Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers

Units of measurement

Wikipedia is an international institution and as such should conform to international conventions as much as possible. This is particularly true for the English language Wikipedia, which is read by users from all over the world. This means that units of measures should prefer the SI system over any other nonstandard or regional system. Legacy units (e.g. feet, miles, cubits, leagues, etc) are fine and may be used in certain contexts, but absolutely not without expressing the values in conventional units as well. Most people in this world have no idea of how many stones they weigh or how many square feet their house measures, so please let's not be provincial and let's allow people from other countries to understand what we're talking about. Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.22.178 (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

How is this different from existing guidance? Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 22:28, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

MOSNUM’s current guidelines are the product of ten-thousand debates on this issue and strike the proper balance, where the primary unit of measure depends on a variety of issues, including—but certainly not limited to—whether there is a strong national tie to a particular article (e.g. American football will be primarily in yards) as well as what units of measure are used by the sources that are cited in the article (e.g. distances to other galaxies are often in light years, not petameters). Plus, MOSNUM requires that appropriate conversions are made available. If you, I.P. 81.100.22.178, saw an article that is not satisfactory, it may well not be in compliance with MOSNUM and needs to be improved. You are welcome to do so. Just please be sure to read and understand the applicable sections of MOSNUM before correcting the articles. Greg L (talk) 04:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

The advice to read and understand MOSNUM is good. However, MOSNUM's advice does pull in two directions:

• Generally follow the sources
• For topics strongly associated with a given place, put the most appropriate units first.

However, British information can be at variance with the MOSNUM guidelines. For example, "Feet/inches and stones/pounds for personal height and weight measurements" is at variance with the British Premier League soccer, which uses metric measurements. See [1] or English Rugby Union, which puts the metric measurements first. See [2]. For that reason I believe that the source information should generally take precedence but that conversions should be supplied, because when it comes to weights and measures, we don't all speak the same language! Michael Glass (talk) 03:11, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Another problem with MOSNUM is that it refers to the Times Style Guide. This has several problems:

1. It gives undue emphasis to the Times style guide compared with other style guides.
2. The Times style guide is inconsistent with MOSNUM. In fact I think it is more inconsistent with MOSNUM than the Guardian style guide.
3. Referring specifically to the Times style guides is redundant, because it and other style guides are compared and contrasted in the article on metrication in the UK, and this is linked to MOSNUM.

I believe that a specific reference to any one style guide in MOSNUM gives that guide undue emphasis, that the Times guide is in inconsistent with some of MOSNUM's recommendations, and as several style guides are compared and contrasted in the article on metrication in the United Kingdom, one reference to this article in MOSNUM is sufficient. Michael Glass (talk) 02:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Is there not a case that the units of measure should follow the units used in the sources with preference being given to the primary source? Martinvl (talk) 06:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

• That's all very well if there's some monolithic "primary source". In practice, the very issues that come up here are typically a mess out there in such sources. That is why every decent publication has a style guide in the first place. So you can't just dispose of it simplistically like this. Often a call is going to have to be made by WP's style guides. Tony (talk) 07:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Objections to source-based units have been expressed on numerous occasions, and notably include the fact that there are editors here who have a record of picking the sources to match the units they prefer rather than vice versa. I still oppose them on these grounds and on the other grounds that have been expressed on dozens of occasions.

Articles primarily about the United Kingdom should take as primary the system of measures in general use in the United Kingdom, just as articles primarily about the United States take as primary the system of measures in general use in the United States. This system is best described by the Times style guide. Pfainuk talk 17:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Pfainuk's argument could be applied to those situations where there is a system of measures in general use in the United Kingdom. However, this argument should not apply when usage is divided. The Times style guide is at variance with the Guardian style guide in some details. I don't think it is the job of MOSNUM to recommend one British style guide over another. When the style guides agree, it is evidence of general use; however, when they are at variance it shows that usage is divided. In cases where British usage is divided, such as in -ise vs -ize spellings, or in those details where style guides differ on weights and measures, it is better not to be dogmatic.

The specific proposal was to refer to several style guides rather than just one. This specific proposal does not change MOSNUM's detailed recommendations. What it does is to deal with the style guides more even-handedly. Michael Glass (talk) 02:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

So, you're saying that if you can find one style guide that uses kilometres, then that might be more important in our decision of what units to take as primary than the common usage of almost the entire UK population?

The exceptions currently noted in the text, and the Times style guide, are precisely the cases where usage isn't significantly divided. People in the UK do not measure themselves in kilograms or metres. They do not drink beer in litres. And they do not measure distances in kilometres. Anybody can look at a British set of bathroom scales, a British beer glass or a British road sign and see that for themselves. The fact that you might not like this does not change it. Pfainuk talk 19:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'll give you one thing Michael you're remarkably persistent in a manner that is almost admirable. This proposal has been rejected so many times but you still keep trying. Pfainuk is correct, we should follow local usage not source usage, as too often sources are selected for their units rather than their reliability. Now I am off to a beer festival to drink beer in pints and whisky in 1/6 gill. Slàinte mhòr. Wee Curry Monster talk 19:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

May I take issue with User:Pfainuk regarding bathroom scales - over the past few months, scales in UK doctors surgeries have been converted to metric-only. Also, in the army, backpacks are weighed in kilograms and the ratio of backpack weight to the soldier's weight are of concern. As regards road signs, may I suggest that he reads the article Driver location signs - he might realise that both miles and kilometres are in use on British motorways and if he uses British motorways, a knowledge of how they work might help him in an emergency. In response to User:Wee Curry Monster, are you sure that whiskey is being served in 1/6 gill(23.67 ml) glasses ? The prescribed measure in under UK law is 25 ml.

May I also take issue with User:Wee Curry Monster regarding "local usage" - if it is not verifiable, then it smells of WP:OR. Martinvl (talk) 20:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

What proportion of British motorists, do you think, are aware even that the numbers on driver location signs are distances, let alone where they are measured from and what units there are in? I would imagine that the number is very small - especially when compared to the proportion who could give similar details about this sign, for example. Every distance indication that drivers are actually likely to find useful on a British road is measured in either miles or yards. Perhaps it is worth considering the possibility that this is not done purely for the confusion of foreigners.

Neither the point that the Army measures its backpacks in kilograms, nor the point that doctors use metric scales, changes the fact that the overwhelming majority people in the UK measure their personal weight in stones and pounds - indeed, that most wouldn't have the first clue as to their weight in kilograms. The point about the Army is particularly bizarre, given that we are not generally attempting to determine suitable backpack weights for the subjects of our articles. Perhaps you similarly feel that the fact that the US Army uses "klicks" means that all Americans use kilometres really, and that US-related articles should therefore be kilometre-first? Pfainuk talk 20:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem with using sources is that you tend to cherry pick the sources to get the units into metric first. UK articles should use the system used in the UK which by and large is imperial, distances for example are almost exclusively miles. Keith D (talk) 23:08, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Martin, I really don't know how to respond to you, I just checked the highway code, the very latest edition, a reliable source and I'm astonished to find that road signs are in mph and that distances are given in yards. I just checked my bathroom scales, I'm 15 stone 6 lbs, would a picture help with that? This is not some conspiracy to deny metrication, we really do things that way, this is local usage.

If you wish wikipedia to go metric, then convince people of the merits of such a policy. Don't continuously lecture people that they don't know what the situation is in their own country, because this is ultimately counter productive. The military use metric because of the Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system as it makes fire control orders a helluva lot easier (I spent most of military career in fire support). UK civilians have somewhat stubbornly stuck to metric, its just the way it is, the Government keep trying, the EU keep trying and the Brits remain awkward and wedded to imperial. Trying to lecture me that I don't know what the road signs I see every day mean, well come on if anyone is conducting WP:OR its you, claiming its different because the army is metric. Mmm, okay? Wee Curry Monster talk 23:06, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The responses to my proposal have been strong on emotion but short on relevance. This is not a question of saying what British usage is, but in dealing with style guides more even-handedly. The comment about finding style guides misses the mark. The style guides (Times, Guardian and Economist) have already been found and compared, and they differ slightly on details [3]. My present proposal is to refer to these three style guides instead of just one of them. The proposal does not even touch on the specific prescriptions of MOSNUM. All the talk about British practice, American practice, Army rucksacks, driver location signs, doctors' scales, bathroom scales, my persistence, someone else's alcohol intake and the use of miles or kilometres on roads are red herrings.

The question at issue is really quite simple. Do we have wording that pretends to be even-handed but favours one style guide over others, or do we have wording that refers quite even-handedly to three prominent style guides. Here is the difference:

• See also Metrication in the United Kingdom and the style guides of British publications such as that of the Times Online (under "Metric")

• See also Metrication in the United Kingdom and the style guides of British publications.

The second passage could then be linked to the three style guides directly or linked to the analysis of the style guides in Metrication in the United Kingdom. Any comments or concerns? Michael Glass (talk) 23:19, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

My only comment is that what you're proposing is unclear, which has nothing to do with alcohol intake. What exactly do you propose? Wee Curry Monster talk 23:28, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That was quick! The wording of my proposal is as follows:

• See also Metrication in the United Kingdom and the style guides of British publications.

This links directly to the discussion of the style guides in Metrication in the United Kingdom. The relevant passage reads as follows:

Newspapers styles vary. While both The Guardian' and The Times prefer metric units in most circumstances, and both provide exceptions where imperial units are preferred, they differ on some details.

The Times specifies that heights and weights put Imperial measures first while the Guardian's examples are from metric to Imperial. Similarly, while both give first place to hectares, the Guardian prefers square kilometres (with square miles in brackets) while the Times prefers square miles. Both retain the preference for the mile in expressing distances. In contrast, The Economist prefers metric units for "most non-American contexts," except for the United States section where "you may use the more familiar measurements." However, The Economist also specifies "you should give an equivalent, on first use, in the other units".

That's what I propose. Any comments or concerns? Michael Glass (talk) 23:55, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It appears to be metrication by the back door Michael to be honest, selecting The Economist style guide is effectively that. Current practise suggests using the Times style guide which largely reflects British usage and so I would suggest we don't change. I prefer clear guide lines and your proposal seems to be allowing editors to choose whichever one of three they like. That will lead to patchy and inconsistent application of units. Sorry but I have serious reservations. Wee Curry Monster talk 00:39, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

But that's not what I proposed. I proposed a way of linking to all three of these style guides instead of choosing just one. Choosing the most conservative of the style guides and passing that off as representative is just as bad as selecting the most radical and trying to run with that. As I said, I was trying to do something more even-handed by referring to all three policies. So if there are problems in only linking to the most radical of the style guides and there are exactly the same problems in linking to the most conservative of them, as the policy does at the moment, then what is to be done?

I believe that the solution to this conundrum is either linking to all of these policies, or linking to none of them. It is the cherry-picking that is objectionable. Michael Glass (talk) 07:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

As I believe I mentioned before, there is a reason why the Times Style guide is chosen, and that is that it is the one that most accurately reflects modern usage and hence what we are supposed to be doing here. What you are pushing for is more interarticle inconsistency and (as per normal) metric units in contexts where imperial units are overwhelmingly more common in British usage. Pfainuk talk 08:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

That's easy to assert, but where is your evidence? When the style guides agree, that is certainly evidence that this is British usage. However, when the Times style guide is not the same as, for instance The Guardian, this is evidence that usage may be divided. At the moment what I see is several style guides that agree on certain things but differ on details, and I see editors picking the style guide that suits them best. Show me the evidence that your preference is more than cherry-picking. Michael Glass (talk) 11:33, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

So you really are claiming that the British all use kilometres really and just put miles on the road signs to confuse foreigners? That we all use kilograms to measure our weights and that the fact that bathroom scales use stones is some perverse kind of masochism? That we sell beer in pints just because we like to listen to the EU whining about why we haven't decided to use litres?

If you do not like the fact that imperial units are nigh-on universal in certain contexts in British usage, then ultimately that's your problem. The fact that you like certain units and dislike others does not mean that Wikipedia has to follow your preferences. Pfainuk talk 12:35, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Pfainuk, you are not answering the question I asked. The style guides are united in saying that miles should be used and also that hectares should be used. The fact that you have even raised the question of miles versus kilometres is a straw man argument. I was discussing instances where the style guides differ, such as in the treatment of square miles versus square kilometres, and in whether feet and inches and stones and pounds should be used instead of metric measures (The Times) or whether metric measures should be used, with the older measures in parentheses (The Guardian). This is not about what you do with the scales in your bathroom, but how an editor may report on the area of Dorset or what an editor might do when Premier League gives the height of players in centimetres only [4]. If you follow the sources and The Guardian Style Guide you will get one answer, but if you follow the Times Style Guide you will get another.

So the question is not whether editors should follow your preferences or my preferences, but whether they should have the freedom to decide what to do when style guides are at variance. I state that they should have the freedom to decide these issues; you appear to be one on the side of compulsion.

So please stop using straw man arguments and ridiculous misrepresentations. I was asking you to provide evidence of usage in the areas where the style guides differ. If you cannot or will not do that then why should I take your assertions seriously? Michael Glass (talk) 14:02, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Empirically Brits almost universally use imperial measures, despite a number of journals wanting to portray themselves avant garde by adopting metric – as continental Europe has embraced it. WIkipedia has its own style guideline, and consensus is that we should adopt these unless there is specification derogation. So far, there is none. The Pound is here to stay and so are the square mile and the acre, as far as the Brits are concerned. We have already seen the arguments used in some quarters how we should defer to 'reliable sources' on matters of endashes. Such an approach is just more likely to result in a huge mess drawn along lines of individual preferences of editors, because there are entropic individual preference spulling us in different directions. My guess is that the endash battleground was chosen because such non-unified practice has been observed in sources by some, and calculated to weaken MOS by setting a proverbial cat among the pigeons, but I digress. Lets not go there. I do not see the freedom, when it comes to allowing a proliferation of styles, as being at all undesirable. Whilst I tend to agree that we should abandon genuine "legacy" units, like perhaps stone and hundredweight, usage of imperial units in articles is best linked to WP:TIES. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:12, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

This is precisely the case here. My argument is that, at least in contexts where British usage is uniformly imperial, we should follow that rule unless there's a good reasons not to (that not including the fact that a particular source happens to use a different unit). I don't think that unreasonable. Michael's argument is that, because the Economist prefers that its authors use kilometres, the rest of us also use kilometres (and, as I say, presumably put miles on the road signs out of masochism). For those of us who have had literally years of experience dealing with Michael on the subject of units, it is clear that any opening will be used to force metrication on to as many articles as possible regardless of British usage. Shoot, even today he has been going through Premier League footballers applying source-based units ([5][6][7][8]) against MOSNUM's recommendation for imperial units in these contexts (articles with strong national ties to the United Kingdom). If anything the current wording needs strengthening to prevent abuse. Pfainuk talk 14:41, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

"Brits almost universally use imperial measures" – You may have meant something that is correct, but it's not correct as stated. For instance, usage of Celsius and Fahrenheit is divided, with Celsius more common than Fahrenheit. Metrication in the UK is progressing slowly, and as one would expect it is most successful where it replaces units that most people are rarely if ever exposed to with metric units that they are rarely if ever exposed to. It has notably not succeeded at all in replacing the mile with the kilometre, and has had only very partial success in replacing the inch and foot with the centimetre. But the more obscure units such as the grain are essentially gone and have been successfully replaced by the corresponding metric units.

For our purposes in most articles this can be summarised in the way that you did without doing much harm, but in a small number of technical articles it's important to understand that the current system of units in the UK is a hodgepodge. Hans Adler 14:53, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Pfainuk is right that there is a genuine split of usage when it comes to temperatures, and the same split in usage applies in other areas. That is what is causing an increasing gap between the sources and the style guide. It is British usage when an Englishman describes his height in feet and inches; it is also British usage when Premier League (and the BBC) describes the height of players in centimetres. Similarly, it is British usage both when the Times expresses a preference for square miles and when The Guardian expresses a preference for square kilometres and when both express a preference for hectares over acres. Usage is more divided than the anti-metricationists are willing to admit. Michael Glass (talk) 22:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I have ever expressed by opinions on what units the British should use, since it is irrelevant to the subject at hand. The significant point is the units that the British actually use.

You say that the Premier League mentions heights in metres. Good for them - but bear in mind that the Premier League is broadcast to 600 million people in 202 countries and that these kinds of pages are more likely to be used by those who are less familiar with the players concerned (who are thus more likely not to be British). Their usage cannot reasonably be taken a measure of what units the British themselves use, which is the basis on which we determine primary unit choice on Wikipedia. Even so, as has been pointed out to you, those same biographies give player body weights to the nearest ten grams - apparently the result of an overprecise conversion from imperial units.

I understand that you do not like the fact that imperial units are used by people in the UK. But that does not mean that they are not used. Wikipedia should reflect reality, not what Michael Glass would like reality to be. Pfainuk talk 16:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Premier League uses metric units but so do the Premier League clubs of Fulham, Liverpool and Sunderland. Other teams provide information in Imperial units and yet others provide no such information. This demonstrates that British usage in written information is divided, and that's where it counts for Wikipedia documentation.

A rigid rule about British usage clashes with actual written usage, reasonable consistency and plain common sense. Follow a rigid rule and you get inconsistencies like this:

• The Falklands Islands Government states that it has a road network of 786 km[9]. The Wikipedia article Instead of stating the Government information directly and giving the mile equivalent in brackets, flips the display so that the miles come first [10] Why reverse the order of units from a the Falkland Islands Government website?
• Bleaker Island is described in a mixture of units: square miles for area, miles for land distances and metres for the height of the hills even though the major source uses metric units only. An article of less than 600 words has an inconsistent use of units inflicted on it by the rigid application of an inconsistent formula.
• The Hummock Island article has the same formula applied even more fanatically. The source describes the area of the island as 303 hectares. This would be acceptable even to the Times Style Guide but this is flipped to 1.17 square miles. It was deemed that hectares would clash with distances in miles, which, similarly, were flipped from kilometres in the source document. Does this achieve consistency? Not at all. Heights are in metres, as per the guidelines, so instead of the article being consistent with the source and consistently metric, it is inconsistent with the source and inconsistent in its use of units. Worse than that, information about the area of the smaller islands in the Hummock Island group has been cut so that hectares don't appear. All this in an article of less than 200 words.

The rules of Wikipedia should not be set by the British Weights and Measures Society. If these are examples of what Pfainuk wants to inflict on editors more widely, Heaven help us! Michael Glass (talk) 01:38, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This is no decisive argument on a major point, but I haven't the foggiest idea of what a hectare (or for that matter an acre) or 303 hectares covers. 1.17 square miles (or 1 1/6 square miles), however, gives me a strong idea, as apart from knowing what a linear mile is, a square mile is the approximate area of some towns I've seen: in my case, the City of London, Albany, California and Central Falls, Rhode Island. (And Manhattan, as many people know, covers about 24 square miles. Purely by coincidence, New York City covers 303 square miles, so if you know how many hectares fill a square mile, you can tell how many Hummock Islands would fit into the Five Boroughs.) This of course is idiosyncratic OR that wouldn't apply precisely to other readers, and doesn't answer the question of when metric should come first or second. But there should be conversions either way, and in my case something would be lost if the square mileage were to disappear in favour of either hectares or acres. In general, I'm against rigid rules. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:24, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the original point by 81.100.22.178, I would say that I don't agree. This is the English Wikipedia, and our main pool of readers is going to be native English speakers, just as the main pool for the Russian Wikipedia is going to be native Russian speakers and so forth. People who speak English as a second language do of course use the English Wikipedia and are welcome and more than welcome. But people who choose to operate in English ought, to some extent, to recognize that in doing so they are entering into the English-speaking world, with all its idiosyncracies.

When I use the Russian Wikipedia, I certainly don't expect them to express distances in miles for my benefit. Even for articles dealing with the United States. Consequently, I think that it is perfectly acceptable for the English Wikipedia to use miles first when dealing with articles about France or anywhere else, let alone articles about Britain or the United States. Of course, template:convert or hand conversion should be used always, so I don't really see the problem. It doesn't much matter much if a value is described as "X meters (Y feet)" or "Y feet (X meters)". If this is all about which value goes "first", that is quibbling in my opinion. If it's a situation where only kilometers or only miles (or whatever) is given, I would would say that this should not be done, it is an error and should be fixed on sight, in my view, Herostratus (talk) 07:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Shakescene! Of course we need the conversions to enable the greatest number of people to understand the measurements. That's not at issue. What is at issue is whether we put the source units first as a general rule, or whether we follow some other arrangement. A proposal for following the sources is not opposed to the need for conversions. Indeed, by putting the two policies together I believe we can better cater for the needs of all our readers.

We need to remember that speaking English and using the traditional measurements no longer go together. A whole generation of native English speakers has now grown up in Australasia, South Africa and other countries who use the metric system and are largely unfamiliar with the older measures. My proposal to follow the sources simply means following the sources used in the source document to determine which unit, metric or Imperial/customary, should come first. If the document uses miles, by all means use that; however, if it uses kilometres, put that first and put the miles second.

I hope this helps to clarify what I have proposed. Michael Glass (talk) 09:19, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

User:Herostratus asserted that "our main pool of readers is going to be native English speakers, just as the main pool for the Russian Wikipedia is going to be native Russian speakers ..." Why then is the Times of India the world's largest circulation English-language newspaper. Its circulation is 3.14 million, while India only has 0.22 million people for whom English as a first language? The situation, as I see it, is that many non-English speakers resort to English if the information that they want is not in their native tounge - 53% of people in the EU can read English - more than any other country and unlike German or French, non-native speakers outnumber native-speakers 2:1. Moreover, a significant number of people who use English as a first language come from metric countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand.

In addition,English is the lingua franca in many parts of the world (India, Pakistan, South Africa, Nigeria) and is also the lingua franca of the scientific world. I therefore support User:Michael Glass's comments. Martinvl (talk) 09:33, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The last time I saw any statistics, the great bulk of en.Wikipedia's current (as opposed to theoretically potential) readership was concentrated in North America, the British Isles and Australasia. Of course, we should always keep in mind that Wikipedia has many readers in many other places, and make sure that things like U.S. state abbreviations (quick! what are AL, AR, MI, NE and MS? are you sure?) don't make things unnecessarily obscure. But in considering what's clearest to the most readers, consider where they are. [And if you look at The Times of India or Dawn (Pakistan), their pages are full of lakhs and crores.] —— Shakescene (talk) 11:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we need to cater for the needs of non-native speakers of English as well as those whose first language is English, for those in the USA and England as well as Australia and India and Nigeria. That's why we need both metric and Imperial/customary measures. We also know that the question of metrication has become a political hot potato, especially in the UK, and it is only natural that the strong feelings of people, both for and against metric measures should carry over into their views on what is right and proper in Wikipedia. Many English and American editors feel irked or affronted that metric measures are spreading like a rash in English Wikipedia while others see that it is a necessity. This second view has prevailed, and most editors accept the need for conversions, even though it can be cumbersome.

The sticking point comes when deciding which units should come first, metric or Imperial/customary. A partial solution is that we should have metrics first in most of the world, except in the United States, where customary units should generally have first place. And then comes the UK. Here we have a real division of usage and strong opinions both ways. In fact, the dispute has been so great over Falkland Island articles that there is a separate policy on units for these articles. I believe that a better way of handling these questions is generally to follow the sources.

My proposal has come under fire from those who support using the older measures. They fear that this policy will result in wholesale metrication of articles, that it will result in unbearable inconsistencies, that it will result in source shopping, where sources are referenced, not because they are best, but because they are metric. It is obvious that the fears come almost completely from those who support the older measures, but these are real concerns that should be addressed.

1. The fear of wholesale metrication of articles. Certainly there is a tendency for some who favour one kind of measures to put them first. I believe that this should stop. If the source is metric, then by and large, the metric measures should be put first; if the source uses the older measures, by all means put them first. This rule, far from favouring metrication, would cut both ways.
2. Unbearable inconsistencies. Are the sources so much in conflict? If they are then it may be necessary to smooth them out. However, I think the fear of this is overstated. Let's say there was a historical reference to an older measure, then this should not be a problem. Usually, however, this fear is not borne out in practice. This issue comes up with the area of the United States where there are several figures and the one from the CIA is expressed in square kilometres! Should you put the CIA figure with the square kilometres first? This can be decided between editors.
3. Source shopping. Let's say I found the height of a footballer was listed as 1.80 metres and another editor found that the footballer said he was 6 feet tall. Well, a man should know his own height best, so that may well the better evidence. Of course, if there were different heights in equally authoritative sources, the best solution may be to remove all references for height, as the information is so contradictory.

My final point is that sources cut both ways. In fact, this is their great advantage: it largely takes the decision-making away from the prejudices of individual editors, who may be one-eyed in their support or their hostility to certain weights and measures, and puts it into finding reliable sources for the information. And that is all to the good.

I hope that this answers people's concerns about my proposal. Michael Glass (talk) 12:15, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Not really Michael, source choice determining units is simply avoiding the MoS. On one hand it allows for metrication by judicious choice of sources and that really is a best case scenario. More likely it will be a muddle, with units inconsistently applied and this is why it has been rejected every time it has been suggested. Your final point alludes to this but I'm sure you realise that. We have a MoS that is at least consistent and works, I don't see a need to change for something that promises anarchy. So I would disagree that what you're proposing is for the good, it can't possibly be. Wee Curry Monster talk 12:37, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for this comment, Wee Curry Monster. I will answer your points one by one.

• Avoiding the MOS?

Not so! MOSNUM says: "Apply these guidelines when choosing the units for the measurements that come first:

When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation." Yes, I realise that MOSNUM can be quoted to support a different approach. When usage is fairly clear, the two approaches are complementary; when usage is divided, the two approaches are in conflict. My proposal is designed to resolve this conflict.

• Metrication by judicious choice of sources

I support a judicious choice of sources! If it results in metrication or demetrication, so be it!

• More likely it will be a muddle with units inconsistently applied...

Really? Could you give me examples where this would be the case? I have found that when there are inconsistencies they usually are not too much of a problem, and that if problems arise, they can be resolved. If you have evidence to the contrary, please reveal it.

• It has been rejected every time it has been suggested.

Yes, source based unit choice has been opposed because it has been seen as an engine for wholesale metrication. Different approaches are often rejected out of hand at first. It isn't easy to argue the case for something different. Remember that even if a change in policy changed articles, a huge amount of information is still only available in the older units. This will remain the case for a long time in the future and articles will reflect this for a long time to come.

• We have a MoS that is at least consistent and works...

MOSNUM works because the less workable parts are largely ignored. My proposal is not to attack MOSNUM or to replace it, but to make it more consistent and easier to apply.

• Something that promises anarchy

Really? How would a proposal to follow the sources result in anarchy? Could you show me an article that would be hurt by following the sources?

• It can't possibly be for the good.

No proposal can promise perfection. However, it is possible to do better that we are doing at the moment. In most cases my proposal would make little or no difference. Articles from most of the world, and scientific articles would remain metric first. Articles about the USA would remain US Customary units first. British articles where the sources were Imperial would remain imperial and those that were metric would remain metric. The only change would be in articles where the sources were inconsistent with the units used in the article. But here again, this would apply both ways.

I have tried to answer all the concerns you have raised. Please get back to me if you have further concerns about this proposal. Michael Glass (talk) 13:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• Just the sort of patronising and straw man argument I had thought we would be able to avoid. Let's be clear, there is nothing "historic" about using pounds and ounces, miles and yards, pints and quarts –these are national preferences in the largest English-speaking countries. Their usages there are current for the most part, and not obsolete, as you seem to suggest. ANd what of "fear that this policy will result in wholesale metrication of articles, that it will result in unbearable inconsistencies". The only agreed upon enemy here in WP is inconsistencies within any given article. I don't feel those presently assembled are "afraid" of what you suggest they may be afraid of, and I don't think anyone really gives a fuck about the absolute correctness if someone's height is stated as 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) or 1.94 metres (6 ft 4 in), provided there are reliable sources to back it up? Even if people were afraid, so WTF?? It will not matter one jot to a continental European reading the article, provided we preserve accessibility by giving conversions for the units. WP is sufficiently mature to tolerate national variants of English, so why are we being forced by someone who chooses to systematically and unilaterally replace all footballers' heights with metric units, in obvious defiance of WP:RETAIN and WP:TIES. The real answer to consistency is to seek to apply this across the whole of Wikipedia. For the record, I would no oppose going universally for pounds and ounces over Kilograms and grams (or vice versa) if consensus is reached to do so, then fine. Right now, there is none. Ditto for miles versus kilometers. The best of luck to you should you want to fight that Battle. Now go and build that consensus if you must; in the meantime, you ought to just leave pounds alone, because it's clearly contentious. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:48, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucius, I'm sorry you have taken offence because I described Imperial/customary units as the older units. It just so happens that they are - except for the Imperial pint and gallon. If I refer to the older units and you accuse me of implying that Imperial/customary units are historic and obsolete, isn't there more than a little straw in your argument? We agree that it is more important to have accurate information than whether it is expressed in metres or feet and inches. We agree on the need for conversions. We agree on respecting different varieties of English, including different preferences for weights and measures. In fact, I explicitly stated that a variety in usage would remain. All I am saying is that as a general rule, articles should follow the sources in their choice of which unit should come first. This is not a declaration of war against the pound weight. Ohconfucius, I'm afraid there is even more straw in your argument than there is swearing. Michael Glass (talk) 22:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

In other words, you want to be able to pick the sources to match your own unit preferences - regardless of local custom or any notion of consistency, or indeed basic points such as WP:RETAIN. For these and all the other points that have been raised against this point over the last two years that you have brought this up over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over - I remain opposed. Pfainuk talk 20:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Michael, I responded politely to your suggestion, whilst I appreciate this is a topic about you which you are clearly passionate you do yourself no favours with resorting to what is little more than an ad hominem attack. Your proposal of using source based units has been repeatedly rejected, the reasons remain equally valid and I do not support or endorse this as a proposal. I reject it for the reasons stated, namely that it would result in inconsistent application of units that would have a negative impact on articles. So unless you have a new argument I would politely suggest you drop it as an idea. Regards. Wee Curry Monster talk 20:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Wee Curry Monster, I acknowledge and appreciate your politeness, and I believe that my response to you was equally polite. You have stated that my proposal would result in an inconsistent application of units. All I have asked is that you demonstrate this assertion with a concrete example. If you are not prepared to do that, so be it. There is nothing more to be said. By all means let the matter rest.

Pfainuk, I raised the idea of following the sources as a way of defusing arguments about which unit should be preferred. Following local sources is a good way of ascertaining what the local preferences really are. But let's say that I or someone else chooses sources on the ground of the units used. This is easily overturned when someone comes up with a better source. So a battle about which unit to use is changed into a struggle to find the best source of information for the article. It's a win-win situation.

The present proposal was one that was limited to areas where British style guides were at variance but this seems to have been lost on you. So let's leave it at that and not waste any more of each other's time. Michael Glass (talk) 02:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

• [Excerpt from my talk page response to Michael Glass]Oh, how I would dearly love for a single style to apply throughout WIkipedia. But having lived the scars of the date delinking case, I have come to realise that that single style isn't going to happen. There are the occasional skirmishes in different areas exactly because of conflicting standards and style guides in use. We live in a cobbled-together world where toes are trod upon as little as possible. WP:RETAIN, WP:TIES have succeeded in keeping the peace in the fractious world in which we edit. Although I have no strong personal preference for any unit of measure kg/cm vs lb/in, as I said, I strongly identify these as fairly prominent national symbols in the US, UK and Australia. A 'source-based' throws an additional layer of complication into the style arena which opens the door to a disintegration of the MOS. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand your concern that 'source based' throws an additional layer of complication into the style area. However, another danger can be seen from the application of WP:FALKLANDSUNITS to the Falkland Island articles. Take West Falkland and Hummock Island. If the sources were followed the articles would be consistent and metric first. However, by following "Falklands Units" the articles are inconsistent in their use of units and partly inconsistent with the sources. The application of "Falklands Units" to Jason Islands had a far more serious result. Information about the length, width and height of several islands was cut from the article because of this clash.

"Falklands Units," rigidly applied, results in the very problems that are attributed to following the sources. No one has taken up my challenge to provide an example of where following the sources would cause problems. As no one else has backed up their assertions with concrete examples, further discussion is pointless. Michael Glass (talk) 06:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

• I do not support the proliferation of different permutations as could be imagined, especially as the falklands islands cannot claim to be a nation state, and ought to follow the British system. I would not be opposed if all are consistently imperial or consistently metric. If the units of measure are a mixed big of imperial and metric, it sounds like nonsense to me. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 06:51, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

No, let us be clear here, WP:FALKLANDSUNITS (which reflects British usage) only came into being because two editors who espouse a metric agenda attached themselves to an article improvement drive by the Falkland Islands Working Group suggesting metrication of all Falklands articles and ignored the pre-existing consensus of following British convention. This was justified by claiming the Falkland Islands used predominanly metric units unlike the UK, based on primarily WP:OR The same "source based" convention was pushed there, despite being rejected repeatedly. It became necessary to establish a convention as a certain editor edited against consensus, in his own words, "to test the consensus", resulting in a lot of unnecessary clean up and accompanied by some unnecessarily personal and heated exchanges on the talk pages of the working group. It does not result in inconsistent articles, it provides structure.

Source based selection has been rejected repeatedly, it cannot and will not work. And if you want concrete example as to why, there are plenty in the Falkland Islands task group where sources were selected for supporting "metric first" rather than their reliability (the classic would be the WP:SPS wool site).

I too would not oppose a consistently metric or consistently imperial approach, if there was a community consensus for it. But we are in a state where a mixed bag of units is in general use and a convention exists to follow the Times style guide. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. One might point out that the reason why WP:FALKLANDSUNITS had to be written rather strictly, is precisely because it was known that we needed to do our best to avoid loopholes in the wording. After 18 months of people trying to force their way through technicalities, this is the sort of thing that becomes necessary.

And it is worth mentioning in the specific case of the Jason Islands that the version of the article included a whole section that was little more than a list of figures (added as metric-first by Michael in defiance of the prevailing consensus for imperial-first measurements on Falklands articles at the time, as part of his 18-month campaign to metricate the Falklands by means of Wikipedia). In many cases, there were so many numbers that what was supposed to be a prose discussion of the geography of those islands wasn't even written in sentences. The "serious result", as he terms it, was very much needed and would have been even if consensus had gone for.

Incidentally, I see that someone added something on source-based units, which means that WP:UNITS now directly contradicts itself. It cannot use both the source-based unit and the most widespread unit in the world an article without strong national ties if the source is US- or UK-based. I will remove that sentence. Pfainuk talk 17:02, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

My responses to the above two postings:

1. The Falklands Units policy has resulted in inconsistencies in numerous Falkland Island articles. This has to be so because the policy is itself inconsistent. You cannot get consistency from an inconsistent policy that is rigidly enforced.
2. The Jason Islands article contained a lot of basic information on the area, length, width and highest points of several of the islands. Pfainuk made a point of removing much of the information on the length, width and highest points of several islands. Under the Falklands Units policy, the length and width of the islands had to be in feet or miles and the high points had to be given in metres. By removing this information, this inconsistency was sidestepped, but at the cost of removing basic geographical information about the islands.
3. The Falklands Units policy is in contrast with the Falkland Island Government website, which is clearly metric first. Even information about roads is given in kilometres. Metric measures are good enough to be used by the Falklands Island Government but not for some Wikipedia editors!
4. There is no evidence that there ever was a clear consensus on units to be used. When I began to edit these articles, they were inconsistent. Some were predominantly metric first, others were mixed and yet others were predominantly Imperial first. When I changed one detail I was told that there was a consensus for Imperial, but when I later added material that was metric first this was not challenged. Then when I suggested a similar change near the beginning of the Falklands Island article I was told once again that it should be Imperial first. I challenged this in the Falklands work group and the result was a divided vote. When I pressed the issue again, there was a clear vote in favour of metric measures, especially for the weather data. Two editors made an offer, the Falklands Unit compromise but the Imperial warriors insisted on applying it so rigidly that they made a mess of the stubs by applying the policy rigidly.
5. No evidence has been given to show that applying a source based approach would cause inconsistencies in any article.

Michael Glass (talk) 12:23, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you really not think that eighteen months of the same thing over and over again was long enough? Let's not pretend that WP:FALKLANDSUNITS does not contain a provision to deal with significant inconsistency when it arises. I think we've all got it by now that you're not going to be happy with anything less than full metrication, regardless of local usage, the MOS and rules such as WP:RETAIN and WP:TIES. The disruption that your continually restarting this discussion caused to Falklands-related articles was extreme - it was far more disruptive than anything we have ever had from the sovereignty dispute. Please do not restart it again. Pfainuk talk 09:14, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• My view is that WP:FALKLANDSUNITS is utter WP:BOLLOCKS. Firstly, quite contrary to close national ties, the guideline deliberately embraces metres, and strays from feet and inches; imperial measures are only adopted "by exception". That really is quite a mixed bag of measures, and I congratulate you guys for tripping yourselves up so right royally. All this is without mentioning that it is not what WP:TIES was meant to achieve – Falkland Islands have no claim to nation status, and thus the premise for creating its own measurement system is fallacious. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:35, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not perfect, certainly. It is essentially the limit of what those preferring British-style measures were willing to accept - a compromise between metric and imperial systems that we were willing to accept, and (we hoped) a means of stopping Michael from preventing article development by trying to force metrication on us every three weeks. After eighteen months, it was worth a go. I, for one, am open to changes - provided that it does not give us a position that is more metric than it already is (and provided that it gives enough safeguard against Michael's habit of creatively interpreting the rules). Trouble is, I very much don't want to have to spend the next eighteen months pissing into the wind like we did before. Pfainuk talk 09:58, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh god, please no, not another 18 months of tendentious argument about metrication by the back door. I prefer to spend my time creating content, not cleaning up up after other editors who refuse to accept a consensus exists. Wee Curry Monster talk 11:36, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Right. Probably better just not to go there. Pfainuk talk 12:06, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

The constant criticism is that my proposals would metricate Wikipedia by the back door. In answer to this I would just like to state the following points:

1. Abusive postings and foul language do not impress me and will not deter me.
2. Metrication is not a disease to be resisted, but a factor that needs to be accommodated.
3. A proposal to follow the local sources is not a proposal to metricate Wikipedia by the back door, but a way to delink the choice of units from the prejudices of editors and concentrate on the best sources for the articles.
4. No evidence has yet been supplied to substantiate the claim that following local sources would cause significant inconsistencies in articles.
5. I raised the example of WP:FALKLANDSUNITS as an example of an inconsistent policy that results in an inconsistent display of measurements in articles. If you would rather not go there, please don't raise the idea of tightening MOSNUM in that direction.
6. Following local sources, whether they come from the Falkland Islands Government website or the Premier League or other clubs, is not going to bring down the end of the world on us.
7. Two or three stonewalling editors don't constitute a consensus, especially when they lost a vote.

The question of which unit to use in UK related articles needs a flexibility in approach, not rigidity. UK usage about weights and measures varies. Dogmatism about which unit to use is out of place in such a context. Michael Glass (talk) 14:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• Once again, I seem to read language that implies metrication is inevitable and must be accommodated and cannot be resisted. But we need a guideline that says a certain football player is 1.82m in height and weighs 197lbs like a proverbial hole in the head. That would be the ultimate cockamamie bullshit. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 15:10, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Wee Curry Monster, Pfainuk, Narson, Ryan4314, Apcbg et al all objected to your proposal Michael. I'll admit mathematics isn't my strongest suit but that is more than 2 and I don't recall any vote where you achieved a majority. On the other hand, there were 2 editors who indulged in tendentious argument for 18 months that utterly paralysed a drive to improve articles for 18 months. 18 months of wasted, useless effort that would have been better directed towards improving articles. You can deny it till you're blue in the face but consensus was and remains against your proposal.

Source based unit convention has been rejected so many times, that it is not the case of flogging a dead horse so much as flagellating the windswept dust where the corpse once lay. No one is abusing you Michael, so playing the martyr does not impress anyone and again it is more than counter productive as it simply hardens attitudes against your proposal.

Now can we please avoid another 18 months of this, please. Wee Curry Monster talk 18:12, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

• Wee Curry Monster, the reason I brought up the matter of WP:FALKLANDSUNITS is because Pfainuk suggested that MOSNUM be tightened in that direction. I don't see that the Issues I pointed out about Falklands Units being resolved at any time soon and would prefer to keep away from that issue. I respect the way that you have put your point of view, but if Pfainuk becomes abusive, then he deserves to be called out on his behaviour.
• Pfainuk, remember that I got a clear majority for changing the weather data, and there has always been support for metric measures. In one discussion last year I counted 3 editors for metric, two for generally metric as per sources and one for generally metric with some exceptions.
• Ohconfucius, far from believing that metric conversion is inevitable, I believe that we are stuck with metric/Imperial/Customary units for the forseeable future. In the case of the UK there is a split in usage, and this is reflected in the sources. I agree we don't need a guideline to order us to put footballers' weights and heights in any unit, Imperial or metric. What we need to do is to leave it to the good sense of editors to find and make use of the best sources, whether metric or Imperial. The policy should be neutral. Michael Glass (talk) 00:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC).
  • Most people won't be aware of WP:FALKLANDSUNITS, or care about that remote part of the South Atlantic. Those who are aware of it, certainly thanks to that discussion, are likely to think of it as a dog's breakfast.

    As my closing remark to this discussion, I cite you a parallel: while dd mmm yyyy date format is by no means universally British – the mmm dd, yyyy format is used by some important British newspapers, the consensus is that British articles should universally use dd mmm yyyy, despite the sources. This is the Wikipedia Manual of Style, it may be influenced by other external style guidelines, but remains "ours". --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Ohconfucious, yes we are aware, point of fact it should never have been necessary. Sadly it was. As to Michael, ah yes the great Celsius vs Fahrenheit victory, crack open the champagne but sourced based units no thanks. Wee Curry Monster talk 13:35, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

On the question of dd mmm yyyy versus mmm dd yyyy, this is a matter of style. 18 April is the same date as April 18. However, when it comes to units of measure there is the question of rounding errors. Though such errors are usually very small it is preferable not to make them. (I also hope that this will be my last remark in this discussion.) Michael Glass (talk) 11:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

2000s decade

This question must have been raised many times before but oddly I can't find a good answer in the archive. What's the correct way to refer to the decade between 2000 and 2009 to avoid confusion, is it "the 2000s decade"? I saw a recommendation to use "the first decade of the 21st century", but as the 21st century starts at 2001 this seems wrong. This is also what was said in another discussion. Whatever the consensus may be, I think it should be added to the page itself as well, not just be discussed at the talk page (it might be there somewhere, but not where I expected it to be). --Muhandes (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I used the 2000s to refer to the naughts and the 2010s to refer to the teens, and it went over fine in U.S. state reptiles, now featured.TCO (talk) 07:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's not a very good example, as the sentence reads "seven states in the 1980s, eight states in the 1990s, and eight states in the 2000s" so it's clear from the context it's a decade. The question would be what to use when there is a possibility of ambiguity. --Muhandes (talk) 11:20, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

You're right that it's been discussed here. Short answer: when we did an extensive gsearch of "1700s" and "1800s" a couple of years ago, those expressions were almost never used to mean "1700-1709" and "1800-1809", except where people got that meaning from Wikipedia. "1900s" was different; from memory, maybe 10% of the relevant hits meant "1900-1909", and I'm just taking a wild guess that usage dates from roughly 1910 ... after all, in 1910, what else is "1900s" likely to mean? I see that the same is true now; some people use "2000s" to mean 2000-2009. Whether that's what it will still mean 100 years from now, I don't know. Not my problem (hopefully :) - Dank (push to talk) 15:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Colons in times?

It's been asserted recently that WP:MOSTIME requires colons in times (i.e. 5:00 p.m., not 5 p.m.). What it actually says is: "... colons separate hours, minutes and seconds (e.g. 1:38:09 pm or 13:38:09)." Does anyone else read this to require colons? I don't see this in any style guide, and my take is that 5 p.m isn't the same as 5:00 p.m., just as 1 meter isn't the same as 1.00 meters. - Dank (push to talk) 17:58, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I certainly wouldn't "correct" 5 p.m. (except to make it  ). For one thing, WP:MOSTIME also says "Use noon and midnight rather than 12 pm and 12 am", when it could have said "rather than 12:00 pm and 12:00 am", which would be the alternative under the no-5-pm interpretation. I assume you mean 12-hour times only (as far as I know, military time would be 17:00 or "seventeen hundred hours"). Art LaPella (talk) 20:40, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't read it that way. To me it reads "... colons (as opposed to full stops, hyphens, etc.) separate hours, minutes and seconds (where necessary) ..." Otherwise "5:00 pm" would also be banned in favour of "5:00:00 pm". Should it be made clearer? JIMp _talk·cont 15:50, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

IMO it's reasonably clear as written. Your feedback was helpful, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 15:02, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

AWB date question

Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Removing spaces from a year range after "c." Art LaPella (talk) 20:58, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

An AWB developer wants the discussion moved here. I brought it up on the AWB talk page, worded this way: "AWB (general fixes) tried to change "(c. 1475 – 1542)" to "(c. 1475–1542)" in the article Giacomo Fogliano, but that introduces imprecision to the year of death."

Does the removal of spaces around the en dash change the understanding of the death date? Even if it does not, does the inclusion of a space in the birth date ("c. 1475") still call for the style requirement of spaces on either side of the en dash? Chris the speller (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Due to lack of interest here, I have suggested that the AWB developers drop the investigation. Chris the speller (talk) 23:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I do think this is important, but possibly not AWB-able. I would even favour "(c.1475 – 1542)" or "(born c.1475, died 1542)" to make the binding of the circa clearer. We do mandate "(c. 1475 – c. 1542)" for when both dates are unknown, however readers cannot be assumed to be familiar with the MoS. Rich Farmbrough, 09:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC).

What do we really mean by format consistency?

What do the presently assembled make of Dreaming of You (album) – a GA nominee? On the surface, the article complies with MOSNUM... but is this what we mean? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

A two-minute scan through looking mainly at numbers reveals: "1994-1995" should be "1994–1995" according to WP:ENDASH. "December, 24 1995" and "January, 8 1996" should be "December 24, 1995" and "January 8, 1996" (WP:DATESNO doesn't explicitly rule out "December, 24 1995" but I would think any basic book on punctuation would, and none of DATESNO's examples look that way. Consistency isn't the issue; the article's other dates are punctuated normally.) "#2", "#21", and several occurrences of "#1" should be "No. 2", "No. 21", and "No. 1" according to WP:NUMBERSIGN. I don't see how consistency is an issue, so what did you have in mind? Art LaPella (talk) 04:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• Apologies for my lack of precision. On my haste, I neglected to mention I was referring to the use of mdy dates in the body of the article and dmy dates in the refs section. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:16, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

The guideline states that "Dates in article body text should all have the same format." and "Dates in article references should all have the same format." This does not prescribe the same format for both in the same article. Chris the speller (talk) 15:17, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

• Well yeah, ALP didn't notice it, but such an arrangement sure looks odd to me. So I just wanted to be sure that's what we mean to allow. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say I liked it, or that it looks right to me, and it sure messes up programs I had developed to make dates uniform within an article, but that's what it says, so I gotta live with it. Happy editing! Chris the speller (talk) 13:25, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• So the editors decided to use Mdy in prose and dMy in references. Both are consistent among themselves and comply with MOS. I don't see a problem with this article. —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 13:35, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

• I knew someone would say that! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 10:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

If MOSNUM is allowing mdy & dmy in the one article, it should be changed. That's rediculous. This exception was obviously put in place to allow telephone number date format for refs (also silly but hey ...). JIMp _talk·cont 15:56, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Also to allow "14 September 2004" in the text and "14 Sep 2004" in the refs, or "September 14, 2004" in the text and "Sept. 14, 2004" in the refs. --A. di M. (talk) 18:07, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I say one format throughout. To do otherwise is regarded as amateurish in any other reputable publication house. Tony (talk) 02:31, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Damn nbsp's

I don't see any mention of non-breaking space insertion over at the AWB documentation (and I'd rather use a script, anyway). Anyone got one? I hate inserting them by hand. (I'm not a fan of nbsp's if it's not obvious, I just need them for FAC.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:14, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of nbsp as a method of controlling spaces either. Can you provide a link to the FAC comments please? Lightmouse (talk) 15:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The question is, can I provide links without getting in trouble :) One of our favorite FAC delegates left the comment that an WP:NBSP review was needed in edit summaries, and has done so in several recent FACs. I want to add ... my guess is that a really smart script could get the nbsp's right at least 95% of the time, and I have no objection to running a script to insert nbsp's. When WP is running slowly, in a long article, it can take 30 minutes to do each one by hand, and I generally try to help out with history articles at FAC, so it's not an insignificant burden. - Dank (push to talk) 15:29, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope that came across as light-hearted and not snide.- Dank (push to talk) 16:13, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, no one has a script? It looks like it wouldn't be that hard; I'll collaborate on one if no one's done it before. Have people been doing these by hand, or not doing them? - Dank (push to talk) 13:19, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I worry that the plusnbspsemicolon gobbledy makes the text that bit more impenetrable to visitors and newbies in edit-mode. That's why I don't add them myself. What we need is a short-cut keystroke. Noetica tried to gather momentum for it a while ago, but it seemed difficult. I would like this to be a priority, along with an easy way of inputting a non-breaking hyphen. Tony (talk) 13:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I haven't been doing them unless someone asks for them at FAC, for exactly the same reasons ... especially since Sue Gardner and the Foundation are making a push to make the edit screen more user-friendly. But my main goal is just to get articles through FAC without spending a lot of time on tedious work. - Dank (push to talk) 13:32, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) After the umpteenth time such a proposal was ignored, I lost any hope that such a thing will ever be implemented. --A. di M. (talk) 13:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Again, I'll offer the idea that we could use templates to make it both easy to remember and visually identifiable in the edit box, but we would need to alter the behavior of at least one existing template to make the equivalent emdash template. The obvious choice, {{ndash}} (and endash) and {{mdash}} (and emdash) introduce a space character in addition to the proper markup, which seems like something these scripts should not be doing. I will also point out that {{nbsp}} exists as well. If there are standard combinations, for example: nbsp, ndash, nbsp; we can figure out a new template for that combo as well to simplify further. --MASEM (t) 13:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) {{nbsp}} is two keystrokes more than  , and the latter is already familiar to whoever knows HTML. An actual improvement would need a one- or two-character shortcut, such as my proposal _ or Noetica's ,,. (Oh God, why did I go into this again?) --A. di M. (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The "_" won't work as the Wikimedia software interprets the underscore as an implicit space when resolving names (WP:Manual_of_Style is the same as WP:Manual of Style). {{, ,}} is available (and thus can simply be a redirect to {{nbsp}}. But again, remember we're talking mnemonic value and easy of editing. I would think: January 1, 2001{{nbsp}}{{ndash}}{{nbsp}}December 31, 2001 would be easier to parse to a novice editor than January 1, 2001 – December 31, 2011 even though there's brevity of character use there. Of course, there's multiple ways of doing this, we just want the solution(s) that produce the minimal havoc on the rest of the work but offer the most benefit. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Of course, the Occum's Razor, simplest answer is to commendeer {{-}} for ndash ({{--}} is mdash already), having a bot convert all current {{-}} uses (used as the "clear" HTML/CSS markup) to {{clr}} or something similar (after getting consensus to do so) and then we have nice simple, visually accurate templates for all of our ndash and mdash needs. --MASEM (t) 15:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

For backward compatibility (see Headbomb below), I'd prefer re-purposing {{--}} to be an en dash and use {{---}} for the em dash. --A. di M. (talk) 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The non-breaking space is also considered the same in page titles (WP:Manual of Style is also the same page), so that's not actually an issue. As for visual appearance, January_1, 2001_-- December_31, 2001 would be even easier on the eye. :-) --A. di M. (talk) 17:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Now, there's a possible idea: I wonder if it would be easier on mediawiki to create a new tag, say <wikify> which can be used to wrap text in the same manner as the inline table format to part it to handle nbsp, ndash, and mdash in a visually applying and simple way. Say: <wikify>January_1, 2001_-- December_31, 2001</wikify>; once to that version, it can then always be template wrapped: {{wikify|January_1, 2001_-- December_31, 2001}}. Maybe we could repurpose the "~" character in prose to do this: ~January_1, 2001_-- December_31, 2001~. --MASEM (t) 17:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the tilde is used too frequently in articles (e.g. when giving approximate values) for that to be practical. By comparison, I've searched a few random articles and a few featured articles for underscores (in the rendered text, not the wikitext source) and they appear to be used almost exclusively in URLs (which I guess would be relatively easy to single out) and in snippets of computer code (and my proposal for turning underscores to hard spaces could be disabled within <code> and --A. di M. (talk) 01:36, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

• Dank, I will raise this matter at FAC. Is someone pushing? I think we need a shortcut before insisting. If we get one, all of your good work will need to be unravelled. Tony (talk) 14:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
  • The only person who's asked for nbsp's that I'm aware of was one of the delegates, and only in edit summaries in several cases where we were getting close to the end of the FAC. I can't fault them for asking since nbsp's are still required per this page (it's the first thing on the page, even!). I was assuming that they had to be added to pass FAC, but now it seems there's some question. For over 3 years now, I've been wishing that the devs would implement our choices for where not to break lines in the renderer, as most publishers do; I've never heard of a copy editor worrying about nbsp's before (although of course if they've got hard copy, they usually fix line breaks, more or less in line with our nbsp rules). But what can you do, it's not like the devs are twiddling their thumbs. - Dank (push to talk) 14:37, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
    • Did we ever work out why two commas in a row is unacceptable? Tony (talk) 14:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
    • And why a plain -- can't be displayed as an en dash, and --- as an em dash (as LaTeX does)? Tony (talk) 16:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

      Because ,, looks like a mistake and no one uses that for a non-breaking space, while &nbsp; is deliberate, and both recognizable and unmistakable for anything other than a non-breaking space. Likewise switching {{-}} to produce an endash will break several old revisions, and is also undesirable. Seriously, what is wrong with &nbsp; and &ndash;? If the & and the ; are so horrible, go with {{nbsp}} and {{ndash}}. — Headbomb (16:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)), — (continues after insertion below.)

      {{Ndash}} is currently used for spaced en dashes, though I wouldn't object to moving that to e.g. {{_ndash_}} as someone once suggested, replacing all transclusions of the former with transclusions of the latter, and then changing the former to a ‘plain’ en dash. --A. di M. (talk) 17:52, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

      However, I can't think of any real reason to not render -- as – and --- as —. There are some people use -- for — out there, but I guess that could be fixed manually and isn't that big a problem... Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Question: if we can figure out where the line shouldn't wrap, and the websites of large publishers can figure out where the line shouldn't wrap, why can't the WMF servers figure it out? Why should we need to type anything, apart from a few cases where we want a human to make a judgment call? - Dank (push to talk) 18:01, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

"We Have All Been Here Before"

• See archived discussion of the hard space, reporting on many weeks of work by several MOS editors, MOSNUM editors, and others: here.
• See the proposal that ensued:

• See the page where all that development work happened: Noetica/ActionMOSVP.
• See where it could be taken further (if you're really interested in this problem): WT:NOWRAP.
• Learn from history, or repeat it. Your choice, colleagues.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I am disappointed that the style guide appears to mandate the insertion of a non-breaking space between a value and the abbreviation of the unit, e.g. 35 mm or 50 Hz rather than the clearer and easier to read 35mm or 50Hz. I've been writing technical articles and papers for 40 years and until I started contributing to Wikipedia I've never had anyone comment on my non-use of spaces. Looking at a random selection of technical journals and books I see that both forms are used in about equal measure; so why can this not be made an area where both are acceptable?

Davidlooser (talk) 15:41, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

The SI brouchure, published by the BIPM is the authoritative source for standards relating to SI. The standards in that document are echoed by NIST. Section 5.3.3 requires that spaces be inserted. See "International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2006), The International System of Units (SI) (PDF) (8th ed.), ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-06-04, retrieved 2021-12-16"

Well that's as maybe. I was taught, 40 years ago, that when an abreviation for a unit is used then it's incorrect to include a space, and that's what I've always done. In the world of film (which I'm particularly interested in) it's rare indeed for a space to be included between the film size and "mm" (thus 35mm NOT 35 mm). The later just looks plain wrong, it's less clear and takes more typing. I've also just looked at various containers of household items (food stuffs, cleaners etc.) in my house, without exception they omit a space.

I'd say that the SI are wrong about this. They chose the wrong style, which is probably why it's so widely ignored.

Davidlooser (talk) 17:43, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

If I am writing in UK English, I abide by the Oxford English Dictionary, if it is US English, I would suggest using Websters. By the same token, if I am writing SI units, I regard the SI brouchure as the authoritative source. Martinvl (talk) 03:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

This is discussed too often, in my opinion, independently of the type-face involved. The fact is that while numbers distinguish themselves very readily (jump out) from alphabetic letters in many fonts (historically, some typefaces were only cut for 26 roman letters, leaving printers to borrow compatible numerals, symbols, punctuation and italics as needed from other typefaces), while other type designers carefully designed their numbers to match the letters in style and weight. There's a whole technical distinction, in fact, between (1) "old-style" numbers, such as those in Georgia, which resemble letters closely: the tail of the 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9 drops below the base line in the same way that the descender of g, p, q and y do, the tail of 6 and the top loop of 8 rises above the top of e, o and x (the "x-line") and some numbers (often 0, 1 and 2) are the same height as e, o and x; and (2) "New Style" or "modern" numbers, such as those in Wikipedia's default font, where every number is of the same height, usually that of l (not to be confused with 1). [0123456789] Thus while no apostrophe is really needed to read 1960s without hesitation or pause in some fonts, an apostrophe (against the MoS's dictum) is really needed in others to make it not look too much like 19605. Similarly for units; 3mm/3mm is less readable to me than 3 mm/3 mm [noun form] or 3-mm/3-mm [adjectival form]. Wikipedia doesn't really control the typeface used on every reader's screen, let alone a saved or printed version, so one needs to think of the ones where letters and numbers just blend into each other. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:17, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Before Christ/In the year of Our Lord

I've made a bold edit to deal with the inherent Christian POV in dating things BC and AD. Please discuss. David in DC (talk) 02:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I reverted. Historians these days often finesse the issue by reading BC as "before the Christian era", and by giving just a number for the year rather than following it with AD. Unfortunately, I can only say this is what I've seen and heard; I don't have a scholarly quote for you to back this up. I can say that there's plenty of support in current style guides for both systems. We've had several discussions on this subject on this page before, the last was a few months ago. I'm not opposed to a change in the wording (perhaps including that BC is read by some as "before the Christian era", if we can find support for that ... I've heard it often enough in lectures), and I share your twinge of guilt, but this is very well-trodden territory, both on and off Wikipedia. - Dank (push to talk) 02:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand. Thank you for your explanation. I'll be looking for some reliable sources about why "finess[ing] the issue by reading BC as 'before the Christian era'" remains exclusionary. I'll note, though, that the way historians work around the issue is not self-evident to a reader who is reading an encyclopedia with his/her eyes, even if it is somewhat evident if the historian is reading aloud. And even if the historian is reading aloud, before the Common Era would be less exclusionary. David in DC (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's some food for thought on the topic. David in DC (talk) 20:26, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Here's an editorial from a Concord, New Hampshire newspaper that makes clear the position of some Christian fundamentalists who oppose BCE/CE. Quite rightly, they see it as a move away from a Christian orientation and toward a secular one. I agree. It's just that I think that's a good thing. Or in wiki-speak, I think it moves away from a Christian POV and toward WP:NPOV. David in DC (talk) 20:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Christian parents in Missouri's Rockwood County schools sure saw moving from BC/AD to BCE/CE the way I do. Check out this article. Again, They favor a Christian POV, where I'm arguing for a non-sectarian one.David in DC (talk) 21:01, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I didn't know the whole xtian religion would die because Wikipedias uses BCE/CE. I'll have to inform my fellow Atheists. I agree, this isn't an xtian encyclopedia, and it is more NPOV for the 5 billion people on the planet who don't think much of xtianity. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:32, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

This is not a question of your particular (snotty) attitude, what some people in some backwoods town in East Nowhere think, or any other point-making exercise. Its about accepted usage. Let's follow that. Herostratus (talk) 23:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Or perhaps we should focus on edits rather than editors. Snotty? WP:NPA. Accepted usage? Clearly not accepted by at least two editors, and gazillions of non-Christians. Let's follow wikipedia's norms and discuss whether consensus might change. Hereabouts accepted usage is called consensus. And hereabouts, consensus can change. Disagreeing without being disagreeable is just about the only true marker of adulthood, dontcha think? David in DC (talk) 02:15, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm against using anything other than "BC". I'll suggest that about half of those "5 billion" come from China and India, and they're free to use whatever system they prefer on their version of WP (and so are the 90%+ of the other half). The use of "BCE" is favored in academia, but we don't write for an academic audience; instead, we write for the average audience that have no trouble in understanding the meaning of the succinct and long-accepted "BC". I'm loathe to put the four ~~~~ characters at the end of this post because the risk of offending billions by introducing the connotation of why we use "2011" this year is just too awful to contemplate.  GFHandel.   03:32, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

¶ There have been strong arguments both ways, from Christian, non-Christian and non-believing editors alike, all the way back to Anno Domini MMIV (Christian Era). The current rough consensus, as I understand it, perhaps mistakenly, is to skip both AD & CE in modern contexts (e.g. Handel, Newton, the Renaissance or the American Revolution), to use CE/BCE in specialised contexts (such as Biblical archaeology, Islam or Jewish topics), and to use AD and BC elsewhere, certainly not for religious reasons, but because CE/BCE is as yet puzzling and unfamiliar to the general English-speaking readership of Wikipedia (concentrated in North America, the British Isles and Australasia). For a guide to some of the dozens of earlier discussions (which a glance at the Archive box above led me to), see:

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive 9 (2004), and
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of_Style (dates and numbers)/Archive D3#AD/BC CE/BCE issues (mid-decade)
  

For some of the later discussions (since 2008), see the 68 search items I found by asking the Archive Box above for MOSNUM discussions here and the 20 others I found by asking the Manual of Style's archive box here. While stability is greatly to be desired, there's certainly no law against more healthy, civil discussion of an inherently thorny and contentious topic (see Wikipedia:Consensus#Consensus can change), but respect for the work of earlier editors suggests at least browsing through earlier discussions. You may find some strong facts and arguments for your own current position, as well as against it; you may even modify your thoughts in the light of reason if you read the older discussions with an open mind. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:06, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I have read a fair number of the more recent discussions, and a smattering of the older ones, if a latter one linked back to an earlier one. I agree with you that civility is critical, and am troubled by the tone this converstion has taken on, so quickly. I don't think I've been incivil, but I've obviously offended a couple of folks above. I regret that and I apologize.

I will continue posting views from reliable sources, and civil argument, on this topic. It is my hope that consensus will change. We stand on the shoulders of giants, so I agree that prior editors' work should be respected. It's why I hung the WP:BOLD tag on my original edit. I sort of expected it to be reverted, but I had some hope that views in favor of non-sectarian dating might have already evolved. I still think it's the style of dating that best accords with WP:NPOV. But sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast, so I'm happy to hear civil disagreement any time. It helps all of us edit better. David in DC (talk) 13:22, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Be aware that editors become weary of opposing perennial proposals. If a few editors are perceived as trying to get their way by outlasting the weary majority, reactions to any changes to the guideline by one of the few editors may be rather abrupt. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good topic for an essay. WP:WEARY? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 14:19, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Concur re essay. I'd read it happily.

But who are these few editors you write of, Jc? Assuming good faith, why would they be perceived as "...trying to get their way by outlasting the weary majority." Were I such a weary editor, I'd try awfully hard not to let my weariness trump my assumption of good faith.

As for me, I'm not trying to outlast anyone, nor will I try again to edit the guideline without strong evidence of a new consensus. I'm not trying to game the system. I'm not trying to take advantage of anyone's weariness. I'm not "a few" anything, except maybe a few tacos short of a full lunch combo.

I'm simply a single, longtime editor who finds the current consensus wildly at odds with WP:NPOV. The terms "Our Lord" and "Christ" exclude me, and any other English-speaking non-Christians reading or editing en.wikipedia. I do not doubt the existence of a historical Jesus. But I do not see him as Christ (which means Messiah) nor as my Lord. That's a Christian point of view. A non-sectarian point of view, it seems obvious to me, would not use explicitly Christian terminology.

I see, understand, and accept that it's not yet sufficiently obvious to my colleagues in editing this great collaborative project to warrant a change. Some day, I expect it will be. Fortunately, we are not writing, or editing, on any sort of deadline. I'm happy to take the advice about the perceptions of weary editors, but I sure hope it doesn't extend to continued dialogue about the topic on this talk page. Sometimes, proposals are perennial because they are like the proverbial bad penny, turning up over and over again. More often, I suspect, they're perrenial because they are seen to have merit by successive cohorts of editors. Please grant the possibility that this one is more like the latter example than the former. Thanks. David in DC (talk) 20:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I have no belief in a higher or outside Power or Being myself, and can often be upset at the assumption that everyone must have such a belief. But since the calendar in common use is in fact dated very roughly from the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth (whom most people, regardless of their views of His divinity or His anointing with the chrism, know best as Jesus Christ), I just find it far easier to use the familiar terms A.D. and B.C. While some atheists and agnostics may prefer B.C. and B.C.E., and they're not inherently loaded, most of those who use the terms seem to be devout Jews or Muslims, which would give (however unjustifiably) the appearance of a different sort of bias. On the other hand, while understandable, it's not justified for Christians to see the use of B.C. and B.C.E. to be part of some kind of deliberately offensive anti-Christian campaign on Wikipedia, any more than the use of American spelling in some articles and British in others is some kind of Anglophile or Anglophobe campaign. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this discussion has progressed to the point of a few editors trying to outlast a majority of editors who follow the development of style guidelines, and I think the time to mention such a possibility is before it happens. That said, I observe that outside of Wikipedia, changes in core parts of the language related to numbers and measurement tend to take a decade or more (just look at metrication in the USA). It would be nice to have some sort of tracking mechanism for these discussions, so an editor new to the topic could be referred to a list of when a perennial proposal was last discussed. I don't know when AD/CE was last discussed, but considering the decade or more it would probably take for such a change to be commonplace in English, I see no need to discuss it here every few months. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

BC and AD do not represent a Christian POV any more or less than BCE and CE represent a Eurocentric and Western POV. How does one objectively determine which of these supposed POVs is more exclusive or divisively biased than the other? By your logic, we should need to either (1) refer to all notable terms within Wikipedia of a potentially sectarian/religiously-connotated nature like Thursday (Thor's Day), by a generic, neutered term like "Common Day 4", or (2) use the Islamic year-numbering system within Islam-related articles, the Hebrew year-numbering system within Judaism-related articles, etc. Just because Common Era happens to be a notable term doesn't make it NPOV. Google hits for AD/BC far outweigh those for BCE/CE, so technically BC/AD should be our standard, but I understand how insane that would drive most supposed "atheists" on here. As an atheist myself, I never could understand how fellow atheists or skeptics could be "offended by" or completely insulted by any reference to BC/AD because of its "pro-Christian bias", all the while using the Roman/Norse pagan days of the week and months without concern about any "pagan bias".

The interesting thing is — if we get right down to semantics — "BC" and "AD" only represent two letters each of the alphabet, so they are in no way representative of a Christian POV through the abbreviated form in which they are used on Wikipedia. Even if you grant that BC is an acronym for "Before Christ", the term Christ only directly means "messiah", not specifically Jesus of Nazareth. You would have to further understand and research the context to even realize that "Christ" here is referring to Jesus of Nazareth. Similarly, with AD, the phrase "In the year of [Our/the] Lord" does not specify who or what the "Lord" is. You would again need to research the matter to realize that it is a shortened form of "In the year of [Our/the] Lord Jesus Christ", and so "AD" in itself does not even reference Jesus of Nazareth himself, much less any claimed supernatural component.

So, when you strip this issue down to its core, BC and AD are nothing but letters, and the words they represent do not even specifically address the Christian deity by name. BCE and CE, however, represent what has been arbitrarily labeled a "common era" that all people are expected to accept and use like any other commodity, even though the era is clearly a Christian system centered on the birth of the Christian deity. I think that's a whole lot more offensive and biased than the original acronyms ever were. If we had just left well enough alone, the terms BC/AD would be as religiously charged to people as Tuesday and Wednesday are. That being said, I am in no way advocating that we stop using BCE/CE on Wikipedia. Both systems should be used and the current guideline should remain. What irks me is when people pull this tired and poorly-thought out PC argument about why BC/AD are biased and BCE/CE are neutral. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 14:14, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The vehemence here is startling. As are the contortions of logic necessary to conclude that C doesn't stand, explicitly, for Christ and AD doesn't stand, explicitly, for "In the Year of Our Lord" or that Lord, in this context, does not connote divinity. "Tired and poorly thought-out" are an interesting mix of projecting Jc's "weariness" onto the thinking of a BCE/CE proponent and then indicating a defect in the proposer's thinking process. The latter is a personal attack.

The hoary accusation of "Political Correctness" has now become so ubiquitous as a criticism of any change as to render the imprecation without much sting. It's a convenient rubric --- more a slogan than an argument with any intellectual heft behind it.

I agree that just because "Common Era" is notable does not render it NPOV. However, it's notability does seem to contradict the notion that BCE/CE is obscure and hard to understand. It's well understood by "...some people in some backwoods town in East Nowhere...." But Herostratus counsels that we ought not care about what they think. So which is it, that BCE/CE isn't understandable by commoners who aren't among "the majority of editors who follow the development of style guidelines", or that BCE/CE is understood quite well by the people in East Podunk, but that what they understand is irrelevant.

In my opinion, the analogy to Thor's Day or Odin's Day is a weak one. Thursday and Wednesday have an etymological tie to Thor and Odin, but they do not frame history from a Norse or Pagan viewpoint. BC and AD do frame history from a Christian viewpoint.

"Google hits for AD/BC far outweigh those for BCE/CE, so technically BC/AD should be our standard..." is a peculiar assertion. Imagine carrying that logic to the phrase "miserable failure" a couple of years ago. Please guide me to any policy-based rationale for using google hits as a measure of what en.wikipedia's standards should be. Google hits are generally decried and treated with derision when suggested as the standard for notability. Is it different for issues of style?

As I started, so shall I end. What's the vehemence and vitriol all about? It's at odds with collaboritive editing. It smacks of WP:OWN and even WP:WALLEDGARDEN. If you're weary, for goodness' sake, rest and be rejuvenated. I'll not try to edit the guideline without evidence of a changed consensus. It's obvious that's not demonstrated here. Smacking me around like a pinata for daring even to bring up the subject is disproportionate. It seems remarkably defensive. Defensiveness rarely accompanies argument in favor of something the advocate sees as well-settled and self-evident. Much more often, it accompanies an argument in favor of a status quo the advocate sees as threatened by progress. David in DC (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually the point about "Thor's Day" etc. is spot on. It's only not a winning argument if "BC and AD do frame history from a Christian viewpoint" and BCE/ACD don't. But they do. The beginning of the "Common Era" is not a random year; it's the traditional birth year of Jesus. Changing the terminology from BC to BCE alters the system very little. As far as I'm concerned, the BC/AD - BCE/ACE system is annoying for two reasons: 1) it's silly to have the year "1" occur right in the middle of history (and also makes some calculations harder) and 2) it's Eurocentric. I'd support a movement to pick some random year say 10,000 years ago as the year "1" and date the "Common Era" from that. But absent that, it's just messing around with semantics and doesn't really make a difference either way. If you find the "C" annoying and the "CE" not, even though they mean the same thing, that's your choice and your privilege, but most people don't much care. Maybe just pretend that "BC" stands for "Before Commontime" and "AD" stands for "After Dat" or something, or whatever, but I'd recommend just letting it go. Herostratus (talk) 00:17, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it is oversimplifying the debate to suggest that it is Christians versus the rest on BC vs BCE. In fact, many Christians find BC/AD problematical because it appears that Jesus was born in about 6 or 7 BC, so the calendar isn't even accurate. As this is so, some Christians have also argued that it is best to refer to it as the Common Era (CE) or before the Common Era (BCE). A second problem is that some non-Christians find the term objectionable. Of course, BC/AD is traditional, but that does not stop the terms from being problematical for a growing number of Christians and non-Christians alike. Michael Glass (talk) 02:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

If you read through my comments here, you'll see that I'm an atheist and I am against BCE/CE and support BC/AD. So there are people from all sides of the table with all types of viewpoints. I've made my case here, and I think it's a reasonable argument. I don't find BC/AD any more objectionable than Wednesday or January. It's all the same mythology to me, and I find it ridiculous to single out one bit of mythology for neutralization because it happens to be that of the world's current largest religious group. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 03:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

In case I didn't make it clear bafore, I'm another atheist (an agnositical, non-evangelical one since I think such questions are at bottom undecidable in this world) who supports AD & BC over the still-not-widely-known CE & BCE in most contexts, but I don't think that there's anything wrong or irrational with those of any religious opinion who support either CE/BCE or AD/BC. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Right. And given that both CE/BCE and AD/BC are inherently biased, I think practicality should be the determining factor for which is best to use. In that respect, BC and AD are the clear winners in my view. BC and AD both have two letters each, and they sound distinctly different from each other in speech. In contrast, CE has two letters but BCE has three, and when speaking, the "E" in CE and BCE can also tend to seamlessly blend with the "C" unless you intentionally pause in speech between the "C" and "E". This can make the listener think you've actually said BC instead of BCE anyway, making the entire effort laughably pointless. In addition, many often mistake "ACE" as the proper acronym for CE (to equate the three digits of BCE), when in fact this is not the case. There's also the further confusion and debate over what the "C" is meant to stand for. On Wikipedia we promote it foremost as "Common", but most external sources seem to ascribe the term "Christian", and "Current" is yet another interpretation. And all this for what? To avoid the Christian implications of a Christian dating system? Please. CE proponents should consider supporting the Holocene Era instead. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 05:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record, I don't think that BCE and CE are biased; in fact they're probably more objective and value- or belief-neutral (since they imply no assumption either way about the divine or messianic status of Jesus of Nazareth); and in some relatively-limited contexts (which might include some broad fields like archaeology) perhaps more appropriate, just as giving the Jewish (Masoretic), Islamic, Roman (A.U.C.), French Revolutionary or Julian year is sometimes appropriate. So while I understand the upset that some Christians periodically express at seeing BCE or CE, and wish to offer no one unnecessary offence, their complaints of religious (or anti-religious) bias are not in fact justified. My preference is based purely on how familiar current general readers of Wikipedia are with (B)CE and less importantly their rarity in non-specialist speech. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Uncle. David in DC (talk) 00:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I did a Google search on "siege Jerusalem 70 site:.il" on the assumption that most of the editors on that site would be Jewish rather than Christian. A significant number of entries (probably 40%) chose to use AD rather than CE. I would therefore suggest that the issue of using BC,AD or BCE,CE be treated in the same way as the choice of UK or US English - the first editor of any article has the perogative to make the choice and others follow suit. Martinvl (talk) 11:29, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

"...others follow suit". If I'm honest, I'm not overly fond of that either. I've never understood why the first one sets the standards? I'm hoping that you will permit "BCE" to later become "BC" based on consensus forming for an article?  GFHandel.   00:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I think the idea being WP:ENGVAR ("the first editor of any article has the prerogative to make the choice and others follow suit") is just to avoid sterile edit warring. And the same principle applies de facto to other things that aren't spelled out in a MOS - whether to use dates or just years in the parenthesized vital information at the beginning of biographical articles, for instance. Generally, I think that's good. One thing is, there is always a cost to making a rule that must be followed by all, that cost being the loss of editors. If, for instance, we were to make the decision "Well, we must have a rule regarding English vs American spelling, for the sake of consistency", we would gain in consistency, but we would lose a lot of English editors (if we decided that American spelling must be used) or a lot of American editors (if we decided that English spelling must be used) who would just say Well if I'm required to use the spelling from across the pond I'm simply going to find another hobby. I think the same thing comes into play (to a smaller extent) any time we proscribe that a particular style must be used, when this is contentiouss. Herostratus (talk) 11:23, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Engvar is a much simpler idea: Leave it alone, unless there is consensus to change. After consensus, stay with the new consensus. The "first contributor" business is an effort to deal with the case where there has never been consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:44, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

To everybody interrested in the issue: Articles about 'Jewish subjects' should preferably use BCE/CE per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Judaism/Manual_Of_Style#Gregorian-Calendar_Dates. Just don't blame me - I didn't wrote this official policy. Flamarande (talk) 20:49, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Should we offer conversions (without proselytising)?

Since I'm one who strongly concurs in Wikipedia's policy of always offering conversions between metric/ISO and non-metric units — as in 1 mile (1.6 km) or 100 degrees Celsius (212° F) — and since my opinions on AD/BC/E are governed by how well they're understood by others, I think it might be worth adding a suggestion to Wikipedia: Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Year numbering systems for a similar explication of years, at least for the first appearance of CE and BCE in an article which has many occurrences of CE and BCE; if there are only a few appearances of CE and BCE, maybe put (AD) or (BC) after each one. Similarly, although I'm far less sure of this, put (CE) and (BCE) after at least the first occurrence of AD and BC. In the latter conversion I'm not sure what would be the best style, for example AD 70 (CE) or 70 AD (CE). 753 BC(E) or 753 BC (BCE). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:45, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Or we could just use negative years for BC(E) and positive years for (AD|CE). Boom.

In all seriousness: policy should be for articles on religious topics to use the appropriate convention for that religion (eg. Christian articles = BC/AD; any-religion-other-than-Christian = BCE/CE as needed), for non-religious topics to use the conversion template(s) as proposed above by Shakescene if necessary. For example, I don't need to be told that Adolf Hitler, to pick a random historical personage, was born in 1889 AD/CE; just 1889 will suffice.

The number of appearances of BC(E) or AD/CE should probably also be limited. Once we know Person X is born in 700 BC(E), we don't need to be told that this event happened in 690 BC(E) and then this event in 675 BC(E) and so on. The only time it should be mentioned again is if there is possibly confusion -- eg. events that happen very close to year 0. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 06:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, something like "753 BC(E)" would be useful for a reader who was all like "BC? What is that? Oh, it's BCE, I get it!". Is this a problem that readers have? I don't suppose so. Maybe in future it will be. Also: there is no such thing as a "Christian article" and so forth. There are only "Wikipedia articles". We can't/don't/shouldn't assume that readers of articles on a given faith are themselves adherents of that faith, and even if we did we shouldn't worry too much about their sensibilities. Herostratus (talk) 07:06, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

No... but by that same logic we shouldn't assume that readers of British topics will be British and therefore should use British spelling. American English on all British topics! Not done. Just the same way American topics use American-style dates (eg. April 24, 2011) whereas an article about, say, a Polish topic will use Polish-style dates (24 April 2011). Christian topics, (eg, the page on Jesus Christ or a pope, etc) should use Christian-styled era specifiers (BC/AD) while non-Christian topics should use the others if necessary. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 19:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, variations between English-speaking nations is a special case. I would say that MOS:TIES is mostly nonsense and I certainly don't pay any attention to it, and when I create an article about a British entity I certainly don't write "favour" and "colour" and "bonnet" (of a car) and what have you because those words are not in my vocabulary. Am I supposed to keep a dictionary of British spellings and usage at hand for when I create articles about British entities? I hope not, because I don't and don't plan to. (Now, it is true that de facto most articles about British entities have been written (or started) by British persons and therefore have British spellings which are (properly) retained per WP:ENGVAR, and vice versa for articles on American subjects.)

But as to Polish usage, are you serious? This is the English Wikipedia. I have written many subjects on Russian subjects, and I use American dating (because I'm American -- if I was British I would use British dating I suppose) and don't pay any mind what system they use in Russia. If the Russians used an idiosyncratic Russian system -- DD/YYYY/MM say, or dating years from the founding of Kiev -- should we follow that? Of course not. If I choose to start an article on a "Christian topic" -- whatever that is -- I'm willing to be constrained by a general "For all topics, use what the great majority of sources use, if applicable" if this is insisted upon, although I wouldn't advocate such a rule. But I am very much not willing to be constrained by a general "Christian topic? Use BC/AD" rule. And I would find such a rule a worth -2 Annoyance Points. And we want to be careful: Every time we constrain how an editor may use his own judgment in expressing a thought, we lose X editors where X may not assumed to be zero. We should only constrain editors where there is specific benefit that we can point to that offsets the inevitable commensurate loss in Annoyance Points. Herostratus (talk) 22:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

In Europe dates are written day month year. 24 April 2011. 24-04-2011. Actually I think that's how it is in most of the rest of the world as well. I just happened to use Polish as an example; I could equally well have said English or Canadian or Spanish or French or anything else. This is what I was attempting to point out. MOS:DATES, this article in fact, goes on for some time on this topic.

I'm thinking that this whole BC/AD vs BCE/CE thing should be lumped in with "Strong national ties to a topic" -- eg. WP:STRONGNAT. And I'm not saying that you should constrain yourself when starting a Christian topic, say; I'm saying, in case of edit warring or disputes, go with AD/BC on Christian topics and BCE/CE for others. Just like if you were to start an article about a clearly British topic and write it in American English, and someone came by and converted it to British English, there's no problem; but if there's an edit war that starts over it the British English variation will win. --Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 03:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I had never heard of WP:STRONGNAT and [[MOS:TIES before all this, don't think much of them, and don't intend under any circumstances to start spelling "favor" as "favour" when I start an article (respecting the existing spelling used in an existing article is another matter entirely). Dates doesn't matter to me since I always spell out the month (and so should you, and everyone) to avoid the confusion over whether 10/12/2001 means December 10 or October 12. (However, I'm certainly not going to start writing "7 July, 1998" instead of "July 7, 1998" when creating articles about Russia since there is no good reason to do that).

"in case of... disputes, go with AD/BC on Christian topics and BCE/CE for others..." -- this sounds like you are suggesting that all articles that are not, specifically, about Christian topics should use BCE/CE (if someone disputes an existing BC/AD scheme, which anyone could on any article). This is not a good a idea and is not going to fly anyway... didn't we just go over this just recently? Just let the original writer of the article decide, and respect whatever she used. Herostratus (talk) 04:50, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

What articles should be tagged with geographical coordinates?

The Geographical coordinates section goes into agonizing detail about how to tag articles with geo coordinates, but it doesn't explain at all which articles should be tagged. This section should be expanded to explain which of the following types of articles should be geotagged and which shouldn't:

1. businesses:
   • businesses with a single location
   • businesses with multiple locations
   • defunct businesses/organizations
2. buildings/structures:
   • demolished buildings/structures
   • buildings/structures that have been proposed, but not yet built
3. people:
   • deceased people (gravesites)
   • living people (current place of residence)
4. ships:
   • permanently docked ships (Brazos Belle for example)
   • non-permanently docked ships (home port)
   • shipwrecks
5. miscellaneous:
   • sports teams
   • works of art (other than statues)
   • archeological artifacts (place of discovery or place of exhibit?)
   • location-specific events (past, present, future)
   • others?

These are all cases that are unclear. Without guidance we end up with inconsistent application across articles, or worse, edit wars. Kaldari (talk) 20:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Living people is creepy. We don't need to do this. There's very few people on here who need their addresses, mainly because their addresses are independently notable, and already have articles. (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue). See no point in home port for non-permanently docked ships, coordinates should only be for generally stationary things. Sports teams, no, because there will be a link to their stadium, and it's better handled there. Same deal for works of art - can be handled in the article on its museum. (and if its museum doesn't have an article, then maybe. But not if it's a private residence...) --Golbez (talk) 21:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

IMO, which articles are geo-tagged is not a manual of style issue. On that basis, if you want to discuss the which question, you might want to select a better venue, including Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates which at least has the benefit of an audience of people interested in geo-tagging, and which has hosted discussions on the appropriateness or lack thereof, of geo-tagging this or that. I know you've flagged this discussion there, but I still think this discussion is in the wrong place. I agree that we are missing a single page dealing with the which question, but, equally, I know there is no consensus that coordinates are a good thing; I've seen many objections, not least applied to coordinates for area or linear features. Sometimes the difficulty and likely impasse arising out of trying to have the discussion makes the discussion not worth the candle. There are, too, many many more categories of things we'd have to consider than are in your list. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it matters that much where the discussion is, so long as there is a discussion and the results are posted somewhere. Can we please not discuss the discussion venue, but instead discuss the question? And yes, there are lots more categories of things that are not listed above. Do you have any opinions on any of the ones listed though? Feel free to add more if you wish. Kaldari (talk) 22:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A discussion in an inappropriate venue is unlikely to come up with results that are seen as credible by the wider community. WP:VP/P would clearly be more appropriate for a discussion of policy with respect to content than a forum discussing style. But YMMV, of course. I tend, too, to think that we should be heading towards principles, rather than going category by category; but they're not easily framed. Yes, I have an opinion on all in your list. I'll make the presumption that we're talking about coords appearing in infoboxes or on the title line rather than inline coords (which would normally be associated with content explaining exactly what the coord alludes to):

1. businesses:
   • businesses with a single location - yes. A single location tends to be easily geolocatable. Why not.
   • businesses with multiple locations - doesn't work for me, so no. Others might argue for the head office, but I don't buy it
   • defunct businesses/organizations - if the location is in some way notable. The business being defunct is not realy a consideration for me.
2. buildings/structures:
   • demolished buildings/structures - yes. Why would we not wish to say here is where it was.
   • buildings/structures that have been proposed, but not yet built - yes, if there's WP:RS.
3. people:
   • deceased people (gravesites) - No. Equally, no objection to an inline coord in the vicinity of details of the burial place. But I'm prepared to make other exceptions, such as for Blair Peach, since where he was killed is central to the reason he is in the encyclopedia.
   • living people (current place of residence) - No, for all the obvious reasons.
4. ships:
   • permanently docked ships (Brazos Belle for example) - Yes - though BB is a poor example, as it seems to have sunk in 2008, and is probably razor blades by now.
   • non-permanently docked ships (home port) - No. There's a principle akin to subsidiarity here: the coord belongs to the port, not the ship, and should be found on the port article.
   • shipwrecks - Yes, subject to WP:RS Ditto the point at which they sunk, if the precise wreck site is not known, such as the SS Atlantic Conveyor
5. miscellaneous:
   • sports teams - No. As you note, the stadium is the thing without legs, and the subsidiarity principle applies
   • works of art (other than statues) - i.e. no coords for the Mona Lisa. Tend to agree, and would go with the subsidiarity principle again.
   • archeological artifacts (place of discovery or place of exhibit?) - certainly not the latter, under the subsidiarity principle. I think I'd want to avoid labelling the artifact article with a coord, but would ideally like to point to the place of discovery, perhaps with an inline coord.
   • location-specific events (past, present, future) - yes, as they're location specific. Why not provide users with a means to see the location.
   • others?

The obvious others for me would be confirmation that it is appropriate to coord areas - I know some think, for instance, that parliamentary constituencies should not be coorded because their boundaries change from time to time, or for other reasons I don't understand. Much the same presumably pertains to other abstract areas - counties, &c. Radio stations is another good 'un - there are many marked with {{coord missing}} and IIRC the prevailing wisdom is to try to denote the area throughout which they can be heard, perhaps with reference to thier main transmitter. That doesn't really work for me.

Interesting as all this is, I'm yet to be convinced that there is a problem which requires the solution hoped for from this discussion. You worry about "inconsistent application across articles, or worse, edit wars". I worry about interminable policy wars as we try to reconcile the differing views of the US Highways project with the European highways project (I've read in the past diametrically opposed views on coording these linear features), or US versus UK cavers, where the prevailing ethos on publishing coordinates is completely out of phase. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:55, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, there are lots of areas where we may not be able to reach consensus, that's fine. We don't have to cover every possible scenario in our guidelines. Right now, however, we don't even cover the most basic cases for which there is clear consensus. For example, if a new editor wants to know whether it is appropriate to add coordinates for a building that was demolished, we don't offer any advice to them. Kaldari (talk) 19:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The question remains, is there a problem of sufficient scale to warrant guidelines? I'm not aware that lack of guidelines is a real practical problem; and the most obvious other way of finding out whether coordinates are appropriate is to look at the treatment of other articles on similar subject matter. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:01, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is definitely a problem. I don't want to spend half an hour trying to figure out if I should or shouldn't add geo coordinates to every article I create. I especially don't want to take the time to look up and add the coordinates and then have someone come along and delete them because they say they are not appropriate. Do you really want to keep answering the same questions for the rest of time? If we can save people time and grief, why would we not want to list some suggestions for problematic cases? I don't care where it is listed: here, Wikiproject Geo Coord, even on an obscure subpage somewhere. But we should list the consensus somewhere so we can point people to it when they ask, instead of just letting them flounder in the same edit wars over and over. Kaldari (talk) 21:29, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Nice try, but the hyperbole seeps through. Assuming you're working on an article on the borderline of "should I, should I not", I doubt it would reasonably take a half hour to figure out. If your article is in a category, you can view five other articles in 30 seconds to work out what happens elsewhere. And the problem does not arise with every article that you create, but rather a very very small minority (unless you specialise in "should I, should I not"type articles.) I'm not against us offering advice, but we lack consensus on which to develop that advice - as evidenced by the rush by the community to respond to this thread. --Tagishsimon (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually not working on any articles related to this currently, but it's been an issue that has aggravated me numerous times over the years. What do you think of first pass here? I tried to keep it simple. Kaldari (talk) 22:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The question of whether to supply coordinates is content question, not a style question. Content guidance belongs elsewhere, not in the Manual of Style.—Stepheng3 (talk) 11:47, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Avoiding confusing IEC prefixes

I don't think IEC prefixes should be used in this table. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_disk_drive&diff=next&oldid=422880783 Please advise. 220.255.2.94 (talk) 16:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The table is comparing the binary prefixes with the decimal prefixes. That's the point of the table. Since at least one hard drive manufacturer was sued over a misunderstanding of the difference, it is apt and relevant to Hard drive as has been repeatedly explained to multiple IPs from your part of the world. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The IEC prefixes are not required and I will explain why on the article talk page. Glider87 (talk) 00:38, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

User Glider87 is entirely correct. The IEC prefixes (both the written-out unit names, prefixes, and their symbols) are not used in the real world. No computer manufacturer in materials directed to a general-interest customer base—not in their advertising, brochures, packaging, or instruction manuals. Because of this fact, no computer-related magazines that are directed to a general-interest readership use such terminology. So we don’t use them in Wikipedia’s computer-related articles to describe computer or hard drive capacity.

In Quantities of bytes and bits, the permissible uses of those units of measure are limited to the following:

• when the article is on a topic where the majority of cited sources use the IEC prefixes,
• when directly quoting a source that uses the IEC prefixes,
• in articles specifically about or explicitly discussing the IEC prefixes

The argument over on Talk:Hard disk drive that goes This table compares SI and binary prefixes. That counts as "explicitly discussing" it amounts to saying “we’re discussing the IEC prefixes now because I just now got through adding them to a table”. Nice try. But that is precisely the sort of argument the current guidelines are intended to shoot down. So, forget it. Such an argument employs mental subterfuge and circuitous logic.

At the top of this page is the archive box containing 18 archives under the rubric of “Binary prefixes.” Indeed, we debated and battled over this practice of using the IEC prefixes on Wikipedia for three long years. After it became clear that Wikipedia has to follow the way the real world works because it doesn’t go the other way around, we abandoned use of those units of measure except as narrowly permitted per the above three bullet points. It doesn’t matter if the standards body who made the proposal has three letters in their acronym or four. Nor does it matter if the IEC’s proposal sorely addresses an ambiguity or is way-cool and Wesley Crusher would most certainly be using them 300 years from now. Today, anyway, the computing world has so-far soundly said “Meh” to the IEC prefixes and they are virtually unknown to our readership.

The argument that our readership will learn them here and the idea will catch on like wild fire was soundly proven specious after trying that very stunt over a three-year period on Wikipedia (again, see the Binary prefixes archives, above). The two editors heavily responsible for that three-year-long jihad fell onto their Wikipedia swords after we decided to jettison routine use of the IEC prefixes to describe the magnitude of binary quantities in our articles. They’ve moved onto real life and will one-day meet their Wikipedia God (Jimbo?)—I suppose—as a reward for their efforts to grease Earth’s adoption into the United Federation of Planets.

We aren’t going to use units of measure in a table of hard drive capacity on Wikipedia if this is the only place the reader will ever likely encounter such terminology; our readership will A) simply be initially confused, and B) forget what they learned anyway since they won’t encounter such terminology in the real world again.

Someone, please be sure to archive this thread to the B17 archive (it’s closed but just add it to the bottom as the separate thread it is), or (*sigh*) create a whole new thread for when this sort of thing crops up. Greg L (talk) 02:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

That's a nice speech. Most of it's completely irrelevant though so I will just address your first paragraph:

"This table compares SI and binary prefixes. That counts as "explicitly discussing" it}} amounts to saying “we’re discussing the IEC prefixes now because I just now got through adding them to a table”." - That is exactly the reason we are using binary prefixes for one column of the table. There rules provide a specific exception for it. I don't know how you decided that this is "circuitous logic" or "mental subterfuge", but as per WP:COMMON this is obviously the clearest way of explaining the difference to the readers of the article.

We're not running around the pedia replacing every GB with a GiB. Just explaining the difference in a table. Relax--RaptorHunter (talk) 02:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

No it does not count as "explicitly discussing" because it does not follow the meaning of the guideline. The exception you cite is not relevant to the article. The point is it does not need to explicitly discuss it in that article when it is already discussed by a relevant article. The table I edited on the talk page makes sense, more sense, by not using the IEC prefixes. Using IEC prefixes is not the clearest way because as WP:MOSNUM says they "are not familiar to most Wikipedia readers". It is also against WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV to use IEC prefixes when they are not used by the sources used for the article subject. Glider87 (talk) 02:21, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Please keep the debate to one talk page please: Talk:Hard_disk_drive--RaptorHunter (talk) 02:28, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

You just posted a comment here so "keep the debate to one talk page please" applies to your post. If you don't want the issue discussed here then don't post here in the first place.Glider87 (talk) 02:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I’m not going to argue with you any further RaptorHunter. The IEC prefixes are verboten for use on Wikipedia as you are trying to do. Capacities can be explained in the table without using units of measure with which our readership is unfamiliar. You don’t have to agree with that vote to which I just linked. You will merely accede that this is the finding of a widely and vigorously debated issue and your edits will conform to the consensus views as embodied on MOSNUM on this matter; either that, or more draconian remedies will be found to deal with you. That article should not have to have been locked down over this; MOSNUM is clear as glass and I find that your argument that MOSNUM allows you to use the IEC prefixes in a table so they are self-referentially being “discussed” is shear nonsense.

And if you don’t want this issue discussed here too, then I suggest that you don’t respond here. Just that simple. But since what you are trying to do is 180 degrees contrary to the clear guidance of MOSNUM, then the matter may be touched upon here too.

Your argument that the consensus view when MOSNUM adopted its guideline somehow supports logic of yours that goes… This table compares SI and binary prefixes. That counts as "explicitly discussing" it (∆ edit here), is just about the oddest thing I think I have ever seen written on Wikipedia’s talk pages. Wow… By your logic, MOSNUM says it’s OK to use the IEC prefixes in that article because you just then discussed them when you used them!! (Wooow…) So just pardon me all over the place if I don’t buy into that one. Greg L (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Greg is correct IEC prefixes are "generally not to be used" for use on Wikipedia and for the table that RaptorHunter wants to include in the article. The table should use "bytes or bits, with clear indication of whether in binary or decimal base". I prefer the style "64 × 1024² bytes" but any notation style can be used as long as IEC prefixes are not used. Fnagaton 08:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

See RFC on the use of IEC prefixes to describe binary quantities, below. Greg L (talk) 15:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

STRONGNAT for Canada

"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." What's the reference for this? Check every major Canadian media outlet (CBC,CTV,Global,National Post,Globe&Mail,Sun,CPAC,ad nauseum) and you'll find MDY used by all of them, not DMY. Ditto for the major political party websites. Everyone from the Prime Minister to my digital TV guide seems to use MDY, it's far and beyond the most widely used format in Canada. French-speaking Canada seems to be the only ones that really uses DMY, and since this is the ENGLISH version of Wikipedia that's not a reason to use the odd format. --TheTruthiness (talk) 18:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the English front page for H.M. Government in Canada seems to be inconsistent (and thus un-Wikipedian):

GENERAL ELECTION ON MAY 2, 2011
26 March 2011
The 41st federal general election will be held on Monday, May 2, 2011. Canadian citizens at least 18 years old on election day are eligible to vote.
[ More ]

STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA ON THE SITUATION IN LIBYA
18 March 2011
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the following remarks on the situation in Libya

On the other hand, the English front pages of Statistics Canada and the Parliament of Canada , as well as the body of Canadian Hansard (e.g. here), seem to be pretty consistently MDY.

So as a non-Canadian, I'm not completely sure that it would be OK to change the first major contributor's DMY style to MDY under WP:ENGVAR, but maybe the tide has shifted so heavily to MDY that Canadian articles should be treated like U.S. ones. —— Shakescene (talk) 20:33, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Long-standing consensus is that Canadian topics are treated as WP:DATERET, not formally establishing either the US (MDY) or universal/international (DMY) date standards. For a reliable source on this, see The Canadian Style], section 5.14 Dates which indicates validity of either format and explains some inconsistency in Canadian government usage e.g. Environment Canada's weather uses DMY/universal (with at least one instance of ISO 8601) formatting. A discussion on the Canadian boards last year (and likely well in the past) generated plenty of non-consensus to change things; best to leave that can of worms unopened. Dl2000 (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Canadian post office uses dmy. But let me tell you from my VAST experience of gnoming date formats at WP, that Canada-related articles overwhelmingly use mdy format. Indeed, I really notice as an oddity articles that use dmy. I see many francophone-related article on the en.WP using mdy too. But I presume no one is proposing to change the existing guide line, which gives the option. Tony (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I have attempted to gain consensus to use an American, mdy long date format, but pretty much any article that [[user:Miesianiacal] has worked on will have a European, dmy format. I started a catalogue at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Canada-related articles)#List of date formats used. You'll see that not all institutions use American format. Feel free to expand the list, but I don't believe that you'll gain consensus for a change soon. --Walter Görlitz (talk) 07:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The Canadian military usage standard is DMY and has been since the 1960s or earlier. I don't see any reason to change the existing MOS, which captures the usage in Canada very accurately. - Ahunt (talk) 12:11, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

It isn't actually specific to the Canadian military, it's a NATO standard. Roger (talk) 12:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been involved with this issue before, and it's very similar to the BC vs. BCE issue, where one editor will use one format and another will revert it to the other format, with an edit war ensuing. The Canadian Style guide that Dl2000 cited actually recommends "August 17" but not "17 August" for a specific month and day without a year, which is strange, so if we were to go by that guide we should prefer the US style for Canada-related articles. But I know we'll never get consensus either way (heck, the government can't even pick one over the other), so it's going to stay as-is. — CIS ^(talk | stalk) 00:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, at the bottom of http://canada.gc.ca/home.html we have: Date Modified: 2011-03-30 -- a format widely used by gov't webpages. Also in wide-spread use in Canada: 2011-MAR-30. It is somewhat non-global & exclusionary that WP:MOS does not accept YMD, an internationally used format. Btw, saying DMY is "universal format" is a misnomer, as is saying YMD is ISO 8601. --JimWae (talk) 20:06, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

That's just a webpage software thing, no official gov releases use year first. Plus we're taking more about when just month/day is mentioned. --TheTruthiness (talk) 06:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

These, and many more, are year first:

• http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t2/t2-10e.pdf
• https://www.pptc.gc.ca/service/contact/stat.aspx?lang=eng
• http://www.pptc.gc.ca/form/pdfs/pptc054.pdf
• http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/5000-g/README.html

--JimWae (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

The Canadian Style Guide (mentioned above), also covers YYYY-MM-DD & mentions it may be appropriate for bilingual documents - increasing its STRONGNAT claim a bit there --JimWae (talk) 08:59, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• I'll just repeat a post I made earlier, above: "while dd mmm yyyy date format is by no means universally British – the mmm dd, yyyy format is used by some important British newspapers, the consensus is that British articles should universally use dd mmm yyyy, 'despite the sources'. This is the Wikipedia Manual of Style, it may be influenced by other external style guidelines, but remains 'ours'. "

RFC on the use of IEC prefixes to describe binary quantities

Notice: An RFC is being conducted here at Talk:Hard diskdrive#RFC on the use of the IEC prefixes. The debate under consideration is the use in this table of the “Hard disk drive” article of nomenclature such as “KiB”, “MiB”, and “GiB” to describe capacities. The governing guideline on MOSNUM is Quantities of bytes and bits. Greg L (talk) 15:25, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Request: It seems to me that our “Hard disk drive” article has a table with a glaring error in it that was the product of purposeful disregard for an explicit guideline on MOSNUM. We need greater participation on this RfC by experienced members of the MOSNUM. The quality of the discussion can be improved (too many personal attacks) by broadening participation of the discussion. This will hopefully more fully achieve a consensus. Greg L (talk) 17:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

NOTE: Concluded The RfC concluded. Thanks to those who helped out by thinking through the issues and weighing in. Greg L (talk) 16:18, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Superscripted text in quotes

Coming from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/Yobot_20 related to The ordinal suffix (e.g., th) is not superscripted (23rd and 496th, not 23^rd and 496^th).

Question: does this apply to quoted text? That is, do we remove the superscripted ordinals in quotations? —  HELLKNOWZ  ▎TALK 17:38, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I would say yes. If the quoted text comes from something that was firstly spoken and not written it's clear I think. We choose the style we want. Even if the quotes text is from something written I think we should adjust it to tour style unless it's something very special where the style plays role but I don't have any examples where the superscripted text would suffice this requirement. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. These are typestyle issues. If the quoted text was in Times New Roman, we are not required to use that typestyle either in the quote. Greg L (talk) 16:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Substantial change in MOSNUM policy

This paragraph was cut from MOSNUM:

• When the source uses one set of units, generally put that one first; if editors cannot agree, put the source's units first. If they are not first, this should be stated in the citation.

I think it is important that it remain.

• It is important that if the source units are not put first that it be stated in the citation. This is simply good practice.
• Putting the source unit first actually applies in most cases: generally SI for general articles and most of the world and generally American customary measures for the United States. That leaves only UK articles in the anomalous position where there are likely to be disputes about which unit should appear first.
• The other provisions set out a means of solving disputes about which unit to put first and that is valuable. Michael Glass (talk) 14:55, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that it is perfectly obvious that we shouldn't have a policy that directly contradicts itself, which is what you propose here. There are many good reasons why source-based units are inappropriate, and you set out no particularly good reason why this should remain.

You claim that source-based units approximate common local usage. In fact, in many cases, they don't. And even if they did, it does not follow that we tell should users to use the specific source (regardless of whether it actually matches with local usage) when we can just tell them to apply local usage. You claim that it's useful in dispute resolution - but if people need dispute resolution we already have mechanisms in place: editors are more, not less likely to need dispute resolution when we have rules that directly contradict one another. And the point about putting measures in the source can perfectly well be put in the section regarding sourcing units.

There are also many reasons why source-based units are problematic. These have been repeatedly pointed out to you, and include (and there's plenty more of this in the archives):

• The fact that significant inconsistency, both within and between articles, may result from sticking to whatever source people happen to find, rather than basing on local usage or clear guidelines.
• The fact that sticking to particular sources is not, in general, an adequate measure of local usage in cases where there are strong national ties to an article.
• The fact that source-based units are appallingly open to abuse by editors (including you) who have a habit of picking the source for the units and not vice versa. Pfainuk talk 17:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

No, there is a much better case for source-based units: that's what is actually verifiable. Saying that A is about 20 km away from B has a reasonable error of several kilometers; saying that A is about 12 miles away from B has a reasonable error of about one kilometer. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Which would seem to imply that you need to deal with such situations appropriately, a point already made by MOS:CONVERSIONS. This does not imply that we need to randomly start giving distances in kilometres in US-related articles - or distances in miles in France-related articles - just because that's what our source happens to do. Pfainuk talk 17:41, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree. Source based units has been repeatedly rejected for the simple reason it leads to articles that are inconsistent. We have a MOS for a reason, for articles to be consistent. Wee Curry Monster talk 17:45, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a balance of considerations. This removal should not stand. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:24, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, you should make up your mind: if this edit summary is correct, and the advice was moved, this guideline already upholds it; if not, why claim a falsehood? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I genuinely believed it had been moved, it seems I was wrong. It was an error not a deliberate falsehood and I would appreciate an apology for that remark. However, I do believe the Pfainuk's edit was valid, it clarifies the policy and the comment on source units remains in the policy. If you look above there is a substantial discussion on source based units and the proposal was rejected. Wee Curry Monster talk 18:43, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Because you thought it was true is a perfectly reasonable answer. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. As it has been on more occasions than I care to count in the archives. Saying that we should be using miles on France-related articles or kilometres on US-related articles just because some people aren't able to choose the correct precision for their conversions is not sensible - a sledgehammer being used to crack a nut. Nor is it sensible to have a manual of style that directly contradicts itself within the space of two lines, which is what you're calling for here. Pfainuk talk 19:07, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand the reasons for the objection. The verifiable assertion is what the source says, including the implicit precision of what it says. No conversion does a great job of retaining that information, and {{convert}} is mindless. Now if we have sources in both systems, fine; but often we don't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with asking people to note the source measure or quote the source in the reference - this would seem to be sufficient for verifiability. But as I noted above this can easily be added in the section where we require that all measurements be sourced - without sacrificing consistency or running roughshod over WP:TIES, and without creating any contradiction or lack of clarity in what the rules are (as the current wording does). Pfainuk talk 20:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

No-one has commented on the deletion of this provision:

• {I]f {the source units] are not put first, this should be stated in the citation.

This, as I said, is simply good practice. This provision should go back into the policy.

Also, I have yet to see anyone come up with an actual example where using locally based sources would cause a significant inconsistency in any article. Michael Glass (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

• As there are editors working to ensure that conversions/((tl|convert}} are being provided for all units of measure, there would seem little need to further burden the citation. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:29, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

  Does {{convert}} indicate which unit the source used? If not, what has this to do with anything? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:16, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Why should a measurement be any different to any other piece of sourced information, particularly when the link is there to be clicked on for verification purposes? We do not go quoting every sourced statement in every citation, and this should held to the same standard unless there was a particularly good reason to do so: for example, if it was somehow in dispute. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it is better to let people know what the original measurement was. The convert function can come up with anomalous results when the original number ends in a zero or two. Take this conversion: 4,700 square miles (12,000 km²) The figure given is rounded, and it ends up very nearly 143 square km short! This is equivalent to just over 81% of the area of Weddell Island, the third largest island in the group. The note The source uses metric units. is used quite frequently in Falkland Islands articles to indicate that the figures given in the text are derived figures. Michael Glass (talk)

That's no anomaly. The figure is meant to be rounded (in accordance with the guidelines on this very page). "4,700 square miles (12,173 km²)" would be a case of false precision. But I agre that it's important to let readers know what the original measurement was. JIMp _talk·cont 05:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the dangers of conversion was illustrated in the reporting of the fire under the M1 in London a few days ago. The severity of the fire meant that the fire service declared an exclusion zone of 200 metres and closed the motorway. This was subsequently reported as being a 200 yard exclusion zone. It then became 200 yards (183 metres). The next report must have shown it as 183 metres, then 180 metres and the last report that I saw in the British press reported 180 yards. This shows a need to discover what units the primary souerce used and that information to guage the reliability of secondary sources. Martinvl (talk) 06:10, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Which is why we call on our editors to provide sources for all measurements. If there is any doubt, the reader can always go to the original source and find out what the units it used were.

I think it's worth noting that in the case you cite, this would come under the nominal or defined units section of the policy - which based on the guideline should always be in the units that the measure is nominal or defined in. The sort of pure source-based approach that Michael advocates might well see us put it in yards, but I don't think any other approach would. Pfainuk talk 20:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

But the same thing could happen if the "width of destruction", say, had been measured at 200 m. The only thing deterring it would be that the exact width might not be so often repeated. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

If the source, which uses metric, relies on figures derived from imperial, then the problem surely is with the source. I don't quite see the point of the 4700 sq mi conversion – surely it's a fallacy to justify your sort of conversion accuracy saying that the rounded figure of 4,700 square miles (12,000 km²) ends up very nearly 143 square km short and equivalent to 81% of the area of Weddell Island? These are clearly not of the same order of magnitude, and are strictly uncomparable except to give an idea of that order of magnitude. We certainly do not go around saying 'the Earth is 93,000,000 miles (149,668,992 km) away from the sun', as opposed to 93,000,000 miles (150,000,000 km), and try and justify not having a rounding error because it would represent 26 times the diameter of the Earth (12,742 km)! --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

The main point is to find the best source. If the best source gives information in metric or Imperial, go with it. However, the distance of the Earth from the sun neatly demonstrates the need for using good sources. The Earth goes round the sun in an ellipse, so the distance varies see [11]. As for the difference between the area given for the Falkland Islands in square miles vs square km, it is unsafe to presume that just because one figure ends in two zeros that it is the original figure.

I should also note that I have never advocated a "pure source-based approach", only that it is worthwhile general rule. No-one has so far come up with any concrete example to show that any article would be hurt by such an approach whereas the Falklands Units approach has led to numerous anomalies. Michael Glass (talk) 07:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

• Take an idiom in a foreign language, translate it into your own, then getting someone else to translate it back into the first, or into a third language, you will end up with something incomprehensible or anomalous. This is analogous to what we you are trying to demonstrate. Trouble then is it's next to impossible to know what "correct" data are if even official data are subject to such conversion or rounding errors--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
• I think you know the example I used was to illustrate the potential rounding error in the conversion, and not to digress into astrophysics. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 09:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree. We must go for the best sources of information and beware of rounding errors. Michael Glass (talk) 08:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

But that does not mean that we should pretend that the sources of information that some might consider the best are not necessarily prone to rounding errors. If you find a precise measurement in square kilometres that gives an exact round number in square miles, then particularly when the subject is related to a country that sees significant use of imperial measures, we cannot take it for granted that this is not an overprecise rounding. The fact that a figure is given precisely by a source in metric units does not mean that it does not suffer from rounding errors - even if it is only given in metric units.

I did a bit of searching on this particular case, and there are plenty of sources that use imperial measures first and plenty that use metric measures first. There are also sources that use imperial measures only and sources that use metric measures only. But when you ignore the units, you find almost all sources supply one or two of the following values: 12000 square kilometres, 4700 square miles and 12200 square kilometres. There are sources for all three that qualify them with words such as "approximately", "around" or "just over", and there are sources that convert 4,700 square miles to the nearest square kilometre. But I see no reason to assume that this, taken together, implies that the area is exactly 4,700 square miles. Pfainuk talk 10:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it is sometimes quite difficult to work out what is the original figure. No doubt the original measurements of the Falkland Islands were made in Imperial measurements, but British maps have been made using metric measures for decades. This link shows metric maps for Lesotho (1978) and Tristan da Cunha (1980) so one would expect that similar maps were made of the Falkland Islands at about the same time. I think that all we can do is to go on is the information we have. If it's metric, I think we should go with that, but if it is Imperial then we need to use that. However, if better information comes up, we should use that. Michael Glass (talk) 11:20, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The term 'mil'

The term 'mil' is ambiguous even when we know it means length:

• It's sometimes used to mean 'mm'
• It's sometimes used to mean 0.001 inch. This has a synonym 'thou'.

An example of it being used on wikipedia is:

• [the chip measured 50,600 square mils in die area]

Can anybody describe the usage of the units 'thou' and 'mil' and how separate they are? Lightmouse (talk) 20:36, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

It is also has military usage for milliradian. 6400 mil = 360°. Its use in the example you gave is decidedly ambiguous and is one of those examples where the source is inadequate and should be clarified. What units are used in the original source? Wee Curry Monster talk 20:42, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

It's also short for millilitre. JIMp _talk·cont 05:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it's usage as short for “millimetre” is quite informal and I wouldn't expect it to be used in an encyclopedia (and anyway, there should be a conversion to inches, so it's obvious what it means). As for the thousandth of inch, it should be accompanied by a conversion to squared millimetres or squared microns, so it's obvious what it means. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 10:44, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The "thousandth of an inch" definition for "mil" is the first in the Free Dictionary.[12] It used to be more common in the US and it's still used to measure films like mylar or Teslin (material). However most machine shops moved to metric a decade or two ago. It may be unfamiliar in other countries so it'd help to give a metric conversion.   Will Beback  talk  12:27, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. The first definition I'd have come up with would have been an overcolloquial abbreviation for "millilitre". The second would be a thousand in the sense of "per mil". And the third a unit of currency, the equivalent of a "cent" where currencies are divided into a thousand. Wikipedia has articles about "mil" distances ranging from a thousandth of an inch to ten kilometres. While it may be the most appropriate unit to the context, it is one of those cases where linking the unit and providing a conversion is a good idea. Pfainuk talk 21:31, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I have been researching the history of microprocessors and in the 1970’s integrated circuit dies were measured in mils (0.001 inches). In 1975 a typical silicon wafer was 3 inches (75 mm) in diameter. These were the most common units in technical papers and trade magazines. In the 1980s millimeters became standard. See my Motorola 6800 article. If you listen to oral histories of the semiconductor industry, the design engineers can recall the chip size in mils of every chip they worked on. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 15:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Where I used to work, we used the mil measurement often. Most of the time it was to measure the thickness of a layer of paint with an elcometer and to measure the "depth of cure" of ultraviolet (UV) adhesives. It was also the common measurement on our latex gloves and trash-bags. Never used the term thou and using the term mil for millimeter/milliliter on wikipedia would be like using 'clicks' for kilometers. :) —MJCdetroit ^(yak) 22:37, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I've often seen "mil", but I'd never heard of "Thou (length)" until this discussion. Maybe that article should be moved to "Mil (length)".   Will Beback  talk  22:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Seems that it might be an American thing, in the UK we use mil to exclusively mean millimetre. Our thickness gauges are "thou" (imperial) and "mil" (metric). I have never heard inches/1000 referred to as mil in all my time as an engineer, since 1980, nor even in discussions with pre-metric engineers that used Whitworth etc. BSW/AF/BSF/BFC Chaosdruid (talk) 15:03, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Recent edit to BC/AD etc

This edit seems to turn the whole thing into wishy-washy. Has there been agreement to change the guideline on this point? I have reverted it for the time being, pending discussion here. Tony (talk) 04:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

See #Before Christ/In the Year of our Lord, some sections up. If Tony had actually bothered to look at the edit history, he would have seen that the text he restored was a completely novel proposal, 35 minutes old; if he had bothered to read the guideline, he would have seen that "a good reason" is sufficient justification for consensus to change the notation.

However, other readers may be equally careless, so I will make the connexion more explicit, while removing the unfortunate "scheme". To half the anglophone world, that is a quite negative word. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

While I was away from home there have been some "quite negative word"s from several participants. The most recent such word is "careless". Art LaPella (talk) 05:28, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Moot in any case; the text before Herostratus' edit was restored before I could edit. Can you suggest a better, less negative, word for reading one bullet-point and ignoring the next? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

"reading one bullet-point and ignoring the next" is more negative than "careless", but since I'm not politically correct, I recognize there could be an appropriate time for either expression (I didn't find the bullet-point you refer to). That time would be when you have built a solid case, perhaps at a Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User conduct, that no good faith explanation exists. Without presenting convincing evidence, one wonders why you didn't say "other readers may make the same mistake" and "reading one bullet-point and missing the next". Art LaPella (talk) 00:33, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The next bullet point in this (now replaced) text, which said and says that BC may be changed to AD (or the other way) for good reason. But this is now moot. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Art: valuable contributors are likely to be turned off when posts are personalised; I ask that avoiding negative references to other editors be a priority. On the edit in question, I don't know or care which substantive system is chosen, but changing "that scheme should generally be used in the article" to "there may well be a good reason to use it in the article" changes the advice into vague opinion and is not useful to editors who are seeking advice. Tony (talk) 17:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Shorter version of the preceding post: "I don't care which system is mechanically imposed, but one of them ought to be." Pernicious nonsense; I am deeply disappointed in its author, of whom I expect better: If someone comes seeking advice, give them advice, not marching orders. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, to return to the point in question... the edit spoken of was based on earlier edit, which was removing a prescription to use BCE/CE for articles relating to Judaic studies. I feel that this is 1) too specific, and 2) sounded as if it could be interpreted as special pleading. The larger point that the person was trying to make was "use the scheme that most sources use." The problem is, I don't know if this is something that we want to prescribe or not. It seems a reasonable case could be made either way. I myself would not be inclined to prescribe this, as it seems like unnecessary rule-making, something always to be on guard for, and just another thing for people to fight over ("I count 11 sources using BCE and only nine using BC, so I have replaced BC with BCE in the article!" "Well I have added 3 more sources using BC, so I have reverted this!" etc.). At any rate I have removed the material until we figure out what we are trying to say here and and if we do indeed want to say it. Herostratus (talk) 01:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

What we generally want is "use what the overwhelming majority of sources use; if there isn't an overwhelming majority, stay with what's there." This treats the study of Philo, say, just like we treat the various English-speaking nations: Australian Defence Force, but United States Department of Defense. Similarly, if the writers on Philo generally say he was born 20 BCE, so should we. (I doubt the condition is true; but there may people for whom it is; Akiva? Clement of Rome?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Septentrionalis has also removed the rule from the Judaism Wikiproject, discussed here. Other groups, especially Jehovah's Witnesses, also prefer CE/BCE; see Common era#Usage. If they don't restore the rule at the Wikiproject, then I don't know why we would keep it here. Art LaPella (talk) 05:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I think projects are well within their role to specify which notation they prefer to use for new articles. I think it would even be within their role to try to build consensus regarding existing articles for which they have sole purview. --JimWae (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikiprojects don't own articles; they don't have sole purview over anything. What are we going to do when one Wikiproject says one thing, another Wikiproject says another, and the user who actually writes the damned article couldn't care less what bureaucrats say? Shouldn't the guy who actually writes the new article be free to choose? Why should we have special rules for wikiprojects, aren't all articles part of the same wiki? Flamarande (talk) 23:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Who said "purview" had to mean "ownership"?--JimWae (talk) 23:45, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't has to mean ownership but apparently that's one of its meanings: "Purview = Scope or range of interest or control" [13]. Flamarande (talk) 00:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Whatever. Manual of Style guidelines are expected to have exceptions in unusual situations, and therefore we have separate Manuals of Style for subtopics like Judaism, Islam, chemistry, or music. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style, first paragraph. Do we agree that unless there is a BCE/CE rule at the Judaism Wikiproject, then there is no reason to have such a rule here? Obviously you don't have to be Jewish or anything else to change a Judaism Wikiproject rule. Art LaPella (talk) 01:34, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, a problem is that WikiProject members might have a narrower view than the general population. I am in a discussion now regarding some rules for transliteration of Russian names, and naturally the people who wrote those rules are mainly bilingual (and probably a large proportion of native Russian speakers) so things that seem unexeceptionable to them don't necessarily meet the needs of the general readership. Herostratus (talk) 07:12, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Changes in Format consistency section

Hello. Sorry for not posting this immediately. (Technical problem). One hour ago, I changed this sentence:

These requirements apply to dates in general prose and reference citations, but not to dates in quotations or titles.

Into:

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

I think you know why, right? Because at the top of the section, we have:

Dates in article body text should all have the same format

Surely, article body doesn't just mean prose, right? It includes image captions, tables, lists, infobox and everything else except references.

Is everyone okay with this? Fleet Command (talk) 09:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Fully agree, that's what was agreed on. However currently user:Tony1 is systematically eliminating all yyyy-mm-dd style dates from references against consensus. That should be blocked and reverted. −Woodstone (talk) 17:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, he should be constrained to act by consensus; he believes he is acting in the best interests of the encyclopedia, is always an honest man, and often a learned one; but he reminds me of what Franklin said about John Adams. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Woodstone, why didn't you say something to me? I had no idea there was any objection. It's not a core issue for me. Tony (talk) 02:28, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

Why should refs be any exception? JIMp _talk·cont 00:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

To make things easier for editors. Two words: "Habit" and "scripts". Fleet Command (talk) 05:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

The assertion that it is easier for editors is really quite debatable; if, however, readers are placed first, we are doing them no favours at all as undoubtedly they will as confused with "2011-04-25" as "2 Mebibytes". -- Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 12:02, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Tables should not be required to have the same date format as prose, due to the need for compactness in tables. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it's best to use three-letter abbreviations in this case but is there any need to resort to stuff that looks like code? JIMp _talk·cont 03:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

You are right, Jc3s5h; but right now, it is exactly as you like: This manual of style right now allows tables to use YYYY-MM-DD whenever there is a need for conciseness. (YYYY-MM-DD is easier to maintain for long tables, since it is natively sortable.) In time, tables that are not long (i.e. those which do not have a need for conciseness) should use the same style as the rest of the article. {{dts}} and {{sort}} can be used in these cases. Fleet Command (talk) 05:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It really is odd that people should complain about making the date formats in a reference section consistent with those in the main text of the article. Tony (talk) 14:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Some people seem to like having some yyyy-mm-dd dates in the reference section, never mind the rest of the dates in that section are a mangle of different formats. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Very odd ... here are the arguments for yyyy-mm-dd.

• yyyy-mm-dd is concise ...

... but "25 Apr 2011" is only one character longer than "2011-04-25" (for "Apr 25, 2011" you've only got to add a comma).

• yyyy-mm-dd is sortable ...

... but {{dts}} and/or {{sort}} take care of that.

• yyyy-mm-dd is easy for robots to read ...

... but aren't we writing for humans?

Keep all dates in an article in the same format where "25 Apr 2011" is considered essentially the same format as "25 April 2011" just abbreviated (and similarly for mdy).

As far as I can see yyyy-mm-dd in refs is a hangover from the dark old days of date linking wherein the citation templates had to be given this and it was assumed that humans would have their prefs set such that it would we rendered readable. This assumtion was proven false, date linking was depreciated, the templates were adjusted but the yyyy-mm-dd input remained & is now spat out raw, not auto formatted. Monkey see monkey do is now the go. Editors now see this yyyy-mm-dd hangover in refs & assume that this is how refs are meant to look on WP. Editors conform. No, Tony is acting in the best interests of the encyclopedia by turning these telephone numbers into dates readable by humans. Consensus? Recall the citation templates & how it was assumed that this would be done automatically anyhow; that's your consensus. JIMp _talk·cont 00:18, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that you're wrong that there's a consensus that changing date formats in references is a good idea. I think there was an RFC about this a while ago and that position was rejected. Quale (talk) 01:41, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

(e.c.) Anyone got a link to it (and any earlier discussions)? To me, this is worth having another go at, for three reasons: (1) to achieve consistency with the main text of the article; (2) most readers, I'm assuming, find the gobbledy all-numeric dates hard to parse: I have to pause each time to "translate" them into English; and (3) the position of month and day are reversed between US (and Canadian?) usage, and that for the rest of the anglophone world, which adds to the confusion. I do believe ISO dates are for specialists, which doesn't go well for our readership. Tony (talk) 05:16, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

You are all correct, at least to some extents if not completely.

Quale, the only point that you are wrong in is the word "Change". No one said "change". "Difference" yes, but not "change". And yes, once the references section of an article is predominantly or uniformly using one date style, no one can change it. And yes, there was three arbitration committee cases regarding it. (I don't know about RFC.)

As for the rest of you, yes, I am also a pro of banishing yyyy-mm-dd. But "what I prefer" right now is in contrast with "what the policy allows". If you guys think there are a lot of people in favor of banishing yyyy-mm-dd, we can propose it (in village pump?) to make official. (But I don't think so.)

Fleet Command (talk) 09:44, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal on YYYY-MM-DD numerical dates