, something like:

It is recognised that ½ will be the only fraction occurring in chess articles, so that considerations of consistency, and of problems caused for screen-readers by other fraction characters, do not apply here.

PamD 08:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I thought this had been discussed some years ago at WT:CHESS, but my brief search didn't find a substantive discussion. I still think it was tossed around once or twice, but I might have to look harder. I did see that the issue was discussed here in August 2014: WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 148#Use of frac template. Quale (talk) 04:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Kilogram vs. kilogramme

WP:ENGVAR allows variations in spelling. {{convert}} works with units like kg, for example:

• {{convert|12.3|kg}} → 12.3 kilograms (27 lb)

A request at convert's talk would like an option to instead display kilogramme, perhaps something like this simulated example:

• {{convert|12.3|kgramme}} → 12.3 kilogrammes (27 lb)

Any thoughts on whether that variation should be supported by convert? Johnuniq (talk) 10:57, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Based on Ngram data, kilogramme is (increasingly) archaic in British English since 1913. It seems that there would be little, if any, legitimate reason to use the -mme spelling in modern English. Doremo (talk) 11:11, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• "Kilogram" is the accepted international spelling, recognised (to the best of my knowledge) in all variants of English. Any departures from that spelling cause unnecessary (and easily avoidable) confusion. They should be avoided for that reason. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• The OED gives only one citation for kilogramme after 1856, and that's 1892. So apparently it went out not just with Victoria, but pretty much with Albert. EEng 13:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• Wikipedia should follow what happens in the real world and not try to not suppress it, or try to preempt or set the trend. The use of "kilogramme" may be declining, but it is still in common usage, and the norm in many publications.

• Examples from news in the past year include: from Reuters UK - [4], [5], [6] and [7]; from the Daily Telegraph - [8], [9], [10] and [11]; from the Belfast Telegraph - [12].
• The UK government website uses it: [13] (both spellings on the same page!), [14], [15] and [16].

I think we should let the consensus amongst specific article writers decide what spelling they use (per MOS:RETAIN and WP:ENGVAR) and not use our templates to enforce one POV or the dogma of any third-party organisation. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:04, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

There are also plenty of examples of thermometre and diametre in recent sources. That doesn't make these (or kilogramme) acceptable style based on specific article writers' preferences. Wkipedia follows (does not "set") the trend by using kilogram. Doremo (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

If you could show that those spellings were in common usage in reliable sources, as with "kilogramme", then you might have a good point. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:02, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

It's one thing to say we embrace all national varieties of English. It's another thing to squander our precious technical resources on indulging an odd preference a few editors might have within a major variety of English. EEng 18:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@EEng: do you favour suppressing this current spelling variant then? -- DeFacto (talk). 18:59, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I have no desire to suppress it, but nor do I think that scarce resources should be invested, and the gigantic mass of convert code further burdened, to create code supporting this boutique use case. EEng 20:44, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

While I tend to agree that gramme is a borderline affectation by now, I still challenge the "resources" argument. We're not a for-profit company or even an organized band of volunteers. We're volunteers acting on our own, and our resources are allocated as seems well to each of us individually. If one of us wants to spend his/her time coding up something like this, it cannot be assumed that he/she would otherwise spend the time doing something more valuable.

The point about the complexity of the code base is nevertheless valid, and you might also have added the (small but nonzero) burden on the template users involved in making them read another line of documentation. --Trovatore (talk) 16:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DeFacto: The proper way to phrase this question is whether we favor using the spelling that is used by the overwhelming majority of BrE and AmE sources. "Suppression" of an odd (and increasingly archaic) preference is not an issue. Doremo (talk) 19:05, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Doremo: I'm not suggesting that we replace the more common spelling with it, I'm asking if the less common, but equally current, spelling should be suppressed and totally supplanted by the more common spelling. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Adding the kilogramme option would be pointless because any editor would be fully justified in changing it to kilogram (see MOS:COMMONALITY: "When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred."). Kilogram is the most commonly used current variant. Doremo (talk) 08:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

  Precisely. The only exception I can think of would be a direct quote. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

@Doremo: no, such a change could be (and should be) reverted if consensus was against it. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

There are exceptions to every rule. If a local consensus arises for such an exception so be it, but the purpose of mosnum is to list the rules, not the exceptions. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:28, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

This isn't an exception though, as far as I know Wikipedia allows commonly used spelling variants. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:48, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

In fact, MOS:SPELL#Preferred variants explicitly condones its use: gramme vs gram: gram is the more common spelling; gramme is also possible in British usage. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

re "if consensus was against it": right, so that is the topic of this thread: create consusnsus into MOS. IOW, if this thread concldes 'no need', that's consensus too and the revert would be incorrect. -DePiep (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: no, this is a MOS discussion, I'm talking about consensus at the article. Editors of any article may decide to use the "kilogramme" spelling, as it is a commonly used, and a perfectly valid variant. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:45, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Once this MOStalk-thread concludes: "'-gramme' is irrelevant", that's a MOS rule. After that there cannot be an article-wide exception, -DePiep (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: that is incorrect, local consensus can, and often does, decide to deviate from MOS recommendations (i.e. they are not policies). -- DeFacto (talk). 18:54, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Whatever. If you look for MOS-exceptions, go ahead. I myself prefer MOS-guidance. -DePiep (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: I'm not looking for an exception, I'm pointing out that as it is currently a perfectly valid spelling (see MOS:SPELL), then the template would ideally allow for it. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:03, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

"ideally" — yes. {{Convert}} is practical. -DePiep (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

It's 2019. "Kilogramme" is a dead spelling directly conflicting with the internationally accepted spelling standard used by the SI organization themselves. Not only should it not be added to the concert template, it should be removed from everywhere on Wikipedia (except direct quotes) because we wrote in 21st century English, not 19th century English! oknazevad (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: the "kilogramme" spelling is alive and well - not only in the UK, but in other countries too. The English language isn't regulated, as we know, and no international, or any other organisation, can dictate how English words must be spelt. Currently MOS accommodates regional variants, including "gramme" and "gram", so why not back that up with the convert template? Where do you stand on the identical "metre"/"meter" spelling choice? -- DeFacto (talk). 20:30, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

re the identical "metre"/"meter" spelling choice? – not "identical" at all. More like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. -DePiep (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: why, in your opinion, is this not an identical comparison with that? -- DeFacto (talk). 21:01, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Because: 1. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. 2. metre/meter is between variants, kilogram/gramme is within a variant. -DePiep (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: whether other stuff exists, or not, your logic is flawed - "kilogramme" is one variant and "kilogram" is another - exactly comparible to "meter" and "meter". A MOS:COMMONALITY recommendation acknowledges that variants do exist within a single national variety when it states: When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred, except where the less common spelling has a specific usage in a specialized context e.g. connexion in Methodist connexionalism. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:28, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

re "kilogramme" is one variant and "kilogram" is another: I meant to say: meter/metre are from different variants of English spelling (namely: en-GB and en-US), for example as distinguished in MOS:ENGVAR. OTOH, "kilogram/gramme" are within the same English variant (i.e., en-GB). Because of this, you arguiment "similar situation" is not strong enough. -DePiep (talk) 08:16, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

What DePiep said. It's not identical, and yes it is exceedingly vanishingly rare. Because this isn't a matter of the English language being unregulated, this is a matter of the international system of measurements (SI) being, well, standard. SI recognizes two variants of metre/meter in english. It does not recognize the archaic "kilogramme" spelling, which, as seen in this ngram, was surpassed in British English over a hundred years ago and which is use less than 7% of the use of "kilogram". Much like the archaic "connexion", it just shouldn't be used in modern English, unless part of a specific name, especially in light of WP:COMMONALITY. If everyone can and would understand "kilogram" under most circumstances, what point is there at all to using "kilogramme" except contrarianism? oknazevad (talk) 21:38, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: two points. 1) whether you think it should be used, or not - as your ngram shows, it is still in common use, and (as we'd have seen if you hadn't clipped the year scale off at the year 2000) it's use is increasing. For that reason, and because Wikipedia doesn't favour any variety over another, it can (and apparently does) legitimately appear in articles. So adding it to the template would help to support, rather than help to suppress, its use. 2) can you give a source to support your assertion that "SI recognizes two variants of metre/meter in english. It does not recognize the archaic "kilogramme" spelling", and explain what relevance you think that has to whether Wikipedia provide template support for an English variant that it supports. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: and in answer to the question in your addendum: inclusionism and anti-elitism. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:13, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

• As a 50+ year-old Australian, I very rarely come across the -mme spelling. Rare enough that it jars me when I see it and it interrupts my thinking. I would think that many readers outside of Britain would have the same reaction. Whereas readers in Britain have no difficulty reading kilogram or kilogramme and can thus use the commonly used modern spelling. Kilogramme may not be dead yet but it is definitely on life support. Even my spell checker (which is set to UK spelling) doesn't know about kilogramme. Considering that it causes (minor) jarring to a majority of readers, provides no real advantage to any readers and not having it is no real problem to any readers, I see no advantage to including it.  Stepho  talk  00:56, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
• I am fully on the side of deprecation per WP:COMMONALITY, even if it were still common in one of the variants (it's not). This looks more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT I-want-to-be-special battlegrounding behavior than it does I-want-to-build-an-encyclopedia behavior. --Izno (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
• DeFacto gives examples from Reuters UK and the Telegraph. The eaxmples are contrary to the Reuters and Telegraph style guides and are not typical. For Reuters UK and the Telegraph respectively, Google searches such as "kilogram" site:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ return

kilogram: 1650 & 853

kilograms: 1530 & 1430

kilogramme: 101 & 87

kilogrammes: 165 & 157.

DeFacto claims the use of kilogramme is increasing, but the ngram does not show this. The corpus ends in 2008, 11 years ago, and tells us nothing about the last decade. The increase shown is partly an artifact of smoothing; removing that reveals increases in 2006 and 2007 only. Attempting to probe that with a Google Books search (you can begin that from the ngram page) and a 2007-2008 date range gives "Your search - "kilogramme" - did not match any book results." Widen the date range and you'll find the Kenyan Hansard or a Dover reprint of an old translation of van der Waal's 1873 thesis, in which "kilogramme" appears many times. Such oddities are not unusual in Google ngrams; the corpus is old, the selection biased, the categorisation and dating capricious, and more - see this article or our own Google Ngram Viewer#Criticism.

DeFacto protests that we should let local consensus rule and individual writers choose, begging the question of how often local consensus or individual writers on en.wiki use kilogramme. Google searches such as "kilogram" site:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ return

kilogram: 25,900

kilograms: 16,600

kilogramme: 198

kilogrammes: 267

Those uses of kilogramme are often mentions of the Kilogramme des Archives, the history of the metric system, or talk-page discussions such as this, rather than actual measurements that might be converted. In general we use "kg" for those (9,760,000 results).

DeFacto argues that we should not use templates to suppress valid uses, but we do not. We simply do not unnecessarily complicate the design, maintenance and use of the Convert template by supporting a rare variant. 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:19, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

What a devastating analysis. Well done, Mystery IP! EEng 22:18, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Great post, IP. Must say, wording "devastating" by EEng is, eh, distracting and uselessly, needlessly emotional not rational. -DePiep (talk) 22:26, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Apparently you don't know what devastating means. EEng 01:27, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I do. Do you? -DePiep (talk) 10:16, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

From your comment above, no you don't. Please don't make me comment on your longstanding problems with English. EEng 12:25, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

duh. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

re language: [17], [18]. -DePiep (talk) 23:04, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Good to see you've looked up devastating, so I assume you understand it now, though why you're additionally linking to the episode that led to your being topic-banned from DYK is beyond me. This has been entertaining but I won't be responding further. EEng 00:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• It seems that consensus here is overwhelmingly against the spelling kilogramme (perhaps it should be reserved for Ye Olde Wykipædia). Can we agree that 1) the spelling should not be supported by a template, and 2) that (except for quotes) the spelling should be changed to kilogram without any need to debate it separately for every WP article? Doremo (talk) 10:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
• Here's the Google ngram restricted to the British English corpus for the usage ratio by year of "kilogram" over "kilogramme": [19]. Since 1984, the ratio has been at least 10 to 1. So, if an article is written in British English, "kilogram" is by far the winner. (And in US English, it's well over 100 to 1.) Largoplazo (talk) 12:04, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
• We've wasted way too much time on this. To prevent a recurrence I support adding a clear statement that (verbatim quotes excepted) the accepted spelling on English Wikipedia is kilogram, not kilogramme. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:28, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I fully support Dondervogel 2's suggestion. Doremo (talk) 12:36, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I third the motion. oknazevad (talk) 13:02, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

 Comment: I'm not sure that this is the correct place to be discussing prohibiting a previously accepted spelling variation, especially as there is a MOS page and associated talkpage dedicated to spelling guidelines. This discussion was started on this page to talk about whether the convert template should be updated to include both spellings in current use for the unit name for which kg is the abbreviation. -- DeFacto (talk). 13:35, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:NOTBURO. And since units are part of MOS:NUM, it's perfectly valid to discuss it here. oknazevad (talk) 14:06, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

WT:SPELLING would naturally refer to WP:UNITS, and as a MOS talk page would also "often be managed in a mafia-like way by a cabal of political operators with nefarious ulterior motives and vested interests."[20] 14:53, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

At this point I'd normally be invoking WP:NONEEDNORULE as a challenge to the need for a rule. But honestly I find that kilogramme at least somewhat meets that essay's first point i.e. it's "significantly distracting, annoying, or confusing to many readers". Given that ton and tonne are two different things, readers might well wonder whether kilogram and kilogramme are different as well. It's pretentious. EEng 14:01, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Ding! I find it laughable to claim "anti-elitism" when advocating for a pretentious archaic spelling. oknazevad (talk) 14:06, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Recent edits seem to have forgotten the original request: should template:convert be modified so as include "kilogramme" as a possible output? Nobody (until these last few hours) was arguing that the french-style spelling should be barred everywhere (if they are, take it to another discussion and good luck with that). It seemed to me that a consensus had been reached that the request should not be supported because the development cost of doing so cannot be justified given the very low demand. Is there any reason now why this discussion should not be closed? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:07, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

• The consensus of this conversation clearly favors both 1) no template -mme output and 2) deprecating the -mme spelling. There's no point in wasting time and energy debating the second point again and separately. Doremo (talk) 02:48, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Gramme

I made this edit, because that statement gave the impression that is is okay to use that spelling in BrE articles (an impression heavily contradicted by this discussion), but it was reverted and I was asked for a link to a consensus for it. I provided one, but it was again reverted on the basis that it is in common use. In the above discussion, consensus seems to be that it is no longer in common use. So, I need to ask: was my edit a good one? (copied from Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Spelling#RfC:_Gramme) Adam9007 (talk) 15:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

In a style manual, under a "Preferred variants" heading, one would expect to find a statement about which variant is preferred in the publications to which the style manual applies (in this case, the English Wikipedia). The bullet point, both before and after the edits in question, attempts to describe the usage of "gramme" in the English language at large, which fails to fulfill the purpose of the section, and is therefore extraneous. The bullet point, if it is needed at all, should simply state which variant is preferred in the English Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• deFacto's one-man battle to maintain a prissy, Frenchified museum piece (i.e. gramme) is now way, WAY beyond tiresome, especially given that this is a scientific term; readers shouldn't have to wonder whether gramme is somehow different from gram in the way that tonne really is different from ton. I'll be traveling for ten days, and hopefully putting the workaday cares of Wikipedia behind me for at time, but I'm happy with any wording ranging from severe deprecation of gramme to outright prohibition. Let's be done with this nonsense. EEng 17:06, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Age ranges?

Should it be Children (0–6 years old) or Children (zero to six years old)? The latter, while in accordance with spelling out integers from zero to nine, could be unintuitive and/or distracting to the average reader. —Bobbychan193 (talk) 21:20, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Children under six years old or maybe Children six years old and younger depending on what exactly is meant. (I thought there was something on the page specifically about ages, but I don't see it.) EEng 22:22, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Negative percentages?

Is it acceptable to use a hyphen as a negative sign in percentages like -27.9%? —Bobbychan193 (talk) 21:22, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Use − not hyphen. If your question is whether you can have negative percentages, the answer is yes. EEng 22:49, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• @Bobbychan193: If you use hyphen - WP:AWB-users will change it. If you use − - AWB-users will change it to unicode. Use − (e.g. with {{subst:minus}}). Christian75 (talk) 23:46, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  AWB users need to stop fucking with everything. Changing hyphen to minus is helpful. Changing a symbolic − to a literal minus means that later editors will have a hard time telling whether the right character is present, because hyphen, minus, and various dashes are can be difficult to distinguish in the edit window. Use − and if some mindless AWB user changes it to a literal, tell them to mind their own business. EEng 04:31, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

  AWB will not change the explicit template (even if I find it dubious that AWB will actually make this substitution automatically-probably one worth requesting not to be done on Phab if indeed it happens). --Izno (talk) 20:58, 27 July 2019 (UTC)