User talk:Gene Nygaard/2004Dec-2005Apr

archived talk from User talk:Gene Nygaard

Litre

The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends the use of the uppercase letter L.

CGPM in 1979 said: considering further that in the future only one of these two symbols should be retained, invites the CIPM to follow the development of the use of these two symbols and to give the 18th CGPM its opinion as to the possibility of suppressing one of them.

The CIPM, in 1990, considered that it was still too early to choose a single symbol for the litre.

Uppercase L has become the preferred and more common symbol in US & Canada. It only makes sense that the others (mL) use capital too - otherwise there's confusion

Are there any standard bodies recommending lowercase be retained?

I'd say "the handwriting is on the wall" - there's not a chance in hell that lowercase will be the single symbol

Can you give a practical case in which the litre is used for solids?

--JimWae 18:50, 2004 Dec 14 (UTC)

• Re: Spelling of "liter" in Pontiac Trans Sport... Pontiac is an American manufacturer, and in America the spelling is always "liter." It is Wikipedia policy to use spelling appropriate to the nationality of the subject of the article. Just as Aston Martin should use UK spellings, Pontiac should use US spellings. --Tysto 03:43, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

You didn't change it on that basis, but rather on it being a "typo". This automobile is both European and American, with much of the discussion and many of the pictures of the European model. The rule followed in many cases for national variants of English is the "first significant user (not a stub)". If you want to try to make a case for multinational companies being a "United States" company and that this is the proper basis for choosing the spelling style in this article, then make your best case. It doesn't matter much to me, as long as you aren't doing it on an improper basis that it is a misspelling or a typo. It's probably easier, however, and less likely to rile up other editors, just to use "L". Gene Nygaard 03:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Please don't revert edits just because their edit summaries don't describe the changes to your satisfaction. I made a number of different kinds of changes, some of which were simple typos (extra hyphens, repeated words) and others of which weren't related (I didn't mention wikifying some terms). I agree that just L is a good compromise, but your suggestion that multinational companies are independent of national usage and should maintain the original poster's spelling is a rationalization. Virtually all auto manufacturers sell in many countries, but they maintain a strong national association and do so on purpose. Again, just because British cars are sold in the US, I would never presume to use US spellings in them. Likewise, Holden is owned by GM, but it's an Australian make; it should use Aussie English. I'm sensitive to over-Americanizing Wikipedia, but this is not an unreasonable request. Again, I think using L is the best solution. --Tysto 16:23, 2005 August 4 (UTC)

Special Fraction Characters

Referring to eyepiece lens: The reason I didn't use the "1/4" fraction character, is that it's listed as an unsafe special character. I guess that means it won't show up on everyone's browser. Are people using it anyway? I'm new, so I don't know. Beetlenaut 07:22, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. Maybe I read it wrong, but when I read the Wikipedia part on that, I understood it to say that using ¼ entered as ¼ was unsafe but using the Unicode ¼ ¼ is okay. I do know from long ago that browsers can sometimes handle the numerical alternatives differently from the way they handle the named alternatives. If that isn't true, then you or somebody better go reword that part about safe alternatives to that table unsafe coding, and make explicit which alternatives are considered safe. I don't know that if entering ¼ from a Windows computer using numeric keypad Alt-0188 is the same as one or the other of those two alternatives or a third one (I'm reasonabley sure that Alt-0188 gives the same result as the one I normally use, Alt-172 since I learned this back with the DOS character set).

I'll have to look at it again. If you don't know, then maybe we both ought to look at it again. If it doesn't become clear that I misread it, maybe we both should take this discussion to the talk page for Meta: Special characters. (I just noticed that that page, which is also the one you get if click on the word Characters in the line of special characters that shows up below your edit Window, is different from the link you had which says at the top "This page is deprecated but will be updated periodically" and the Meta page is better.)

When it works, that 1¼ sure looks a lot better than the clumsy 1 ¹/₄ that was used. I'd much prefer a plain 1 1/4 myself; or better yet just use 1.25 instead. Gene Nygaard 11:50, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Deletion, merge, do nothing?

Posted on User_talk:ClockworkSoul

I can't figure out what to do with an article that isn't an article, just a header, and isn't necessary or useful for any reason. Except I added Talk page to this nonexistent article. Do I request some particular action, or what. What I have in mind particularly is US Exclusive Economic Zone whose title existed because somebody tried to link to it from United States Coast Guard, and linking there to the already existing Exclusive Economic Zone is exactly what was needed. I've fixed that link (the only one that appeared on the What Links Here page). Does anything need to be done about the empty one (especially since I added that talk page to it)? Gene Nygaard 18:11, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• It's okay to have an empty link. If you like, you can create the article yourself. If not, just leave it and somebody else will eventually do it. -- ClockworkSoul 02:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Edit summary

Hello. Please provide an edit summary. Thanks and happy edits. Hyacinth 19:09, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mass is not weight

I will not assail you on the Crash Test Dummy talk page, but given your feeble effort to make sense there, and your unabashedly hostile attitude, I have no qualms about assailing you here. I "choose" nothing - the most elementary physics test will provide you with a definition of mass and weight, and will provide you with a description of the difference. Kilograms measure mass. Pounds measure weight. End of argument.

"You don't seem to understand your options here." How droll. =You= don't seem to understand that you can't just wing into Wikipedia one slow Sunday and flail away at whatever offends your uninformed sensibilities. When you have figured out that your mass is always your mass regardless of gravitational (or accelerative) circumstances, but that your weight can vary with the whim of a planetary body or a vector of acceleration, then come back and we can talk. In the meantime, go do some reading. Denni☯ 22:06, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

The discussion is, quite properly, on Talk:Crash test dummy. If you want to take issue with what I said, do it there, wimp. That is where I will address it from now on. BTW, you might try a little reading of your own. Gene Nygaard 09:04, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Middot

I never saw a middot (·) before. Why use that instead of a "full stop"? And why separate Nm into N·m? --SFoskett 14:51, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)

We separate the N and the m because they are different units, just like the lbf and the ft in the English units. A "full stop" looks clumsy; it might have made sense in British English when they used the middot as a decimal point, but that practice has pretty much fallen by the wayside in the past couple of decades.

The often recommended modern practice is to accomplish this separation of the unit symbols with either a space or a centered dot, not with a hyphen (which is usually considered acceptable for the spelled out words when they are used rather than the symbols), an asterisk, or a dot on the line.

Wikipedia SI#SI writing style

Wikipedia torque

The U.S. national standards laboratory, NIST Guide for the use of the International System of Units (SI), section 6.1.5 Unit symbols obtained by multiplication, referring to American National Standard for Metric Practice, ANSI/IEEE Std 268-1992 (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York, NY, October 1992).

George Sudikatus, Metrics the Right Way, rule 12.

Gene Nygaard 14:29, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P.S.: If a space is used in .html (as in Wikipedia), make it a hard space   so the units aren't separated from each other. Separating the number from the units with a hard space is sometimes desirable as well, but that isn't always necessary. Gene Nygaard 14:34, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

BIPM, SI brochure, section 5.3

The U.K.'s national measurement laboratory, National Physical Laboratory, Units of Force and Torque

Usage example from Transport Canada: [1]

Gene Nygaard 15:50, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The middot (·) is a multiplication sign used in many algebra and science texts. This is the multiplication sign used in dot-products, such as <1,2,3>&middot<2,3,4> = 20. It shows what is meant in this context: One Newton-meter equals one Newton times one meter. 1 N·m = (1 N)&middot(1 m) -- User:Jasper 05:00 March 13, 2005 (UTC)

Ansari X Prize

Please see my comments in Talk:Ansari X Prize concerning units. -- Kbh3rd 16:38, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unicode code pages

I agree with the rephrasing you made to Lux and Calorie. But don't forget 12-hour clock, Kilometre, Centimetre, and the rest (see my contributions) :-) -- Curps 05:05, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's your mess. You are the one with the moral obligation to fit it. Gene Nygaard 05:08, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's not my mess, I wasn't the one who added those Unicode notices to those pages. I opted for brevity rather than explaining in detail about one-to-one mapping with old code sets. -- Curps 06:08, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Monedula's edit to Centimetre may be an alternative explanation: the need to fit everything into the fixed width of a single Chinese character. This makes sense for cm or cm², although surely the existence of a separate single-letter "K" for Kelvin code point in Unicode can only be explained by mapping to an old code set. -- Curps 09:17, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oops! Sorry about that. There were lots of others, too. Guess I'll have to look up the person who did it and follow him around. If he has a talk page, I'll leave a message there too, he did discuss it briefly in some article's talk page.

Welcome to the Wikipedia

Welcome, newcomer!

Here are some useful tips to ease you into the Wikipedia experience:

• First, take a look at the Wikipedia Tutorial, and perhaps dabble a bit in the test area.
• When you have some free time, take a look at the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can come in very handy!
• Remember to use a neutral point of view!
• If you need any help, feel free to post a question at the Help Desk
• Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Also, here are some odds and ends that I find useful from time to time:

• Wikipedia:Policy Library
• Wikipedia:Utilities
• Wikipedia:Cite your sources
• Wikipedia:Verifiability
• Wikipedia:Wikiquette
• Wikipedia:Civility
• Wikipedia:Conflict resolution
• Wikipedia:Brilliant prose
• Wikipedia:Pages needing attention
• Wikipedia:Peer review
• Wikipedia:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense
• Wikipedia:Village pump
• Wikipedia:Boilerplate text

Feel free to ask me anything the links and talk pages don't answer. You can most easily reach me by posting on my talk page.

You can sign your name on any page by typing 4 tildes, likes this: ~~~~.

Best of luck, and have fun!

ClockworkSoul 14:36, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Aquarium volume

Gene,

I originally calculated the capacity of the large Kaiyukan aquarium by volume -- their homepage reports that the tank is 620 square meters in area and 9 meters deep (which equals 5580 cubic meters, or 5.58 million liters). On the other hand, 5400 metric tons (at 1000 kg each) assuming a sea water density of 1.025 kg/l, converts to 5.27 million liters. Which to believe??? It's a matter of significant figures I guess. Given the information presented, the minimum tank dimensions are 615x8.5, and max are 624.9x9.49, or a volume range of 5.23 - 5.93 million liters. By mass, the range is 5350 to 5449 metric tons, and density ranges from 1.02 - 1.03 kg/l, giving 5.19 - 5.34 million liters. Of course, if english tons (2000 pounds) rather than metric tons are used, it throws everything off; that gives 4.7 - 4.9 million liters. For now I think you made a good correction, as it looks that 5.3 million liters lies within both ranges. What we really need though is someone who speaks Japanese to check the native home page, which probably has better info. Good work! Bantman 01:27, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

I would imagine that it's not a perfectly uniform depth throughout that stated area. They probably have some terrain features, reef or artificial reefs, something to break the monotony of a box full of water. Gene Nygaard 01:36, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Balsam poplar

Hi Gene - your edit note "I don't know who this "Torr." is, but it isn't the torr (unit of pressure) and isn't Torricelli for whom that unit was named; don't know what "Grey" either" - they are standard botanical author abbreviations. The links hadn't been formed properly which is why you'd not been able to follow them to see who they are; I've done it now though. - MPF 22:20, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I hoped it would get the attention of somebody who knew what was going on; I didn't know how to fix it. I knew what they were; but not to whom they referred. Gene Nygaard 05:15, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Significand

Sorry I missed your earlier comment in the Talk for this! If you'd like to repost I'll try and reply. Mike mfc 19:21, 2005 Jan 27 (UTC)

Death Valley National Park FAC

Hi - You edited Death Valley National Park before so I'd like you to express your opinion on its featured article candidacy if you have a spare moment. :) --mav 05:09, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Magnetar distance units

Do we really need exameters and other uncommon expressions for distance other than light-years? Jok2000 16:46, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes. If you want to push it, what we don't need is light years—units which couldn't even make the list of those temporarily acceptable for use with the International System of Units. Gene Nygaard 16:52, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Light Years and Exametre rather much speak for themselves, I would say, not to mention Exametre, however I'm going to leave the stuff alone and see if anyone else complains. Jok2000 15:50, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Bot to undo damage by bot putting in U.S. census places

Regarding this bot, have you asked the actual bot owner about it? And is it still necessary? -- AllyUnion (talk) 04:38, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't have any idea what the bot is called, or who owns it--or where to find that information--it's just obvious that these entries were done by a bot. But now that you pointed out the obvious to me, I can figure out that it should be in the history, so I can try that. Of course it is still needed; there are about a zillion entries which are much harder to read than they should be, with that confusing false precision. Gene Nygaard 05:08, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Maybe it was just counties that had the problem in the first place. I have posted a message on User talk:Rambot about it. Gene Nygaard 05:49, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ranman should be able to correct it, hopefully. -- AllyUnion (talk) 19:16, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for your corrections in the article "Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing". Because of the Dutch victims, I thought there may be some interest in the article for Dutch readers, so I first wrote it in Dutch. Later, I quickly translated it to English. Thanks to you it looks better now. gidonb 04:03, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Degrees symbol

How do you do that degrees symbol stuck on to the C rather than just °C? Billlion 19:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In Windows, hold down Alt while typing 0176 on the numeric keypad. (Actually, since I learned it in the old days in the DOS character set, what I normally use is Alt-keypad 248 °° which gives the same result). If you go to Start|All Programs|Accessories|System Tools|Character Map you will find a program which will show you some of these numbers, as well as Unicode numbers in hexadecimal form. Gene Nygaard 20:34, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I forgot about another way that works in Wikipedia. Whenever you edit a page, go down just below the Save Page button adn there are a bunch of characters listed. The degree sign is about the seventh one from the end. If you click on that with the mouse, a degree sign will be inserted wherever your editing cursor is at the time. Gene Nygaard 20:39, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

°

I am using Linux/KDE on a PC and the old DOS alt method does not work, neither does the link. However I can copy and paste the degree symbol like this °, so that is good enough. Billlion 10:28, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Using math mode, write <math>45^{\circ}</math> to achieve this: $45^{\circ }$. Similarly, write <math>37^{\circ}\mathrm{C}</math> to achieve $37^{\circ }\mathrm {C}$.--Niels Ø 13:42, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

In Mac OS X, hold down alt/option and press k

cm for height of people

• If I change it to cm & you say both are common, that is not reason for you to change it back.
• There is reason to change to cm
• In Canada, where it is true ft & in are still often used, whenever a person's height IS given in SI/metric it is given in cm. If this is not true in other countries, that would be a relevant point, but there are still other reasons to prefer cm. When measuring people's heights, we do not use mm or km because there would be too many non-significant figures & the scale of precision misleading. When measuring rainfall, mm are used instead of cm because that is the unit which best approximates the degree of precision & also decimals do not need to be used. When people's heights are given as 1.83 m there is no indication that 1.833 m would not also be an appropriate figure. When heights are given as 183 cm & decimals are never used, that indicates that 183.3 cm would not be a useful measurement for a person's height (especially as one's height varies thru the day). Snowfall is measured in cm, not mm, not m, not km for that is the unit that best approximates the degree of precision possible for a geographic area. I am saying that even if other countries do use 1.83 m (or 1,83 m) for heights, there are reasons NOT to do so (degree of precision expected, avoiding use of decimal.s.) That is why I changed it. Why did you change it back?--JimWae 16:29, 2005 Mar 5 (UTC)

---

Because I know what it was originally; I put it there. That's the idea about letting things lie when there acceptable alternatives, and avoiding edit wars over acceptable alternatives.

Metres are the units used in the simplest form of calculating Body Mass Index

Centimetres are good for your hat size and cubic centimetres; that's about it. When we measure human heights they are usually greater than 100 centimetres, or 1 metre.

Using metres doesn't result in showing too much precision. People can, of course, do that with either unit.

As a matter of fact, by using metres, you have the additional advantage of being able to distinguish 1.70 m and 1.7 m, something you do not get using centimetres, where you won't know from the single measurement in itself whether or not that final zero is significant. For example, in paleontology, you often see heights expressed as 1.6 m and the like. That's just one of many reasons to prefer metres.

I'd suspect that Canada is actually less likely to use centimetres than some other places which have the excess baggage of established use when centimetres were more in favor. The preferred units are those which are powers of 1000, a preference which actually goes back to the days when cgs systems dominated, though of course in those systems an exception to the preferences is made for the base unit called the centimetre.

I suspect that you are only seeing what you expect to see. There is probably a little confirmation bias or selective perception on your part.

There is no reason to look to Canadian usage for the proper standard to use in this article.

Canadian sites using metres, more than enough to disprove your claim that "whenever a person's height IS given in SI/metric it is given in cm":

• Univ. of Calgary
• CBC
• Ontario Univ.
• Saint Mary's Univ. JW: 5' 11 1/4"?? -- likely a copy from other site, might as well use mm
• a personal website JW: of course some people will use that
• Bobsleigh Canada
• free personals ads JW: converted from ft-in

What difference does that make? So was the one you changed. Gene Nygaard 04:54, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• The Tall Club of Montreal JW: converted from ft-in
• Canadian Border Services Agency
• Canadian Adverse Reaction Newsletter
• CTV JW: converted from ft-in
• Statistics Canada JW: converted from ft-in to 3 decimal places

Some Canadian sites do use centimetres:

• TSN.ca (sports magazine)
• B.C. Ministry of Education

Some, of course, allow for either:

• BMI Calculator on C-Health JW-form restriction to deal with both metric & ft-in. Surely you do not want to used mixed units (1 m 44 cm)

I must say that one is pretty weird. I hadn't actually tried to use it, and thought that you could enter the whole height in either box, either 1.62 m in the "m" box or 162 cm in the "cm" box--but it turns out that neither of them will work. Gene Nygaard 04:54, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Similar results, with some using metres and some using centimetres, can be found for the rest of the world as well. Gene Nygaard 09:18, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• true enough I overstated my case by using "whenever", but what I've seen so far of examples you give does not support m being preferred over cm

It doesn't have to support that point. Gene Nygaard 04:54, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• of course some people are going to express distances in strange ways - like 1 m 44 cm, & 1.567 m for people's heights & dimensions as 34.6 cm x 26.8 cm x 34.0 cm instead of 346 mm x ... The latter is not technically incorrect, just seems mindless. There are advantages to not using decimals if not needed. You gave only one advantage to using metres -- anthropology. Does it not strike you as strange to say a kid's height is 0.88 m?--JimWae 22:22, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Several points:

• I agree that using decimal fractions with centimetres throws up a red flag, though it is not necessarily a sign of mindlessness and is appropriate in some situations.
• Figures in centimeters which are greater than 100 throw up the same sort of red flag.
• No, it doesn't bother me in the least that a kid's height is 0.80 m. That's well within the preferred range of numbers. It doesn't matter much anyway; those marks on the bedroom door will still be there whether or not you scribble down what the ruler says as well. As far as emailing grandma, unless she's from an "old country" which was metric, a Canadian grandmother will likely just ask "what's that in feet and inches" anyway, no matter which way you put it. You seldom see published heights of humans which are less than a meter; kids generally pass that milestone before they start school. Of course, if you are going on the circus side-show circuit, a 0 in front of the height in metres would be an advantage. Gene Nygaard 04:54, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• I am sure you can find lots more examples - maybe even better. I am also proposing more complete adoption of what WAS more prescriptive when SI first came to Canada. There ARE customary & appropriate units for certain measurements. Even today, snow is not measured in mm & rainfall is not measured in cm - though I have seen 35.4 mm as a measurement for "most ever" rain -- this is almost always due to conversion from imperial. What I notice most are the glaring oddities, btw.--JimWae 22:53, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

What's this "was prescriptive" about?

Some types of measurements have established conventional units; though using centimeters for snow is probably somewhat related to the fact that this will give you a rough approximation of precipitation in millimeters, and as such is probably a rather deceptive and misleading practice.

However, no such preference is firmly established for the choice between meters or centimeters for human height--though I think the trend is clear, and away from the use of centimeters. Centimeters are a smaller fraction of the usage for this purpose now than they were a decade ago, and much less than a half-century ago or more. Gene Nygaard 04:54, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Continental United States

Would you mind telling why the content that I have added ([2]) is irrelevant? Thanks. — Instantnood 18:24, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)

When there is no obvious connection, the burden is on you to show enough significance to warrant inclusion on the "See also" list. You can attempt to make such a showing on the talk page of the article if you like. Then we'll see where to go from there. Gene Nygaard 18:41, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• It's because he is POV pushing across anything related to the special relations of China. so in order to get the semantic drivel of "Mainland China" pushed around he is editing things like "Continental US" and "Metropolitan France". Sorry to clutter your talk page but if his activities annoy you on pages you monitor, I'd encourage you to make a mention on http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Instantnood SchmuckyTheCat 19:06, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BC / BCE dating convention

Gene,

Why did you change my "BCE" back to "BC" on diamond? I think that BCE is more appropriate in Wikipedia as an objective encyclopedia. We are stuck with the fact that the dating system in common usage is numbered from the birth of Jesus (plus or minus a few years, as I understand it); that doesn't preclude us from using an appropriate abbreviation. In my view, The "Common Era / Before Common Era" (CE / BCE) is much more appropriate than the "Before Christ / Anno Domini" (BC/AD) for an academic work. We cannot let convention infiltrate and propagate POV unneccessarily. Most academians agree, I think, although this has not permeated to general culture — that's why you'll see CE/BCE much more in scholarly works (notably, in other encyclopedias) than elsewhere. Bantman 04:09, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

You've participated in the discussion on the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) pages, haven't you? And haven't converted everyone of your point of view. You logic suffers from a faulty premise; BC is "an appropriate abbreviation"--and the MoS says so. So since this article already used BC, stick with it. You were the one changing things, not me. Gene Nygaard 04:34, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gene, you must have me confused with someone else; I have not participated in those discussions on the MoS pages and I was not aware of them (though I certianly guessed the issue had been discussed somewhere). Thank you for pointing them out to me. Regarding your statement that "this article already used BC", I am the original author of the sections in question, which I wrote today and yesterday, so if you want to keep the original author's intent, my intent was to use BCE. I made an error in my original text, which I quickly corrected. I will now revert your edit in order to maintain the author's intent, per your logic. - Bantman 04:45, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

You are right, I hadn't checked on who said what there--I just know that it was under discussion. You don't understand. What you intended isn't very important, since it was consistent with what was already in the article. It already used BC, in stuff you didn't write. Follow what was already established, or discuss it on the article's talk page and try to get a consensus for change. Gene Nygaard 04:31, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Please see the most recent version of the article before I started editing it [3], and note that there is not much left that I haven't changed. I did not take a vote to get a consensus for any of my changes (I was being bold), and I don't see why this one tiny issue should be different. Notwithstanding the discussion at MoS, there is no reason I should have assumed that the dates were any different than anything else I was changing. And in the broad context of the changes I was making (and continue to make), I'm not exactly crusading for date change; I'm just using what I feel is best, just like for everything else. If you want to revert to the BC/AD format (which is relevant a grand total of 3 times) feel free to discuss it on the article's talk page. If you get a consensus for BC/AD over BCE/CE, I will defer. I am endeavoring to improve this article; you seem to be interested only in quibbling over a very minor point. In my view, it is not whether or not the article remains consistent forever with the first standard used that is important; it is avoiding disagreements (like this one) over a minor formatting point which are caused by editors interested only in that point and not the article as a whole, especially where both alternatives are acceptable according to the community, considering no guidelines have been established. If you are interested in working to improve the article as a whole, your objections would carry much more weight. For now though, you are merely a gadfly, and not the defender of the status quo that you claim to be. - Bantman 05:16, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Gene, I was hoping you would respond to my comments rather than changing the article unilaterally. I consider your having done so uncivil. Shall I explore options for judgment by a third party? - Bantman 06:10, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

You are the one making the change. The burden is on you to make your case. Gene Nygaard 06:23, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am making large scale improvements to the article, with one item that you object to. You are the one trying to change that one item, outside of the context of actually improving the article. [4] states that both dating systems are acceptable. I have not seen a policy page that states that the first dating system used in an article should be maintained ad infinitum. Therefore I feel that there is no reason I should not change it in a way that I feel improves the article, especially given my clear interest in improving the article, not just proselytizing a particular data format. I believe that the burden is on you to make your case that your body of edits are improving the article, as mine clearly are. - Bantman 06:28, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

I fear we are not making any progress; I have posted to WP:RFC under article content disputes for assistance. - Bantman 06:34, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

The established use of BC in this Diamond article goes back more than a year. You are the one jumping in and changing things without discussion. Gene Nygaard 07:12, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You still have not provided any reference that I should defer to prior usage, when making as large scale changes as I have made. Until you do, I see no basis for your reverts of my edits. - Bantman 07:27, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

You still have not provided any reference that I should defer to prior usage. Buh? It's right there in your sentence: prior use. That's why style sheets and manuals of style exist, to establish and enforce existing and consistent usage. If you want make an exception to the established style, you are the one who must make the case for it. --Calton | Talk 11:36, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am not denying that usage of BC was there (one instance) before I came to the article. I am saying,

Whereas,

• I am clearly trying to improve the overall quality of the article, and not merely trying to advance a cause celebre;
• Gene Nygaard is only interested in crusading against an acceptable usage style, and not in the article itself;
• both styles are acceptable according to the Manual of Style;
• there is nothing anywhere stating that initial article style must me maintained ad infinitum, and in fact boldness is generally encouraged,
• the one (now three since I've added two myself) instance of its use in a long article is both inconsequential to the quality of the article itself, and fails to establish a strong case for prior use (i.e., it has never been discussed, edited, or frankly even considered since it was typed in the first time, precicely because it is so inconsequential),

Therefore,

• My edits were made in a good-faith attempt to improve the overall quality of the article;
• As a significant contributor to the article, my stylistic choices should be respected when no improvement can be made;
• Gene Nygaard does not have an interest in improving the quality of the diamond article, and
• his edits should carry less weight than an editor who does have the interests of the article at heart.

- Bantman 18:16, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)

Europa (moon) edit

The edit I reverted was by User:Radiomovie: [5]

As you can see, the interwiki links for he: and zh: and others were damaged (probably this user was using some unusual browser or a different character set). Also, the existing article (before Radiomovie's edit) used &times; and &deg;, so if you put in × and ° they got changed by someone else along the way.

There's nothing wrong with using × and °, or with using &times; and &deg;, as far as the reader sees they display the same thing. I reverted Radiomovie's edit because of the interwiki link problem, not the times and degrees thing.

-- Curps 15:59, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I didn't put in the symbols. But it was your edits which changed the × and ° and µ (micro sign) (just look at the differences view), and coupled with your claim of inappropriate symbols, the logical assumption is that that is indeed what you intended to change. Thanks for clarifying; we all sometimes get pretty cryptic in out edit explanations or omit them. I guess you must be using a browser or word processor which tampered with those symbols without your knowledge, so in a sense you have the a similar problem to that of the person you reverted. But it isn't any big problem since they work either way. I'm glad you don't see a problem with those symbols; I've most often used the & form with the idea that this will help other editors out, but using the symbols themselves often makes it easier to follow on the edit screen, so I go both ways.

It also took out the non-breaking spaces. None of them here were what I'd consider essential in this article, but that's something you could maybe keep in mind as you make your edits. Gene Nygaard 16:16, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Units and nbsp

Thanks for the metricification. I have two requests, though:

1. Can you use a non-breaking space instead of a normal space before units?
2. Can you please use "ft·lbf" rather than "lbf ft" for auto engine torque?

Thanks again, --SFoskett 19:20, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. However

• I edited a couple of articles which used both lbf·ft and ft·lbf, and chose one of them for consistency. Both are used for torque in the real world, and various style guides might opt for one or the other or accept both, but some people prefer the former so that it can be distinguished from ft·lbf which are the normal units for energy (in SI units, the distinction is made by using newton-meters for torque and joules for energy).
• Is there somewhere in the Wikipedia Manual of Style or elsewhere which indicates a clear preference for ft·lbf over lbf·ft, or vice versa? Any reliable authority outside of Wikipedia which you can site in this regard?

There is no general requirement for a non-breaking space between numbers and units of measure. There are occasional situations when they are helpful, but are usually not necessary. Since they are also mostly harmless, rarely causing any big gaps or anything like that, I don't particularly mind if you choose to run around adding them. I might myself once in a while, but generally I'm not likely to waste time on a senseless exercise like that. In articles with a large number of measurements, it also makes the text very hard to follow on the edit screen. Avoiding breaks within the units of measurement, or withing the numbers themselves, is a different story. But Wikipedia has an explicit preference for commas rather than spaces as thousands separators, so the only situation where it might come up with numbers involves common fractions in mixed numbers. Similarly, the middot in separating units is both smaller than a space and nonbreaking, so I prefer to use it there. Gene Nygaard 19:57, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would default to writing ft·lbf because that matches my experience of the verbal form. The other order looks wrong to me but I have never been confident enough to change it. But now I see that this is also the order in Rules for SAE use of SI (metric) units. Bobblewik  (talk) 20:00, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't change the articles that are consistent with pound-feet. For the ones which I edited with both, I don't care much if someone changes my lbf·ft to ft·lbf. Both are actually used (in roughly a zillion different symbolic representations), as well as each of them being mentioned in various style guides. Thanks for reminding me of the SAE guide, which I had hidden away on my computer in pdf and probably somewhere in my bookmarks as well. Though they do use lbf·in, lbf·ft, ozf·in in Table B1, they only list the foot pound-force and not the pound-force foot in Table 1, which is as far as a lot of people will look. Probably more significantly, they also do not specifically discuss the options related to torque, so the most you could get from that is a weak rule by inference that isn't likely to be argued much by either side. Gene Nygaard 21:26, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

mid dot

How do you make a mid dot without copying it from elsewhere? Bobblewik  (talk) 20:01, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I use (in Windows) hold down Alt key and type 0183 on keypad.

Thanks

Did you notice that someone argued with your edit on Skylon? I think he understood my explanation, though I could have had it better, and he probably had a point about yours not being quite correct either. Now he wants to argue with me on SABRE, claiming that thrust-to-weight ratios are dimensionless, while in actual use they are at most pretend-dimensionless. They are always based on mass, even if they pretend pounds will cancel out pounds force. Nobody ever uses an actual measurement of force, and nobody calculates a different "weight" in the atmosphere or the exoatmosphere, nor on the moon for the thrust-to-weight ratios of the ascent stage of the lunar modules. Gene Nygaard 20:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You both could be right about my edit being inadequate. I couldn't handle the phrase form 'x times less' and had a go and improving it. I have commented on the page. Thanks for drawing it to my attention.

As far as thrust:weight ratio is concerned, I had a discussion about that very issue at [[6]]. Search for my name on the page. The best that I could manage was to get some compromise wording based on lexical equivalence in non-metric and an acknowledgement of the existence of metric units. The text was revised slightly but is more or less what you see now in [[7]]. Hope that helps. Bobblewik  (talk) 21:45, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cheddar

Please can you explain why you reverted my change on the Cheddar cheese article? Cheddar is a village not a town see its article [8], [9] and [10]. Thryduulf 16:42, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Villages in Hong Kong

Hello. I noticed you have deleted most of the {{listdev}} tags on list of villages in Hong Kong. They were actually inserted to the sections deliberately. Some of the sections are full list, some are not. Only those sections which are not full list were tagged. — Instantnood 16:51, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. It was still a dumb thing to do, and I'd delete them again. Maybe I should not have left any of them. Gene Nygaard 17:11, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The bot thing

If its not the bots fault, it is the operator who needs more education in the improper change of "the same 80 kelvin interval" to "the same 80 Kelvin interval" at Equation of state. See SI, kelvin, and many other sources. Gene Nygaard 01:51, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sorry! I promise to stick to pure grammatical errors. (I thought that since it was Farenheight, and Celcius, then it must be Kelvin. Now I see I am wrong.)Oleg Alexandrov 01:55, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's a common enough mistake, misunderstood far too often even by native speakers. Actually, the English rules are consistent, but quirky, and inverted from the way some other languages do it. None of the nouns which are names units of measurement are capitalized in English, even when they are named after people (watts, volts, newtons, etc.). But in "degrees Fahrenheit" or "degrees Celsius," the unit—the noun— is "degree" and "Fahrenheit" or "Celsius" are adjectives, and those proper adjectives are capitalized in English.

The 1967 change from "degree Kelvin" to "kelvin" gives many people difficulty for another reason in addition to the change in capitalization. When "Kelvin" was the adjective, the plurals were formed by adding an "s" to degree and "Kelvin" remained unchanged. But now that "kelvins" are the nouns, they should form the normal English plural by adding an s, even though you see many instances when this is not done. Gene Nygaard 02:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your long explanation. I do appreciate it. Oleg Alexandrov 03:09, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Devil's Lake

There is an article naming dispute over Devil's Lake. I am of the opinion that Devil's Lake should redirect to Devil's Lake (North Dakota), while another editor, DreamGuy, prefers to have Devil's Lake point to a disambiguation page. Since you have edited the article, I would appreciate your comments on this matter at Talk:Devil's Lake (North Dakota). Thank you. --Alexwcovington (talk) 05:33, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

helium nonbreaking spaces

What's your procedure of deciding whether an nbsp is unnecessary? Femto 15:33, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's pretty subjective. The point is, that such spaces are not required between a number and a unit of measure.

• Maybe somebody, somewhere, has house rules that call for them. But in the case of measurements, I'm unaware of any metrology standards organization which calls for them, and most do not use them for that purpose, though they might avoid breaks in other contexts.
• Same with textbooks, most do not use them in this context.
• Doing so as a matter of course is disruptive to the editing process, making it harder for Wikipedia editors to follow what is going on in the edit page.

• There are some differences between usage in tables and in running text:
  • The ones which affect borders in a table (which might be altered if left blank) are useful.
  • They are also useful in tables containing dual measurements of the same quantity in different units, to force any line break between the different units. I don't think this factor is very important at all in running text, but it makes tables look much better.
• Any spaces within a number should be made nonbreaking, such as: 1 lb = 0.453 592 37 (but Wikipedia MoS comes out against this use of spaces), 1 dr avdp = 27 11/32 gr.
• Any spaces within the symbol for a unit of measure should be made nonbreaking: 1 N = 1 kg m s^-2 (Note that the alternative &middot; (·) is also nonbreaking and usually smaller in width as well, and clearer.)
• Otherwise it's pretty subjective. I don't mind someone using them once in a while; I left the 1 kg and something else as part of a definition, I think that was on the helium page. I think it also makes sense a split between a single numeral and a single digit symbol, as in a 3 A fuse.
• I don't like them when we have both a many-digit number and a many-symbol unit combination; rather than an unsightly gap at the end of a line (or huge spacing problems in justified view), I'd rather see a break between the number and the units.

That's my thoughts anyway. I just don't like a big rush to throw them in where they are unnecessary. Gene Nygaard 16:06, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The current MoS recommendation is simply "To ensure that the value and the unit symbol are displayed on the same line, editors should use a non-breaking space character rather than a standard space"—You can't exactly say that I insert nbsps at random. Never in headings or table cells that can't possibly wrap at that place, or between written out words for example. I don't see a problem with unsightly gaps around many-digit numbers or many-symbol units, as long as both parts are not much longer than the average word. While not required, I'd rather see numbers and symbols together, with defined line breaks.

While I usually won't insist on inserting nbsps anywhere, the appearance of the articles to the readers comes first, not the appearance to the editors, and I think reading something like ..."at sea level and up to 15 miles (24(break)
km), largely because most helium"... is much more ugly and potentially disturbing for much more people than a "24&nbsp;km" in the wikitext. And when you print out the article, you could get the 24 on one page and the km on the other.

Please consider, that maybe it should take more than your subjective opinion on nbsps to remove them, especially right after somebody took the time to insert them.

(I was going to give [11] as one example of webpage that avoids such breaks. (HTML source code: ..."speed of light at exactly <nobr>299 792 458 m &#183; s^&#150;1.</nobr> The original international"...) But with proprietary <nobr> tags and undefined &#150; character encoding I don't think I shall ever trust their web design again.)

By the way, use &sup2; or &sup3; for squared and cubed units like "produced from every cubic mile of the Earth's crust (3.4 L/km³)". The extra line spacing from 'true' superscripts should be reserved for 'true' numbers that can be different from 2 or 3, such as mass numbers of isotopes. Femto 19:52, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your web example would have been a poor example even without the problems you cited; it has both numbers which should contain nonbreaking spaces, and units which should contain nonbreaking spaces, so the easy way out is just to use that <nobr> to get all of them nonbreaking.

Can you cite any other style guide which says there should be a nonbreaking space between the number and the unit? NIST's Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) goes into many of the details of typography and usage but does not say anything along these lines, and in fact has some such breaks.

Has there been any significant discussion of that point wrt the Wikipedia MoS?

Nothing that I'm aware of (doesn't need to mean much), for both points above. That does not change the fact though that they neither say there should not not be a nonbreaking space. I doubt with "a space is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol" they mean that people should be able to leave a space of several kilometers between value and symbol, in the case when one printed page is left at home and one is at the office... Unfortunately beyond that it's left to opinion how a properly formatted (web)page should look like. I believe some nbsps here or there do more good than harm, and should expect my opinion to be respected. Femto 14:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I see that Wikipedia MoS also addresses the superscripts issue--for areas and volumes only. I use both, and remain unconvinced that one is significantly better than the other, so I usually don't change whatever someone else uses, or whatever has been fairly noticeably and consistently used in an article, but I also don't always check that either. Part of the reason is that we often have negative superscipts, which cannot be represented that way, as well as the ones from 4 to 9 which can only be represented that way with difficulty and with possible browser nonsupport, and those greater than 10. That happens whenever an article uses scientific notation, for example, and the helium article does use scientific notation (not as much as it used to, but the ones which are gone were in the tables rather than the running text ones which remain and which have that line spacing problem you mentioned.

Of course, the powers to which a unit are raised are every bit as much true superscripts as others, and can be other than 2 or 3 and negative. In fact, they often are in Wikipedia articles, including some of the articles about the elements. For example, those whose editors haven't figured out that the siemens became a part of SI several decades ago and that (m·ohm)^-1 would no longer be proper even if it were written (m·Ω)^-1 or m^-1·Ω^-1 (though S·m^-1 would be acceptable).

Of course, none of those little glitches and inconsistencies and lack of parallelism, which often occur in scientific articles, are mentioned at all in the Wikipedia MoS. Gene Nygaard 20:43, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In non-scientific context, you're much more likely to find a solitary "cm³" than reading "²³⁵U", or a full-blown unit equation with all the bells and whistles. Here, typographically, "cm³" is treated as just another word, and it's good typographic practice to avoid disruptive superscripts where possible. The reasoning behind using &sup; characters with (only) those unit symbols is simply to give them a uniform appearance in both scientific and non-scientific contexts. This does of course not extend to any other superscripted numbers, I would write 1.234×10³ m³ for example, not 1.234×10³ m³, or if there is a m³ near a m⁴ would fall back to sup tags for both 3s and 4s. Femto 14:43, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

template:Infobox_U.S._state

Hi - You seem to be annoyed by my response to the user who asked about changing the template. Is the "you" in your comments meant to be me (i.e. is the entire comment effectively addressed to me)? If so, it sounds like we should talk since my intent was to be helpful. BTW - the mean elevation number you changed in the Kansas article was introduced by user:Moverton. I have no idea whether this was a computed number or determined from some other source. -- Rick Block 18:32, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The "you" is intended to be you personally (since a cursory look showed that you probably had some involvement in the development of the template, in addition to the reply to this request), and to anybody else involved with this template.

Who put in 2001 ft is pretty much totally relevant. The relevant question is, where did the person who put in 610 m get that number? Since this is a rough average, it is obviously a conversion from 2000 ft (since if it were more precise, say 2000.0 feet, it would be 609.60 m, which to the nearest meter (the maximum possible precision with the numbers stated, rounds to 610 m) But if you convert 610 m back to feet, you get 2001.31... ft, which to the nearest foot rounds to 2001 ft.

It's rare to find something as clear as that number in the Kansas article. A far more common result of this foolishness of presenting converted numbers without including the numbers converted from is the loss of that information about the precision of the original measurement.

Anyway, thanks for reminding me that I left a job half-done on that page. Now that the original measurement has been restored, I'll go redo the conversion in accordance with that, as I should have done in the first place. Gene Nygaard 19:07, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My specific involvement with the template was largely incidental (mostly formatting issues, and I converted many of the state articles to use the template). The choice of metric for the state infoboxes predates the template, presumably by agreement at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states - I preserved metric/english where both were previously present. My response to the question about NJ was meant to let the user know that both measurements were present (at least for some state articles) with the existing template, and roughly how to go about changing the template to include both. I'm (still) of the opinion that this is not worthwhile. Perhaps you should take this up at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states. -- Rick Block 20:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've started a thread on this at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._states#units in the infoboxes. -- Rick Block 04:06, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Haven't heard from you in a while on this. No one else seemed to want to, so I updated the table lately to include all the authoritative data I can find. I'm still missing width, length, and mean elevation. Do you have any idea where to find authoritative figures for these? Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:45, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

The biggest problem is, what in the world do those terms mean? What is the "length" of a state? What is the "width" of a state. This is not even an easy question for Colorado, whose boundaries are one meridian on the east, another meridian on the west, one parallel on the south and another on the north. Almost a rectangle, of sorts (it is, on some map projections). But what is the greatest length? The corner to corner distance, the greatest distance between any two points in the state? What is the width? Is that measured on a line perpendicular to the line connecting the points farthest from each other? Or do you just look at lenght and width as being constrained to directly east-west directions and directly north-south directions? Even in the case of Colorado, the east-west distance is significantly greater on the southern boundary than on the northern boundary. But what do you do with the complicated ones like Florida, Alaska, and Hawaii?

The "mean elevation" might have a more specific meaning, but it might not be that easy to actually calculate and it might not be something ever regularly calculated on a consistent basis for all the states.

My suggestion would be to just throw them all out. They aren't particularly useful in any case. Gene Nygaard 03:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I believe width is maximum extent North/South and length is East/West. These seem to be fairly commonly reported, for example see http://www.netstate.com/states/ (not what I'd consider an authoritative source). They also have mean elevation, but again I'm reluctant to use their numbers. I've also asked user:Ram-Man where the original numbers came from (I'm sure someone must know). Sorry this is taking so long - it will get done eventually. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:32, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

That still doesn't solve the definitional problems. Do you mean the maximum distance east-west at any given latitude? Or do you mean the maximum distance east-west between any two points in the state? In the case of the latter, with the easternmost longitude at latitude A, and the westernmost longitude at latitude B, do you measure the distance youd have to go in a westerly direction from longitude A to longitude B at latitude A, or do you do it in an easterly direction at latitude B?

Just tell me how you'd measure the "width" of Florida. Or how you'd measure the "width" of Alaska. Or how you'd measure the "width" of Hawaii.

Note that as you defined it, the "width" would sometimes be greater than the "length". Note also that, at least at one time, this was done differently for different states. One example was Massachussets and Connecticut, one of which had length greater than width, and the other of which has width greater than length. Gene Nygaard 06:15, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I can think of at least two possibilities (and for either the east-west measurement could either be the distance along the latitude line or the polar distance) that would be well defined:

1. measured point to point within the state along latitude or longitude lines
2. measured by the size of a "rectangle" along lattitude and longitude lines that minimally encloses the state (with east-west "length" always measured at some specific spot, e.g. the midpoint or the southern edge of this rectangle, or perhaps the southernmost point that touches the north-south sides)

I'm no geographer, but I imagine for most states the difference between the east-west distance at the north and south edges of the enclosing rectangle would not be that significant and that picking a spot (midpoint or bottom edge) would make this distance relatively easy to compute given east/west longitude and north/south latitude. In any event, if there are commonly accepted measurements I would tend to believe someone like the USGS has defined what they mean. Perhaps my inability to find USGS values for these means the USGS does NOT define them. I'm still pursuing where the original values that are listed for each state came from. How about if we discuss this again after finding this out? -- Rick Block (talk) 13:56, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

California State Route 57

Please do not move articles to incorrect titles. As the title of [12] shows, the correct title is State Route 57 (note also the abbreviation SR). --SPUI (talk) 02:49, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sure, and the title of this page "proves" that it is "Highway 1" and not "State Route 1" [13]--so go undo your damage in renaming that one. Stop being a jackass. Gene Nygaard 02:58, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Highway 1" is in some ways a special case, as it has entered popular jargon under that name. Similarly, Route 66 is U.S. Highway 66. We should however be consistent within the state. --SPUI (talk) 03:03, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Changing the rules for "proof" now, eh? Gene Nygaard 03:04, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I never changed the rules. You came into the middle of this claiming there was a certain way of doing things and that I was wrong. --SPUI (talk) 03:19, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

By the way, California State Highway 1 was moved to California State Route 1 in August 2002. That's almost three years ago. --SPUI (talk) 03:22, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So what does it matter how long it has been wrong? Gene Nygaard 03:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Because it's not wrong. --SPUI (talk) 03:31, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

PLEASE stop removing the 9XX indexing keys. I am reverting these on sight. --SPUI (talk) 03:45, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Changing Ohio State Highway 25 to sort in 2 is completely incorrect, as then it goes between 249 and 250. --SPUI (talk) 04:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Indexing it as a "0" is plain silliness because it is not Ohio State Highway 025. So the tradeoff is in favor of my version of indexing. Gene Nygaard 04:09, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You continue to make no sense. Indexing it as 025 is correct to put it in its proper place. --SPUI (talk) 04:11, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Categorization#Category sorting gives a similar example (though it is done differently here, because of the Interstate numbering system, in which XYZ is a child of YZ). --SPUI (talk) 04:14, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

SuperCroc revert

Hi, I noticed that you reverted my edits at SuperCroc. I have learnt from you in the past on the issue of kN, particularly when you are polite in your explanation. I am always willing to learn more. Can you advise me where I went wrong in this case? Bobblewik  (talk) 11:18, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Because it was the original measurement in SuperCroc, and I've seen far too many cases (notably thrusts of jet or rocket engines) where that original measurement is dropped, and the information it contains about the precision of the original measurement is so totally lost that both units presented have far too much precision.

• This was added by [[User:68.81.231.127] on 18 November 2004 as "a force of 8 tonnes (8 tons)".
• The same user on 16 January changed it to "8,000 kg (9 tons)".
• on 5 February I disambiguated by adding an f to kgf, by changing unidentified "tons" which were short tons force to 18,000 pounds force, identified as such, and also added the conversion to 80 kN.
• on 18 April you changed it to 80 kN (18,000 lbf).

In checking it out further, however, it appears that "8 tonnes" isn't really the original number. These numbers are stated to come from the National Geographic special, and the web site about it presents this number as 18,000 pounds (8,165 kilograms), not properly identifying pounds-force as such and improperly converting to kilogams force and doing so with too much precision.

Therefore I will now support changing it to "18,000 lbf (80 kN)", with the original measurement stated first. Gene Nygaard 09:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I note the generic points about precision and raw data. I am also impressed with your attention to detail in researching the specific instance in the article. Thanks for your response.

Second/seconds

I respectfully disagree with your assertion that "0.678 second" should be singular. If I were speaking, I would say "point-six-seven-eight seconds." If I were referring to a fraction, that's different -- then "six hundred seventy-eight thousandths of a second" would be acceptable. I'd like to know what style guide believes otherwise, though. —chris.lawson (talk) 00:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you disagree, maybe you could cite some style guide to support your point.

It's not hard to find those that support my change. I though Wikipedia MoS said something about this, but don't find anything one way or the other, mich have been mentined in some talk somewhere. But others which do address it include NIST Guide for the Use of the International System of Units (SI) [14]. Note that NIST even accepts the null plural, common in some languages such as German, for units of measure in English, and says that "678 second" would be acceptable (even as a noun; it shouldn't add an s if used as an adjective, that's the general rule in English).

I know I've seen other style guides saying these should be singular; I'm not sure if I've seen others saying they should be plural. If I were writing the rules, I'd like to make it so that only be plus or minus one as an integer that would be singular, with even one as a measured rather than counted quantity being plural. Haven't seen anyone else suggest that, however. Gene Nygaard 09:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From Bill Walsh, author of several books on style and a (former?) copyeditor at the Washington Post:

My theory (it's in one of my books -- can't remember which one offhand) is that the singular is unique to one, rather than the plural being unique to more than one. You'd say "zero dollars" rather than "zero dollar," right?

Interestingly, Bill agrees with you (as do I) that the only true singular is the (exact) quantity one. What the NIST guide says doesn't agree with what people actually mentally read or speak out loud in my experience as a Ph. D. student in the sciences, nor does it agree with what I recall from numerous journal articles.

I stand by my assertion that "0.678 second" is, if not outright wrong, at least terribly awkward. —chris.lawson (talk) 18:30, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

what is the least ugly in-line math in Planck units?

hey Gene,

i am not sure that i agree with you that using special characters is better than using TeX markup for math symbols and expressions inside of the normal text discussion. to me, utter consistency in symbols and technical expressions, is more important than the TeX PNG not lining up perfectly with the text. it is also possible to get the inline TeX to line up on the text baseline as described in the TeX markup reference. also, even if consistency wasn't a virtue, the special characters usage is more ugly than the TeX. certainly the square roots are not as good as with TeX.

this can't be a new issue. is there a talk page where this has been discussed? i would like to know if there is a consistent guideline, and if not, i would like to influence the formulation of a guideline. if i were publishing a textbook with exactly this content, i would want strict consistency in appearance of symbols and terms.

i'll put this on my watchlist for any reply. you don't have to post to my talkpage to get my attention.

L8r,

r b-j 21:15, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You can't get much uglier than what it was.

it is now uglier.

Properly formatted characters (e.g., with italics where appropriate, etc.) should be recognizable as the same.

People writing textbooks have more control over factors we don't have control over.

Lining up the baseline would be a minor improvement, but you'd still have some ungodly variations in line height. If you know how to accomplish it, why don't you show us how it works and see how much good it can do in things like those inline h-bar characters.

i didn't realize $\hbar \$ was so far off. is this $\hbar \$ better?

It is still far too low and far too big in a small font.

It is far too high and far too small in a big font.

It is a kludge, a work-around at best, one that sometimes helps, but sometimes actually makes things worse. Gene Nygaard 22:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The characters are also much less of a burden on the server, I think.

how so? memory usage? (doesn't seem much different in terms of source code.) since it's your browser that renders these things, i can't imagine it slows down the server.

The png images need to be generated on the fly every time the page is opened. Gene Nygaard 22:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to write a Wikipedia article on Mathematics

thanks, i'm gonna be reading it.

• Having formulas as in-line PNG images, as above, is generally discouraged, for the following reasons. [see link]

and further down the page:

• However, at all costs avoid in-line PNG images. Even if you use <math>L^p</math> throughout the page, use ''L''^&infin; to get L^∞ rather than the horrid $L^{\infty }$.

i don't get it. the PNG $L^{\infty }$ looks correct and the other one looks like L raised to the "p" power.

It talks about L to the p power, in math markup but nowiki so not displayed, before the nowiki infinity character part. You need to look at the first one after that, right after the words "to get". Increase your font size, and if it still looks like a p, there is another problem with your browser or perhaps with the font. Gene Nygaard 22:55, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Obviously, I'm not the only one who finds this very ugly. I think more Wikipedians would support my position than yours. Gene Nygaard 22:19, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the interjection. I agree with Gene, and this is the general position taken by many mathematicians. In addition to the link above, there is more discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/Archive4(TeX). Now, as a side remark, when using special characters, one better use things like &delta; say for δ and not untypable unicode characters. Oleg Alexandrov 22:45, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Is there an acceptable way to make that h-bar which is an improvement over the inline math at Planck units? Gene Nygaard 23:03, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I found this: ħ which is written as &#295; Oleg Alexandrov 23:22, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

your ħ shows up on my browser as a question mark ?. there is terrible standardization of anything ASCII that is above 0x7F. i see more silly question marks instead of the intended symbol. anyway, thanks guys. i'll do a little more reading but i'm far from persuaded. r b-j 00:41, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What browser are you using? Oleg Alexandrov 00:48, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

(embarrassed) micro$hit IE 5.0 for the Mac. i am using an older G3 and OS 9.1. i have a bunch of old software, including compilers and MATLAB that i just don't want to spend money upgrading to OS X versions. (and i would have to buy OS X and likely a newer Mac.) i had been using Netscape, but wikipedia looks even worse with Netscape. i don't think there is a Firefox for the Mac, is there? r b-j 03:10, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That't an ancient version indeed. I think you noticed, Wikipedia uses lots of Unicode in places, and that might affect your browsing experience. Also, I heard somewhere that the IE version for the Mac you have has problems editing articles over 32KB (it just truncates the thing beyond that). I am not sure of this, but you better check the diffs from time to time after you edit big articles.

Firefox is available for Mac OSX but probably not for OS9. Oleg Alexandrov 03:29, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Gene (and Oleg & anyone else interested): some of the changes to the Planck units article are becoming substantive, more than style. let's move the blow-by-blow to Talk:Planck_units. r b-j 00:26, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All I know about these things, is ${\bar {h}}={\frac {h}{2\pi }}.$ So I will not be of much help. :) Oleg Alexandrov 00:34, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If it hadn't been such an awful mess in the first place, it wouldn't be so attractive to improvement in any way that we can. Gene Nygaard 00:40, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

${\bar {h}}\$ is not the correct rendering for "hbar". $\hbar \$ is. anyway, Gene, i don't see Planck units as an awful mess at all, but it will be with mixed rendering of math symbols using TeX here and special characters there. people may wonder if α is the same thing as $\alpha \$. you are making it messier. r b-j 18:01, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Let us keep this constructive, shall we? :) Oleg Alexandrov 19:21, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

mass flow meter

Hi Gene,

I noticed your proposal to merge with the air flow meter article. It is clear that the two metering techniques have a completely different operating principle.

The mass flow meter, also known as coriolis flow meter, measures the amount of inertia of the material passing throught the tube. It does so by inducing a vibration of the tube, and measuring how the tube responds to that under flow condition. It is a non-touching technique.

On the other hand, the airflow metering operating principle is to heat the flowing air with heating element.

The two articles have only a similar name in common, the physics principles involved have no overlap, so there is nothing to merge. I will remove the merge proposal. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 12:14, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay. I had some second thoughts about that myself, when I went back and didn't see anything about heating wires in one of them, but didn't go back and check it out for sure. But if the purpose overlaps, they should be crosslinked, shouldn't they? Gene Nygaard 12:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, both flow meters are member of the overall class of flow metering instruments, which I think is vast. (Most of them volumetric flow metering.)I don't think they have anything in common beyond that.

It seems to me that a cross-reference is meaningfull if understanding of the operating principle of one helps in understanding the other, which isn't the case here.

I don't think that coriolis flow meters are much used in aviation, if at all. Since they operate by inducing a vibration, I expect them to be sensitive to outside vibrations. If I hazard a guess I's say the heat-capacity sensors are used close to aircraft engines precisely because of insensitivity to outside vibrations. --Cleon Teunissen | Talk 14:00, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sequoia

Please leave it at Sequoia. This is part of an agreed policy change discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life, to work towards a move of plants to scientific name titles, beginning with some conifer families. The move to "california redwood" was not done with reference to the WP:TOL project. - MPF 11:30, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't give a damn. I'm not a participant in whatever this project is. At this point it is irrelevant. Furthermore, that project didn't exist when the name was changed, did it? WHat about general Wikipedia:Naming conventions? Is it in accordance with that?

But most of all, if whoever has decided to make this a project doesn't even have enough sense to get it mentioned on the applicable talk pages, they have no business whatsoever trying to change things. So I'm not even going to look at the project--it is totally irrelevant at this point. Gene Nygaard 11:42, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The WP:TOL project has been running for a couple of years at least (since very early in the life of Wikipedia), and is where all matters regarding pages about living things are decided on. And yes, it is wholly relevant. Things like this don't have to be repeated ad nauseam on every one of hundreds of individual talk pages. Since the page was wrongly re-titled yesterday, your conclusion is completely wrong. - MPF 11:52, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Now I'm really pissed, because I went and looked, and there hasn't even been any such consensus about this particular article, nor on articles in general, on the page you cited, and you started changing things before the discussion there even got going. That on top of not making the people who have edited this article aware of this discussion by mentioning it on this article's talk page.

When exactly, did your pet project start? When, exactly, did the current article get named?

When, exactly, did your pet project decide that the name of this article should be changed? That's the easy one—never! This particular discussion there is mostly recent, and undecided. Gene Nygaard 11:58, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Last December. And it isn't my 'pet project' as you seem to think. - MPF 12:20, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Specific impulse

Please can you look at the recent comment on my talk page from BerserkerBen. I welcome your opinion. Bobblewik  (talk) 23:06, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)