User talk:Lightmouse/Archive/2007Sep

Use of convert template

Thank you for your edits to add the convert template to so many pages. Your efforts are much appreciated! However, please be sure to preview each and every one of these edits in the preview pane prior to saving them. Many of your recent edits have resulted in incorrect tense being applied. Examples are Callaway Gardens and William Cooley. Please keep up the great work, but maybe just slow down a little bit. Thanks! Steevo714 00:52, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I have identified the issue and made an improvement. You should not see that issue again, hopefully. Thanks. Lightmouse 16:54, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Convert

Question moved to: Template_talk:Convert#Volume_units.
Lightmouse 16:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Good work

Nice edit. --John 18:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Lightmouse 18:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Conversion code

I wanted to thank you for adding code to the List of Wisconsin state parks to convert the various measurements into metric. As fate would have it, the same day you performed this edit I was planning on adding a different code to the table because the acreage column was not sorting properly. I haven't been able to find any way to nest the two different kinds of code around the same data, so I'm afraid I had to remove yours to add mine. However I did render all your metric conversions into plain text. I thought a note to you would be in order to be sure you wouldn't feel like your hard work was being maligned or something. McGhiever 04:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the note. My overall objective is to provide metric units. I do not care how they get there. Your code meets the objective just as effectively as mine.

Actually, I prefer plain text to the 'convert' template. The only reason that I use the convert template is that it is quicker with global search and replace. So what you did is an improvement as far as I am concerned.

I just have the following comments:

• You imply that you want the table to sort on area. However, it is sorted on 'park name'. Can you explain what the nts code actually does?
• I was going to make numerical columns align right (actually align on the decimal point position). I think that looks better for number columns. I was on the point of doing it but decided that I prefer to spend my time adding metric units on other pages. You might want to think about it.
• I was going to create a separate column for the metric units. It might look less cluttered. Again, I decided not to spend the time doing it. Just thought you might like to know that too.

Keep up the good work. Regards. Lightmouse 09:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

I have added some plain text conversions, see [1] Peter Horn 15:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Those are very welcome. You might wish to think precision (see the comment on precision at WP:MOSNUM#Conversions). For example, at Cathedral Caverns State Park, you converted an estimate of '11000 ft' to '3,352.8 m'. A value of '3,400 m' probably matches the precision better. Similarly, at Blue Springs State Park your conversion of '6 miles' to '9.656 km' might be better as '10 km'.

In addition, you may wish to know that Google has an excellent inbuilt converter. It does lots of units. Just 'search' for '11000 feet' and see what happens. Just some thoughts. Keep up the good work! Lightmouse 15:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello again,

If I`d travelling by road I would much prefer 9 miles = 9.6 km (odometer) as the extra 0.4 km would cause me to overshoot (miss) my freeway exit & 11000 ft ≈ 3400 m is acceptable in case of estimates only but not in case of values established by instrument surveys. I do my conversions longhand using the Microsoft Windows calculator and a conversion factor of 1 ft = 0.3048 m as a starter, thus the mile = 1.609344 km which value I then store. Then I multiply "memory return" by a given number of miles after which I only round off the final results to suit. I may as well point out that there are numerous Wiki articles about any number of topics as contributed by British or American (especially the latter) that need to have SI conversions to be added for the benifiy of a younger generation of English speakers outside of the USA who are not familiar with those arcane customary units. Cheers, Peter Horn 16:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

If you look back at the context for '6 miles', it was the distance between a park and a city. Both of these are large areas greater than 1 metre in diameter. So 1 metre precision is probably too great. A kilometre already has an implied precision greater than that of a mile. If you are now suggesting a precision of 100 m rather than 1 km, I think that is more realistic than 1 metre precision. I do understand your metric odometer point. Precision is part art, and part science.

Anyway, precision is secondary and can be adjusted at any time. The top priority is metrication (for the reasons you state). You are quite right to say there is a *lot* of work to do. I have not tried the Windows converter. Glad to see what you are doing. Lightmouse 16:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That's the calculator I'm talking about, not a converter, I'm doing things "longhand". Cheers, Peter Horn 18:05, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha. I understand now. That certainly does seem a long way to do it. Have you tried the google converter? Lightmouse 18:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No I'hav'nt tried the google converter yet but I'll have a look at it. May I suggest a wiki conversion squad? I have added the surface area in m² to many pages featuring Shopping malls in Canada List_of_shopping_malls_in_Canada#Montreal, e.g. Carrefour_Laval#Anchors_.26_Majors, but the job is by NO means complete. I hav'nt even started on the US malls yet List of shopping malls in the United States!

Peter Horn 14:13, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A conversion squad is a good idea. A lot of people are interested in this issue. Ask at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).

Lightmouse

Dreadnought

As a matter of taste (if not convention), I think "20h Century" rather than "20h century" makes more sense; for the rest, it's all a matter of taste. Trekphiler 17:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

OK. The Manual of style says: do not capitalize century

It might be worth discussing the issue there. Regards. Lightmouse 17:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort which you are putting into Dreadnought. A couple of points which I would be grateful if you would take on board:

If you are spacing between numbers and units it's best to use a   non-breaking space. This is what the MOS recommends and furthermore makes sense when you consider the unit could otherwise end up on a different line.

Gun calibres can be over-metricised. I think it's best to only metricise one or two uses of each calibre per article - otherwise dozens and dozens of 12-inch (350 mm) guns is more unsightly than useful.

As Trekphiler has pointed out, it really is better to have fourteen 9.2-inch guns than 14 x 9.2-inch, 14 nine-point-two-inch or any other potential way of expressing it.

These forms are more or less standard to battleship, pre-dreadnought and ironclad warship -if you should be concerned these are out of line, two of them are recent FAs.

Regards, The Land 20:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. In general, Wikipedia articles are under-metricated, not over-metricated. I understand the points you make and there is no need for us to squabble about nuances (I already accepted the 'fourteen 9.2-inch' point).

I looked briefly at the other examples and they are not metric accessible.

• In Battleship, the first unit presented is '12 knots' without a conversion to km/h.
• In Pre-dreadnought, the first unit presented is '12 inch' without a conversion to mm.
• In Ironclad warship, the first unit presented is '12 knots' without a conversion to km/h.

I do not think articles should get Featured Articles status without even the minimum metrication standards you suggest. As long as editors understand that Wikipedia needs to be fully accessible to metric readers, the details of how best to provide metric access will follow. Thanks for bringing this here. Lightmouse 10:40, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

comment request

Hi there, would you be so kind as to provide an indepenant neutral opinion of the image Construccionkaiserrick.jpg at the section of the same name on the talk page of Richmond Medical Center here please? Thank you very much as this may help to alleviate a current debate over its inclusion.Cholga^talK! 01:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

NFDRS Uncatagorized

I was wondering if you could explain to me why you set the page National Fire Danger Rating System as uncatagorized? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mreed72 (talk • contribs) 15:48, August 27, 2007 (UTC)

I didn't. Lightmouse 18:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Conversion to metric problem

Hi - you added a metric value to the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest article which I have removed. I wanted to explain why so we can discuss whether something similar should go back in. In American football the yard markers are named. While it's true that the 10 yard line is exactly 10 yards from the goal line (and the distance is obviously how it was named in the first place), referring to the "10 yard line" is naming a particular place on the field, much like if you referred to the three point line in basketball or the blue line in hockey. Therefore, I don't believe it is appropriate to include metric measurements immediately after mentioning the position of the ball. Also, 16m (what was added to this particular page) is not equivalent to 10 yards - it's about 9m.

Having said all of that, I'm certainly aware that people who use the metric system as their primary system of measurement will read articles on American football, so I'm open to finding a good way to include converted distances in articles like this. Let me know your thoughts - thanks! Gopherguy | Talk 19:27, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Oops. You are right, 10 yards is only 9 m. I was thinking of 10 miles converted to 16 km.

I think you are making the point that the '10 yard line' is nominal rather than quantitative. It is indeed a name but it contains a measurement. As you suggest, the name has more meaning for non-metric readers than metric readers. Like you, I am open to debate about how to make Wikipedia more accessible to metric readers. Perhaps there is a sports discussion group for this topic.

In the meantime, I hope that you will agree that six yards from the end zone is 100% quantitative and could be metricated without controversy as six yards (5 m) from the end zone.

Thanks for mentioning it here. Feel free to move this debate to an appropriate forum. Lightmouse 19:49, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

"General fixes"

Hi Lightmouse. When making punctuation corrections and so on, please be careful not to make changes to text that is actually the name of an image rather than part of the article text. Your change to New South Wales changed an image to a red link. Thankyou, JPD (talk) 11:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for catching that. I have now added a conversion for '630 lb' on the assumption that it is '630 troy pounds' rather than '630 avoirdupois pounds'. Regards Lightmouse 11:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I also noticed that you rounded "161km" to "160km". While I wholeheartedly support rounding conversions of measurements, I wonder whether cases such as this, where distances are prescribed rather measured, should really be treated in the same way. In this particular case it is not so important, I guess. JPD (talk) 12:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Precision still exists with 'prescribed' distances. The only difference is that we might assume slightly greater precision is intended. Unfortunately, the 1899 requirement does not give a precision in the article. It merely says '100 miles'. Cities and states are large entities with orders of magnitudes measured in tens of miles. So sub-mile precision (i.e. 1 km) seems a little excessive to me and 10 km precision seems more reasonable to me.

I wonder what a court might have said if the centre was at 105 miles but the city limit at 99.4 miles. Nevertheless, you could be right in your interpretation and I won't mind at all if you make it 161 km. Interesting discussion. Lightmouse 12:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The constitution actually requires that the federal territory containing the seat of government be "not less than one hundred miles from Sydney". As a lower limit that was not intended to be reached, the less precise figure is probably more representative of the intention. However, in many other cases (and even theoretically here), I feel that prescribed quantities are generally meant to be as precise as practically possible, and can definitely imagine situations where the more precise figure is not misleading, even if the less precise one is acceptable. I suppose the question is, as you imply, matter of determining the intended precision. JPD (talk) 13:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I have changed it back to 161 km. Lightmouse 13:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Year references

I appreciate the work you are doing on my Canadian petroleum history series,but I think the year references you are taking out is not a particularly good idea. As a historian,I frankly enjoy clicking on the year to get a sense of context. Your comments, please. 14:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Pmbcomm (talk • contribs) 14:17, 28 August 2007

I am not sure what 'my' means in Wikipedia. Can you tell me which article you mean please and I will take a look. Thanks. Lightmouse 14:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Lightmouse, you really must stop stripping year-links from articles. Pmbcomm's complaint is only one of many you've gotten about it. Further, the practices you've adopted in this round, of including such edits under an undifferentiated "Gen Fixes" edit-summary and of stripping year-links from seemingly random articles, buried among your high volume of edits, is are troublesome. -- Lonewolf BC 17:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree. From a sampling of Lightmouse's edits it seems he is removing links to date fragments as part of an overall format fix he is doing to unit conversions. If you have a specific article you are talking about it would be helpful to present it here, along with your specific complaint. --John 17:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

What exactly don't you agree with, John? -- Lonewolf BC 18:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The articles concerned in this particular case are History of the petroleum industry in Canada (frontier exploration and development), and History of the petroleum industry in Canada (natural gas) -- which was so easily found out that I must wonder why anyone would ask.

The general problem is that Lightmouse is carrying on this troublesome campaign, despite all complaints and warnings. -- Lonewolf BC 18:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hectares and square km

Hi. Your edit to 1994 Pacific typhoon season removed all mention of hectares and left only the square km value (and square mile conversion). I'd like to point out that the hectare values were cited directly from a source. A prior discussion on the admin noticeboard agreed that sourced units shouldn't be touched.

Also, while I appreciate you used {{convert}}, it sort of messed up a sentence in the Hurricane/Typhoon John section. The sections you used {{convert}} on are incomplete (to an extent), hence why they don't actually have conversions yet.

Keep up the good work otherwise! Cheers, – Chacor 15:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to ensure that square kilometre values were present because I am sure most Wikipedia readers are not farmers. I can see that there is some more to be done on the article. I understand the principle that word-for-word quotes should stand. Since it got a bit messed up, you were right to revert. Thanks. Lightmouse 15:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought that sq km conversions were already there, but evidently it was only there in one of the mentions of hectares, I'll go fix that now. Thanks again. – Chacor 15:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I appreciate that. Lightmouse 15:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Metric conversions for ships

I would like to suggest that you're being slightly overzealous about metric conversions, especially on articles about ships. First of all, there's no need to convert the same quantity twice in a single paragraph (much less a sentence) -- once the conversion has been enumerated, that should be sufficient, and from there the number should revert to the standard used in the article (metric as primary for SI navies, and Imperial as primary for navies using the Imperial system).

Secondly, I think it's little excessive to convert every incident of knots and nautical miles to kilometres (or km/h). To quote from the Wikipedia article on knot: "Although knots do not fit within the primary SI system, their retention for nautical and aviation use is important for navigational reasons, since the length of a nautical mile is almost identical to a minute of latitude. As a result, distance in nautical miles on a navigational chart can easily be measured by using dividers and the latitude indicators on the side of the chart." It's extremely unusual to express vessel speeds in km/h; it might be better to leave it alone. Overall, metric conversions are valuable, and it's a good editing principle, but it can be taken to excess, I think. Sacxpert 19:20, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing your thoughts to me. However, the accessibility of Wikipedia to metric readers is of wide interest beyond that of just me. Can you raise it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) please? Lightmouse 19:26, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, I can raise them there, particularly on the second point. I think, though, that the first point is fairly reasonable; you converted "15 inches" to millimetres twice in less than 20 words. Isn't that a bit silly? It seems reasonable to assume that someone who finds the conversion important will remember it, at least over the course of a paragraph. Sacxpert 19:35, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I accept that point, what you say is reasonable. Feel free to amend it as you think best. Between us, we can have metric units and reasonable text. Lightmouse 19:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Monobook

Thanks, re this, I added your script to my user space. Now, as I said that I don't have training, could you direct me to a resource that I can use to get to know how to use scripts like this in WP? Thanks again. Michael Patrick 22:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha. That's really cool and really convenient. I think I'll go metricate up a storm. Thank you. Michael Patrick 17:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm checking each edit. I get a few redundant edits (already metricated), some incorrect precision (like when "100 miles" means "exactly 100 miles"), etc., but I catch them. Thanks again. Michael Patrick 20:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Try the script on Oakland, California. It appears that non-breaking spaces confuse the script. Michael Patrick 14:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Aha. It was not the non-breaking space. It was the position of the open parenthesis character '('. The code looks within two characters of 'ft' so it will handle 'x ft (y m)', I forgot that it also needs to handle a period as in 'x ft. (y m)'

I have fixed that. Thanks for letting me know. Lightmouse 17:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Monobook part deux

So your script will only convert imperial to metric and not metric to imperial? —MJCdetroit 12:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Correct. You are welcome to copy it and modify it to do that. Lightmouse 12:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Holy smokes that was quick response. I may tinker with it a little as I think it would be beneficial to go both ways, but I am not familiar with the monobook script code. After all I am a chemist and not a computer programmer. So it may take a little trial and error. Regards, —MJCdetroit 12:46, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Good luck. I am not a programmer either. I got it through blatent theft of code from others plus trial and error.

As you probably noticed, I am pro-metric. I sometimes edit non-metric units for consistency (you will see some of those in the code) because I am 'unit aware' (as you seem to be). I would prefer us all to work towards metrication rather than the other direction. However, I will share my limited knowledge of script if you want to produce your own bidirectional code. Lightmouse 13:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I prefer U.S. customary and I'm a scientist (shocking--I know), but am I not anti-metric. I very often add metric values when not present. I just think everyone should be given all the information available to help them. I don't think someone in Europe should read: 30 miles long and think, now what is 30 miles. Likewise, I don't think that someone in the U.S. or U.K. should be reading an article where they have to stop and think about what 48 kilometres are. I'll play with the code when I have time and let you know if I have any problems.—MJCdetroit 14:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

How to do arithmetic conversions

Lightmouse,

Sure, I could give you a few hints about all that #if: stuff, that one, for example, checks the presence or absence of stuff so, e.g., when you transclude {{#if:{{{1|}}}|something|nothing}} this will give you something if parameter {{{1}}} is given but will give nothing otherwise ... of course before that makes any sense you've got to look closely at the {{{1|}}} bit and note the pipe character. Whatever appears to the right of the pipe (still within the triple curlies) is the default value, e.g., {{{1|a}}} will give you a if no parameter {{{1}}} is given otherwise it will take the value provided. Note then how there's nothing to the right of the pipe in the above #if: example. {{{1|}}} just vanishes when no {{{1|}}} is given. Let's try this then ...

• {{#if:anything|something|nothing}} gives something
• {{#if:|something|nothing}} gives nothing

Well, that's the basics of #if: but of course there's also #expr:, #ifexpr:, #ifeq:, #switch:, etc. All great fun, but a good place to read up on them would be m:Help:Calculations. Don't hesitate to ask for another hint or two, though.

Good luck Regards Jɪmp 16:22, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Could I ask you to help me with a real example from my monobook. For example, it metricates torpedo diameter using:

• txt.value=txt.value.replace(/\s(\d\d)(?:\s|-| )inch(?:\s|-| )torpedo/gi, ' {{convert|$1|in|mm|0|sing=on}} torpedo');
  

Thus '21 inch torpedo' becomes '21 inch (533 mm) torpedo'. However, it puts the convert template into the article. How might I do the arithmetic in my monobook so that the article is free of the convert template? Lightmouse 17:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm no expert on monobook use. No ideas spring to mind but if do think of a solution, I'll keep you posted. Jɪmp 02:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

unlinking ft

Hey Lightmouse! I think you're doing good work, but I wanted to ask for details on one thing. I noticed (for example, on USS Tunny (SS-282)), that where I've linked the first use of "ft" to Foot (unit of length), you're removing those links. However, you're leaving "in" linked, which may be an oversight. I feel that in addition to providing conversions for U.S. units, it's a good idea to link their first use so that people who may be unfamiliar with a foot can learn about what it is instead of just looking at the meter conversion. Could we discuss this? TomTheHand 18:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure we can discuss it. I think that common units are just like plain english. So thousands of links across Wikipedia seems weird to me. It isn't a big thing. As you point out with inches, I am not consistent. Lightmouse 18:38, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I posted about this on the WP:SHIPS talk page here if you'd like to participate. I'm not sure what consensus will wind up being, but if it's decided that linking ft is excessive, could you please remove linked inches as well? It looks odd to unlink ft and leave in linked. TomTheHand 21:08, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I take your point about the natural pairing of feet with inches. As you can probably see, I have moved the discussion to wp:mosnum. I hope you don't mind. Lightmouse 17:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Convert template in ref titles

Thanks for your fixes etc to Somerset Levels. Did you mean to use the convert template in the title of a web page being referenced ie "title= 40 ft (12 m) sculpture unveiled in Somerset" in the section about the Willow Sculpture? I didn't think this is appropriate as the web page linked to 40ft sculpture unveiled in Somerset doesn't have any unit conversion in it.— Rod ^talk 15:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Oops. I have gone back and fixed it. Thanks. Lightmouse 15:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

acreage

Hi, Lightmouse. In the oil industry we refer to a company's landholdings as its acreage. To be technically correct, I am afraid I will have to change it back. However, I can make it more clear by changing other words slightly. Thanks. 00:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Who are you and what page are you talking about? Lightmouse 09:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

hi

Delinking units is fine by me; I'd tend not to advertise the fact, though, coz a lot of folks may object. :-) Tony 12:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Lightmouse 12:42, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Working Man's Barnstar
		I award you this barnstar for your consistent and tireless work in cleaning up units of measure in various articles. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 13:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Lightmouse 13:36, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Show Preview button and edit summaries

May I suggest that you learn to use the Show Preview button, and include some edit summary on talk pages? For example, making seven consecutive edits without summaries on "Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)" just to complete a two-line comment makes it difficult for other editors to use the edit history effectively when they want to follow the flow. Please make it less tedious and time-consuming. Happy editing! Chris the speller 15:46, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not understand. I looked back at my edits on that page and they all seem to have an edit summary. Can you tell me which edits you mean? Lightmouse 16:29, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

16:38, September 7, 2007 to 16:54, September 7, 2007 (UTC). Surely you can understand that adding an edit summary such as "fix my typo" or "reword for clarity" will allow other editors to decide whether they need to examine that edit. Chris the speller 16:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I assume that adjacent edits of the same section are typos or rewording. I am not particularly interested in the sequence of adjacent edits by a single editor in a single section, merely the net contribution. The use of section names to constitute the entire edit summary appears to be common, not just in this page but throughout Wikipedia. Are you raising it with all the editors that do this? I do not want to upset you but I find the auto edit summary feature a big convenience and had no idea it was controversial to leave that as my entire edit summary. Lightmouse 07:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Two Things

One, don't strip wiki-dates from articles wholesale. For example, in the article on the Watergate scandal, you stripped out the wikilink to 1972. Watergate is important enough that it has its own entry in the 1972 article, so it should remain. Per WP:MOSLINKS, wikilinks are generally better unless they somehow detract from the article.

Second, please stop metricating when you don't know the units. In the article on the first aircraft carrier Enterprise, you swapped in two conversions to kilometres. First instance: "flew undetected the 600 miles to their target," and second: "a strong Japanese force was sighted some 200 miles north of Guadalcanal." Do you know which miles these were? You seem to assume statute miles, because that's what you converted, but do you know? It's more likely that these were nautical miles, because, as has been discussed on the MOS page, nautical miles are an international standard for both shipping and aviation. Furthermore, if you are going to metricate with a low degree of accuracy (200 miles = 300 kilometres), at least consider not using your converter tool, and just write 200 miles (circa 300 km) or (~300 km) or something to indicate that you are making an approximation with, in this case, a 21 km error, even assuming that your units were right in the first place (if you were wrong, you're actually off by 70 km). I appreciate that you are trying to quickly metricate all of Wikipedia, but in the process you are introducing errors, unneeded replication, conversion mistakes, and labeling units as "mi" when they are probably nothing of the sort. Please, please, please, take the time to slow down, examine the sources of articles, and try to metricate appropriately based on statute/nautical miles, or leave it alone if you can't make the determination. Do not insert autoconverters into articles that display "mi" units if you don't know what kind of miles about which you are talking. Thank you. Sacxpert 19:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I am aware of the ambiguity between nautical and statute miles. The inconvenience of ambiguous unit names was what motivated people to create the metric system. I think it is a big problem on a non-specialist publication like Wikipedia. What do you think is the best way for editors to know which one it is? Lightmouse 09:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree the metric system solves these ambiguities. For the extant problems, I'm not sure there's an answer. It's possible that looking through the sources cited in an article (while time-consuming), would give a better picture of nautical v. statute miles. It's probably better not to convert at all, even if the metric system is superior, rather than convert vague units and create errors. As discussed previously, maritime and aviation sources still use knots and nautical miles, even in metric countries, so the use of miles is permissible in these contexts. If it's absolutely necessary to convert, then you should probably assume that "miles" means "nautical miles" in articles concerning aviation or shipping, unless otherwise specified. Also, per MOS, I wouldn't set such low conversion rounding values (-2) for kms when you're dealing with values less than the Earth's diameter (100 miles {161 km instead of 200 km}), or (10,000 miles {16,100 km}), for example. Sacxpert 19:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah yes, there are miles, and then there are miles, context is everything, it is the clue and the cue. Peter Horn 23:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Third thing

I may be one of those objecting people Tony mentioned, but if you're going to delink units of measure, delink all of them, not just Imperial ones, as you did here. Wikipedia is a resource for everyone, not just Imperial system users, and not just metric users. Over five percent of the global populace still uses the Imperial system for most measurements, and editing out one linkset, but not the other, is inappropriate. Try to be consistent, if you don't mind. Sacxpert 19:55, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

If you want to make those edits, feel free. I would be happy to see common 'plain english' units (metric and non-metric) delinked. I do sometimes delink metric ones, you just have not seen me do it.

Incidentally, I do not think 'imperial system' is the right phrase for many units in North America. I know that there are a lot of non-metric readers and I do occasionally edit on their behalf but it is not my priority. I hope you don't mind. Lightmouse 09:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

The phrase in North America seems to "customary units". Rich Farmbrough, 19:36 12 September 2007 (GMT).

Units and formats

Hi, I just spotted a unit format change that you made. It was on List of islands in lakes where you changed 'sq km' to 'km²'. I did not know you were doing this sort of thing. Thanks for a great bot.

I make a lot of similar changes to units using my monobook script. Feel free to take ideas and copy anything from User:Lightmouse/monobook.js. Thanks. Lightmouse 12:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. I just took a look at your script, and wow, is it breathtakingly comprehensive! Very impressive. Cheers, CmdrObot 16:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

'sq km', The Encyclopædia Britannica uses this barbarity. The World Book Encyclopedia gets it right with 'km²', and the Encyclopedia Americana ignores the metric system altogether. Peter Horn 14:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

...as do most of us in America. :) But seriously, some government agencies like the CIA [2], and State Department use sq km (maybe to parallel the more common sq mi???), even though the US NIST recommends use of the superscripted versions for metric "symbols". I guess at the end of the day it is the editors' choice [of that publication]. Here, we favored km². —MJCdetroit 16:35, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

General Fixes

I'd appreciate your being more specific than "general fixes". In the case of Computer Network, I don't have a great problem with going to abbreviations of units, but, since some of your "general fixes" about "customary units" are controversial, it would seem fair to label the edit more specifically. Let me repeat that I have no problem with the fixes to units of data rate, but, in matters such as nautical and aviation units such as knot and nautical mile, I'd rather have a clear summary so if there is a reason to object, it comes up quickly. Thank you. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Which edit do you disagree with? Lightmouse 23:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I hope I made it clear that I was not referring to Computer Network specifically, but to the "general fix" not giving a reason. I do disagree, in several nautical articles, with the insistence on immediate metrication of, for example, nautical miles when that is the language of a treaty--a treaty involving metric-using countries that could have pushed for metrication if they felt it appropriate. There are also navigational reasons to use knot, which relate to degrees of latitude, and too enthusiastic metrication often causes the domain-specific language to be overwhelmed. It's a readability issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hcberkowitz (talk • contribs) 23:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I did not understand the reference to Computer Network but you have clarified it now, thanks. I would like to focus on agreement.

• I agree with you that some international treaties include non-metric terms. Similarly, some international treaties include metric terms.
• I agree with you that many countries may have law or policy relating to such treaties.
• I agree with you that conversions can come at a cost to readability. Some non-metric readers may find conversions to metric inconvenient. Similarly, some metric readers may find conversions to non-metric inconvenient. Some domain specialists may find conversions out of the domain unit inconvenient.
• I agree with you that domain specialist terms may have arisen for rational reasons.
• I agree with you that domain specialist publications do not need to use metric units as much as international encyclopedias.

Lightmouse 08:54, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, let's try to focus on agreement.

• Your first point about treaties are perfectly reasonable. I wonder, however, if in doing the first conversion, it might be useful to give the conversion factor as well as the conversion. I personally find that in reading an article that has unfamiliar units, knowing the conversion factor early is very helpful. Let me not make that a metric versus customary units. For example, in medicine, for many years, blood glucose was expressed in milligrams per deciliter, which I've used for about 40 years and never thought of it as not internationalized. Nevertheless, in recent years, SI has pushed to have it reported in millimoles per liter (to convert, multiply mg/dl by 0.055). The more I think about it, the more useful and readable I think it would be to provide conversion factors early. Perhaps this might be in some type of box.

I have no objection to editors adding conversion factors although I don't think I have ever done it myself. With regard to your blood glucose example: there are multiple valid options for units. The SI authority is BIPM (http://www.bipm.org/en/si/) and has no jurisdiction over blood glucose. You must be thinking of some other organisation.

• No argument that there are laws and policies that may have metric or non-metric measurements, and do not necessarily provide conversions. My only concern here is that conversions are not interspersed in direct quotes from the treaty, where readability is critical. I would have no problem, for example, in prefacing a quote from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea with a phrases saying "distances in the treaty are specified in nautical miles. A nautical mile converts to X km and Y statute miles."

I happen to agree with the MOS on this issue. However it does not arise very often so I am not sure I care very much about how it is done.

• I am not sure, however, how to take your third and fourth points. Any method is potentially inconvenient to someone. I hope it is understood that not all articles can be immediately accessible to people without domain knowledge; I can think of any number of metric values in clinical medicine that make sense only if the reader knows that they must be read in combination with other units. International normalized ratio in association with Prothrombin time, or they will be meaningless. In a navigational calculation involving latitude, the formulas work smoothly only when the customary units are used.

I am not sure where this point is going, perhaps we should end it there.

• I am definitely unsure that I agree with you with the last point, unless you substitute "articles" for "publications". I do not agree that international encyclopedias need constant conversions when a customary unit is involved. I believe that providing initial conversions, with a very strong preference to citing the conversion factor, is appropriate, but converting every reference is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article dealing with domain-specific mathematical expressions. What about, for example, MKS versus CGS? It's not a metric vs. non-metric thing, and I sense, perhaps incorrectly, that is your position -- everything must be metricated. IMHO, even metrication of everything doesn't solve the convenience problem, as with the example I gave from clinical chemistry. Howard C. Berkowitz 14:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I probably should not have said 'agree with you' because you did not raise it directly. So forget that. I have seen you mention MKS and CGS a few times but it has never been an issue for me because they are both superceded by SI.

I think we have not fully understood each other yet. I am not sure that the blood sugar example clarifies that for me because they are both valid metric and are therefore not a problem for me.

Can you please look again at Vessel monitoring system and Fisheries management. If you still want to remove and forbid metric units in those articles, we are still very far apart. Would you reconsider those in light of the fairly reasonable things you have said here? Lightmouse 16:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not fair to say that I want to remove and forbid metric units. What I do not want to do is see a conversion in the middle of treaty text, because it makes it harder to read legal lanaguage. In the examples of EEZs, it is more important that the reader understands this is a distances specification, and less important they immediately know the conversion. Here is a compromise proposal:

revised text International agreements are required in order to regulate fisheries taking place in areas outside national control. The desire for agreement on this and other maritime issues led to the three conferences on the Law of the Sea, and ultimately to the treaty known as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Concepts such as exclusive economic zones (EEZ, extending 200 nm from the nation's coasts, which the UN conveention specifies in nmi) allocate certain sovereign rights and responsibilities for resource management to individual countries. An EEZ is 370.4 kilometers or 230.2 statute miles; multiply nmi by 1.852 to get km, and multiply nmi by 1.151 to get statute miles.

my comments: Assume this is the first use of nmi in the article. Note that the first mention of the distance does not have the conversion, but it's in the next sentence. I wouldn't mind seeing the conversion factors once in every section, but, in an article where there is a customary unit, I think readability is harmed by giving a conversion in every case.

Your concern still comes across as metric versus customary units. I would observe that most Americans and Britons without nautical experience will, just as much, need a conversion to statute miles, in which they think.

Further, you haven't answered my question on when there is conflict among metric representations, such as mg/dl versus millimoles/liter in medicine, or CGS vs. MKS in physics. This goes back to where you said I am not sure where this point is going, perhaps we should end it there. I don't think that should just be ended because, and correct me if I misunderstand, you don't think it's important. All of these conversion issues affect readability. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:11, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we take this one step at a time.

• Another editor said about the demetrication of: Vessel monitoring system and Fisheries management If the editor is not directly quoting the actual treaty itself then I see no problem including the metric conversions. It helps promote understanding of the subject matter. BTW, that editor changed nautical miles to just miles, which also should be changed back but I'll let you handle that.. We appear to disagree about whether the articles are quoting treaty text. Perhaps we should get a third party to look at it and decide whether it is a quote or not, that will allow us to end this debate.
• You point out that I appear more concerned about the presence of metric units than non-metric units. Yes, that is my priority.
• As far as conflict between metric units is concerned, I do think it such conflicts are important. However, they are not my priority. Lightmouse 15:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help!

Thanks for your help on the Alexandru Papana article. I greatly appreciate it! Chris 00:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Possible adjustment to your monobook

Hey Lightmouse! Just wanted to point out a false negative in your monobook code. In this edit, you metricate the 5.5 knots, but not the preceding 16.75 knots. Perhaps your code doesn't look for multiple decimal places or something. Either way, just wanted to bring it to your attention. Great work!

(Edit) I also noticed that in the above edit you changed 21,000 nm to 21,000 nmi without metrication and in the process removed the non-breaking space between 21,000 and nm. I think it would be great if you provide a metric conversion for that, but not so great to just remove nbsp without metrication.

(More feedback) In this edit, I noticed a few issues. There are places where a miles figure is specified, followed by a wiki comment asking for clarification about nautical vs. statute miles, followed by a metric conversion. In those cases, your script has been tricked into thinking no metric conversion existed, so the article now has double metric conversions. TomTheHand 13:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Excellent feedback. I previously thought one decimal place should be enough for knots. I have amended it to look for two decimal places. The non-breaking space issue is a bit more complicated but I have amended it and hope that this problem will be more rare. I had noticed the wiki comment issue before and was trying to catch them by eye but it seems I missed those. I plan to amend the code to look for the '<' character within two characters after the value. Until I get a chance to amend the code accordingly, I will be more careful to watch out for those. Thank you very much.

Incidentally, the convert template makes it very simple to amend from miles to nautical miles. You only have to change '|mi|' to '|nmi|'. When doing checking by eye, I have done a few of those manually because there is no real way for the code to know which one is intended. It is often difficult for a human too. Lightmouse 14:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's very easy to change whether to display statute or nautical miles; the issue is whether the given figure is in one or the other. Since it comes from a navy source, it could very well be using nautical miles, but since it's written for a civilian audience, it could be using statute miles... and thus the hair-pulling starts.

I experimented a little bit with {{convert}}, but a problem that I had was that if I wanted to convert a metric figure to inches it would spell the metric word out when I'd really prefer an abbreviation: 38 centimetres (15 in). I tried to use this on H class battleship (1939) but decided to just manually type out the conversions. Is there a way to force abbreviations? It's undesirable to spell them out in a ship infobox. TomTheHand 14:55, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

One other thing. I noticed your updated edit to AM type submarine, but I feel that you've used an inappropriate level of precision. I realize that your script looked at 16.75 knots, said "Oh! Two decimal places!", and requested two decimal places in the km/h conversion, but the way I read it is precision to the quarter knot, not precision to the hundredth of a knot. Factoring in that km/h is a more precise unit than knots, and I wouldn't provide precision greater than 0.5 km/h; I usually convert knots to km/h with zero decimal places. I realize getting precision right in a script has to be terribly hard, but I wanted to give some feedback. TomTheHand 15:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Your abbreviation question and many others are answered at Template:Convert in the 'Examples' and 'Tricks' sections. In summary, you use 'abbr=on' and you can see many examples in my code. We must be telepathic, I was just thinking of the precision issue for knots->km/h. As you say the km is a smaller unit and the apparent or implied precision can be greater. I understand the quarter knot argument, that is part of the 'precision is part art and part science' issue. I would certainly prefer to use integer km/h values but I worry about complaints when it converts 16.01 knots. The value in parenthesis is by definition the inferior unit, so I do not worry too much about this but other people often do. I think I will convert 0.01 knot precision to 0.1 km/h precision and the rest to integers. Two decimal places of knot are rare so it mostly will be an integer result. What do you think about that plan? Lightmouse 15:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Note that I would be delighted if you wanted to copy my code to your own monobook. You could then amend and run it yourself. The more people doing this, the better. Lightmouse 15:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the tip on using {{Convert}}. Sorry, I didn't read the documentation thoroughly enough! I think knot precision is a difficult issue. In the case of the above example, as I said, the precision appears to be quarter-knot, and so if I were editing manually I would use whole km/h precision. I think that tenth km/h precision is too precise. However, there will be other cases in which a trial speed is given to the tenth or hundredth knot, and in that case, you'd want full precision. I don't have a good answer. It may be that 0.1 km/h precision should be the way to do it automatically, and in the future other editors can fine-tune precision.

I don't actually use monobook scripts to do my editing, so the code I have in there is obsolete. I have a series of regexes in AWB that I use to make many formatting changes. I've definitely considered integrating your monobook code into it, but I haven't had time to do the conversion and debugging. TomTheHand 17:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I have been noticing a lot of quarter knot examples. This has convinced me to drop the 0.01 knot precision down from 0.1 km/h to 1 km/h. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Lightmouse 09:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Dupee Estate-Mary Baker Eddy Home

Thanks for doing the metric conversions on the Gate House. I would appreciate your doing the Main House also. I guess you missed it by the way it was worded "has a square footage of 17,180", so I reworded it to read "has 17,180 square feet of space. Thanks again. clariosophic 13:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I only pick up on <digits><unit_name>. If a quantity has its own name (e.g. 'length', 'area', 'volume') then using a unit name (e.g. footage, acreage, barrelage) is something to be avoided. The issue happens to be one of the things that I would like to eliminate from the world. I am delighted that you made the amendment and you will have seen that I have now converted it. Feel free to bring anything else to my attention. I can even tell you how to use my simple tool if you want to do it yourself. Lightmouse 14:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I would like to know how to do it myself, or at least try. clariosophic 14:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

1. Go to your monobook: User:Clariosophic/monobook.js and click 'Edit this page'.

2. Then go to my monobook: User:Lightmouse/monobook.js and click on 'View source'. Copy all the source text from my monobook and paste it into yours.

3. Click 'Save page'.

4. Clear your cache by clicking Ctrl-Shift-R if you use firefox and Ctrl-F5 if you use Internet Explorer.

5. Pick a page with something to convert and press 'Edit this page'. You will see some new tabs at the top appear next to 'history', 'watch' etc. The one labelled 'combined' is a good one to start with but try them all.

Let me know how you get on. Lightmouse 14:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

script

Hi ; I tested your script , its great. Some observations , when converting eg 60 mph the converter used gives 100 km/h as it should be 96.6 > 97 km/h. Also in Thunderbird page it changed one picture name which consisted mph. Is it possible to include more conversions like mm > in , its used on many automobile pages.--— Typ932^{T | C}  22:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Precision is part art, part science. It is almost impossible for a script to get '60 mph' right. Sometimes it should be '100 km/h' and sometimes it should be '97 km/h'. For example, the '0 to 60 mph' times for European cars are often really sloppy conversions of a metric 100 km/h (62 mph). Can you give a couple of example pages and I will take a look.

The picture examples are very hard to avoid and I have to spot them by eye. I usually catch them but one or two slip through. Can you give the link please and I will look at that too.

I limit my scope to conversions into metric. So mm > inch is out of my scope. However, if you or any other auto enthusiast wants to develop the script further, feel free to take it any direction you want. The more the merrier. I appreciate your feedback, it helps me improve it. Lightmouse 22:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is the pages I already fixed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_328 (changed the convert template to auto mph) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Thunderbird (this was the picture with "mph") Ill maybe write something to automobile project page about this script, as It could be very handy to convert these pages.--— Typ932^{T | C}  22:58, 24 September 2007 (UTC)