[WikiEN-l] Excessive units converstion?

[Matthew Brown]

On 10/31/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> Apparently some time ago, someone added a metric conversion (4 km^2)
> to the term "1,000 acres" in the quoted New York Times article.
>
> That's a direct historical quote - is an in-line metric units
> conversion appropriate within the quote?

In quotes, I think that units conversion should be a footnote; I'd
rather keep the integrity of the quote.  However, a conversion should
definitely be there.  People constantly complain about metric
conversions, but they're useful to the fairly large proportion of the
world's population with no conception of US traditional units (or UK
Imperial units).  1000 acres means absolutely nothing to most EU
residents, for instance.

Conversions should be rough approximations when the original figure is
an approximation, of course, as this one clearly is.

As to why km^2 instead of hectares, that was a long flamewar; suffice
to say that hectares, as a non-SI unit, are to some degree deprecated
and thus disliked by the SI-unit advocates that do most of the unit
conversion work.  There was broad consensus to use hectares in
instances where they are an officially-sanctioned unit (e.g. France)
but km^2 conversions are also used in most of those.

-Matt