Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Circular millimetre

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:59, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Circular millimetre[edit]

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Another probably-nonexistent unit of measure in the highly dubious Cardarelli book. I can find no mentions of this except for Cardarelli, plus Wikipedia and its mirrors. Reyk _YO! 11:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Google Books and Scholar do show a few other hits. But indeed they are few, and I wonder if there isn't a potential misspelling here. Can you tell us why Cardarelli source is "highly dubious"? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- It is known to be full of sloppy errors. For instance, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Salmarazd, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Stupping_ton, and the excellent detective work done by @Imaginatorium:, here. In short, it is complete junk from beginning to end and shouldn't be used as a source for any Wikipedia article, let alone the sole source. Reyk _YO! 11:30, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - Cardarelli is recommended by NIST here and there are numerous reviews in respectable journals which are generally complimentary. Those are reliable sources. The nomination is not. Andrew D. (talk) 13:01, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - Yes, there are complimentary reviews, but none of them look carefully at "Chapter 3", the indiscriminately collected assemblage of truths, half-truths, and outright nonsense about historical units. You have never answered my question: should we add Cardarelli's collection of fictional Japanese units (not even actually pronounceable in Japanese!) to WP, on the grounds that it is WP:reliable? And can you explain what "The nomination is not" means? Imaginatorium (talk) 05:48, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      - It's a snide put-down. Reyk _YO! 07:08, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete have seen no evidence that such a unit exists, fails WP:GNG.Grapefruit17 (talk) 11:46, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge/Redirect to millimetre page. I've seen evidence that it exists from various unit converters, but no evidence for independent notability. – John M Wolfson (talk | contribs) 12:22, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Cardarelli is a respectable authority on units and it is easy to find more sources which confirms this one – see Industrial Electricity, for example. Andrew D. (talk) 12:42, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- That book quite clearly talks about the circular and square mil, not millimetre. Given that it also states a formula for the area of a circle that it is the square of its diameter, and proceeds from there, I wouldn't put much trust in it.
  Of course, what Wikipedia should have is articles on circular measure and a gauging rule, two missing things that I discovered whilst looking for other sources that could at least get the formula for the area of a circle right.
  Uncle G (talk) 17:07, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - To be fair, that actually is the definition of the Circular mil. It glosses over a conversion factor of 4/pi. Still, this is a passing mention at best and more likely a red herring. Reyk _YO! 17:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)(reply to Uncle G) The book starts by explaining the circular mil and then goes on to cover the metric equivalent, "The circular mil (English units) of a conductor may be changed to circular millimeters (metric units, abbreviated c mm) by this formula ...". Q.E.D. Uncle G's other points seem more sensible as I don't doubt that there's much more to be said about these topics. We should develop the topic, not delete it per our policy WP:IMPERFECT. Andrew D. (talk) 17:46, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Area actually is the square of diameter when expressed in circular units. That's the whole point of the unit. It is definitely not an error. SpinningSpark 13:26, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. XOR'easter (talk) 17:34, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The source in the article (a) is dubiously trustworthy and (b) calls the unit obsolete anyway. Other instances in GS/GBooks are nineteenth-century tables, or just false positives ("a circular, millimetre-sized..."). This could maybe merit a mention, but not a stand-alone article. XOR'easter (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
- "Obsolete" is a completely invalid deletion rationale. The empire of Genghis Khan is obsolete. So is the Republic of Texas. It is a major part of Wikipedia's mission to document historical things and events. Your first argument also fails as there are many other sources besides Cardarelli. SpinningSpark 13:19, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  - There's much more to be said about the Khanate or the Republic of Texas than there is about the circular millimetre. The former are valid article topics relevant for understanding history; the latter is a perma-stub. We would lose absolutely nothing if the circular millimetre had a sentence in another article (circular measure was mentioned as a possibility above). In fact, we'd probably gain in usefulness. XOR'easter (talk) 20:47, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm not necessarily against folding this into another article, but currently circular measure does not exist. We should keep what we have per WP:PRESERVE, there is no sense in deleting encyclopaedic information. SpinningSpark 22:06, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Merge/Redirect to millimetre page. I concur with John and others the sources are poor, and thee's doubtful anything else we can add to this sub-stub. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:19, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This is a made-up term attempting to give "equal time" to metric units given that circular mil is a unit. There is a lot of stuff on the internet and no doubt Cardarelli is not the only person to have thought that circular millimetre sounded good, but there is no record of it being used as a unit. I downloaded the reference's sample chapter in December 2014. Reading the pdf shows it is totally unsuitable as a reliable source because it is merely a scraping of every claim on the internet added to lists of standard units such as inch/foot/yard and metric equivalents. The chapter uses tables to show conversions so when it came to circular mil, the author had to find something to convert it to. The table says 1,000,000 circular mils (cmil) is 1 circular inch (cin) and 645.16 circular millimetre (cmm). It gives the bolded terms as the unit symbols and says nothing more. I knew what a circular mil is long before Wikipedia existed—the claims about circular inch/millimetre, and the made-up symbols, are nonsense. Anyone supporting the reference needs to find a few cases where such units are used. Johnuniq (talk) 03:49, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The claims that this unit is made up by Cardarelli and others in order to have a conversion target is demonstrably false. Iron and Steel: A Work for the Forge, Foundry, Factory & Office, published 1876, could not possibly be influenced by Cardarelli or Wikipedia. Nor could A Dictionary of Electrical Words, Terms and Phrases published in 1889. There are repeated references to the unit, particularly in books concerned with electrical wires 1904, 1961, 1999. If it's made up, it's been made up by a an awful lot of different people over the course of two centuries which in itself is kind of notable. And just to show that this is not something just found in conversion tables, here's a patent using that unit. SpinningSpark 13:07, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, those are good finds. However, they only show old attempts to generate conversion tables with all possible combinations. I would like to see where someone has actually used a circular millimetre. The patent is interesting but it concerns feeding indigestible, rounded cubes to obese people to partially fill their stomachs, and describes a tablet providing certain compounds thought to be helpful. The patent says A "circular millimeter" is simply a diameter, in millimeters, squared. and uses the unit in relation to the amount of pressure applied to pack the compounds into the tablet. That is a unit of area, albeit with a confused definition, so it supports the existence of the topic. What about its notability? Do tiny by-the-way mentions justify inclusion per WP:GNG? Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've already said above that I would be happy to see this rolled into a more general article on circular measures per WP:PRESERVE, but at the moment, that page doesn't exist and this is all we have got. Deleting is a step backwards from achieving that. SpinningSpark 12:06, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have added more references to the article and now we can keep it. Shevonsilva (talk) 20:38, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or merge - the arguments that this is dubious or made up have been addressed to my satisfaction. If this could be expanded it should be kept but in its current state I have no issue with merging to millimetre. Rlendog (talk) 19:37, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Merging will not have a meaning as circular millimetre is circular measure for area and millimetre is a measure of length: those two are in two different dimensions (i.e. these two are not inter-related to merge. Shevonsilva (talk) 20:35, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sure it will. "A circular millimetre, the area of a circle with a diameter of 1 mm, is used in electrical engineering." can be used as a sentence in the millimeter. Maybe not as the article is currently written, but there's certainly room for a "related/derived units" section, especially if this isn't notable enough for its own article. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response. Circular Millimetre is not defined as SI derived unit. Here, we may be going to define Wikipedia only definition. Contrarily, Circular mil is a separate article and it is a part of imperial measurements; Circular Millimetre is needed to be a separate article in order to keep persistence within Wikipedia and further expansion can be done later. Shevonsilva (talk) 11:46, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: simplest. Of course there is an article to be written (?) on the general concept of "circular" measure, as distinct from "square" measure, which would have explanatory force. One thing it would do is discuss where and when circular measure has been used in practice; I note that sentence 2 in the article has no citation (for "use for wires"), and I can't find any support among those of the references that I can read. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:32, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the response. There is a lack of understanding about the topic of measurement. Circular measure is not a distinct form from square measure and circular measure is only a sub-set of square measure; Circular mil is a separate article implying the need for an article for SI oriented unit of Circular millimeter.

"use for wire sizes" is mentioned in the first reference. Shevonsilva (talk) 12:11, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As some discussions were conducted about Encyclopaedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures, I re-mention the reliability check carried out by National Institute of Standards and Technology: link: https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Reference/faq.html Shevonsilva (talk) 12:26, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - circular millimeter is not listed as a unit of measure in the US Metric Association "Detailed list of metric system units, symbols, and prefixes" - once source cited in the article is from 1902 (WP:AGE MATTERS) (and the link provided is to volume 2 T-Z, and does not mention circular millimeters) - the measurement does not appear in the "EBMcalc Medical Calculator" list cited - so this is a non-standard unit of measure - it is not notable under WP:GNG, has not "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" - therefore, delete - Epinoia (talk) 03:46, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your reply. Here, Wikipedia should include non-metric units too as wikipedia is not a part of metric association. Metric and SI have a slight variation too. There are a lot of non-standard units in which scales are varying, but, are used in certain areas (e.g. foot in different countries). Circular millimetre is appeared in EBMcalc Medical Calculator. Please check it carefully. Please refer the journal papers too, if you want to understand the coverage. I am really tired of explaining about units to the audience. Please try to move forward. Please try to understand overall ideas of particular subjects. I am trying my best to explain the things as I can and remove doubts. Thanks.

Hope the following article will find interesting for you: List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement. :) Shevonsilva (talk) 10:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

- @Epinoia: (after edit conflict) That's all very sloppy. WP:AGE MATTERS is a ridiculous rationale to raise; this is a unit of measure, not some sort of discredited scientific investigation. Historical and obsolete units are no more or less notable than current units, and being "non-standard" does not prevent a unit a priori from being notable. The claim that there is no mention in volume 2 T-Z is false; it appears on page 537 under "Untis, circular". You make the same mistake on the EBMcalc page, probably because Americans think there is only one way to spell millimetre. You also fail to consider sources that are not currently in the article, as required by WP:BEFORE when assessing notability, such as the book Industrial Electricity noted by Andrew D further up the page (and read the second column on the linked page before telling me it is not there). SpinningSpark 10:49, 15 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: OK, aside from the question about whether this unit actually exists, I think we need more discussion on whether this topic is notable enough for an article. It's not entirely clear from the discussion so far
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:00, 17 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per Johnuniq and Imaginatorium's research, this is a conversion related to other units but not a unit in use itself. Circular_mil#Equivalence_to_other_units_of_area could mention the concept of circular measurement. Reywas92^Talk 16:54, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. I really suspect non-scientific methodology here based on personnel assumptions on units. Approving NIST is unreliable also needs more scientific approach. I appreciate Imaginatorium's work as he/she placed a lot of effort as a Wikipedia contributor, but, his work is much more un-reliable as there is a lot of personnel opinions are still there in his work. Somehow his/her work is leading to improving the articles. Please read the full conversion. We have a separate article for Circular mil and we need Circular millimetre as a separate article as a data repository. We have 7 SI units and all other other SI units are derivations and we are not going to include only 7 SI unit and delete all other derivations. Please understand the matter in full before providing your valuable openions. Shevonsilva (talk) 23:22, 21 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lol, Wikipedia is not a "repository" where every concept ever mentioned automatically deserves its own article. I stand by my position or a merge/redirect. Your comparison to SI units makes no sense - they actually have enough content discussing them individually, whereas none of our data would be lost if we mention this related concept there. Reywas92^Talk 19:28, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. :) There is a lack of understanding here about the topic and Wikipedia. For your information, Grammerly, for example, uses Wikipedia as the default repository for queries. There are other tools which exhibit the same behavior. Removing articles here will lead to switch to a different information repository. What I mean about SI units is about the requirement for a unique article for this as it will be queried for an encyclopedic description (instead of having a mega article for a set of units and readers have to search separate sections and de-motivating the future expansion of information due to lack of importancy of it as if it is a sub content.)Shevonsilva (talk) 20:03, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Too bad for Grammarly then, not our problem to adapt to their needs, not that they would flag the words "circular" or "millimetre" anyway. And I think most of the Wikipedia scrapers still follow redirects. Reywas92^Talk 23:05, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. Please read the whole discussion. What you are suggesting is to write one article for all SI units, and, create re-directs for other units: encyclopedia is not a book with one chapter with indexes. According your logic, we have to delete Circular mil too as it is a clear derivation of mil, and, FYI we also have to clearly delete Square metre article too with your logic. Shevonsilva (talk) 23:17, 22 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.