On 19 December 2012 17:03, Daniel Kinzler daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de wrote:
I'd have thought that we'd have one such table per dimension (such as "length" or "weight"). It may make sense to override that on a per-property basis, so 2300m elevation isn't shown as 2.3km. Or that can be done in the template that renders the value.
here and in the entire discussion I fear that the need to support data curation on Wikidata data for correctness is not sufficiently in the focus.
If someone enters the height of a mountain in feet and I see the converted value in meter in my wikidata preferences-converted view, I will correct the seemingly senseless and unjustified precision to three digits after the meter. Only if we understand in which unit the data were originally valid, we will be able to successfully communicate and collaborate.
Yes, Wikidata shall store a normalized version of the value, but it also needs to store an original one. Whether it needs to store the value twice I am not sure, I believe not. If it store the original prefix, original unit and original significant digits, it can generally recreate the original form. I know that there are some pitfalls with IEEE numbers in this, and it may be safer to store the original number as well initially (and perhaps drop it later when enough data are available to test the effects).
Of course, Wikipedias can use the API to display the value in any other form, just as they like, but that does not solve the problem of data curation on wikidata (which includes the data curation by wikipedia authors).
Gregor