I am reviewing the controversial [[New Imperialism]] article.
One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to 23,000,000 square kilometers. This move was apparently uncontroversial.
Is that right? As an American, I frankly confess that the metric system is a curiosity to me. 9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp, because I know how long a mile is intuitively. The kilometer, on the other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a textbook.
Shouldn't we give both, then?
Jimmy Wales wrote:
One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to 23,000,000 square kilometers. This move was apparently uncontroversial.
Is that right? As an American, I frankly confess that the metric system is a curiosity to me. 9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp, because I know how long a mile is intuitively. The kilometer, on the other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a textbook.
As a Eurpoean, I never touched miles, yards, etc. until I worked in the US for a few month. Always missed these highway exits ;-)
As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention miles&co. somewhere too;-)
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention miles&co. somewhere too;-)
I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in scientific articles. But in many articles, Americans will have a hard time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
I would certainly oppose any idea that the Metric system is better than English (it isn't, and for many purposes it's provably worse), and going further, even if Metric were better, it isn't the role of wikipedia to push it on people. (The government in the U.S. has been trying since I was a little kid to encourage the use of Metric, but with only tiny impact.)
So, I would say that in cases where Americans expect to see miles and gallons, we should give both miles/kilometers and gallons/liters.
And similarly, of course, in cases where Europeans and British and Aussies and others expect to see kilometers and liters, we should give those, as well.
--Jimbo
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 06:03:23AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I would certainly oppose any idea that the Metric system is better than English (it isn't, and for many purposes it's provably worse), and going further, even if Metric were better, it isn't the role of wikipedia to push it on people. (The government in the U.S. has been trying since I was a little kid to encourage the use of Metric, but with only tiny impact.)
What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical) Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we give a measurement?
Jason Williams wrote:
What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical) Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we give a measurement?
Not unless this is a significant number of people.
Fortunately, cases of this general kind are rare. There are some words that are used differently by different English speakers, and these should be either replaced by more universal words, or explained, as the situation warrants.
What is desired is that every article can be read clearly by almost everyone. Adopting an elitist or majoritarian attitude is unnecessary when an inclusive and open attitude is available and more effective for our purposes.
Jason Williams wrote:
What if it turns out some people only understand the (hypothetical) Elbonian Measurement System? Do we then include three numbers each time we give a measurement?
I'll wait until there is serious argumention from the Elbonians to consider that possibility. One place where three numbers should be given is in liquid measurements. Remember that the Imperial gallon is still bigger than the U.S. gallon.
Eclecticology
And what about being able to choose in the prefs some regional settings, us or metrics.
Then, an editor would write the measurement with his prefered system in a tag : <tag>xx miles</tag>
Then, if the editor's unit system is the same than the reader's system, say us, will be displayed :
bla bla xx miles.
When the editor's unit system is not the reader's prefered system, will be displayed :
bla bla xx miles (yy km).
magic ?
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On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 00:33:31 -0800 (PST), Anthere anthere5=/E1597aS9LQAvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org wrote:
And what about being able to choose in the prefs some regional settings, us or metrics.
Then, an editor would write the measurement with his prefered system in a tag : <tag>xx miles</tag>
Then, if the editor's unit system is the same than the reader's system, say us, will be displayed :
bla bla xx miles.
When the editor's unit system is not the reader's prefered system, will be displayed :
bla bla xx miles (yy km).
Once again, there is a precision issue. There are some articles on which precision is implied and necessary, and others where it should be approximate. Poor unserstanding of precision of numbers seems to crop up everywhere, with Journalists being particularly bad at it. In New Zealand, Currencies are converted to $NZ for many stories, so one encounters such atrocities as "The cost of the damage is expected to be well over $NZ1.93M. Quite clearly this has been $US1M originally, and the context makes it quite clear that it would be best to write $NZ2M. Another related pet hate which is nothing to do with conversion is phrasing such as "more than 23 widgets". Which either means "24 widgets" or could be better phrased (maybe "24 widgets at the time of writing")
Anyway, back to wiki, perhaps the only way to automate precision would be to use scientific notation for all numbers, and the conversion should have no more significant figures than the original. (Or perhaps one more significant digit, otherwise a sentence such as "1 mile is equal to approximately 1.6Km" could get badly mangled)
On dim, 2003-01-05 at 12:48, Richard Grevers wrote:
"The cost of the damage is expected to be well over $NZ1.93M. Quite clearly this has been $US1M originally, and the context makes it quite clear that it would be best to write $NZ2M.
As long as you don't read that rapper Eminem made his Hollywood debut in "12.872 Kilometer", or that the United Kingdom has elected once again to stay out of the Euro, sticking with the 0.454 kilogramme sterling...
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
As long as you don't read that rapper Eminem made his Hollywood debut in "12.872 Kilometer", or that the United Kingdom has elected once again to stay out of the Euro, sticking with the 0.454 kilogramme sterling...
Well, to be fair, it has been suggested that we would include a means to indicate precision, so we would instead read that Eminem made his Hollywood debut in "Nearly 13 Kilometer".
;-)
--Jimbo
On Sunday 05 January 2003 18:18, Brion Vibber wrote:
On dim, 2003-01-05 at 12:48, Richard Grevers wrote:
"The cost of the damage is expected to be well over $NZ1.93M. Quite clearly this has been $US1M originally, and the context makes it quite clear that it would be best to write $NZ2M.
As long as you don't read that rapper Eminem made his Hollywood debut in "12.872 Kilometer", or that the United Kingdom has elected once again to stay out of the Euro, sticking with the 0.454 kilogramme sterling...
I am going to put my 30 cm down (though it's actually only 21) to say that no one who spouts such nonsense is going to be allowed in my back .91m!
BTW, I saw an ad for a 6.02e23 pole which was touted as driving away the rodents. I didn't gopher it. 6.02e23 is not a rodent.
Anyway, the temperature is approaching 0.56 radians Fahrenheit, so I'm not going out tonight.
phma
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Magnus Manske wrote:
As a scientist, I have to insist that the metric system is to be the main system used on Wikipedia! (Of course, feel free to mention miles&co. somewhere too;-)
I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in scientific articles. But in many articles, Americans will have a hard time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
The [[Orders of Magnitude]] group of pages should help with this -- wherever units are given they should link to one of the "chain pages" that give comparisons & conversions.
Besides, the metric system is really not hard to grasp. There's one basic unit for each type of measurement that can be used for anything. and the same multipying prefixes apply to all units.
So, I would say that in cases where Americans expect to see miles and gallons, we should give both miles/kilometers and gallons/liters.
The problem is that most US / Imperial units are ambiguous: there are two gallons -- see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon there are 3 miles.
Furthermore, the units aren't consistently applied -- different units for different circumstances of the same measurement. I found articles on water reservoirs that gave capacity in something bizarre I can't remember (YARD-FEET or something). Then you have *dry* measures of volume, barrels for oil & so on.
There is a very good reason why countries across the world have adopted the SI system. It's simpler, and if everybody uses the same system we don't get problems like this.
As I always say in these debates:
1 -- Except for temperature (the degrees are just too big), the metric system is better worked out than the American, easier to use in many applicatoins, etc.
2 -- The purpose of the encyclopedia is not to make people better, it is to impart information to readers.
3 -- Millions of American encyclopedia readers cannot do the conversions in their heads and should be provided with useful information on the height and weight of the hippopotamus.
Apropos Jimbo's point about the superiority of the American system, as in the case of temperature, the American system is superior on account of its stronger relationship to the human scale, an inch is a knuckle, a yard is a pace, a foot is as long as a foot, a mile is a long walk, and our zero degrees is actually cold and not just brisk and our 100 degrees is body temperature.
On the other hand, a system that goes from 1/16 to 1/8 to 1/4 to 5/16 to 3/8 etc can really wear you out. And 40 below zero is cold no matter how you count it.
Tom Parmenter Ortolan88
On Fri, 3 Jan 2003 12:13:06 -0500, Tom Parmenter tompar=Jk6FQSss4Zz2eFz/2MeuCQ@public.gmane.org wrote:
As I always say in these debates:
1 -- Except for temperature (the degrees are just too big), the metric system is better worked out than the American, easier to use in many applicatoins, etc.
2 -- The purpose of the encyclopedia is not to make people better, it is to impart information to readers.
3 -- Millions of American encyclopedia readers cannot do the conversions in their heads and should be provided with useful information on the height and weight of the hippopotamus.
I was in school when NZ metricated and am still capable of using inches and millimetres in the same sentence. I also hobbywork in a theatre where most of our stock set has imperial dimensions thanks to its age. But I would argue for metric any day. And if you try to play the numbers game, the US will lose, particularly if you throw a billion Indians into the mix. English is also the Lingua Franca of much of Africa, and even though internet use is still very limited in these countries, Wikipedia is a site that could easily end up with a much higher profile there than in the 2nd World.
I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in scientific articles. But in many articles, Americans will have a hard time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.
The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.
That's all completely correct. en should accomodate local idiosyncracies of any major population in contexts where confusion and difficulties are likely.
The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.
I don't agree that this is the right thing to do. Automatic conversion is a very bad idea in most cases.
The article that started this discussion is a case in point. "Europe added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2" are both approximate statements. An automatic conversion would give an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.
It's easy enough for people from around the world to work together on the articles to make sure that local idiosyncracies are observed, _and_ that the degree of precision and grammatical context are respected.
Never send a computer program to do a human's job.
--Jimbo
The article that started this discussion is a case in point. "Europe added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2" are both approximate statements. An automatic conversion would give an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.
Inferring the precision from the number of zerso does not seem like an ideal practice (even if it is used in science). How about writing the numbers as triples
(number,precision,units)
reflecting the fact that these are really intervals or probabilistic distributions centered around "number".
Never send a computer program to do a human's job.
Unless computer can actually do the job, in which case it will probably do it better.
Viktor
Viktor Kuncak wrote:
Inferring the precision from the number of zerso does not seem like an ideal practice (even if it is used in science).
Whether or not it is ideal is different from it being what people commonly do. If I tell you it is 10 miles to my office, you'll naturally assume that I mean "roughly 10 miles". If I tell you that it is 16.09 kilometers, you will naturally assume that this is precise.
Are you engaging in a less than ideal practice by making such an assumption? Maybe, but it is natural and common.
How about writing the numbers as triples
(number,precision,units)
New readers will have no idea what that means.
I see no reason to automate any of this. We aren't writing technical manuals, we're writing an encyclopedia of general knowledge.
--Jimbo
The article that started this discussion is a case in point. "Europe added almost 23,000,000 km^2" or "Europe added almost 9,000,000 mi^2" are both approximate statements. An automatic conversion would give an unwarranted impression of precision in this case.
Just add a ~ or ~~ before the number to indicate the degree of imprecision and the converter finds the best approximation.
Regards,
Erik
Erik Moeller wrote:
I have no opposition to including the metric system, and especially in scientific articles. But in many articles, Americans will have a hard time understanding unless English equivalents are given.
en.wikipedia.org is not us.wikpedia.org. I am not an American or even a native English speaker and I read the en.wikipedia a lot, for many different reasons. en certainly should accomodate US idiosyncracies, but not to the confusion of a more broadly defined target audience.
I tend to agree with that :-)
The right thing to do is to introduce Wiki syntax for formatting units, so that they can be converted on the fly. SI should be the default.
How about extending the variables? {{10|m2}} would be 10 square meters {{50|ft}} would be 50 feet etc.
Display would be dependent on * which wikipedia you're using: de has only metric units, en shows metric with us (like this) * can be overridden by a user option
Should be easy to implement.
Magnus
How about extending the variables? {{10|m2}} would be 10 square meters {{50|ft}} would be 50 feet etc.
The pipe is unnecessary, and the {{ }} does not look very readable. How about double backtics or double underscores? (``50 cm``, __50 cm__). Backtics are common in Unixland for stuff that is dynamically interpreted and replaced.
Regards,
Erik
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 05:42:41AM -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Is that right? As an American, I frankly confess that the metric system is a curiosity to me. 9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp, because I know how long a mile is intuitively. The kilometer, on the other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a textbook.
Shouldn't we give both, then?
Bit ugly, don't you think? I'd prefer metric measurements, linked to a page of conversion factors.
On Friday 03 January 2003 05:42 am, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I am reviewing the controversial [[New Imperialism]] article.
One side note is that Tarquin changed 9,000,000 square miles to 23,000,000 square kilometers. This move was apparently uncontroversial.
With good reason. Kilometers are a worldwide standard, miles are a measurement that is now largely unique to the United States.
Is that right? As an American, I frankly confess that the metric system is a curiosity to me. 9,000,000 square miles, I can grasp, because I know how long a mile is intuitively. The kilometer, on the other hand, is non-intuitive, just an arbitrary length from a textbook.
As an American, I'd much rather have everything in metric, with no American measurements in sight, increasing my incentive to get used to the metric system, and allowing for easier communication with the /majority/ of the world. Note also that the scientific community uses metric measurements.
Shouldn't we give both, then?
Why? If the reader really needs non-metric measurements, they can consult [[conversion of units]] (which, actually, may need a bit of expanding for ease of use as a conversion table... I might look into that in a bit). That said, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style currently reads, in part, "For now, if using American or Imperial, give metric as a courtesy. If using metric, remember that many readers will not know what you mean and will be aided by the equivalent.", so yes, provide both, I'm afraid.
Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only metrics. Any use of American or Imperial units is punishable by death.", but I doubt I could convince Wikipedians at large of the merits of it :).
Nicholas Knight wrote:
As an American, I'd much rather have everything in metric, with no American measurements in sight, increasing my incentive to get used to the metric system, and allowing for easier communication with the /majority/ of the world. Note also that the scientific community uses metric measurements.
But this is not NPOV, is it? NPOV will give both when it's desirable to do so.
Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only metrics. Any use of American or Imperial units is punishable by death.", but I doubt I could convince Wikipedians at large of the merits of it :).
Fortunately, I think you're right. You'd never convince me of the merits of it.
I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so. So we have a responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Personally, I'd rather have it say, "Use metrics. Use only metrics. Any use of American or Imperial units is punishable by death.", but I doubt I could convince Wikipedians at large of the merits of it :).
Fortunately, I think you're right. You'd never convince me of the merits of it.
Well, know you have my sympathies ;-) We changed our currency from Deutschmark to Euro a year ago, and people still compare prices in Deutschmark...
I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so. So we have a responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.
I think you forgot the ";-)" at the end of the paragraph. You don't honestly think so, do you? (Of course, everyone can have an opinion, it just strikes me as rather unrealistic)
Magnus
Magnus Manske wrote:
I personally think it's only a matter of time until the rest of the world catches up to the U.S. and returns to using the English system in all the cases where it is more sensible to do so. So we have a responsibility to use both, to help them get ready for the change.
I think you forgot the ";-)" at the end of the paragraph. You don't honestly think so, do you? (Of course, everyone can have an opinion, it just strikes me as rather unrealistic)
Yes, I forgot the ;-). I don't really think that they'll be switching back.
But I do think that the United States will not be changing anytime in the next 50 years, at least. When I was a child, we were taught both systems, and we were told that the U.S. would be switching within a few years to metric. But it didn't "stick".
And I do think that the metric system is inferior to the English system for the sorts of measurements that ordinary people make all the time. It has the advantage of simplicity, to be sure. But the quirks of the English system are there for good reasons.
The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4. That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.
Cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon -- binary! More rational than decimal, if you're likely to be multiplying and dividing by 2. (As in, doubling or halving a recipe.)
The English system is not as simple as the metric system. But intelligent people recognize that simplicity is not always the only virtue. :-)
--Jimbo
At 06:30 03/01/03 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4. That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.
Cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon -- binary! More rational than decimal, if you're likely to be multiplying and dividing by 2. (As in, doubling or halving a recipe.)
...but strangely, when I try to explain to Americans how money worked in Britain before 1971, they think I'm crazy. ;-)
Rob
On Friday 03 January 2003 09:30, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Yes, I forgot the ;-). I don't really think that they'll be switching back.
But I do think that the United States will not be changing anytime in the next 50 years, at least. When I was a child, we were taught both systems, and we were told that the U.S. would be switching within a few years to metric. But it didn't "stick".
And I do think that the metric system is inferior to the English system for the sorts of measurements that ordinary people make all the time. It has the advantage of simplicity, to be sure. But the quirks of the English system are there for good reasons.
The foot, for example, is evenly divisible into inches by 2, 3, and 4. That sort of division comes up all the time in carpentry.
The acre is some weird number of square feet. It's not even square. I draw lots and wonder when they're going to change. Of course all the easements are currently round numbers of feet, but for the lengths that are 130*sin(rodbo'e)-66*cos(daidza), it doesn't matter what unit you measure them in, they'll be neither round nor square.
If the people lead, will the liters follow?
phma
Not declaring myself as an American or European, but as a Computer Scientists, why not provide a mechanism for expressing physical measurements using tags?
Introduce a set of units, and write measurements as pairs (number,unit) represented in some convenient concrete syntax. Then the conversion to html can display miles or kilometers according to the viewer's perspective.
PS. I know I am leaning towards ontologies again, but this is an example where the benefits seem obvious.
Viktor
Viktor Kuncak vkuncak@mit.edu wrote:
Not declaring myself as an American or European, but as a Computer Scientists, why not provide a mechanism for expressing physical measurements using tags?
Introduce a set of units, and write measurements as pairs (number,unit) represented in some convenient concrete syntax. Then the conversion to html can display miles or kilometers according to the viewer's perspective.
PS. I know I am leaning towards ontologies again, but this is an example where the benefits seem obvious.
Viktor
I disagree with that option Viktor.
When I work with french people in wheat business, I need to express myself in quintaux/hectares (and euros). With british people, in tons/hectares (and pounds). Thank god, both are weight measurements. Both british and french are able to communicate easily on those.
Then, when I work with americans, I have to deal with bushels/acres (and dollars), which are volume measurements. And they won't hear anything different :-( I will be happy when all three groups accept the difference and learn to cope themselves with it (that is when american agree our way is best ;-)).
Right now, it is not the case, and an article automatically adapting itself to one regional options is not going to help. One way to learn to evaluate different unit is to see it next to the one you know, not to suppress it.
As for using the SI above all systems, I wonder. In chemistry, C is carbon, N nitrogen and Ni nickel. But for metallurgists, C is chromium, N is nickel and Az is nitrogen. In an article on metallurgy, mentionning common alloy, that might be worth mentionning ;-)
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At 2003-01-03 06:30 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon -- binary! More rational than decimal, if you're likely to be multiplying and dividing by 2. (As in, doubling or halving a recipe.)
Nobody forbids you to express the amount of liters in the binary system:
bin = dec 1 1 litre 0.1 = 0.5 litre 0.01 = 0.25 litre 0.001 = 0.125 litre
Or why not introduce the 'neg-2log-litre', being the negative base 2 logarithm of the amount of litres as a new unit:
0 neg-2log-litre = 2^ 0 litre = 1 litre 1 neg-2log-litre = 2^-1 litre = 0.5 litre 2 neg-2log-litre = 2^-2 litre = 0.25 litre 3 neg-2log-litre = 2^-3 litre = 0.125 litre
Makes more sense than cup, pint, quart, half-gallon, gallon. I think that especially housewives would welcome this new system!
You could abbreviate the unit to 'noglitre', 'nlit', 'nll' or 'decibel-litre'.
By the way, it's already in use in European paper formats: A3, A4, A5 etc.
Perhaps we could also abbreviate the volumes units to: L0, L1, L2, L3.
Hi bartender, L1's of beer and a happy new year for everyone on this list!
;-)
Greetings, Jaap
Nicholas Knight wrote:
Shouldn't we give both, then?
Why? If the reader really needs non-metric measurements, they can consult [[conversion of units]] (which, actually, may need a bit of expanding for ease of use as a conversion table... I might look into that in a bit). That said, http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style currently reads, in part, "For now, if using American or Imperial, give metric as a courtesy. If using metric, remember that many readers will not know what you mean and will be aided by the equivalent.", so yes, provide both, I'm afraid.
Cleaning up orphan articles (more than 500 again!), I found http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_Table%3Acm-inches
Maybe it should be deleted, though...
Magnus
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