Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 159

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When should we include the day of the week when writing a date?

I'm puzzled that this MoS page doesn't comment on the matter, and moreover I've looked through the archived discussion and found nothing.

Occasionally we see dates in WP articles with the day of the week given. I've just tidied an article that inconsistently had it on some dates but not others, even within a single sentence!

The format examples don't have days of the week in them, but neither does it say we shouldn't use them. I can imagine that in some circumstances it might be sensible to give this information. But what might these circumstances be? It would be good if we could write some guidelines on this. — Smjg (talk) 21:55, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 155#To include the day of the week or not to include the day of the week? That is the question..... EEng 23:00, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Constructions such as "The following Monday, 4 April 1987..." would seem perfectly reasonable, particularly if there is some significance to that particular day of the week? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:06, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

I would say only if there's some significance. EEng 01:05, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

When it's important. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:26, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Good catch - but I'm puzzled about why that's ended up in the general archive rather than the years and dates archive. I'm somewhat embarrassed with myself that I managed to have no memory of having started that thread! So I suppose the question is one of what would constitute typical examples of the day of the week being "important". — Smjg (talk) 17:45, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

The "years and dates" archives (which the curious will find in the yellow box at the right side of this page, near the top) stops about 2009. It's dominated by the date-linking civil war.

While I'm sure some small number exist, it's hard to think of situations in which it's appropriate to write that such-and-such happened on "Tuesday, January 31, 19xx" or whatever. It actually surprises me that Attack on Pearl Harbor doesn't mention anywhere that the attack happened on a Sunday morning (since it adds to the reader's mental image of the situation) but even if it was going to mention that, you might not do it by changing the article's opening to read "The Attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike ... on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941" – you'd probably say somewhere down, "Because the attack occurred on a Sunday morning, most personnel were blah blah blah" or something like that. In other words, even if the day of week is significant, you'd probably mention it separately rather than bolting it onto the date up front. In any event, it's up to editors on a particular article, and not a MOS matter. EEng 18:15, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Right. Here's another one... Fall of Constantinople nowhere mentioned the day of the week of that event (Tuesday) and I added it; it's a day of ill omen to Greeks to this day. But I stuck it in way down in the depths of the article. Herostratus (talk) 18:48, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

• We should definitely include something to this effect: add the day of week only when it's encyclopedically important. Just adding it out of habit is pure news style, and WP is not written in that style, as a matter of clear policy. However, there are times (such as the one Herostratus outlined) where it is relevant (and where – again as in that case – different calendar systems may be relevant). This is not the first time disputes about day of week have erupted, it's just a weird coincidence that they've been confined to article talk pages and haven't been a WT:MOSNUM thread (though it may have been discussed at the main MOS talk page; I would search its archives, if we want to review any old chatter about the matter).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:56, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

  Knowing my conservative attitude re MOS additions you'll forgive my wanting to see evidence of multiple disputes in multiple places, as outlined in WP:NONEEDNORULE. EEng 22:03, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

  Mentioning day of the week may be significant when the date can be expressed in either or both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. For example: Washington's Birthday was on February 11, 1731 (Old Style) which is the same day as February 22, 1732 in the Gregorian calendar we now use. But what day of the week was it? - Why is the day, Friday?, (or are the various on-line calendar calculations wrong and it is a Saturday?) omitted from the article? In this case knowing the day of the week is potentially notable since knowing weekday of his birth then raises a further question for the reader about why his birthday is now celebrated on a Monday! The article sort of explains the difference in dates used for celebrations, but does not really discuss the logic for choosing a Monday when Washington was born on a Friday or was it a Saturday. Since there are going to be a few occasions when the day of the week is as important as the date, if only to reduce confusion, there should be some recommendation about where best to place the weekday of a date. I would have thought putting the weekday before the date was most reasonable as this is the simplest sentence construction, since, if it went after the date, a couple of commas and an indefinite article are also needed. Then perhaps the discussion about adding the day of the week is more a matter of notability, rather than just style. - 210.86.82.145 (talk) 07:46, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

  Strongly agree with SMcCandlish's view on this occasion. Day-of-the-week freaks, please respect a basic tenet of good writing, which is avoidance of irrelevant information. Tony (talk) 10:52, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

"Avoid beginning a sentence with a figure"

What is the rationale behind "Avoid beginning a sentence with a figure" in MOS:NUMNOTES? It looks like a randomly made-up "rule". Even in the examples, I find "There were many matches. 23 ended in a draw." more readable than "There were many matches. Twenty-three ended in a draw.". At least, the number (which is the main piece of information here) is more recognizable and quickly graspable. And in some cases, this "rule" requires quire awkward rewording because of the perfectly reasonable "comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all in figures". — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

It is not a randomly made-up rule but fairly normal practice outside of wikipedia when writing. MilborneOne (talk) 18:06, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. It is normal practice in every English style guide that I have seen. Doremo (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I have also seen it in many places, without any explanations. If my question was missed, I can repeat it: "What is the rationale?" — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk)

Because it looks weird. Sometimes that's the only answer. EEng 22:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Many Americans believe that logical punctuation looks weird. Nevertheless... — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 07:31, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Right, and as with all other ENGVAR issues we're stuck with accommodating a few styles that each has its adherents. What you seem to be advocating isn't anyone's style. EEng 16:53, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

I was not advocating, but asking why is it so. And gave you an example that "looks weird" is not a good reason. However, if you want to claim that nobody begins sentences with numbers, this is not true. It is quite common to begin section titles with numbers, for example. Even the work titles, previously writen in words, like One Thousand and One Nights or Nineteen Eighty-Four, are currently often called "1001 Nights" and "1984", and more modern works tend to use numbers directly, like "1492: Conquest of Paradise", "2012" or "300". Although they are not sentences by themselves, the authors writing about these works apparently do not hesitate to begin sentences with such titles (which can be seen not only in the corresponding WP articles, but in the external sources as well). There are also examples of beginning sentences with something like "3D" or "4-vector". So "beginning a sentence with a figure" is not something unseen in the modern usage. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Poor usage is certainly known; one then asks in what kind of work that usage is found. For example, the 3D example you linked contains the "sentence"

3D woven sandwich composite reinforced with distance fabric is also used in modest amounts, such as floor panels for trains, hard-tops for convertible cars, and the deck and top-side structure for a fishing boat.

That's not making your case. In cases such as titles of works which start with a figure, editors of particular articles need to figure out how to make the best of the situation, and no one is advocating that this particular rule has some overriding importance – note it says avoid. EEng 00:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Why do you call that usage "poor"? Why "3D" is fine, but "30" is not?

If you think that "avoid" means that this is not a strict rule, but just an advice, then why the examples say "use/not" instead of "better/worse"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 01:06, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The "sentence" I quoted makes no sense, because a "floors panel for trains" are not "a modest amount – this is a sloppy writer. "Avoid" means "try not to, but don't twist yourself all into a pretzel over it". If you want to change use/not to better/worse, I doubt anyone will object. I won't be responding further. EEng 04:33, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

• I've never agreed with this outdated "rule". It leads to silly stuff, like: "A majority (55%) of the constituents were ...". Get rid of it. Tony (talk) 00:20, 1 February 2019 (UTC)ß
• I do agree with the rule, maybe with occasional exceptions, but I don't agree with Mikhail about the example sentences. To me There were many matches. 23 ended in a draw. is visually really confusing, particularly with the HTML pattern of making between-sentence spacing the same as between-word spacing. My eye wants to glob the 23 into the first sentence somehow (maybe a mis-formatted footnote?), or come up with some other explanation (maybe it was match number 23 that ended in a draw?). --Trovatore (talk) 01:16, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, the confusion between "23 of them" and "the 23rd" in this case does not really depend on the representation. And what about the "55%" example above? But, generally speaking, your objection means that any number after any punctuation is confusing? "...matches; 23 ended...", "...matches, 23 ended..." and so on have the same properties (moreover, with "between-word" spacing even in publications that would have a huge gap in "...matches. Twenty..."). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 03:41, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
    • Hmm, no, it doesn't bother me as much after mid-sentence punctuation. I'm not sure exactly why, but I think it may have to do with the fact that I do a quick visual chunking of text into sentences before reading them serially, and starting a sentence with a number seems to make that harder (maybe just because the rule is so often observed that it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy?). --Trovatore (talk) 04:57, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
      • Maybe we rely on capital letters even more than full-stops to recognise new sentences. 92.19.28.243 (talk) 09:43, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
        • Travatore, I don't understand how period–space–23 could be confusing. Tony (talk) 12:01, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
          • Tony, depending upon the quality of your screen and the text size "matches. 23 ended", "matches, 23 ended" and "matches 23 ended" can look very similar. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:19, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
            • Which again means that the problem is not really in "beginning a sentence with a figure". However, the more compact notation actually allows those who have poor screens to chose a larger font (for the same information density on the same screen):
              
              thus making reading easier. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 07:31, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

              That argument would make perfect sense if typical articles manifested a ratio of seven words : one two-digit number. EEng 16:53, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

              • A "typical article" might have no numbers at all. The problem arises in sections or paragraphs where many numbers need to be discussed. For example: Across the Universe/Soundtrack or Add MS 29987/The works. In some cases the ratio can approach even higher values, like in "There were 132 matches. 23 ended in a draw." + more such stuff. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

        • I would say that both matter, since both periods and capitals (especially in English, which likes excessive capitalization) can occur inside sentences. However, in most modern fonts, digits do look like capitals. With old-style/medieval numerals this could be a problem:
          
          but they were designed to mix with the text. The modern practice, however, almost always uses "big" numerals, because when some numbers are given, they are usually important and thus must stand out. This makes "23" much easier to find in a wall of text than "twenty-three" or even "Twenty-three". And, I suspect, many people use Wikipedia not just for leisure reading, but to find specific information and, in particular, the numbers. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 08:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
• Definitely not a made-up rule (by WP, anyway), since it's found in virtually every English-language style guide.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)
  • I meant, made-up well before WP and just blindly copied here. Are there any explanations for it in "every English-language style guide"? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 23:35, 11 February 2019 (UTC)
• 20,000 books on the grammatical rules of English language, give or take a few hundred thousand, have used this rule over the years. It's standard and not randomly made up. SportingFlyer T·C 00:51, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• 100 years if not more. EEng 00:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
  • 10 or more different regional dialects of English all have the same principle. SportingFlyer T·C 01:12, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

"Ton" ambiguity

This may seem like a triviality, but it has somewhat bothered me, so I thought I'd ask here. Whilst in the process of doing a GA review, I came across "650 tons" in reference to an 18th century ship's tonnage. I asked the nominator for clarification as to what kind of "ton" we were dealing with, but that information was not present in the cited sources. As there are many definitions of "ton", how does one deal with such situations? There's no way to verify what kind of ton, and I presume cannot assume what kind of ton is being used on the basis of the country of origin of the source, or whatever, as that'd be original research, right? And, in any case, there are different definitions of "ton" within countries. In this situation, I'm certain a conversion cannot be provided without being unverifiable. As, in this specific case, there doesn't seem to be any need to specify tonnage, I think the best thing to do is simply omit the figure all-together...but, generally, how should article writers grapple with ton ambiguity? How should it be represented in articles, and how should conversions be dealt with? RGloucester — ☎ 07:57, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Not at all trivial in my opinion. I think the information should be provided where relevant. In some cases it probably is possible to establish what kind of ton was intended. In other situations, I suggest linking to ton, including a footnote along the lines of "the ton is an ambiguous unit of mass/weight/volume that can mean one of the following ...", or both. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:55, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

If, by any chance, the article or the source for the tonnage used words something like "tons burden", or if the construction of the ship can be placed between mid-17th century and before the mid-19th century, then Builder's Old Measurement would be appropriate. Builder's Old Measurement was deprecated in the U.K. in 1835, but remained in popular use for a while longer. I do not know when it went out of use in the U.S. - Donald Albury 14:26, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I should have read the rest of the article first. - Donald Albury 15:12, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Donald is quite correct that the appropriate interpretation of tonnage for a merchant ship of 1766 would be tons burthen. This is no more original research than assuming that a distance of 650 miles at sea uses nautical miles not statute miles. The US system wasn't in use at that point, there not being any USA at the time! The register ton has been around 100 cu.ft. for a very long period. Including the vessel's capacity is essential for understanding her nature. Given the date and context I doubt that the figure is better that +/- 25 tons, so the small variations in definition are totally irrelevant. The bigger problem you have is that in France, a tonneau de mer is is half a register ton. Is Salmond quoting a French source, in which case the St. Jean Baptiste was really quite small, or has Salmond converted the units to international standards (of the time)? I think the next sentence provides the answer, a 325 ton register would be far too small for a 36 gun ship. Frankly the only WP:OR is my last statement, all the rest is well documented at Builder's Old Measurement, ton and tonnage. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:43, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, I feel uncomfortable with assuming the usage of "Builder's Old Measurement" by Salmond. Presumably, she could've converted the original French figure into some form of modern ton, or otherwise simply taken the figure from some other modern source that used modern units, rather than using the historical French figure or "Builder's Old Measurement". As there is no way to verify this (that I understand), I'm not sure it's worth trying to use the figure. As the nominator says that the source refers to St. Jean Baptiste as a "large merchant ship", in this specific case, I think it is best to omit the figure and use the description. RGloucester — ☎ 16:03, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Precisely the right course. EEng 16:15, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I guess I should've been a bit more thorough...a bit of Google work turned up this, which says "650-ton (about 660 tonnes)". RGloucester — ☎ 16:23, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

That source seems to be conflating "tons burden" (capacity or volume) with ""tonnes" (mass). - Donald Albury 17:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I was about to say that. Since readers have no idea what these figures mean anyway, I'd stick with the description. EEng 17:08, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

My first inclination was correct, it seems. Thanks to you all for your help. RGloucester — ☎ 17:14, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@EEng:Since some readers have no idea. Some will have no idea, some won't care, some will know exactly and some will look it up - possibly using an online encyclopaedia! Again I have to agree with Donald. For a merchant ship, the important thing has always been carrying capacity and that is measured in tons burthen. The naive conversion of 650 tons (ie 65,000 cu. ft. capacity) to 660 tonnes weight makes me suspect the safety of the source. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:15, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

This source may be useful. I'm considering which article it might be used in to clarify the usage of "tons burden". Note that it says,

In ships of identical dimensions, the slightly larger size of an English ton yielded an estimate of total tonnage that was smaller by about 5 percent than did a French tonneau de mer or a Spanish tonel macho. But these variations were smaller than the range of error in actual measurements.

The source covers French and Spanish tonnage measures. Maybe I can find something for other maritime nations of the period. - Donald Albury 00:44, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Interesting as this may be, we'd be squarely in WP:OR territory to try to apply it in the article under discussion. EEng 00:48, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

The only WP:OR is attempting to define too precisely what the original source meant. The source said "650 tons" so you can safely report 650 tons. The OR part is in trying to define what a ton is in modern international measure down to the last millilitre. If you are really having sleepless nights over a valid and sourced measure then may I suggest a footnote would be appropriate, along the lines of 650 tons

There are editors that insist on converting ambiguous units, resulting in a sentence such as this:

The United States Navy schooner Motto had heard the explosion of the gunpowder keg from twelve miles (19 km or 22 km) away and had come to investigate.

- Donald Albury 21:05, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

There's no ambiguity, a schooner at sea would always be using nautical miles. I couldn't find a page with this on it – is this a fictional example or a real case? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:39, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Seems to be Cape Florida Light#Attack on the lighthouse. --Trovatore (talk) 22:51, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Notes

Further notes: The closest citation for this bit is a letter to the editor sent by someone who was on land at the time, so I kind of agree that we can't be sure what sort of miles he was using, though that seems to be a small point compared with exactly how he was supposed to know how far the ship was in the first place. Seeing the letter to the editor might clarify things, or might not. --Trovatore (talk) 22:55, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes we really need a primary source. Since I found the information in a secondary source that may have been based on earlier secondary sources, I was unsure of which unit was meant. It was only when someone wanted to convert the distance to km that it became an issue. If I were writing that article now, I probably would leave the distance out, and just say that a schooner at sea heard the explosion. - Donald Albury 00:00, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The article on tonnage covers the issue very well. It's important to distinguished between gross tonnage, which is the internal volume, and includes machinery spaces and the like, and net tonnage, which is the cargo capacity. Warships use the standard displacement. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:40, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

650 tons looks to me rounded to a multiple of 50. Since the mass can vary with equipment loaded, in addition to any measurement uncertainty, and since the value comes from the original source, I would suggest leaving it. The uncertainty in the number isn't so far from the range of different values for the ton. Tons berthen is a different type of measurement, and should be enough different to tell from the rest of the description. Gah4 (talk) 19:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Formatting of quantities with uncertainties

I have just added a recommendation for the format (63.2 ± 0.1) m as being what the SI brochure requires, and being common sense. I'm not expecting objections, but I may be wrong. —Quondum 01:09, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Further to this, may I request comments about this? We need a sense of whether this has reasonable support before it is considered for modifying the module behind {{val}}, as noted on the talk page Template talk:val § Contrary to SI-mandated format. —Quondum 19:20, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I just searched the SI brochure for 63.2 and it isn't there. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Apologies – I confused it with the Guide to the SI, section 7.7 Clarity in writing values of quantities. —Quondum 20:51, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

No such web page. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:08, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

NIST has a screwed-up website. Try navigating there from NIST Special Publication 811, or get the PDF. —Quondum 21:42, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

After reading the preface once again, to be sure I remembered it right, The NIST Guide for the Use of the International System of Units is merely a guide, so it really can't mandate anything. But it is the position of the guide that putting the unit symbol after the quantity, but not the uncertainty, or after the uncertainty but not the quantity, is ambiguous. Thus the authors advocate "63.2 m ± 0.1 m or (63.2 ± 0.1) m". But I don't think this is guidance is widely followed. Jc3s5h (talk) 02:51, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

(63.2 ± 0.1) m is pointless pedanticity. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:41, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

An act intended to remove ambiguity cannot be pointless. By definition. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 10:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Except 63.2±0.1 m isn't ambiguous to anyone. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I never stated otherwise. I just wrote that it is not pointless to aspire to removing ambiguity. Your example might be clear to all but 163.2±0.1 km might be read by some readers as 163.2 m +/- 0.1 km. If it is possible to misinterpret something, rest assured someone will. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

In response to Jc3s5h ("... is merely a guide, so it really can't mandate anything."): This is not of significance; from the perspective of the MoS, the SI Brochure has no authority either. The MoS chooses what to set as style, and can choose what outside sources to use as guide.

In response to Headbomb ("... is pointless pedanticity."): The MoS already has a similar "pointlessly pedantic" guide ((1.534 ± 0.035) × 10²³ m). No-one is going to misunderstand the typographically simpler version, also easier on the eye, which I expect is often used: 1.534 ± 0.035 × 10²³ m.

I think there are contexts where an editor feels the need for pedanticism, which will occur in very precise scientific and mathematics articles, even if it can be argued that the MoS should be permissive on this in most articles. I was prompted by an example where the {{val}} could not be used to produce the desired format. —Quondum 16:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

While I dislike (1.534±0.035)×10²³ m myself, my experience as a university-level physics instructor show that students need the brackets, otherwise they will think the main value is 1.534, and that the uncertainty is 0.035×10²³. And they're not really wrong, because the order of operation does applies. "A distance of 134±4 m" couldn't be read any other way than "A distance of 130–138 m". Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:35, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

You are assuming disambiguation is obvious to everyone, but students are still learning to disambiguate. By the same token, a student could be expected to disambiguate 1 + 3 v (where v is a vector) as (1 + 3) v, but in geometric algebra the correct interpretation would be 1 + (3 v). The presenter too often errs on the side of assuming that the context is as clear to the reader as to themselves. My guess is that proportion of the WP readers who do not skip over all formulae will be stumped by or somewhat unsure of notations that rely on disambiguation by the reader. Because this is a difficult area and editors need guidance, would you suggest 63.2 ± 0.1 m as a style example? —Quondum 22:11, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

An afterthought: The future SI brochure (or at least its draft of 2018) seems likely to weigh in on this through delegation ("The uncertainty associated with an estimated value of a quantity should be evaluated and expressed in accordance with the document JCGM 100:2008") —Quondum 16:45, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

JCGM 100:2008 has "The ± format should be avoided whenever possible". The 2014 supplement to SI Brochure 8 also defers to JCGM 100:2008, adding "A convenient way to represent the uncertainty is given in the following example: m_n = 1.674 927 351(74) × 10^–27 kg". The NIST Guide doesn't seem to agree, and WP:MOSNUM is already at odds with the NIST guidance on writing ranges (e.g. "225 nm to 2400 nm or (225 to 2400) nm but not 225 to 2400 nm; 0 V to 5 V or (0 to 5) V but not 0 − 5 V ". 80.41.135.243 (talk) 17:24, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

The ± format is actually listed as acceptable, and the caution against it relates to to a level of pedanticness that far exceeds even that being referred to above (it relates to ambiguity in the level of confidence of the uncertainty interval). And I agree that the level the SI (and related recommendations and standards) go to to be precise should not be mandated in the MoS. But for consistency, then, should we not permit 1.534 ± 0.035 × 10²³ m in the first example? —Quondum 18:23, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Ancestors

Is it acceptable to write:

1. 3 x grandfather;
2. three times grandfather;
3. third grandfather;
4. great-great-great-grandfather?

And how about numbers bigger than 3? Thanks. 86.187.170.134 (talk) 08:54, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Can you find a reliable source that uses these styles? I don't think that this is a MOS NUM issue but follows from wp:use English. In EN-UK,

1. is definitely wrong (but see #4),
2. I've never seen or heard this one, sounds wrong (should be great great grandfather),
3. means "of my four grandfathers, he is the third" [eg oldest]. Definitely wrong in the context of generations.
4. is valid but more often expressed as "three times great grandfather". It is the normal style for two greats, dubious but understandable for three greats, unheard of for anything more.

For many more generations, it would be n times great grandfather, eg "ten times great grandfather", "173 times great grandfather". --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:50, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm genuinely surprised to hear that you might have four grandfathers. But did you know that wikt:great-grandfather says this:

"Additional instances of "great-" can be prepended to the term, each indicating one further generation of ancestry. For large numbers of generations a number can be substituted, for example, "fourth great-grandfather", "four-greats grandfather" or "four-times-great-grandfather".

Maybe the hyphens make all the difference? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:26, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, all four styles are used, but I suspect that's largely within the confines of some genealogy websites rather than in Wikipedia articles. 80.41.135.243 (talk) 23:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

No, the article supports User:John Maynard Friedman's explanation, not the OP. Rmhermen (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Well what do I know? If I believe I have four grandfathers then I'm probably wrong about everything else :-) Though I suppose if you count step-grandfathers? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Step-grandfathers? In fact, why not even five? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:27, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

• This really isn't a MOSNUM issue. I'm sure editors at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Genealogy can help sort this out. EEng 14:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

° for temperature?

I see that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Specific units specifically lists ° (on its own) separated with a non-breaking space as a permitted style for a unit of temperature. It was introduced in this edit, apparently without discussion on this page then (seemingly ever, but searching the talk archives is tricky) when the group "Misc." was split up into, amongst other things, "Angle measure" and "Temperature". I think we should have this discussion. My preference would be to remove this line from the table, in the sense that we should not be recommending it as a general style, not least because it is ambiguous. Note also Degree symbol#Typography. Naturally there may be exceptions, for example in quotations, but these could be handled as such. —Quondum 17:23, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

No, it wasn't introduced with the edit you linked. On the left side of that diff was the text The degree is used for temperature and angle and I was simply following that. That text, in turn, was added in 2011 [1]. EEng 17:42, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Regardless how the rule arose, it should go. The unadorned degree symbol is for angles, not temperatures. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 17:50, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Let's wait a day or two and then unless someone comes up with a consideration we haven't thought of, I'll remove it. EEng 18:41, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Would it be worth replacing it with a Fahrenheit equivalent of the Celsius line? Kahastok talk 18:47, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Fine with me. But first, is it really kelvin (not degrees kelvin) but degrees celsius (not celsius), like the table says? EEng 19:21, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the table is correct on that point. The word "kelvin" can also be pluralised as "kelvins". Kahastok talk 20:10, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

So... [2]? EEng 20:25, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I have frequently seen this symbol used to indicate degrees of temperature. It is very widely used. IMO, we would need to see a reliable source that says it is contrary to best practice before we could take it out. (For example, does Nature have a manual of style?) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:53, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

In most writing, the degree symbol can certainly be used for temperature if the ambiguity among angle, Fahrenheit, Celsius, and a few archaic temperature scales is resolved by context. But in Wikipedia, there is a substantial danger that passages that set up the context will be removed by a subsequent editor, or the passage containing the degree symbol will be cut-and-pasted to a different article without context information. So maybe it would be better not to use the degree symbol alone for temperature in Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:15, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I concur with Jc3s5h.

I'm intrigued though, John Maynard Friedman: Have you seen an unadorned ° used as a unit of temperature in Nature? They do refer to a house style. An extract from their formatting guide (referring to figures): "Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or abbreviations are defined in the legend." I would expect their referees (experts in their fields) to be more pedantic than WP is. —Quondum 03:32, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, my failure to read the question properly ("how to take an examination", 101!).

I have never seen an unadorned ° anywhere, whether for temperature, angles or even in Swedish. Except of course in a primary school text book that says "this is the symbol we use to indicate degrees". When used for angles, it should always be immediately prefixed by a number. When used for temperature, it should always be postfixed by a letter (C, K, F). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

1,000 million, or one billion?

I don't see any guidelines for this. Is either form acceptable? Writing "1,000 million" seems wrong, because "1,000 thousand" is absolutely wrong. Has this been addressed before? Would context make any difference? In the article where this came up, it's in dollars ($1,000 million vs. $1 billion). Ninjalectual (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

1000 million is used where there's some long and short scales issue. Essentially all English-speaking countries use short scale now, and enwp follows that (see MOS:NUMERAL) so we don't write 1000 million unless there's some special need for emphasis. EEng 17:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Aren't large numbers were supposed to be written in numerals, so wouldn't it be 1,000 1,000,000? ;) -sche (talk) 18:18, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

The word billion has always been ambiguous. UK side- a million is 10⁶ and billion 10¹². The word milliard for 10⁹ is archaic. The exception is for money where US usage is accepted. State side a million is 10⁶ and billion 10⁹, the exception is for scientific work, where UK usage is accepted. Just avoid it there is always a way round, be aware when writing historical articles and using old sources. ClemRutter (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I think you're about 50 years behind. The UK adopted short-scale billions about the time it went metric and decimalized the pound (see e.g. [3]). And I challenge you to back up the statement that in scientific work "UK usage is accepted" (by which I assume you mean long-scale values for billion etc). EEng 19:13, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, long scale is not used in scientific contexts at all. Hasn't been in over half a century. Better to just stick with scientific notation anyway. oknazevad (talk) 20:44, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

• Opinions sought at Talk:Bournemouth#Billion. EEng 21:51, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
  • I'd say best practice is to avoid the words billion (and trillion etc.). Find some workaround, most likely involving numerals rather than words. Rhialto (talk) 12:17, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
• "The word billion has always been ambiguous."—In 1980, maybe; but I do not believe so now. I would always edit 1000 million to 1 billion, unless there was a particular reason not to. Tony (talk) 10:42, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
  • On the other hand I try to avoid billion and use thousand million for preference. It just seems clearer and more reader-friendly to avoid the usual: Is it American? Is it journalistic? What date was the source? ... Martin of Sheffield (talk) 19:32, 19 March 2019 (UTC)
    • I can understand the rationale, but I think these days "thousand million" is highly "marked". People will almost always understand "billion" as 10⁹, whereas "thousand million" may give them a problem to solve, since hardly anyone says that.
      It is true that older direct quotes may use "billion" to mean 10¹². I think these should probably have explanatory footnotes, as they will be widely misunderstood. --Trovatore (talk) 19:45, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Mistake in article?

The sentence "The accident killed 337 passengers and crew, and three airport workers" is listed as correct in the Uncertainty subsection. Shouldn't it be "The accident killed 337 passengers and crew, and 3 airport workers" to keep like figures like? Or is the current sentence correct for some reason I'm not seeing? Ninjalectual (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I changed three to 21 to avoid the question. EEng 17:45, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Killing off 18 workers just like that. Harsh. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 23:04, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep it up and you can be #19. EEng 00:10, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

National ties

"Articles related to Canada or Israel may use either format with (as always) consistency within each article."

Israel has been added to what were (when I looked a long time ago) explicit instructions either way only for majority anglophone countries; the rationale was/is that that's where you get emotional reactions from other editors. So ... if Israel is specified (it's not majority anglophone), how is the guideline different for Poland? I do copious amounts of date-format fixing by script, so I have a lot of experience. "Retain" is the default policy for all non-majority-anglophone countries and for Canada, which is—let me think—about 80% mdy, 20% dmy. Tony (talk) 05:17, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Signed 1

"Nouns following the lone, unsigned digit 1 are singular, but those following other decimal numbers (i.e. base-10 numbers not involving fractions) are plural (increased 0.7 percentage points; 365.25 days; paid 5 dollars per work hour, 1 dollar per travel hour, 0 dollars per standby hour; increased by 1 point but net change +1 points; net change −1 points; net change 1.0 points)." I know that the forms "net change +1 points; net change −1 points" follow the rule as stated, but they just look and read WRONG. Am I the only one who thinks that this should be changed? For comparison, the "net change 1.0 points" reads fine, but when we are dealing with a single, undivided point the plural jars whether it is positive, negative, or unsigned. --Khajidha (talk) 12:57, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

For me, it seems to sound fine plural at -1, but maybe not everyone. Why is 1 so special? Gah4 (talk) 00:53, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Use of "@" vs. "at"

The at sign "@" is a widely recognised shorthand for "at" itself. It is widely used in units and measurements, where these are made at some other condition. A typical example would be an engine's power rated as "125 bhp @ 3,000 rpm".

Does WP / MOS have any preference for "@" vs. "at" ? I note a large series of changes at present to replace it with the long form. [4] @TKOIII: Andy Dingley (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Andy, I would agree with you in the diff you quoted. In running text it is arguable which is the better, but in tables like that use "@". After all, no-one can claim that "140 hp (104 kW) at 5500" is a sentence. Perhaps TKOII will be changing tyre sizes "83 mm (3.3 in) x 86 mm (3.4 in)" to "83 mm (3.3 in) times 86 mm (3.4 in)" next? I'd just revert with a polite explanation on the talk page. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:55, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

The short answer is no, as of now there's no MOS recommendation on this. (Someone should check the archives -- I'm going to pick up my nephew from school right now.) The longer answer is that I sense the makings of another hyphen–endash war in this, but before battle lines are drawn here at the MOS/MOSNUM supreme court, let's see what editors come up with as arguments either way in the lower courts of individual articles. EEng 18:05, 21 March 2019 (UTC) P.S. I'm pretty sure part of the answer should be tables only, not in running text, but that's just an aesthetic intuition.

Hello, I see i've been mentioned. I made the edits switching from "@" to "at" in many car articles after observing that many articles that were created in the time since I had started editing Wikipedia had adopted that format and that articles using "@" in their performance tables had become, at least to my best knowledge, a minority. I vaguely remember there being some sort of style guideline that expressed preference for "at" instead of "@" in plain text but in tables I do believe it is still a grey area. I prefer the full form of "at" as I believe it is less jarring on the eyes, a problem i've had with articles using "@" since I started editing Wikipedia. This especially comes into effect when tables are formatted like "125bhp@3000rpm". Also, I don't see the need for abbreviating a 2 letter word into a 1 character symbol, it just feels unnecessary to me. I can see the case for changing "times" to "x" as that saves time and space but I don't see how "@" does the same as it only saves you 1 character. Of course, I am not an expert in the manual of style and I will respect whatever decision those who are agree upon but I just wanted to voice my rationale behind making the edits and make a case for their inclusion. TKOIII (talk) 19:14, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

It's not about saving space, it's about saving space 50-100 years ago in printed books. A stylistic habit which by now has become the accepted and more commonly recognised form of laying out such a table. For WP to start using "at" is now the unfamiliar formation. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:28, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I would say that the "@" symbol is not formal and may not be understood by everyone to boot--we are a generalist encyclopedia. This is even true inside of a table, where the addition of 3 characters consistently should not cause any grief (and allows for better wrapping properties on different screen resolutions). Better in fact in tables to separate the two parameters into two columns to make it obvious what each value is. Outside of tables there are no width restrictions, so "at" should always be preferred. --Izno (talk) 20:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I would suggest to you that anyone who does not understand "@" is also unlikely to understand "bhp" and why bhp is given at a particular rpm. Personally I find "at" the odd, jarring way to write in a table like this, reminiscent of a badly translated Far-Eastern manual. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the units should be indicated more-fully as well. ;) --Izno (talk) 22:58, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

• I'd say that linking first use of bhp in the table should be enough. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:53, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

• Linking an obscure unit such as bhp is essential. I see no reason not to always spell out "at" when that is the intended meaning (it's not always). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:56, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Everyone understands @ in "[email protected]". Not everyone understands "23,000 widgets @ $4.89 per". So, don't use @ as a substitute for "at" in anything MOS:NUM would address. It's not normal English, but accounting jargon.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)
Also covered by general principles at MOS:ABBR.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:21, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

How much of a contribution does one need to be a "major contributor" per DATERET

Borderlands 3 was recently converted from a redirect to a stub by Sandstein upon the game's first announcement this last week. Sandstein opted to use dmy dates for this, though the other articles related to the topic have traditionally used mdy, but the series has no strong national ties outside of its developer, so this seems reasonable. Over several consecutive edits, this was the state of the article after Sandstein's initial work.

The date format selection has been challenged by others, arguing that Sandstein's work is not a "major contributor" and thus the dates should be normalized to mdy; this created a brief edit war. I and others on the talk page disagree, that while Sandstein's work only ended in a stub, that still added things like an infobox, sectioning, references, categories, and other details.

Is what Sandstein did considered sufficient to be the first "major contributor"? Is there any other guidance for how much effort is expected to be the first major contributor for purposes of DATERET? --Masem (t) 15:03, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I repeat: date formats are the tools of Satan. EEng 16:55, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I'd generally prefer to see some sort of rule against drive-by date format changes. I don't have a problem with someone challenging date formats while they're in the middle of making major improvements to an article, presenting solid reasons on the talk page, but anyone who contributes nothing to particular articles is swooping in and only engaging in a date format battles on those pages ... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:24, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:DATERET together with MOS:RETAIN make this clear. EEng 16:04, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

And no, we're not going to provide additional weapons to the WP:VESTED crowd ("my opinion means more than yours because I edited the article more/longer than you", a WP:OWN failure).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks, Masem. I came here to open the same thread (I'm involved in the thread at Talk:Borderlands 3). I'll repeat what I said there: "Major" is relative, but I have no trouble conceiving of the person who starts the article as the first major contributor (i.e. the first person to add a couple paragraphs and a couple sources). In this case, we have an article and someone has started it and has contributed most of the content to it. That person is, in my book, the first major contributor. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:24, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not what it means, and it's not about the opinion of the "first major contributor", it's about the state of the date formatting that was established in the first non-stub version of the article. And this is just a fall-back position, a status quo ante to revert to if a discussion fails to produce a consensus for one format or the other. It is not a "I got here first so I have more editorial rights" point, nor a "this can never change" ossification.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:01, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, he's the first major contributor. It doesn't mean that the date format cannot be changed; it just means that a clear consensus is now required to change it. The whole point of the rule is to avoid edit warring. And Satan. We changed the format of one featured article to dmy after a consensus was reached. (On a visit to the US earlier in the century, an American friend of mine started a new page in the guest book at an attraction, writing the date in dmy format, as is normally for us military types. A whole busload of Americans then bitched and moaned about having to use that date format.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:27, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

That's not what it means - What are you replying to? Nobody has said anything resembling "I got here first so I have more editorial rights". Unless there is a consensus on the talk page or strong national ties, we stick with the format used by the "first major contributor". This section exists only to sort out a particular case where that particular phrase has been called into question as it applies to someone who creates/starts a page. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:42, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I want to stress that the reason to clarify is that in this specific case, there was edit warring over the date format because of how the phrase "first major contributor" was to be read. Hence the need to establish what generally should that be defined. --Masem (t) 05:06, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

To answer Rhododendrites: MOSDATE doesn't mean anything that has to do with a first major contributor as editor, a person. It has only to do with what format was used in the article either when created in non-stub state to begin with, or when it was expanded enough to no longer be a stub. So trying to figure out who counts as a first major contributor is a waste of time. What matters is which diffable state of the article is the first "major" one, which we've long interpreted as the first non-stub one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:31, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

July 20th, and preferred time zone.

Everyone remembers July 20th except people in time zones where it was July 21st. I suppose most events should be specified in the time zone where the event occurs, but the moon doesn't have a time zone. Does WP have a preferred time zone? Gah4 (talk) 00:47, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

What a dumb question. We should use the time in space, obviously. EEng 00:52, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

You mean stardate? Gah4 (talk) 00:57, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

There is no time in space. That is to say, there is no chronology that may be calibrated. --Trovatore (talk) 00:58, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• I think WP does not have a preferred time zone, but it was an American mission so there's at least some basis for arguing that we should not actively prefer a time zone (say, GMT) that doesn't touch the United States. --Trovatore (talk) 00:57, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  It seems that Apollo 11 uses UTC. With mission control in Houston, one might make an argument for CDT. As above, though, I suspect those in the far eastern time zones remember July 21st. Gah4 (talk) 01:12, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  I think the example carries within it a built-in problem along these lines, in that it wants an event which "everyone" remembers. I know! Let's use the date someone reached one of the poles! EEng 01:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  Or we could use the date Satan took Trump's soul. Does Hell have a time zone? EEng 01:18, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  In Hell, it's always 2:Late. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 01:22, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• I was basing my original reversion on the time I saw on Google, later confirmed this time around by the time listed on Apollo 11. I am vastly amused by the reverting note this time around. :^) I have no opinion on choosing a different date, but I would suggest that the editor in question probably has better thing to do than to fiddle with dates that are only questionably wrong. --Izno (talk) 01:32, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  So, Izno, which time zone are you in? Does Google correct for time zones? This comes up here sometimes, as my wife was in a July 21st time zone, and so remembers that. A few years ago I was in NZ for New Years, which is almost the first place to see the new year. Last year in Hawaii, almost the last. Time zones can be lots of fun! Gah4 (talk) 01:52, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  I just notice the continued changes to the article. Reminds me that when asking someone what countries they have been to, it is usual not to include countries where you didn't get out of the airport. That is, you didn't touch actual soil (or street or sidewalk). Would Kennedy have been satisfied to have Neil Armstrong land on the moon, but not get out of the LM? Funny questions. Gah4 (talk) 02:00, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

• For global and extraterrestrial events Zulu time is preferred. This is UTC+0000 always with no DST. See here for a (very) brief history and connection to US timekeeping for military and aviation. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:49, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

  I don't really buy that just because the US military uses Zulu for some specialized purposes, that determines the date of an extraterrestrial event from an American perspective.

  In any case, as Donaldd23 points out, the landing was unambiguously on July 20 in both all American time zones and in Zulu time. You need to go to at least UTC+04:00 to get the 21st date — roughly meaning Asia and Oceania. --Trovatore (talk) 19:24, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

  It's not just "the US military ... for some specialized purposes" but also the world-wide aviation industry, for GPS and for Computer networks. See Universal Time#Versions subsection UT1 for more information. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:27, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

  UTC is a very convenient expedient to avoid having problems with time zones. That's why (for example) I myself keep my camera set on UTC. It's not valid to infer from that that it's "preferred" for "global and extraterrestrial events", and none of your links support that claim as far as I can tell. --Trovatore (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

• Why not just use a different example for this MoS item? The statement, as show with the discussion above, presents issues that are addressed in WP:WHATPLACE. – The Grid (talk) 20:21, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, barring something that happens at the stroke of midnight on the International Dateline, every event will have this problem to one extent or another. The Moon landing is a nice thing to tip our hats to. We could maybe rephrase to mitigate the problem, avoiding the "everyone knows" formulation for example. --Trovatore (talk) 20:28, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

    "Some elderly Americans remember ..." 79.73.240.196 (talk) 07:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• I'd say just toss out this example and use a different one. It also uses "man" to refer to all of humanity, which some readers will find sexist. -- Beland (talk) 17:55, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Spacing in MOS:COORDS

Currently there is an example

For the city of Oslo, located at 59° 55′ N, 10° 44′ E:

{{coord|59|55|N|10|44|E}} – which becomes 59°55′N 10°44′E

Notice that the text has spaces after degrees and minutes, but the template output does not. Which variant is correct? And if both are, how to choose between them? (The MOS:UNITSYMBOLS and MOS:NUM#Specific units tables only say that there should be no space between the number and the following angular unit. The example "23° 47′ 22″" has spaces after, but does not discus them.) — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 01:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Should surely have spaces between each number–symbol group, following MOS:NUM's general treatment of spaces.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:22, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

So we probably should mention this explicitly and modify {{coord}} accordingly (I suppose, there also must be a comma between the latitude and longitude parts). Although degrees are not SI units, they are "accepted for use", and the SI Brochure shows them spaced (but does not mention this). Interestingly, the NIST Guide to the SI shows them unspaced (in the PDF as well), but spaced in the "check list", in both cases without explanations. Are there any better sources? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 22:26, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

About other sources: ISO 6709, "Standard representation of geographic point location by coordinates", actually says (see p. 17 in the PDF):

a) each coordinate in a coordinate tuple should be separated by a space;

...

f) degree, minute and second units should be identified with symbols:

• the recommended symbols are ° ' and " (ISO/IEC 8859-1, codes 1100, 0600, and 1008 Hex, respectively);
• the symbols should follow their value;
• there should be no spaces between degree, minute and second values;

...

i) height or depth units are identified with a symbol:

• the symbol should follow the value, and
• there should be no space between the value and the unit symbol;

...

EXAMPLE 1 50°40'46.461"N 95°48'26.533"W 1,123.45m.

EXAMPLE 2 50°03'46.461"S 125°48'26.533"E 978.90m.

This looks extremely strange, especially the "height" part, which directly contradicts the SI (and other usual) rules. On the other hand, this is the standard about coordinates and seemingly the only one with exact specifications. Although all these specifications are preceded by the statement "User communities will have their own specific requirements for representation. In the absence of a user community specification, it is suggested that"... Does this mean that since we have our own "user community specification", we actually should neglect these recommendations and use spaces between degree, minute and second values and commas between each coordinate in a coordinate tuple? — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Mikhail Ryazanov wrote "this is the standard about coordinates". Who says so? Standards organizations compete for revenue from purchasers of standards, just like any other publisher. Some reasonably impartial source outside of ISO would have to say it is the standard before I would believe it. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:14, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

While ISO is the largest and the most recognizable developer and publisher of international standards, not all of them are the best or not always the most appropriate. This one, as I said, actually contradicts the general SI rules (which are given in ISO 80000-1, by the way) and only recommends that strange notation. So if you can find any other standards or style guides, it would be useful to look at them also, especially if they are more consistent. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 22:06, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• Coordinates are unavoidably a bit bulky no matter what we do, so I'm all for compactness for the sake of conserving horizontal space in tables and so on. EEng 17:17, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

MOS:NUMRANGE for millions

I just spotted in the article Namib the text 55 – 80 million. Is that acceptable under the MOS? The section seems to be silent on the matter but presumably there is a theoretical ambiguity as it could either mean 55 to 80,000,000 or 55,000,000 to 80,000,000. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Our readers -- at least those not mentally defective -- will know without being told that when an article tells them that particular climatic conditions obtained for roughly 55–80 million years, that does not refer to an indeterminate number of years somewhere between 55 years and 80 million years. EEng 01:13, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Suggested clarification to guidance

This portion of MOS:NUMRANGE reads: "As with date ranges (see above), number ranges in general, such as page ranges, should state the full value of both the beginning and end of the range, with an en dash between, e.g. pp. 1902–1911 or entries 342–349. Forms such as 1901–11 and 342–9 may be used where space is limited (such as in tables and infoboxes), or where a citation style formally requires it...."
However, this is not consistent with WP:CITESTYLE, which allows for "non-full value" ranges. Specifically, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) allows for "less than 'full value'" ranges regardless of space limitations. The goal in CMS (and WP) is to provide the reader with consistent, understandable page ranges – and the CMS asks editors to provide at least 2 digits in the second value. Thus, "112–13" is an acceptable CMS citation, vice "112–3" or "112-113". ("112–113" is acceptable in CMS because it asks for "two or more digits" to complete the citation.) To clear-up this bit of fuzziness, I suggest the following:

"As with date ranges ..., number ranges in general, such as page ranges, should be consistent within articles and comport with to a single WP:CITESTYLE. That is, varieties of page citations (with endashes (e.g. pp. 1902–1911 or pp. 342–49)) are acceptable in different articles. The key guidance is WP:CITEVAR – once particular style is chosen, all citations in the particular article should comport in order to obtain consistency."

– S. Rich (talk) 06:22, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

The CMS is not our MoS. Ignore it and use the MoS we have here. - SchroCat (talk) 06:24, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh? I think WP:CITESTYLE says "While citations should aim to provide the information listed above, Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style. A number of citation styles exist including those described in the Wikipedia articles for Citation, APA style, ASA style, MLA style, The Chicago Manual of Style, Author-date referencing, the Vancouver system and Bluebook." [emphasis added]. – S. Rich (talk) 06:32, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Oh? We have a clear guideline on how to number pages, based on an RfC. Stop trying to cherry pick a preferred style when we have something from a community decision that says otherwise. (Just for the record, I don't particularly like the decision, which seems to be the worst sort of micro-management, but as it stands, 100-111 is the "correct" format.) - SchroCat (talk) 06:48, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Back in 2016, a few editors couldn't remember when or where that discussion was.[5] That year there was an RFC on date ranges. Was that later extended to page ranges or generalised to all number ranges? A 2017 discussion seemed unaware of it. 79.73.240.196 (talk) 10:25, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with S. Rich. Tony (talk) 07:13, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Matching commas on attributive nouns in titles

Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:MOS#Matching commas on attributive nouns in titles. --Izno (talk) 12:04, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

What about days of the week?

I'm not sure this belongs here, but I just discovered this question in The Teahouse.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:15, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Obelus “÷”

I missed where and how was the symbol adopted to en.Wikipedia. When I made hundreds edits to various math—namely, in 2009–14—the standard notation for division was “/” (possibly with some variants). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:50, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Era style

Section Era style begins with

The default calendar era is the Western Dionysian era system, ...

Clicking through finds one at the ole Anno Domini article. That terrible article so intimately associated with religion. I suppose that is the reason for the synthesized phrase to cover over this historical awkwardness?

That certainly sounds strong, but truly, why invent this phrase as substitution? I can find instances of "Dionysian era". But strangely, there is no article apart from Anno Domini that explains what that might mean. And I can find no mentions of "Western Dionysian era system" at all. Oh, and even Dionysian era is simply a redirect to Anno Domini.

For someone still amazed at the AD/BC BCE/CE kerfuffle, this seems rather straining at a gnat to avoid mentioning the dread AD thing. Shenme (talk) 04:24, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

But the reference you give says that the Dionysian era foreshadows the modern (?!) Anno Domini system. So it is just wrong to use "Dionysian" to refer to the modern calendar, which is based on a botched attempt to calculate the date of birth of Jesus, a person for whom the historical evidence is extremely tenuous. But that is what it is based on, so we should say it. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:37, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Make Wikipedia consistently metric

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Since this is an international encyclopedia, I propose as a rule that only metric units should be used. There should be no mention of imperial units, unless the article is relating to the U.S. and U.K. I also propose for articles relating to the U.S. and U.K., that metric units always be used first, with imperial units in parenthesis. The madness has to stop. Sauer202 (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

• Proposal: In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States or the United Kingdom, the primary units chosen will be SI units and non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sauer202 (talk • contribs) 16:02, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for same reason we don't force dates nor spelling due to region. If there's a choice (in that RSes covering the topic consistently use either SI or not) then we should prefer metric, but to force this is brewing for trouble. --Masem (t) 16:43, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
• Comment The "Proposal" isn't very well or clearly worded, & doesn't seem to say what the initial spiel does: "a rule that only metric units should be used". A rule saying that metric units should always be given, even if imperial ones also are, might have a better chance of success. Note that some other (rather small) countries continue to use the mile for example. Johnbod (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• rule saying that metric units should always be given, even if imperial ones also are – we already have such a rule, more or less: MOS:CONVERSIONS. EEng 17:01, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

And the other way too - who knew? Thanks. Johnbod (talk) 17:21, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Metric units for List of heat waves

WP:METRIC doesn't quite address pages that are geographically diverse: I see wiggle room in the sentence "In non-scientific articles relating to the United States, the primary units are US customary". I posted on Talk:List of heat waves#Celsius first? soliciting comment, but I'd like to clarify the MOS guidance for other articles too. The MOS should emphasize consistency, as a list of heat waves from India to Boston to Tokyo shouldn't flip-flop based on the unit of measurement used where the temperature was recorded. I'd like to clarify "relating to the United States" to mean "U.S.-centric" articles". Any objections or things I didn't think of?-Ich (talk) 12:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

The flip-flopping in that article between F and C is quite silly. Consistency trumps other rules. I see no reason not to use deg C as the primary unit throughout, but consistently deg F would be better than the present schizophrenia. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:51, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Please stop dragging Trump into everything. EEng 00:16, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

• This is about as stupid as it gets; give all temperatures as XX °C (YY °F) and be done with it. While we're here: writing such as "the mercury peaking at" and "claimed the lives" and "the heatwave blew transformers and the power grid was overloaded" have no place in articles; write "temperatures reached" and "killed" and "power systems failed". (Very few people know what "the grid" actually is, or what it means for a transformer to "blow", which rarely happens in these circumstances.) EEng 21:13, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
• Agreed that consistency intra-article is king. This is already said at the main MOS page: Style and formatting should be consistent within an article. --Izno (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Absolutely. There izno reason to switch back and forth. EEng 21:43, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

• The quote for "articles relating to the United States" means that the article is primarily concerned about the US. If the US is just one country among others then it is not primarily a US article and therefore metric is king. Of course, there is no prohibition from using {{cvt|45|C|F}} → 45 °C (113 °F) or {{cvt|115|F|C|order=flip}} → 46 °C (115 °F) - with metric first of course.  Stepho  talk  22:25, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks - I'll add the word "primarily" to the MOS if nobody objects.-Ich (talk) 08:35, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  No doubt someone will, but go ahead. EEng 11:54, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

  @EEng: You weren't kidding. I appreciate your sense of humor! I like the wp:ties formulation better too.-Ich (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

  Du bist welcome. EEng 06:32, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

ERA style solutions

Since there are still problems with era style I have been brainstorming potential fixes.

Many people find the use of BCE/CE to be offensive, or difficult to understand. However there are some people that insist don't like to use other era styles.

• The fix could be this (I'm sorry if I get some of the technical terms wrong);
• Add formatting to the edit toolbar that will allow editors to type the year. The formatting will be coding that can display any format depending on preference.
• Users on the site will select the era style that they prefer when they login.
• The coding will automatically display all dates in their selected format.

Something like this would be better for all users. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickgold81 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Bots could err, for example miss the other meanings of CE or change the era when it's inside block quotes. I think it might be slightly more feasible if an editor manually and deliberately uses code that signals that there is a changeable era (ideas from Help:Convert might be a starting point). But I think it might be even more feasible to do nothing, unless the "problem" of the current current WP:ERA compromise is big. I don't know that it is. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:13, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Nonstarter. We originally had auto formatting of MDY vs DMY dates based on user preference but that was abandoned 10+ years ago. People just gotta learn to accept things. EEng 14:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

  To be fair, the DMY/MDY debacle was mostly due to the formatting issue of how to handle MDY's comma - which was highly context sensitive. Selecting BC/BCE or AD/CE/blank doesn't have that problem.  Stepho  talk  20:59, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

  Whatever the story details, there is more chance of Jupiter leaving its orbit than there is of date autoformatting of any kind being reinstated. One thing people need to remember is that 98% [note: pretty much made-up number] of people reading articles aren't logged in. We big-time editors forget that. So all this talk of "readers" customizing what they see is almost completely incestuous. EEng 21:42, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• It is good for people to see that there is a world beyond the boundaries of the Shire that has many different perspectives. If we start bowdlerising, where does it end? For people whose eyeballs melt at the sight of a CE, then there is the isolation ward called Conservapedia. Oppose. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:22, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Accirding to our article, Conservapedia's founder thinks WP has a "substantial anti-intellectual element. EEng 15:30, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• Reading material: User:Dabomb87/Summary of the Date Linking RFCs. This material doesn't get into era; it's largely about 2019-07-04 vs. 4 July 2019 vs. July 4, 2019. But the problems of reformatting dates depending on user preference is the same. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

• With the improvement in technology over the years it's likely more feasible now to add formatting to allow for era preferences. Recommendation: find an editor that is knowledgeable about writing code about adding this feature. To me it seems like it's possible. On a side note similar formatting could also be used for imperial or metric measurements. Let's kill 2 birds with one stone.
• The bot solution also seems like a good option.
• For the readers that don't login there could be a preference menu added as a header to each page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nickgold81 (talk • contribs) 06:36, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Or "nonstarter", as EEng cogently explains. FWIW, personally the "CE/BCE" thing annoys me, because it is so utterly stupid. If a secular society requires all traces of religious history to be expunged (a nasty, dangerous concept in iteself), we can call Wednesday "midweek", and Tuesday "washday", but what on earth do we do with Thursday? But we live in a stupid world, so it's important that WP conveys that. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:03, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Traditionally:

Monday - washing day,

Tuesday - ironing day,

Wednesday - mending day,

Thursday - cleaning day,

Friday - shopping day,

Saturday - cooking day,

Sunday - rest day.

Thursday and Friday are swapped in some sources, presumably it depends upon when the local market day was. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:53, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

This article should not fork wp:ERA

The section on Days and Months, Era style, should not fork WP:ERA by asserting a preference for one religious notation. There is a revert war going on which needs to be discussed here. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:13, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Why did you restore "citation needed" diff? The text is trying to say that a date like 1 April 2019 does not need an era specification—by default, none of the interesting alternatives at calendar era apply. What is the problem, and why should cn be used in a guideline? Johnuniq (talk) 09:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

John Maynard Friedman, could you be more specific? I followed WP:ERA and it took me to this very article's section on Days and Months, Era style. So how can they differ? Also, when I read it, I saw credence being given to both BC/AD and BCE/CE with no preference. So I don't see the preference for one religious notation unless you are talking about the preference of the Western style over other styles such as Middle Eastern, Japanese, Chinese dates.  Stepho  talk  09:53, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

This is a guideline, not an article. The title of this section, "This article should not fork wp:ERA" as of 09:53, 13 July 2019‎ UT, significantly errs by calling the work in question an article when it is actually a guideline, because WP:V applies to articles but not to guidelines.

The term "fork", in computing projects of all sort, tends to refer to one project dividing into two (or more) due to disagreements among the developers. In the English Wikipedia, it tends to refer to a situation where no agreement can be reached about what should be said on a page, so two pages are created, where the different viewpoints can exist in isolation. This has happened with Anno Domini and Common Era. Contradictions within a single page are not normally called "forks", they are usually called "contradictions".

The contentious {{Citation needed}} template was added 04:12, 11 June 2019 UT by Shenme. The gist of the edit summaries seems to indicate a dispute not over the operational advice given, but with the term "Western Dionysian era system", which (perhaps ironically) is wikilinked to "Anno Domini". The objection by some seems to be this phrase is invented by a few Wikipedians and nobody else uses it. The accusation seems to be that Wikipedians are so anti-Christian that they refuse to call a concept by the name everybody else uses, "Anno Domini". Jc3s5h (talk) 10:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• Eh. I took a shot at fixing it. Just say the default is both. The years pop out the same, according to Common Era. --Izno (talk) 13:32, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
• This tern "Western Dionysian" sounds impressively scholarly but I can't find it anywhere; it appears to be just made up and there Izno reason to use it that I can see. The key changes (all in May 2009) were: [6] and [7] and [8] and those diffs may be handy in making further adjustments to the guideline. EEng 13:45, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• First, a credible citation request was reverted without reasonable explanation. Others reinstated and it was again reverted without reasonable explanation That is why I repeated the reinstatement. Procedural. Second, and to my mind more important, is the attempt to imply that the AD notation has primacy. Per wp:era, it does not. I have no intention of reprising the debate that led to wp:era being established. The fact remains that it is policy and the MOS should not be used to weasel-word around it. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:18, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  First, stop referring to this guideline as an article; it's not an article. Second, what did you mean by "this article" forking WP:ERA? This is the talk page for MOSNUM, and ERA is part of MOSNUM. EEng 16:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  On re-reading, I see that I mis-construed WP:ERA as a policy, when it just redirects to MOS:ERA. I have stricken my comment above and withdraw. My apologies to anyone whose time I wasted. --19:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

  Whoever came up with the idea of having MOS: and WP: as parallel namespaces is burning in hell even as we speak. EEng 19:30, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

• The 'term' "Western Dionysian era" stood out like a sore thumb. As did EEng, I looked to see what the hey this meant. It has little or no status here at WP, inasmuch as the only explications are as by-blow in the article on the person and in Anno Domini. It fails as description. It might as well be "Iatrogenic idiopathic conjugate", which would describe this 'term' well. That is what caught my eye, not WP:V but rather the WP:BS aspect (ah, artfully redirected to something insipid). And that is what forced a "why would someone do this?" comment. It really did appear to be used solely to submerge the linked term. I thought the comment made that clear enough.

My irritation re: BC/BCE is entirely congruous with my irritation at all the shallow editing here at WP, both the judgementless and judgemental varieties. MOS:VAR utterly fails when brains are not engaged, and also when inspired editors must deposit their vowel movements / movement vowels. Scan any page of RecentChanges not dominated by bots - you will see at least one instance of someone translating WP to Simple English / Golden Shower. Shenme (talk) 19:40, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, well, um ... shall we move on to other business? EEng 19:54, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Available formats

2007/04/15
2007.04.15
15-Apr-2007

These should be acceptable, In contrast, there is no common usage in which 2007/04/03 represents anything other than April 3.

So here should be the date format in each order

Date order	Date Format
D/M/Y	30/Apr/2024
M/D/Y	Apr/30/2024
Y/M/D	2024/04/30

Why is YYYY/MM/DD date format still unacceptable?, even if the format is not ambiguous.--98.31.29.4 (talk) 19:51, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Look near the top of this talk page for the "Archives" box. You will see the phrase "Years and dates" with a little blue [show] button next to it. Click the [show] button. You will find 14 archive pages with year and date related discussions. Read them. If you still have questions, come back and ask your informed question(s). Jc3s5h (talk) 16:10, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

50's

@LilHelpa:, etc. MOS:DECADE is discriminatory against my method of writing English. I added 50's to the lead of 1950s. I would like to request that someone change MOS:DECADE to be more compassionate. On Wiktionary, 50's is considered an alternate form ([9]), not a misspelling. This is my viewpoint on the issue. I don't want to discuss it any more because you're just going to beat me up. Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:33, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• If you're going to start a discussion (which is what you've done here), you should generally be willing to discuss it further, or else all you wind up with is a bunch of people talking at the wall. Who do you think is going to beat you up, and why? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:56, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

(Adding the ping that I forgot: Geographyinitiative). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:57, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Geographyinitiative, you're the same guy who was fussing that curly quote marks are somehow significant. You need to accept that WP, like every publication, has its house style. Save the talk of discrimination and compassion for things that matter. EEng 14:37, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"There’s no requirement for the apostrophe before the “S” in decade names like 50s and 60s, since there are no omitted letters, though it’s also acceptable to include one." (my emphasis) ([10]) "Alternative" ([11]). I am communicating in my native language when I write "50's". Geographyinitiative (talk) 04:43, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Did you not notice that "Graceland" omits the apostrophe in its text, and uses it only in its heading? Dbfirs 17:50, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

This is not graceland.com (your first link). At Wikipedia, people follow the MOS guideline. One benefit is that the MOS approach to apostrophes is correct. Johnuniq (talk) 05:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

No, the MOS guideline isn't necessarily correct, and isn't necessarily followed. WP:MOS says of itself: ... is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply... Its content is based solely on the opinions of those editors who self-select to promote their views - but there are other views and opinions out there too. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:30, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The lede presently starts with "The 1950s (pronounced nineteen-fifties; commonly abbreviated as the fifties (among other variants))". I see nothing wrong with explaining that one of those other variants is '50s so that when readers encounter that variant (outside wikipedia) they understand what it means. I deliberately put the apostrophe where it belongs. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 06:55, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I humbly submit that in the English language, '50's' is an acceptable alternative method of writing this word. Graceland is a part of the English speaking world, and to act as if it is not is to hurt the feelings of a portion of the English speaking population, particularly my own feelings. It is to treat my native dialect and linguistic understanding as trash. I would like to assert that I am not trash- I am merely writing in my native language. We, the ones who write '50's', are legitimate enough for Wiktionary to call us "alternative" ([12]). I refer you to my above comments where I wrote: "There’s no requirement for the apostrophe before the “S” in decade names like 50s and 60s, since there are no omitted letters, though it’s also acceptable to include one." (my emphasis) These are the words of an educator. Please be considerate to us, and let me use the wording I have chosen to use. It's my language too. I don't want to be blocked, so if I am getting close to being blocked, let me know and I will stop communicating. I know it may seem silly, but I feel somewhat passionate about this. 50's is the way I've written it all my life as far as I remember. You're telling me Graceland is too stupid to know what the English language abbreviation for fifties is? The 50's is their whole shebang. They must be really dumb! How come their customers don't realize the errors on their website? It's all rubes huh? Please don't block me! Thanks for your time! This is just my personal opinion, could be wrong!! Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

@Dondervogel 2: there is no one incontrovertibly correct way to use apostrophes, and the way they are used varies between different "flavours" of English. You may prefer one convention, but that doesn't mean others are not equally valid. We could equally add, regardless of the views of any one 'expert' in Englis grammar, that another real-world variant is 50's. Remember, Wikipedia is not a text book and is not a soapbox. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:42, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm no expert in English grammar. I just happen to remember what I was taught at school and I believe my English teacher was an expert in English grammar. For the sake of argument let's just assume she was wrong (who knows?). In that situation I fall back on the purpose of MOS, which is to promote a consistent house style across English Wikipedia. That house style is not 50s, not 50's, not '50s, but 1950s. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:12, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, @Geographyinitiative:, you are wrong & so is Graceland. I’ve never heard of Graceland, but Graceland is probably a private website with no style editor. I don’t believe your use of “stupid” is the right word, but “ignorant” is, & I don’t mean that to be inflammatory, but it is the most correct word in this instance. You, like I believe the majority of people, were never corrected or didn’t heed any correction on this matter, so please allow me to explain apostrophe usage in these cases: 50s/1950s are the plurals (just like every other word), 50’s/1950’s is singular possessive (like 1950’s top hits meaning only the top hits of the year 1950, versus top hits of the 1950s meaning all of the top hits for the decade of the 1950s), & 50s’/1950s’ is plural possessive (the 1950s’ top hits). This is all elementary school English, which too many people have forgotten.Stereorock (talk) 21:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

To me, stuff like “1950's” (meaning 1950–1959) should be discouraged as a potential confusion (ambiguity) with possessive case. This “alternative” serves nothing but habits and unfounded personal preferences by some Wikipedians. “1950s” has at least two advantages more: it directly corresponds to fifties (neither *fifty's nor *fiftie's, etc.) and occupies less space. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 08:44, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

”50’s” is incorrect when used as a plural, period. 50’s just means something belonging to 50. 50s means the number range from 50-59, so 1950s would be the date range from 1950-1959. 1950’s & 50’s is unacceptable in your current case & should never be considered! There is already enough poor syntax in English without further encouragement to be wrong.Stereorock (talk) 11:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Has anyone checked whether this kind of behavior is linked to phases of the moon? EEng 16:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Negative percentages?

Is it acceptable to use a hyphen as a negative sign in percentages like -27.9%? —Bobbychan193 (talk) 21:22, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

• Use − not hyphen. If your question is whether you can have negative percentages, the answer is yes. EEng 22:49, 22 July 2019 (UTC)
• @Bobbychan193: If you use hyphen - WP:AWB-users will change it. If you use − - AWB-users will change it to unicode. Use − (e.g. with {{subst:minus}}). Christian75 (talk) 23:46, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  AWB users need to stop fucking with everything. Changing hyphen to minus is helpful. Changing a symbolic − to a literal minus means that later editors will have a hard time telling whether the right character is present, because hyphen, minus, and various dashes are can be difficult to distinguish in the edit window. Use − and if some mindless AWB user changes it to a literal, tell them to mind their own business. EEng 04:31, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

  AWB will not change the explicit template (even if I find it dubious that AWB will actually make this substitution automatically-probably one worth requesting not to be done on Phab if indeed it happens). --Izno (talk) 20:58, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

2019 El Paso shooting

In the following phrase in the article 2019 El Paso shooting, should "2 and 9" be spelled out as "two and nine"? Two children, ages 2 and 9

Let me know what you think. —Bobbychan193 (talk) 00:02, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• I could swear we used to have a guideline saying that ages are always in digits, not words. Or maybe I saw it in some other style guide. Anyway I think it's a good idea, given that we do say Comparable quantities should be all spelled out or all in figures, even if one of the numbers would normally be written differently. EEng 15:02, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Found a talk discussion wherein it was decided to remove the rule on personal age: [[13]]. Certainly in a list of ages, they'd all be in digits: Their ages were 3, 9, 14, and 22. EEng 15:11, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Age ranges?

Should it be Children (0–6 years old) or Children (zero to six years old)? The latter, while in accordance with spelling out integers from zero to nine, could be unintuitive and/or distracting to the average reader. —Bobbychan193 (talk) 21:20, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Children under six years old or maybe Children six years old and younger depending on what exactly is meant. (I thought there was something on the page specifically about ages, but I don't see it.) EEng 22:22, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes to EEng's suggestion. The "zero" is pretty bad. Just one point, though: the wording "children under X years old" I see quite a lot out there, but it's not logical, because the intended meaning is always that those who have turned six are included (i.e., what I would call under seven), not those who are under six. I'd deprecate that usage. "Up to six" is the most succinct and accurate, do people agree? Tony (talk) 08:11, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I interpret "Children under 6 years old" to mean they have not yet reached their 6th birthday. That is also what I expect it to mean in an encyclopaedia. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 08:20, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Agreeing with Dondervogel 2: "children under six (years old)" have not yet reached their sixth birthday. Compare "people under 18 (or 21) cannot ..." for the same. Doremo (talk) 08:30, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Under that system, what does "children over six years old" mean? Tony (talk) 10:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I interpret "Children over 6 years old" to mean they have yet reached their 7th birthday. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:08, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"Children over six" might mean ≥ 7 or ≥ 6; I find it ambiguously used in practice. If it means ≥ 6, I prefer "children six and up" or "children six and older." In contrast, "children under six" is unambiguously < 6 (at least for me). Doremo (talk) 11:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

To me, "children over six" means persons who have reached their sixth birthday but are not yet considered adults. I agree there could be some ambiguity there, so rephrasing as Doremo suggests would be better. CThomas³ (talk) 11:36, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"Children over six years old" usually means children who have passed their sixth birthday, "over-sixties" usually means people aged 60 or more (not 61 or more, or 70 or more) and so on. Yes, it's not always obvious, so some organisations will use other phrases. Here's Transport for London using "60+" and "60 or over", while here's the UK government distinguishing between "under 16" and "over 16" with no space between.

However, this is really a matter of understanding sources, not our MOS. I've only found one example of "children over six years old" in an English-language Wikipedia article, and now that I've read Potulice concentration camp, well, I probably do know what's meant but it doesn't seem very important any more. 80.41.128.7 (talk) 12:24, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

There is actually a substantial number of these in English WP: over 6, over six, over 5, over five, etc. Doremo (talk) 13:16, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I think birth to six years old would be a good choice and it is directly equivalent to zero to six years old. -- DeFacto (talk). 11:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the above editor. Describing a human being as 'zero' years old is nonsensical anyway from a biological point of view. Fortnum (talk) 17:15, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

While birth to x years is best in running text, zero years old certainly makes sense. A 14-month-old baby is 1 years 2 months old, and a 2-month-old baby is 0 years 2 months old. You might use those numbers in a table. EEng 17:26, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Did you know that a Chiitan is a 0-year-old fairy baby? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:48, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Fractions in chess articles

@Quale: Greetings! For your benefit and any other editors who are interested, let me explain what happened...

I've been changing ½ to {{frac|1|2}} (1⁄2) in general articles, following MOS:FRAC. Quale reverted these changes on Tata Steel Chess Tournament, Tilburg chess tournament, FIDE Grand Prix 2008–10, Russian Chess Championship, and Tal Memorial, saying they were too visually clunky for chess scores, or out of proportion. The MOS guideline says to never use ½; {{frac}} is not used for math articles; by my reading that's what is supposed to be used in general articles. It would be nice to come to some consensus about how chess articles should be handled - should they follow the existing rule, or should the rule be changed so they would use ½ or {{sfrac}} (1/2) or something else? -- Beland (talk) 16:35, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

I should mention, there are lots of other articles that have ½ in tables, so if we're making a new rule, we might want to make one that applies to tables in general, if it's a typographic size concern. -- Beland (talk) 16:37, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

As I understand it, the objection to ½ is the fact that Unicode does not provide similar representations of other fractions. If you're dealing with halves and twelfths (for example), it looks odd to mix ½ and 1⁄12 (or in fact any other means of representing "one twelfth" in Unicode). When this is the reason to avoid it, allowing the ½ in tables doesn't make a lot of sense in the general case.

OTOH, in chess, the only fraction you're ever likely to use is "½", a symbol with a specific meaning in that context (match drawn).

Per the banner at the top of the page, MOSNUM is "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". If in the specific context of chess there is good reason to make an exception to this rule (because it's standard notation and the reasons not to use it do not apply), then it seems to me that that falls within the bounds of "occasional exceptions may apply". Kahastok talk 17:34, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

OK, given that rationale, for the existing line:

• Do not use special characters such as ½ (deprecated markup: ½ or ½).

does it make sense to add something like:

• Unicode does not have special characters to represent most fractions, and it is better to be consistent than have a mixture like ½ and 5⁄8 in the same article, since those are often rendered in different sizes.
  • For the purpose of keeping row height consistent, it is OK acceptable to use ½ in tables if that is the only fraction that would be expected to appear in the article (for example, in summarizing chess matches)

    ? -- Beland (talk) 20:31, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

    "OK" is not formal English. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

    Project pages aren't formal. But this if that is the only fraction that would be expected stuff is too fussy. I think it's OK for the precomposed fraction to be used in this special chess case, but I don't think we need a MOS section for it. AFAICS this hasn't been a problem before. EEng 22:21, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

For myself, I always prefer what is easier to read in the wiki text. an isolated ½ is a lot easier to read than {{frac|1|2}} or {{sfrac|1|2}}. However, if I was making a table with lots of weird fractions (eg 13/17) than I would make all of the TABLE use frac or sfrac for consistency (it's hard to read something that changes format every second line).

But I remember that previous discussions on this said that software that reads screens out to people with impaired vision had trouble with ½ and friends. Or possibly it was that they had trouble with whatever tortured HTML/CSS construct was emitted from the frac and sfrac templates. We should ask for the opinion of some vision impaired people.  Stepho  talk  22:49, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Compare the current Tata Steel Chess Tournament#Event crosstables (using ½) with the frac version (which has an extra 66,206 bytes of wikitext!). The version using ½ is much clearer. See "The character "½" is one of the few fraction characters that consistently works well with screen readers (the others are "¼" and "¾")" by Graham87 from August 2014. Johnuniq (talk) 23:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

A web page from 2014 lists the following as the only safe characters for the major screen readers: @ & / © ® ™ • $ € £ ¥ % ½ ¼ ¾ °. So ½ ¼ ¾ should be okay. But I still hold to not mixing those characters and frac or sfrac within a single table.

John, I'm not which I prefer of those 2 tables. One has tiny little characters that I have to squint a little to read. The other has clearly readable characters for my ageing eyes (my prescription is changing slowly every year) but no white space and they run into each and seem crowded. The point is taken for the extra disk space taken but I don't believe we should compromise the reader's experience. As a professional programmer, I am paid to make the end user's experience better, not my own.  Stepho  talk  00:59, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I have to say that I think the table using {{frac}} is much more readable; I don't think we should be using the single character here. Another good option is using an inline 1/2, especially if it's not part of a mixed number so there's no risk of misreading. Even 0.5 could be used. But we really should be going for readability as the main factor here. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not a beauty competition—the aim is to convey chess scores in a concise and clear manner, on the assumption that the reader knows a little about chess. Using the character ½ means all the cells have a uniform and concise appearance, and the ½ is in proper proportion to its importance. Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Except using the precomposed character isn't clear, and it's only a few pixels more concise. And I don't even understand the "proper proportion to its importance" bit. Are you saying by making the text more readable, we're somehow subtly exaggerating its importance? What? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 04:33, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Part of what I've been trying to do is make wikitext easier to use for editors (who are almost entirely unpaid volunteers) who don't know HTML or much about template syntax, in which case the single character is probably nicer. Though there's something to be said for having only one way of doing something, so everyone just learns that once, and we need templates for some fractions. Part of me wonders if readers who are having trouble reading small print shouldn't just increase the zoom level in their web browsers. That's what I do; everyone's screen size and resolution is different. (Though I'm also sympathetic to the idea that having text be consistently the same size would be helpful.) -- Beland (talk) 01:39, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Then also on a side note, having all these tables hard-coded is pretty ludicrous. There really should be templates (possibly driven by a module) for these. This would probably even make entering new data or modifying existing data to be easier than trying to mess with table syntax. It would also give a consistent style to these tables across all articles that use them. Then a decision to change from one style of 1/2 to another could be handled in one single location, rather than having to modify every single table. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:58, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

• I understand why editors sometimes want to replace ½ with 1⁄2 in chess articles to better comply with the dictates of MOS, but I don't think it's a good idea and I don't think it improves the articles or the encyclopedia. I also don't understand the claim that 1⁄2 is easier to read than ½ in these articles, since there's nothing to read. In a chess score ½ is an atom, an indivisible particle. This is a chess score, not a math equation, and the value will never be 1⁄3 or 3⁄4 – there's absolutely nothing to read or parse out of that symbol. (When reporting individual game scores in a crosstable sometimes = can be used instead of ½, but this doesn't work with tournament or match total scores since = has a different meaning there.) Basically the reason that 1⁄2 is unfortunate in chess scores is that in the continuum of the scores 1, 1⁄2, and 0, the highest score is 1 and the lowest score is 0, but 1⁄2 is wide and tall (obtruding above the line height and below the baseline) making it visually a couple times bulkier than 1. It's a bad idea to make a smaller score so much taller and wider than the higher score because this makes chess scores harder to read, not easier. The fact that ½ is visually small is ideal in this context, since 3, 2½, 2, 1½, 1, ½, 0 reads naturally and the visual impact of the scores is in line with their value. We naturally see that 2½ is a little larger than 2, not more than two times larger (21⁄2), and ½ is a little smaller than 1, not two times bigger (1⁄2). Compare 3, 21⁄2, 2, 11⁄2, 1, 1⁄2, 0. Frankly, that's awful, and if anyone thinks that's a better visual representation of the value of the scores then I will simply have to disagree. Quale (talk) 06:18, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

  I'm somewhat more than ½ convinced that in a chess context ½ is, as Quale says, a "particle" akin to, say, ♣ in contract bridge. EEng 06:44, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

  I think the previous poster meant "harder to read" in the sense of "the 1 and the 2 are so small I have to squint or get closer to the screen to see what they even are", not in terms of an overall harmonious aestheic where the tops and bottoms of all the characters in a line align nicely. -- Beland (talk) 18:57, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It seems clear that chess articles should be an exception as the ½ is the only fraction which will occur in articles and is a character which screen readers can handle, and the articles and their tables look better when this character is used. To avoid future confusion it would be useful to state this explicitly in the paragraph of MOSNUM on fractions. PamD 06:54, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree on the last point. There is no way that MOSNUM can sustainably include every topic-specific exception to every rule - and if we tried, we'd end up with a guideline that would be far too long and far too complicated and we'd miss out too much. This is precisely why we have a banner at the top, that says:

“ This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.

”

OTOH, it may not be a bad idea for WP:CHESS to add something to their conventions section preferring this notation. Kahastok talk 08:11, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that might work - something which acknowledges the existence of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Fractions_and_ratios, draws attention to the hatnote quoted above, and states that chess articles are considered to be an exception within the scope of that hatnote as regards the use of ½. Then there's something explicit to point to next time the question comes up. PamD 08:35, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Suggested addition to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Chess#Conventions

Use of ½

The ½ character is used to represent drawn matches. Although MOS:FRAC deprecates its use and requires {{frac|1|2}} (1⁄2), the hatnote to WP:MOSNUM states that "Occasional exceptions may occur" and this is such an exception.

I'm not a chess project member, just a passing wikignome, so the wording probably needs tweaking, but something like this might help. Could optionally include another sentence to explain the thinking, something like:

It is recognised that ½ will be the only fraction occurring in chess articles, so that considerations of consistency, and of problems caused for screen-readers by other fraction characters, do not apply here.

PamD 08:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I thought this had been discussed some years ago at WT:CHESS, but my brief search didn't find a substantive discussion. I still think it was tossed around once or twice, but I might have to look harder. I did see that the issue was discussed here in August 2014: WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 148#Use of frac template. Quale (talk) 04:23, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

The chess usage of "½" is a specific symbol used with a specific technical meaning in a specific field. That meaning is different than its usual mathematical meaning. In that sense it is similar to the use of repeated zeros in the American wire gauge: a specific technical notation using the same characters, rather than a mathematical error of incorrectly specifying too many leading zeros in a decimal number. On that basis, I think we should allow the chess articles to format this technical symbol in the way that it is commonly formatted in the chess literature, which I believe is with the "½" character (or in older works limited to typewriter characters, "1/2") rather than with other mathematical formats representing the mathematical fraction 1/2. And as PamD says, the reasons for avoiding this symbol for its mathematical meanings do not apply to its chess meaning, because chess does not use any other fractions. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:37, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Wire gauges are a great analogy. EEng 04:20, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

There should be a guidance to write people's age

Age is kind of something odd to write. Do you write "He was 50 years old", "He was 50-years-old", "He was 50 years-old", "He was fifty years old", "He was 50 years of age", "His age was fifty", etc.? "Their ages were 50, 55, and 60", "Their ages were fifty, fifty-five, and sixty", "They were of 50, 55, and 60 years of age", "They were 50, 55, and 60 years old", "They were 50-years-old, 55, and 60"? There should be some guidance in the mos. --Thinker78 (talk) 18:57, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Except for in "fifty-five", the use of hyphens seems extraordinary and not something I've encountered. "50-year-old" yes, but not what you've given. Can you give instances of such hyphen usage in literature, or are your examples hypothetical in nature? Dhtwiki (talk) 04:16, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

It is a hypothetical doubt people may have.--Thinker78 (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Definitely non-standard here in the UK. MOS already has guidance on writing numbers, but hardly needs to point out incorrect usage of hyphens. The basic rule is never use hyphens except when they are needed. Dbfirs 17:28, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

So you're a hyphen-hater? EEng 18:01, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

On the contrary: I retain hyphens for clarity in words such as e-mail, co-ordinate, co-worker, and mis-spelling. Modern writers omit these, but I've never tried to ork a cow. I wouldn't know how. Dbfirs 18:08, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I prefer "coördinate". It flusters people. Fortnum (talk) 14:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Contentious edit reinstated, seemingly against policy

EEng reverted my revert of their edit. I reverted their edit because it was contentious and according to the Edit policy, "uncontentious clarification, may be made by any editor at any time". I objected to their edit because the AP style guide advises to use only figures when writing about age. My objection made their edit contentious, and I reverted the edit. But EEng proceeded to revert my revert, which seems to be against the edit policy. --Thinker78 (talk) 22:38, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Instead of worrying about the reinstatement of the revert of the edit which undid the change, do you want to say anything about the guideline itself? As I mentioned in my edit summary, MOS primarily tries to capture current best practice, and for now that's that in running text, we give ages in words or figures just as with anything else. EEng 23:26, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn’t wedded to a single style guide; as EEng points out, it uses consensus-based best practice, especially when the major guides give contrary advice. For example, the Chicago Manual of Style recommends that numbers under 100 be spelled out and makes no exception for ages, though it does give guidance that it’s usual to use numerals in lists, in tables, and in any context where an abundance of numbers makes spelling them out awkward. CMOS also allows for flexibility: If you’re juggling a bunch of numbers within the same paragraph or series of paragraphs, be flexible with the number style if doing so will improve clarity and comprehension. For example, use one number style for items in one category and another style for another category: “I read four books with more than 400 pages, sixty books with more than 100 pages, and a hundred articles with fewer than 4 pages.” CThomas³ (talk) 08:09, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia's MOS is consensus based, but not that it is necessarily best practice. It is purely the consensus amongst the self-selected and very small minority of Wikipedians who choose to participate in the MOS talkpage discussions and who will not necessarily be familiar with best practice, and who may not even understand or be fully versed the subject, and worse still; who may have an ulterior motive for pushing a particular POV.

And talking about consensus; where was the consensus developed to keep this particular contentious change? My view is that an example involving a case still under discussion should be avoided. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:36, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Cthomas3 My point is that if I reverted the edit because I had other thoughts, my revert should not have been reverted without a proper discussion, per policy. Thinker78 (talk) 04:23, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Thinker78, that's true, EEng could (and perhaps should) have come here first prior to reverting you. On the other hand, rather than reverting EEng's edit, you could have brought your concerns directly to this page and opened a thread about it. Rather than make this discussion about whose revert was right and whose revert was wrong, isn’t the important thing what the guideline actually says? CThomas³ (talk) 16:17, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

It is my understanding that if someone makes an edit and any editor objects, the latter editor should revert to the original text so editors are not confounded by guidelines and policies changed with no discussion, only to be proven that such change doesn't reflect wide community consensus. That is why the policy says "uncontentious clarification", I believe. The onus to start the discussion is on the editor who first changed things. Thinker78 (talk) 05:17, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

IMO, Thinker78 is correct. WP:BRD should apply anyway but it is applies cubed when the article in question is an MOS. The change that Eeng made is very likely to be supported after discussion here but in the meantime it must be removed if challenged. Same rules for everybody. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:50, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

"19th century" in date param throws error

Is there a recommended way to avoid the error on "19th century", e.g., as seen on Zha Jizuo? = paul2520 (talk) 23:40, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

I changed it to "1800s", which is not exactly the same, but probably close enough. Does that work for you? SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:24, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

That seems like the tail wagging the dog, if the template does not produce what you want, you don't have to use it simply write it out without it e.g:

• Chen, Kangqi (19th century). Lang Qian Ji Wen (郎潛紀聞) (in Chinese).

Paul August ☎ 00:35, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

If the works cited on that page are sources that you consulted, were they really editions that were published in the 1600s and 1800s or were they more modern reprints? (did you put on the white cotton gloves to read them?) Give the date of the source that you actually consulted. If you don't know the date don't make one up – 1600s (17th century) and 1800s (19th century) sounds contrived to me.

Using |year=1600s 'works' (no error) but not completely. cs1|2 sees the '1600' part as the year 1600 and the 's' part as a CITEREF disambiguator (used with {{sfn}} and the {{harv}} family templates). Because of this, the cs1|2 citation's metadata is not the same as the visually rendered citation; the 's' is stripped from the date metadata: &rft.date=1600. Consider using circa dates.

Use |script-title= to avoid italicizing Chinese script:

{{cite book|language=Chinese|author=Gu, Yingtai|year=1600s|title=Ming Shi Ji Shi Ben Mo |script-title=明史紀事本末}}

Gu, Yingtai (1600s). Ming Shi Ji Shi Ben Mo 明史紀事本末 (in Chinese). {{cite book}}: Invalid |script-title=: missing prefix (help)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:24, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Lds w.r.t. Trappist the monk's valid question about edition consulted. Perhaps it's digitized? Thanks for the [at least temporary] fix, SchreiberBike, though I do agree with Paul August's comment. Shouldn't (19th century) be valid? = paul2520 (talk) 17:27, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Just so you know, Editor Lds hasn't contributed to en.wiki since 29 November 2018.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:36, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Kilogram vs. kilogramme

WP:ENGVAR allows variations in spelling. {{convert}} works with units like kg, for example:

• {{convert|12.3|kg}} → 12.3 kilograms (27 lb)

A request at convert's talk would like an option to instead display kilogramme, perhaps something like this simulated example:

• {{convert|12.3|kgramme}} → 12.3 kilogrammes (27 lb)

Any thoughts on whether that variation should be supported by convert? Johnuniq (talk) 10:57, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Based on Ngram data, kilogramme is (increasingly) archaic in British English since 1913. It seems that there would be little, if any, legitimate reason to use the -mme spelling in modern English. Doremo (talk) 11:11, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• "Kilogram" is the accepted international spelling, recognised (to the best of my knowledge) in all variants of English. Any departures from that spelling cause unnecessary (and easily avoidable) confusion. They should be avoided for that reason. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• The OED gives only one citation for kilogramme after 1856, and that's 1892. So apparently it went out not just with Victoria, but pretty much with Albert. EEng 13:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)
• Wikipedia should follow what happens in the real world and not try to not suppress it, or try to preempt or set the trend. The use of "kilogramme" may be declining, but it is still in common usage, and the norm in many publications.
  • Examples from news in the past year include: from Reuters UK - [14], [15], [16] and [17]; from the Daily Telegraph - [18], [19], [20] and [21]; from the Belfast Telegraph - [22].
  • The UK government website uses it: [23] (both spellings on the same page!), [24], [25] and [26].

I think we should let the consensus amongst specific article writers decide what spelling they use (per MOS:RETAIN and WP:ENGVAR) and not use our templates to enforce one POV or the dogma of any third-party organisation. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:04, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

There are also plenty of examples of thermometre and diametre in recent sources. That doesn't make these (or kilogramme) acceptable style based on specific article writers' preferences. Wkipedia follows (does not "set") the trend by using kilogram. Doremo (talk) 17:31, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

If you could show that those spellings were in common usage in reliable sources, as with "kilogramme", then you might have a good point. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:02, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

It's one thing to say we embrace all national varieties of English. It's another thing to squander our precious technical resources on indulging an odd preference a few editors might have within a major variety of English. EEng 18:39, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@EEng: do you favour suppressing this current spelling variant then? -- DeFacto (talk). 18:59, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I have no desire to suppress it, but nor do I think that scarce resources should be invested, and the gigantic mass of convert code further burdened, to create code supporting this boutique use case. EEng 20:44, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

While I tend to agree that gramme is a borderline affectation by now, I still challenge the "resources" argument. We're not a for-profit company or even an organized band of volunteers. We're volunteers acting on our own, and our resources are allocated as seems well to each of us individually. If one of us wants to spend his/her time coding up something like this, it cannot be assumed that he/she would otherwise spend the time doing something more valuable.

The point about the complexity of the code base is nevertheless valid, and you might also have added the (small but nonzero) burden on the template users involved in making them read another line of documentation. --Trovatore (talk) 16:20, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DeFacto: The proper way to phrase this question is whether we favor using the spelling that is used by the overwhelming majority of BrE and AmE sources. "Suppression" of an odd (and increasingly archaic) preference is not an issue. Doremo (talk) 19:05, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

@Doremo: I'm not suggesting that we replace the more common spelling with it, I'm asking if the less common, but equally current, spelling should be suppressed and totally supplanted by the more common spelling. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:14, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

• Adding the kilogramme option would be pointless because any editor would be fully justified in changing it to kilogram (see MOS:COMMONALITY: "When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred."). Kilogram is the most commonly used current variant. Doremo (talk) 08:59, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

  Precisely. The only exception I can think of would be a direct quote. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

  @Doremo: no, such a change could be (and should be) reverted if consensus was against it. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:32, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

  There are exceptions to every rule. If a local consensus arises for such an exception so be it, but the purpose of mosnum is to list the rules, not the exceptions. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 23:28, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

  This isn't an exception though, as far as I know Wikipedia allows commonly used spelling variants. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:48, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  In fact, MOS:SPELL#Preferred variants explicitly condones its use: gramme vs gram: gram is the more common spelling; gramme is also possible in British usage. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  re "if consensus was against it": right, so that is the topic of this thread: create consusnsus into MOS. IOW, if this thread concldes 'no need', that's consensus too and the revert would be incorrect. -DePiep (talk) 10:23, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

  @DePiep: no, this is a MOS discussion, I'm talking about consensus at the article. Editors of any article may decide to use the "kilogramme" spelling, as it is a commonly used, and a perfectly valid variant. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:45, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  Once this MOStalk-thread concludes: "'-gramme' is irrelevant", that's a MOS rule. After that there cannot be an article-wide exception, -DePiep (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  @DePiep: that is incorrect, local consensus can, and often does, decide to deviate from MOS recommendations (i.e. they are not policies). -- DeFacto (talk). 18:54, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  Whatever. If you look for MOS-exceptions, go ahead. I myself prefer MOS-guidance. -DePiep (talk) 18:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  @DePiep: I'm not looking for an exception, I'm pointing out that as it is currently a perfectly valid spelling (see MOS:SPELL), then the template would ideally allow for it. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:03, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

  "ideally" — yes. {{Convert}} is practical. -DePiep (talk) 19:10, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

It's 2019. "Kilogramme" is a dead spelling directly conflicting with the internationally accepted spelling standard used by the SI organization themselves. Not only should it not be added to the concert template, it should be removed from everywhere on Wikipedia (except direct quotes) because we wrote in 21st century English, not 19th century English! oknazevad (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: the "kilogramme" spelling is alive and well - not only in the UK, but in other countries too. The English language isn't regulated, as we know, and no international, or any other organisation, can dictate how English words must be spelt. Currently MOS accommodates regional variants, including "gramme" and "gram", so why not back that up with the convert template? Where do you stand on the identical "metre"/"meter" spelling choice? -- DeFacto (talk). 20:30, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

re the identical "metre"/"meter" spelling choice? – not "identical" at all. More like WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. -DePiep (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: why, in your opinion, is this not an identical comparison with that? -- DeFacto (talk). 21:01, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Because: 1. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. 2. metre/meter is between variants, kilogram/gramme is within a variant. -DePiep (talk) 21:08, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@DePiep: whether other stuff exists, or not, your logic is flawed - "kilogramme" is one variant and "kilogram" is another - exactly comparible to "meter" and "meter". A MOS:COMMONALITY recommendation acknowledges that variants do exist within a single national variety when it states: When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred, except where the less common spelling has a specific usage in a specialized context e.g. connexion in Methodist connexionalism. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:28, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

re "kilogramme" is one variant and "kilogram" is another: I meant to say: meter/metre are from different variants of English spelling (namely: en-GB and en-US), for example as distinguished in MOS:ENGVAR. OTOH, "kilogram/gramme" are within the same English variant (i.e., en-GB). Because of this, you arguiment "similar situation" is not strong enough. -DePiep (talk) 08:16, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

What DePiep said. It's not identical, and yes it is exceedingly vanishingly rare. Because this isn't a matter of the English language being unregulated, this is a matter of the international system of measurements (SI) being, well, standard. SI recognizes two variants of metre/meter in english. It does not recognize the archaic "kilogramme" spelling, which, as seen in this ngram, was surpassed in British English over a hundred years ago and which is use less than 7% of the use of "kilogram". Much like the archaic "connexion", it just shouldn't be used in modern English, unless part of a specific name, especially in light of WP:COMMONALITY. If everyone can and would understand "kilogram" under most circumstances, what point is there at all to using "kilogramme" except contrarianism? oknazevad (talk) 21:38, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: two points. 1) whether you think it should be used, or not - as your ngram shows, it is still in common use, and (as we'd have seen if you hadn't clipped the year scale off at the year 2000) it's use is increasing. For that reason, and because Wikipedia doesn't favour any variety over another, it can (and apparently does) legitimately appear in articles. So adding it to the template would help to support, rather than help to suppress, its use. 2) can you give a source to support your assertion that "SI recognizes two variants of metre/meter in english. It does not recognize the archaic "kilogramme" spelling", and explain what relevance you think that has to whether Wikipedia provide template support for an English variant that it supports. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:52, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

@Oknazevad: and in answer to the question in your addendum: inclusionism and anti-elitism. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:13, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

• As a 50+ year-old Australian, I very rarely come across the -mme spelling. Rare enough that it jars me when I see it and it interrupts my thinking. I would think that many readers outside of Britain would have the same reaction. Whereas readers in Britain have no difficulty reading kilogram or kilogramme and can thus use the commonly used modern spelling. Kilogramme may not be dead yet but it is definitely on life support. Even my spell checker (which is set to UK spelling) doesn't know about kilogramme. Considering that it causes (minor) jarring to a majority of readers, provides no real advantage to any readers and not having it is no real problem to any readers, I see no advantage to including it.  Stepho  talk  00:56, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
• I am fully on the side of deprecation per WP:COMMONALITY, even if it were still common in one of the variants (it's not). This looks more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT I-want-to-be-special battlegrounding behavior than it does I-want-to-build-an-encyclopedia behavior. --Izno (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
• DeFacto gives examples from Reuters UK and the Telegraph. The eaxmples are contrary to the Reuters and Telegraph style guides and are not typical. For Reuters UK and the Telegraph respectively, Google searches such as "kilogram" site:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ return

kilogram: 1650 & 853

kilograms: 1530 & 1430

kilogramme: 101 & 87

kilogrammes: 165 & 157.

DeFacto claims the use of kilogramme is increasing, but the ngram does not show this. The corpus ends in 2008, 11 years ago, and tells us nothing about the last decade. The increase shown is partly an artifact of smoothing; removing that reveals increases in 2006 and 2007 only. Attempting to probe that with a Google Books search (you can begin that from the ngram page) and a 2007-2008 date range gives "Your search - "kilogramme" - did not match any book results." Widen the date range and you'll find the Kenyan Hansard or a Dover reprint of an old translation of van der Waal's 1873 thesis, in which "kilogramme" appears many times. Such oddities are not unusual in Google ngrams; the corpus is old, the selection biased, the categorisation and dating capricious, and more - see this article or our own Google Ngram Viewer#Criticism.

DeFacto protests that we should let local consensus rule and individual writers choose, begging the question of how often local consensus or individual writers on en.wiki use kilogramme. Google searches such as "kilogram" site:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ return

kilogram: 25,900

kilograms: 16,600

kilogramme: 198

kilogrammes: 267

Those uses of kilogramme are often mentions of the Kilogramme des Archives, the history of the metric system, or talk-page discussions such as this, rather than actual measurements that might be converted. In general we use "kg" for those (9,760,000 results).

DeFacto argues that we should not use templates to suppress valid uses, but we do not. We simply do not unnecessarily complicate the design, maintenance and use of the Convert template by supporting a rare variant. 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:19, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

What a devastating analysis. Well done, Mystery IP! EEng 22:18, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Great post, IP. Must say, wording "devastating" by EEng is, eh, distracting and uselessly, needlessly emotional not rational. -DePiep (talk) 22:26, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Apparently you don't know what devastating means. EEng 01:27, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

I do. Do you? -DePiep (talk) 10:16, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

From your comment above, no you don't. Please don't make me comment on your longstanding problems with English. EEng 12:25, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

duh. -DePiep (talk) 22:36, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

re language: [27], [28]. -DePiep (talk) 23:04, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Good to see you've looked up devastating, so I assume you understand it now, though why you're additionally linking to the episode that led to your being topic-banned from DYK is beyond me. This has been entertaining but I won't be responding further. EEng 00:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

• It seems that consensus here is overwhelmingly against the spelling kilogramme (perhaps it should be reserved for Ye Olde Wykipædia). Can we agree that 1) the spelling should not be supported by a template, and 2) that (except for quotes) the spelling should be changed to kilogram without any need to debate it separately for every WP article? Doremo (talk) 10:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
• Here's the Google ngram restricted to the British English corpus for the usage ratio by year of "kilogram" over "kilogramme": [29]. Since 1984, the ratio has been at least 10 to 1. So, if an article is written in British English, "kilogram" is by far the winner. (And in US English, it's well over 100 to 1.) Largoplazo (talk) 12:04, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
• We've wasted way too much time on this. To prevent a recurrence I support adding a clear statement that (verbatim quotes excepted) the accepted spelling on English Wikipedia is kilogram, not kilogramme. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:28, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  I fully support Dondervogel 2's suggestion. Doremo (talk) 12:36, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  I third the motion. oknazevad (talk) 13:02, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

   Comment: I'm not sure that this is the correct place to be discussing prohibiting a previously accepted spelling variation, especially as there is a MOS page and associated talkpage dedicated to spelling guidelines. This discussion was started on this page to talk about whether the convert template should be updated to include both spellings in current use for the unit name for which kg is the abbreviation. -- DeFacto (talk). 13:35, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  WP:NOTBURO. And since units are part of MOS:NUM, it's perfectly valid to discuss it here. oknazevad (talk) 14:06, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  WT:SPELLING would naturally refer to WP:UNITS, and as a MOS talk page would also "often be managed in a mafia-like way by a cabal of political operators with nefarious ulterior motives and vested interests."[30] 14:53, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  At this point I'd normally be invoking WP:NONEEDNORULE as a challenge to the need for a rule. But honestly I find that kilogramme at least somewhat meets that essay's first point i.e. it's "significantly distracting, annoying, or confusing to many readers". Given that ton and tonne are two different things, readers might well wonder whether kilogram and kilogramme are different as well. It's pretentious. EEng 14:01, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

  Ding! I find it laughable to claim "anti-elitism" when advocating for a pretentious archaic spelling. oknazevad (talk) 14:06, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Recent edits seem to have forgotten the original request: should template:convert be modified so as include "kilogramme" as a possible output? Nobody (until these last few hours) was arguing that the french-style spelling should be barred everywhere (if they are, take it to another discussion and good luck with that). It seemed to me that a consensus had been reached that the request should not be supported because the development cost of doing so cannot be justified given the very low demand. Is there any reason now why this discussion should not be closed? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:07, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

• The consensus of this conversation clearly favors both 1) no template -mme output and 2) deprecating the -mme spelling. There's no point in wasting time and energy debating the second point again and separately. Doremo (talk) 02:48, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with the general gist above (and in RfC below, which I missed): kilogramme is essentially obsolete (because of SI), even if some British/Commonwealth writers prefer it. It's thus not actually an ENGVAR matter (the British certainly are not consistent in using it, the way they are with programme in various contexts, and theatre, and colour). The -gramme spellings should not be supported by our conversion templates. — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 15:57, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Gramme

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I made this edit, because that statement gave the impression that is is okay to use that spelling in BrE articles (an impression heavily contradicted by this discussion), but it was reverted and I was asked for a link to a consensus for it. I provided one, but it was again reverted on the basis that it is in common use. In the above discussion, consensus seems to be that it is no longer in common use. So, I need to ask: was my edit a good one? (copied from Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Spelling#RfC:_Gramme) Adam9007 (talk) 15:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

In a style manual, under a "Preferred variants" heading, one would expect to find a statement about which variant is preferred in the publications to which the style manual applies (in this case, the English Wikipedia). The bullet point, both before and after the edits in question, attempts to describe the usage of "gramme" in the English language at large, which fails to fulfill the purpose of the section, and is therefore extraneous. The bullet point, if it is needed at all, should simply state which variant is preferred in the English Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:43, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Stevie's wonne a tonne of grammes.

• deFacto's one-man battle to maintain a prissy, Frenchified museum piece (i.e. gramme) is now way, WAY beyond tiresome, especially given that this is a scientific term; readers shouldn't have to wonder whether gramme is somehow different from gram in the way that tonne really is different from ton. I'll be traveling for ten days, so hopefully putting the workaday cares of Wikipedia behind me for a time, but I'm happy with any wording ranging from severe deprecation of gramme to outright prohibition. Let's be done with this nonsense. EEng 17:06, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation of gramme and kilogramme based on clear frequency evidence and point five of MOS:COMMONALITY. Doremo (talk) 18:00, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation based on the evidence that informed the consensus that was reached above. Kahastok talk 18:08, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• No - to answer the question posed in the RfC, the edit was not a good one. It was premature as the above discussion was still ongoing. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation of "gramme" and "kilogramme" based on gram and kilogram being instantly recognizable in any variant of English, and supported by multiple international standards. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 19:10, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation for reasons already given.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:58, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation As noted above, the style guides of Reuters UK and the Telegraph have kilogram and/or gram, not kilogramme or gramme. So do those of the Guardian and Observer, the BBC, the Economist, and the UK Government. The English-language version of the SI brochure, authoritatively describing the International System of Units, has kilogram alone, as do the BIPM's English-language web pages. The British Standards Institution has been using kilogram, not kilogramme, for at least 45 years. Fowler's Modern English Usage tells us the shorter form is now customary and site-specific Google searches for exact terms (as above) bear that out. Deprecation accords with WP:COMMONALITY and in no way breaches WP:RETAIN or WP:ENGVAR, which do not protect nineteenth-century British English as a separate variant. It also removes the risks of distraction and confusion identified by EEng. 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:02, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Kill it with fire/deprecate except in quotes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:05, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation It's no longer used as a variant of English. Honestly, I'm surprised an RfC has been required here, I didn't expect anyone to give a shitte. SportingFlyer T·C 21:55, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation based on reasons above plus previous discussion. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 23:37, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation What is the current weather forecast? CThomas³ (talk) 06:18, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation The kilogram is one of the SI base units and an encyclopedia should spell such a standard in a standard way to reduce confusion. Johnuniq (talk) 07:02, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation Tony (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation – per all sorts of arguments, but definitely MOS:COMMONALITY. —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation – everybody that understands the antiquated 'gramme' form also understands the much more common 'gram' form. The reverse is very far from true.  Stepho  talk  21:43, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support depreciation per my comments in the above section. oknazevad (talk) 21:49, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation and start looking for a snowplough. 30 days of comments ain't going to change anything. Triptothecottage (talk) 06:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation - Most contemporary publications use gram and kilogram, with "gramme" and "kilogramme" falling hard out of use in the last half century. At this point it seems weird to use them, it's like they're from that list of words that Jacob Reese-Mogg makes people use. PraiseVivec (talk) 12:09, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation with substantial prejudice - I don't remember ever seeing a contemporary use of "gramme". We should retain it in quotes and it may occasionally be appropriate in articles about the history of science. --Mirokado (talk) 22:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support deprecation outside of direct quotations. Imzadi 1979 → 00:18, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Proposal

Making the working assumption that the RfC concludes in favour of deprecating both "gramme" and "kilogramme" I propose the following specific change:

• In the table Guidelines on specific units (see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Specific_units) add the group Mass
• In the new group Mass, add two entries (in the columns Name; Symbol; Comment):
  • gram; g; not gramme
  • kilogram; kg; not kilogramme

Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:35, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support per the above, though I would consider merging the entries, and would put them in the existing "Mass, force, density, pressure" group. Kahastok talk 17:26, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as it will (and indeed already has) lead to the unnecessary "cultural cleansing" of articles. I'd support "kilogram" being suggested as the preferred option for newly written articles, but not the proposed wording which I think will lead to the ritual eradication of the term from current articles by zealots in pursuit of SI dogma. -- DeFacto (talk). 18:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per proposal, as adjusted by Kahastok (definitely an improvement - I missed that section). Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:44, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per proposal, as adjusted by Kahastok. Doremo (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Kilogram is an SI base unit, and we should use the official spelling, or it brings disrepute to Wikipedia. oknazevad (talk) 13:14, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

  Quite the opposite I think. It is more likely the kowtowing to the preferences of international bodies, rather than reflecting the real world English varieties that are still used, that brings Wikipedia into disrepute and leaves it vulnerable to accusations of elitism. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:46, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

  Using an international standard spelling for an international standard unit is not "kowtowing". That's just plain ridiculous. Cut the bullshit. oknazevad (talk) 01:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. We already have "The SI Brochure[3] should be consulted for guidance on use of other SI and non-SI units." But now an active editor has argued that consensus should not be documented lest it be implemented, and has used phrases like "cultural cleansing", "ritual eradication", "zealots in pursuit" and "SI dogma" to describe using a couple of anglicised words rather than French ones. So yes, clear documentation does seem to be needed and it might be worth adding something like "likewise milligram, microgram, etc". 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:33, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

  @80.41.128.7: in fact the SI brochure is not prescriptive (nor proscriptive) with respect to spellings - it states: Small spelling variations occur in the language of the English speaking countries (for instance, "metre" and "meter", "litre" and "liter"). It then defends its own choice of spellings, but without mandating that they should be used in favour of local variations. Additionally, British weights and measures legislation is clear about the spelling - Section 92 of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 states: No provision contained in or made under this or any other Act prevents the use of “gram” or “gramme” as alternative ways of spelling that unit, and the same applies for other units in the metric system which are compounds of “gram”. Bearing those points in mind, perhaps you'll consider withdrawing your support for this proposal, given it is founded on misunderstandings of the SI brochure content and of the status in the UK of the word "gramme". -- DeFacto (talk). 21:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  No. That was well understood already and only contradicts your talk of "SI dogma". 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:25, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support, including 80.41.128.7's suggestion. --Mirokado (talk) 22:56, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Standard units should be spelled in a standard way. Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Standard is as standard does? Standard by me? Seriously, agree with IP's suggestion as well. CThomas³ (talk) 07:52, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per User:80.41.128.7's extended version. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:07, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Note that there is an existing row heading that reads Mass, force, density, pressure. This needs to be changed to Weight, force, density, pressure. (Even in the era of space travel, the difference between mass and weight is still widely misunderstood). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:07, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  The proposal in John Maynard Friedman's note should not be carried out without an RfC. It's complicated because the customary units in the group of table rows are usually treated by the public and weights & measures enforcement officials as mass units, but some of them are taught as units of force in physics and engineering university courses. Also, in practice, many of them are, in practice, measured with electronic force cells rather than balances, so strictly speaking are forces. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:33, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  I made it Mass, weight, force, density, pressure, so that way we've got the whole kitchen sink, the complete enchilada, and all bases are covered. (Sorry, Jc, didn't see your post until just now.) EEng 13:59, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Thank you. Yes, mass and weight are often confused in pound-based systems. Happily, the kilogram is unequivocally a unit of mass - indeed, the base unit of mass in SI, just as the gram was in cgs - while the pound as commonly used is legally defined as 0.45359237 kilograms and the short and long tons as 2000 and 2240 pounds. Weight is of course properly measured with the units of force such as the newton (N), or pound-force, pound or poundal depending which pound-based system you're using. Happily again, that doesn't matter because our heading is "Mass, force, density, pressure" which covers units of weight and both pounds. We shouldn't change it.

  Checking the archives for "mass" shows EEng put it well five years ago: the table is not meant to be didactic or formal -- it's an eclectic list of units that (for some reason or another) have received MOS attention. The idea is to group them in a way that helps people find what they're looking for, as well as to group related units together, taking into account that most editors are technical laymen (or lay-women, though that sounds, somehow, not a nice thing to say).[31] 80.41.128.7 (talk) 14:17, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Wow, that was back when I was still pretty smart, I guess. EEng 14:56, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Mm-hmm.[32] 80.41.128.7 (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  OK, you're starting to creep me out. EEng 22:29, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Sorry. 80.41.128.7 (talk) 21:25, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

  Just to close this side avenue, I agree with this analysis and will not be opening another can of worms RFC. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:41, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

  Again, thank you! 80.41.128.7 (talk) 17:32, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support with the appropriate adjustments Imzadi 1979 → 00:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Implementing

I added a row to the table [33] which I believe implements the consensus above. Any concerns? EEng 02:05, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 05:10, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

What about the mention at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Spelling#Preferred variants? Point to here? Remove from that page? Modify to indicate "gram" is exclusively preferred? --Izno (talk) 15:39, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Surely it'd need to be discussed there before that page could be changed too. There was the start of a discussion there, but you closed it off, and no notification of this specific discussion was ever posted there. There could be editors who have an interest in spelling varieties but not in dates and numbers, and they might not support the proscribing of a standard English spelling that is still in current use. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:00, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

It was closed because we do not do forked discussions (much as we attempt to avoid forking guidance); this avoids forum shopping. I explicitly mentioned this discussion as ongoing at the time. --Izno (talk) 16:28, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

In your closure comment there (which do have a very small font) you added: If you think that discussion merits an RFC, put it where people have already responded (WT:MOSNUM), yes. However, as this became an RfC here after that discussion was closed there, I would have expected a prominent notice to be posted there, and with a link to the RfC here per WP:RFC#Publicizing an RfC. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:50, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

There is no point in rediscussing this point for a fourth time in as many weeks. I see no reason not to make the change in accordance with the clear consensus here, and if an editor objects who hasn't already been involved in this discussion then we can work from there. Kahastok talk 21:07, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I get the message. I'll leave it at that. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:26, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

MOS:ORDINAL contradiction?

The first bullet point in MOS:ORDINAL points to [Numbers as figures or words] which says, generally, that integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words (with some exceptions, . My interpretation of this is that "first", "second" and "third" are preferred over "1st", "2nd" and "3rd". However, the second bullet point in MOS:ORDINAL says to use "1st", "2nd" and "3rd". Which is correct? Thanks. A Thousand Doors (talk | contribs) 19:32, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

As I read these points:

• The first points to MOS:NUMERAL which says, generally, that integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words (zeroth to ninth), with some exceptions such as using comparable forms for a mixed bag of values (e.g., the 5th, 14th, and 30th in line)
• The second says to use two letter suffixes (and gives an example contrasting 2nd with 2d, implying, I infer, two-letter vs. one-letter), and says not to superscript the suffixes. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:11, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

  Wtmitchell, I believe that the second example at MOS:ORDINAL is simply giving an example as to how to use two-letter suffixes and not suggesting that you use those particular examples in all cases. I also believe that certain military names get the ordinal no matter what the number is, see more at WP:MILMOS#UNITNAME (I don't edit military stuff so am not 100% comfortable stating that for sure). PopularOutcast^talk2me! 20:39, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

MOS:ORDINAL saying to use "1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc." at present is because of this discussion. I do not think there was concern given to possibly contradictions. In short, "use the two-letter suffixes, normal text style, where using the number" is a correct interpretation. I do not think the current text implies that words must be used in preference to the ordinal. --Izno (talk) 21:17, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

• I made a slight change which I think eliminates the concern, faint as it is [34]. EEng 22:26, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

₤

MOS:CURRENCY says:

• The pound sterling is represented by the £ symbol, with one horizontal bar. The double-barred ₤ symbol is ambiguous, as it has also been used for the Italian lira and other currencies. For non-British currencies that use pounds or a pound symbol (e.g. the Irish pound, IR£) use the symbol conventionally preferred for that currency.

I read that as "use £ for GBP and don't use ₤ for anything". But as far as I can tell, ₤ is the conventional symbol for Italian lira, and that's what that article uses. Maybe this is intended to mean "use £ not ₤ for GBP and for other currencies whichever one is most common". In which case maybe different wording would be clearer:

• Where multiple symbols are used for the same currency, use whichever is most common. Use caution when similar symbols can be confused. For the British pound the preferred symbol is £ (one horizontal bar) and for the Italian lira it is ₤ (two horizontal bars).

Any thoughts? -- Beland (talk) 07:07, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

I oppose. The sentence clearly begins "The pound sterling", so it is about GBP and makes clear that only the single bar version is to be used, the one that has been standard on banknotes for as long as I can remember. Making it say "use whichever is most common" is just an invitation to do whatever you like: I have an impression (no more) that Apple users seem to prefer it. If the sentence is to be improved, then it would be to drop the reference to the ITL and IEP, which just muddy the water (and haven't been used in over twenty years). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:24, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Well, what is clear to you definitely wasn't clear to me, and if it's explicitly meant to apply to GBP only and not all pound-related currencies, it should say so. The current guidance is to "use the symbol conventionally preferred for that currency". I'm not sure how that's any different than "use whichever is most common", or how not saying anything at all isn't an "invitation to do whatever you like" but I kept the original phrasing in place and moved the Italian lira to a different part of the line which hopefully makes it more clear what is meant. -- Beland (talk) 02:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't believe the claim that these are different symbols: they are stylistic differences. (They might have different Unicode representations, but Unicode is a pragmatic kludge, to be polite about it.) I haven't seen any English money for a long time, but I looked in my drawer, and the first sterling note I saw was a Guernsey pound note, from about 1984, with two bars on the pound sign. Then I found an English fiver, and indeed there is a single bar. I think the typographic trend has been from a universal(?) double bar (perhaps a century ago) to almost universal single bar, but it is a typographical trend, not a "change of character". The guidelines should therefore refer to a "preferred Unicode character value". Imaginatorium (talk) 03:57, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Followup: I was just checking currency conversions at PayPal, and noticed that the pound sign has a double bar ("open", i.e. with a gap between the bars, just like the euro and yen signs. Here is the CSS for whatever font this is: "font: PayPal-Sans, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif;". Imaginatorium (talk) 04:10, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Your personal opinion of unicode is not really appropriate here. The unicode consortium is composed of panels of experts and is indisputably an RS. As to your specific point on style, unicode is clearly aware of the distinction between font and glyph (as evidenced by the refusal to recognise the Kanji symbol set as different from Chinese). Two different unicode code points equals two distinct symbols. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Of course the Unicode people are experts, but Unicode is not there to make pronouncements on truth, its job is to supply all the distinctions requested by the various national bodies. But for example the character "A" (capital A) is exactly the same character (in every normal sense) as the so-called "full-width A"; the two are present because there are two different encodings of "A" in the Japanese (and I think Korean and Chinese) character sets. Unicode is there to guarantee reversible mapping, so has to provide the two code values. This is also why they have fixed Unicode labels (AND UNICODE LOVES SHOUTING). Therefore, what this guideline should be trying to say is something like "Use the encoded character which Unicode describes as a POUND SIGN". If in recent usage, (historical?) references to the lira generally prefer a font with a two-bar symbol, and (ditto) pound a one-bar symbol, then this is fine and wonderful, but actually the pound sign and the lira sign are exactly the same character, a cursive crossed-L, representing an abbreviation of the same Latin word. Imaginatorium (talk) 10:28, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I like that idea! (use the Unicode code point). It is unambiguous and avoids getting sidetracked into subjective style issues. No doubt there is a font somewhere that uses a double-barrelled glyph but that is annoyance level (presumably covered by another MOS guideline that says don't vary the font). I support that proposal and consequently strike out my own earlier proposal. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:42, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

We could say "follow the style used by the Bank of England for ". Looking at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/withdrawn-banknotes , the last time they used a double bar was 1963. Interestingly, I can't find a formal style guide at the BoE site in a quick scan. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 08:31, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Going back to the original nomination and specifically the note that our ITL article uses the double bar, we could say "for GBP, use £ (with a single bar). Do not use ₤ (with two bars) as this is the symbol for the Italian Lira." ? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:20, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Draft for discussion

To move this on, I would like to formalise Imaginatorium's excellent suggestion as a proposed draft.

• The British pound sterling is represented by the £ symbol, with one horizontal bar, as defined by Unicode POUND SIGN. The double-barred ₤ symbol, with two horizontal bars (as defined by Unicode LIRA SIGN) should not be used for this purpose. For non-British currencies that use pounds or a pound symbol (e.g. the Egyptian pound, E£) use the symbol conventionally preferred for that currency.

Agreed? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:54, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

If an era style was changed in 2012 with no discussion can it be reverted as not established?

I ask because there's a discussion on my talk page and User:Johnbod has asked how long it takes for an illegally changed style to become established. I'm not sure there's an answer but on an active page (like the one in question) 7 years is more than enough in my opinion. If there had been no edits to the page since the change, I wouldn't consider it established. It depends on a combination of activity and how long ago the style was changed, and I think that's probably always going to be a judgement call. Doug Weller talk 07:50, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Any edit that has been in place for seven years is obviously good per WP:SILENCE. If the edit was not related to a style change, of course it can be challenged with a new edit. However, in the absence of a compelling reason, styles should not be changed without prior consensus after discussion. Apparently the issue concerns this edit at Göbekli Tepe—a quick look suggests it was correct to revert that edit. Johnuniq (talk) 08:07, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

The simplest answer would be that it remains illegal; if someone does a drive-by style change at some point, later editors are under no obligation to study the page history while making unrelated edits to identify and correct the violation, nor are they complicit in supporting the style change. If we judge it legal by some sort of "statute of limitations," then a much more complex answer is necessary: stipulating how long the illegal change has remained in place, how many intervening edits have occurred, editor diversity (i.e., multiple edits by only one editor versus broad contributions by many), and probably other factors. Doremo (talk) 08:08, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I think a combination of the comments by Doug Weller and Doremo is appropriate. Ideally we would know how often the article is read, but we don't. We can use the frequency of edits as a proxy for the frequency of being read. Few edits suggest no one noticed the change. Also, if the edit pattern of the editor who changed the era style suggests the primary activity of that editor was to impose the editor's favorite style on as many articles as possible, that would suggest the edit does not comply with this guideline and should be reverted. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:30, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

That last point (primarily imposing the editor's favorite style) is a very good one, and I agree that it would be a strong argument for reverting. At the same time, the lack of such a pattern by the editor does not mitigate the inappropriateness of the change. The IP editor in question for the Göbekli Tepe article did not show such a pattern. Doremo (talk) 12:38, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

US customary (i.e., British Empire) units

The guidline seems to give the OK to not convert to metric units. Tony (talk) 03:11, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I can't see where it says this. Can you elaborate and/or give a quote?  Stepho  talk  22:49, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not seeing this either, if you are talking about MOS:CONVERSIONS. The first line of that says [w]here English-speaking countries use different units for the same quantity, provide a conversion in parentheses, and later says [g]enerally, conversions to and from metric units and US or imperial units should be provided. It does list some exceptions, but I don't read any of those to indicate that we shouldn't provide metric conversions except in cases such as American football statistics and common expressions like the four-minute mile. What are you seeing? Or am I in the wrong place entirely? Or perhaps I am misreading your question? CThomas³ (talk) 23:09, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I think Tony posted before having his morning coffee. EEng 14:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Radians

Is there any good reason why I shouldn't add radian to the units of angular measurement?

The lead of the radian article says The international standard symbol for the radian is rad. An alternative symbol is ^c (the superscript letter c, for "circular measure"), the letter r, or a superscript ^R but these symbols are infrequently used as it can be easily mistaken for a degree symbol (°) or a radius (r). Specifically, should we explicitly deprecate these alternative notations? What about the compressed U+33AD ㎭ SQUARE RAD (on grounds of ugliness! and probably accessibility to visitors with visual impairment).

Comments? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:18, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

References

We never use precomposed symbols like U+33AD ㎭ SQUARE RAD. I’m unsure about adding rad to the table, which is not meant to be complete but rather to steer editors away from known pitfalls. Have you seen anyone using those superscript forms in articles? EEng 11:47, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

To be fair, I came from the answer to the question. I was reading the Radian article and alarm bells went off at the second sentence: if it is necessary to have this caution in an article, no doubt the MoS will say the same thing. Oh, it doesn't even mention it. I do realise that the MOS is not intended as a catalogue of every measure known to humanity and you may well be right to ask why bother if it is not evidently a problem. Conversely, there is a known issue so shouldn't we intercept it before someone falls foul of it? I tend to err on the side of caution. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 13:59, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

WP:MOSBLOAT. EEng 15:15, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

OK, conceded. I withdraw the suggestion. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:09, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

And to think I hesitated before writing that essay. But that was too easy. I sense a trap. EEng 18:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Touché was the word you were looking for. :-)

And just to wrap up, it turns out the whole "controversy" was a chimera, as there is no evidence for any of these variants. Deacon Vorbis has deleted the whole paragraph. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:50, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Soap opera dates

So when it comes to writing dates for soap operas, how would we set it up in the infobox? If we do just "(2019)" and not "(2019–)", it looks like the marriage began and ended in 2019 when it is still ongoing. Would we put something else in to show that the marriage is still ongoing? Arjoccolenty (talk) 02:01, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

2019– is already wrong per this MOS. Not to mention, 2019 is the present, so 2019–present would be wrong for any date in 2019; one cannot assume what people see or assume from an infobox. Soap opera editors have continued to WP:IGNORE MOS, policies and guidelines for years, and it is about time this pattern of behaviour stops. livelikemusic talk! 13:17, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

• Will livelikemusic‘s exhortation be heeded? Will soap opera articles finally be brought to heel? Tune in next time, for... As the Encyclopedia Churns! EEng 15:42, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Dates

In 'Dates, months and years, Strong national ties to a topic', we have, (in the first bullet point), 'For the United States this is (for example) July 4, 1976; for most other English-speaking countries it is 4 July 1976'. This is perhaps, not the best example as I've seen and heard both, in the US and 'other English-speaking countries'.

On a slightly different subject, I've heard a video on YouTube called 'Combat Bulletin' where the contemporary commentator says thing like 'On ten July...' and 'twenty-five October'.
While it makes my teeth curl, it might have been correct in 1944, when the films were made.

What do other editors think?
RASAM (talk) 16:04, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

These styles are how they are normally written. You haven't really explained why you think the examples are wanting? As for how they are spoken, why do you think that it matters? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:01, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Better: "For the US this is mdy (July 8, 1976); for other majority native-English-speaking countries it is dmy (8 July 1976), except for Canada, where both mdy and dmy are used, and for which WP:RETAIN applies." Tony (talk) 04:10, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Those Combat Bulletin videos were produced by the US and British Armies. That usage would have been normal for basically all Brits and was (and is) the standard in US military usage. --Khajidha (talk) 17:01, 23 September 2019 (UTC) Slight modification. The written form "10 July" is normal for British usage, but I'm not sure how it is pronounced. US Army usage is "10 July" and is pronounced "ten July". --Khajidha (talk) 17:04, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

FYI: "Born on 4 July" is pronounced "Born on the fourth of July" in BrE, just as in the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy"! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:14, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Thought it might be. Thanks for the confirmation. --Khajidha (talk) 17:31, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Why?

"For a person still living: Serena Williams (born September 26, 1981) is a ..., not (September 26, 1981 – ) " Why? The format given there as not to be used would seem to be more consistent with usage with birth and death dates and would require less modification should the person in question die. --Khajidha (talk) 13:08, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

A thought: the format "(September 26, 1981 – )" could be interpreted as indicating that the death date is unknown and has been left blank, whereas "(born September 26, 1981)" would unambiguously indicate a living person. Doremo (talk) 14:53, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Considering that we have no way of knowing if that person actually is still living at the time we view the article, I don't see this as a problem. --Khajidha (talk) 15:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Either could work, but Wikipedia standardized on "(born September 26, 1981)" to be consistent. It could have gone another way, but this choice was made. I don't see any need for change. SchreiberBike | ⌨  18:56, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

The form "(September 26, 1981 – )" implies you are expecting to fill in the blank soon, and as such is mildly offensive. The "(born September 26, 1981)" on the other hand states a fact, but doesn't imply anything else. Ultimatley good taste and WP's established standards apply. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:02, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

It implies no such thing. And what is there to be offended by? The idea that this person will eventually die? --Khajidha (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

The idea that you are expecting to fill in their date of death imminently. In the present case Williams is young enough that one wonders if WP will be around at the time of her eventual death! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:29, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

When I see (born September 26, 1981) or (September 26, 1981 – ) I see exact the same thing - that we know the birth date but don't know the death date. The reason for not knowing the death date might be because it is simply not known or because the person has not died yet. I see no implications of imminent death, nor have I ever heard of anybody implying such a thing. I would be comfortable with either form for anybody from a newborn, to myself (50+), to somebody a 120 years old.  Stepho  talk  20:46, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Well maybe it's a national or generational thing then. It is strange the odd things that you remember from school. One of them was being told off for writing "Elizabeth II (1952 - )" when it should have been "Elizabeth II (1952 - WGP)" (Whom God Preserve). IIRC Whitaker's Almanac uses the same style. That though was 1966/7 (yes I'm over 60) in an English prep school. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:34, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

You’re positive that wasn’t 1766? EEng 22:22, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

On the alert for hyphen/endash confusion

To this 45 year old American, it reads just as Stepho described. If anything, the hyphen implies continuation to me, rather than imminent end. --Khajidha (talk) 22:03, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Christ, keep your voice down! If you say hyphen again you’ll have the endash zealots in here! EEng 22:19, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm a heretic. All those "floating horizontal lines" are the same to me. --Khajidha (talk) 22:32, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

Because (September 26, 1981 – ) is an abomination and I can't see how anyone with good taste could think that it was as good as (born September 26, 1981). If you do think that, then explain why ( – September 26, 1981) would not be just as satisfactory as (died September 26, 1981) for a deceased person with an unknown date of birth. Using "(born ...)" and "(died ...)" is flat out better and is a symmetrical and consistent way to handle this. Quale (talk) 04:59, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Abomination? Not really. Although there are some people who think that the scheme they use in their own locale must also apply world-wide.  Stepho  talk  10:59, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't use either ( - September 26, 1981) or (died September 26, 1981), as both of them leave out a piece of information that must exist. Even if the date of birth is unknown, there was one and anything known about it (including if it is unknown) should be mentioned. I would use (unknown - September 26, 1981). By contrast, a date of birth can exist without a date of death. I would use (September 26, 1981 - ) for those still living at the time of writing and (September 26, 1981 - unknown) for those known to be deceased but without a known date of death. --Khajidha (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

It is an abomination. The use of the dash in a date range is governed by MOS:DATETOPRES and the same reason that constructions such as (2014 – present) are used instead of (2014 – ) apply to birth and death dates. Have you considered what a screen reader or text to speech might do with (September 26, 1981 – )? To prefer that to (born September 26, 1981) shows a real lack of taste and discernment. But it is often noted that common sense is, in fact, not very common. Quale (talk) 23:59, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Taste is entirely subjective. I find the constructions you endorse as hideous as you find mine. The only valid part of your post is the mention of accessibility issues. Given that there is a reason for this, I can accept a usage that I find suboptimal and inelegant.--Khajidha (talk) 00:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Taste is not entirely subjective, else the notions of good taste and poor taste would have little value. What is the valid part of any post you've made in this discussion at all other than you don't like the longstanding practice? Quale (talk) 04:02, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Reasonable people can disagree, but if no one is proposing a change in how we do things, why don't we let this die. SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

That was the intent of my previous response. --Khajidha (talk) 01:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

" one mile (1–2 km)" ?

A recent edit changed "Small numbers may need to be converted to a range where rounding would cause a significant distortion, so one mile (1–2 km), not one mile (2 km)." to "Small numbers may need to be converted to a range where rounding would cause a significant distortion, so one mile (1.5–2 km), not one mile (2 km).", and drew my attention to this sentence.

Can anyone show an example where this sort of conversion is used in an article, rather than "one mile (1.6km)" or possibly "one mile (about one and a half kilometres)"? I can't see how a reader would ever benefit from being shown a range of values, except in the case of an ancient unit whose value actually did vary.

Not at this stage proposing a change to a sentence which has been in the article as "1-2") since at least 2014. Just curious to see why we need it. Any examples? PamD 07:28, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

The MOS sentence is addressing maintaining the level of precision. If 1 mile (integer) is converted to 2 km (integer), that could be regarded as a significant distortion. So the suggested fix is 1-2 km (integer). The cited edit introduced a decimal place, which is inconsistent with the purpose of the sentence. However, it might not be a good idea to apply this rule to small numbers in the first place. 1.6 km would be better. Jmar67 (talk) 11:59, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Please link the diff. I have the terrible feeling I made the change. EEng 12:39, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

[35] Hope that works. Jmar67 (talk) 13:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Whew! Wasn’t me. I think this avoids the issue [36]. EEng 14:02, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

There is good intent in the guidance but I don't think that the guidance and the example is particularly good (either version). A conversion should create the same impression for a reader unfamiliar with the value being converted. Significant figures are generally poorly understood. The effect is three-fold: figures in general sources are generally reported without consideration for same, most editors have an equally poor understanding and are only familiar with one or the other of the two main measurement systems. This is compounded by rounding errors, when the sources used are making conversions from primary (other) sources. For a reported distance of 1 mile (integer), it is actually unlikely that the uncertainty (significant figures) lies in the units but in fractions of a mile (tenths of a mile or quarters of a mile) and, might better be written as 1.0 mile (ie ± 0.1 mile or ± 0.25 mile). In turn, this takes some editorial understanding of the context in which such a figure is being reported and; subsequently, how best to report a conversion so that it conveys the meaning intended in the source - without over or under stating precision. A mile is about 1.5 km. I would report it as such (ie rounding to 0.5 of a unit), even though purists would argue that the formal conversion is 1.6 km. The question is, which of the four options best conveys the intended meaning to a reader not conversant with both systems. I could give many other examples. Another issue is the sometimes slavish adherence to use of the convert template - it is very good but sometimes lacks the flexibility and nuance of prose that might better convey meaning. Rather than trying to capture all of this in a few words, perhaps we might be better served by way of an explanatory essay? Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 10:25, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

We look forward to it. EEng 10:40, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

What to use instead of the ordinal indicator?

17º Stormo Incursori, in the article title and text, violates MOS:ORDINAL because it uses º. I assume this is meant to apply to languages like Italian? If so, what is the preferred alternative here? -- Beland (talk) 05:17, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The page should be moved to an English name on English WP, analogous to 3rd Special Operations Helicopter Regiment or 9th Paratroopers Assault Regiment. Doremo (talk) 05:42, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The English name stated in the article is '17th Raiders Wing'. Is there an objection to using that name? Dondervogel 2 (talk)

Possibly the fact that many of these translated titles aren't widely used in the real world - in many cases reliable English language sources will use the Italian name for the unit, including the ordinal.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:32, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

A search for stormo incursori italiian special forces (and ignoring Wikipedia and related articles) yields 17th Raider Wing and 17th Stormo Incursori (though there are few hits). Either way the answer to the direct question is: replace "17º" with "17th" Dondervogel 2 (talk)

It could also be listed as a foreign term (in italics), like Feuerschutzpolizei or Arditi del Popolo, in which case English ordinal conventions would not apply. Doremo (talk) 11:09, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

OK, I moved the article to the English name. We need to give the Italian name at least once in the body of the article. If the intention of the MOS guidance is to apply Italian rules to Italian phrases, then that would mean the ordinal indicator should be used. (The Italian Wikipedia MOS says to use the ordinal indicator, but not to use them with Roman numerals or with the wrong gender and to not use the degree symbol by mistake.) The ordinal indicator is not used in English; I guess this guideline is just saying not to write something like "17º Raiders Wing" or "17º" in the middle of an English sentence? If that's true and it's necessary to say anything at all about this, could we add:

unless part of a non-English phrase or name e.g. 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico not 313° Acrobatic Training Group or the 313°.

-- Beland (talk) 21:46, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The name is not the symbol. Regardless of the language, we would still say "13th X" and we should write that accordingly in English. Moreover this makes the rule more complex, which we should generally avoid. I don't see a strong need for a foreign language exception here. --Izno (talk) 22:03, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Izno: That doesn't make any sense to me. The ordinal in English is "thirteenth" which is shortened to "13th" because "th" are the letters at the end of the word that differentiate it from "thirteen" which we write as "13". In Italian, it's "tredicesimo", and because "o" is the last letter it's shortened to 13º (13 is "tredici"). -- Beland (talk) 23:48, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

When speaking of X in English, would you use the Italian number or the English one? If you would say "tredicesimo X", then leave it as "13º"; but if you would say "thirteenth X", then change it to "13th". --Khajidha (talk) 17:29, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. FTR, the version that Izno reverted with the edit summary "premature and makes the !rules more difficult, not less" is the following; I'm open to suggestions for different wording. (Or if we really want simplicity, just dropping this rule entirely, since as far as I can tell something like 13º is just not correct English.) -- Beland (talk) 22:20, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

• Do not use a dot (.) or the ordinal mark (º) to indicate ordinals unless part of a non-English phrase or name (in which case, follow the rules for that language's Wikipedia). For example, with Italian: 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico not mixing Italian and English with: 313° Acrobatic Training Group or the 313°.

I am in agreement with the above wording. CThomas³ (talk) 02:45, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense. MOS shouldn't apply to a foreign language quote. — UnladenSwallow (talk) 07:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

The second sentence could be clearer. How about

• Do not use a dot (.) or the ordinal mark (º) to indicate ordinals unless in a non-English phrase or name quoted verbatim (in which case, follow the style rules for that language's Wikipedia). For example, with Italian: 313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico. Do not mix language conventions, as in 313° Acrobatic Training Group or the 313°, use 313rd Acrobatic Training Group or the 313rd.

Better? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:17, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

a non-English phrase or name quoted verbatim (in which case, follow the style rules for that language's Wikipedia) If a non-English phrase or name is quoted verbatim then shouldn't it be quoted as it exists in the source? It is not clear to me what benefit is gained by requiring that editors consult another language Wikipedia's MOS when quoting verbatim – the quote is the quote. Strike (in which case, follow the style rules for that language's Wikipedia).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:56, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree, I hesitated before leaving that circular reference in. Yes, just quote as given and don't try to second guess. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

But we aren't always using non-English words in a direct quote. For example, when we give the native name for a thing, it's possible that in that language there are multiple ways to write it, and different sources that mention it apply different house styles. I assume we'd want to apply one Wikipedia house style to all Italian phrases (for example to write 13° and not 13^o), just as we apply one Wikipedia house style to all English phrases (like how we write 13th and not 13^th). Typographically, it might not even be possible to know, for example, what character among the acceptable variations that a print source is using, and with analog sources there may not even be a difference. -- Beland (talk) 04:18, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

313th, not 313rd! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:47, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

No one has actually answered my question, though. When speaking English is the 313 pronounced as "trecentotredicesimo" or as "three hundred thirteenth"? If the first, use the ordinal mark; if the second, use the "th". --Khajidha (talk) 11:41, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If speaking Italian, say "trecentotredicesimo"; if speaking English, say "three hundred thirteenth". But context is everything, hence the discussion above. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Or "three hundred and thirteenth" if one speaks British/Commonwealth English! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:45, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

MOS:DATERANGE... Unicode for endash?

MOS:DATERANGE only mentions the HTML – and the template {{ndash}} for year-year ranges. Why doesn't is say you can also insert Unicode (for example by using the wiki editor or simply copy-n-paste)? Jason Quinn (talk) 13:55, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

There is a problem with inserting a horizontal line: other editors cannot easily see whether it is in fact an en-dash or what it is if they don't know what it is supposed to be. See for example recent edits to Japanese numerals, where another editor kept (inadvertently) replacing em-dashes by the Chinese numeral one (一). For en-dashes there are a range of similar horizontal lines... Imaginatorium (talk) 14:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Operational consensus is that it's okay to use the Unicode character (and our "Insert" editing tool at bottom of the editing window includes it for easy insertion), but we shouldn't advise that people use it, for the reason Imaginatorium states. Even aside from cross-language problems, it is very difficult to distinguish -,−,–,— in many fonts, especially monospaced ones, which many of us use in editing windows (it can take quite a while to dig up a font in which all these characters are sufficiently distinct).  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 11:20, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Standardization of era "successions"?

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Mousterian#Clean up era "succession" mess.

This started as a one-article issue report, but looking around I see that the problem is pretty common (in short: conflicting "preceding/following era" links in infoboxes, navboxes, leads, and article bodies).

It needs a site-wide solution (perhaps a cross-wikiproject guideline or at least a WP:PROJPAGE with some advice in it).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:11, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Number that is not an integer but is stated as an integer

In wp:numeral, regarding spelling out numbers or expressing them as digits, it says that an integer less than 10 should be spelled out. What if the number is a measurement, not an exact integer, but is stated as a small integer? For example, "The tree is 5 meters tall.", or "The tree is five meters tall." Five/5 is not an exact integer - it us rounded off from a measurement. Should it be spelled out or use digits? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:11, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

• I guess my feeling is, this is a language issue, not a math one. I would write "five meters" but "5.0 meters".

But I'd also write the temperature of a frosty day as "5 degrees Fahrenheit", not "five", and I don't have a clear understanding of why my intuition is different in the two cases. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Not to argue with points already well made by others, but "five (or indeed 5) meters" and "5.0 meters" imply two very different things. The former is accurate only to the nearest meter (and possibly even somewhere in the range 2.5m to 7.4m) whereas the latter is accurate to the nearest ten centimeters (4.95 to 5.04). I'm afraid I have to say that for me the question is one that belongs in a moot court, not here in the MOS. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:53, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

• The APA Publication Manual, 3.42c says to use figures if it immediately precedes a unit of measurement, but I don't know if that is what we use. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:18, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  See MOS:UNITSYMBOLS for the distinction between unit names and unit symbols. With a unit name, either words or numerals might be used; with a unit symbol, always numerals. In the unit name case, the question of whether to use words or numerals is one of those things for which we could write an elaborate decision tree, but haven't, and I don't think we should. The OP's point is a philosophically interesting edge case ("Is it really an integer, or a truncated/rounded REAL? – only her hairdresser knows for sure...") but I'm pretty sure an unusual one, and one which it seems editors have successfully navigated until now. See WP:MOSBLOAT. My intuition matches Trovatore's, but I don't think it matters whether all articles follow (for example) that intuition, or sometimes follow another intuition, as long as they're internally consisten. EEng 03:25, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  I use words for small integers, i.e. something you can count one-by-one (except in mathematics). I use digits for things that aren't exactly an integer. The other day I made some changes to the history of WPAX, stating that initially the power was 10 watts. It wasn't exactly 10 watts - it is a measurement. Someone changed it to "ten". I was wondering if there are guidelines.

  Later it was 100 watts and 250 watts, and digits are used there. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:33, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  This example supports the idea that we should follow that APA guideline. I can't think of ever having seen aaaaa watts, invariably it has been nnn watts (or nnn kw etc). Ditto volts and amps. But maybe "fifteen feet" is as common as "15 feet" but maybe not for larger numbers? So now I'm wondering whether units not often seen outside engineering or physics tend to follow the "nnn unit" convention but the conventions are less solid for units in popular use. Perhaps the best answer is "whatever it is, leave it alone unless there is a very convincing reason to change it". It is a rule that works in a number of other cases (e.g, MOS:ERA). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 22:32, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  That's the best answer: don't change existing style. Johnuniq (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  I think this is a mosnum issue, but (as EEng will be quick to point out) that does not necessarily mean we need a rule for it. Do you know of any other examples leading to disagreement? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:25, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  I think I've had others but I can't remember the details. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:31, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

  I'd say that the later references to 100 watts and 250 watts would put this firmly into the "comparable uses" guideline and would use digits. --Khajidha (talk) 23:01, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

  OK, I'm going to change it based on that and the APA style. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:19, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

  Fowler begins "The writing and printing of figures and numerals is a highly specialised matter; for detailed guidance readers are referred to the New Hart's Rules. In general, numerals are used in more factual or statistical contexts and words are used (especially with numbers under a hundred) in more descriptive material: I have lived in the same house for twelve years. The survey covers a period of 12 years" and continues for several paragraphs. That does argue for 10 watts in your case and goes some way to explaining our intuitions — and our wariness about trying to agree a complete and precise MOSNUM rule. 92.19.24.131 (talk) 12:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

  I think if we just say "for detailed guidance editors are referred to the New Hart's Rules" we won't have any more problems in this area. EEng 14:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

  Which is not online and few editors will have a copy of! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

  Naturally, I was completely serious when I said that. I never kid around or anything. EEng 15:07, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Old Hart

-EEng

• Thanks, everyone. I'll probably order a copy of New Hart's Rules. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:53, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
  • Everyone who edits WP and who cares about style should probably have a copy of both NHR and The Chicago Manual of Style. Secret hint: The editions from around 2010 are cheap if you get them used, and are actually more influential (including over the MoS). The newer editions are too new to have had any impact yet, to the extent they even differ on anything important from the previous ones. That said, the NHR a.k.a. Oxford Style Manual a.k.a. Oxford Guide to Style (ed. R. Ritter) from the early-to-mid-2000s is even better and more influential; the later editions (ed. A. Waddingham) actually dropped a bunch of detail and also turned wishy-washy on many points (basically refusing to offer actual advice). Same goes for the corresponding editions of Fowler's, which closely track and defer to the nearest edition of NHR (the 2000s Burchfield edition is superior in almost every respect to the "we give up, so just do whatever you like" nonsense in the later Butterfield versions). Another to keep around is Garner's Modern English Usage (current edition; the earlier ones are limited to US English, titled Garner's Modern American Usage; the new one is more evidence-based, and is mostly just an internationalized expansion, with little if anything that contradicts the American-specific material in the previous edition). For MOSNUM watchers, I also recommend Scientific Style and Format, from which much of MoS's sci-tech-maths material was drawn.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:33, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Trailing zeros: MOS:CURRENCY and MOS:DECIMAL

Today I edited the article on Equal Pay Day to introduce a leading zero for amounts less than $1, per MOS:DECIMAL. MOS:CURRENCY says nothing about formatting the number itself – in particular, it doesn't say anything about trailing zeros. As far as I can tell, I could change a hypothetical "$.40" to "$0.4" and still meet the MOS:DECIMAL guideline, but US dollars are not usually written to the first decimal place.

I was tempted to suggest adding a cross-reference from MOS:CURRENCY to MOS:DECIMAL – not as instruction creep, as it's implicit, but just to make it explicit. But since neither section says anything about trailing zeros, that would not help. Using common sense is probably enough, but I'm a little surprised MoS is silent on the matter. 178.164.248.238 (talk) 09:25, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

MOS avoids pontificating on what editors seem to be handing all right by themselves. EEng 10:26, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, and this varies by country and currency. Standard US practice is "$0.40" in most contexts ("40 cents" or "40 ¢" would also be used in some, but that's probably best avoided on WP). Using "$.40" is easy to misread, and "$0.4" isn't something an American would write (when we see "$0.40" we usually sound-out "forty cents" in our heads, similar to how "$1" is "one dollar" not "dollar-sign one"). I have no idea what, say, an Italian would expect with regard to fractional lira, and so on. If MoS tried to account for this stuff, we'd have an entire nit-pick page on what to do for every currency, and no one would ever read it except half a dozen weird obsessive-compulsives.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:17, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

As an Australian, I would expect either $0.40 (note both zeroes) or 40¢ (I'm not worried about spacing). $0.4 causes me to stop, back up, reread, then continue - jarring the original line of thought. $.40 would more than likely cause me to totally miss that tiny little decimal point and interpret it as $40 . For the number of digits after then decimal point, I would always use the number of digits in the smaller unit. If the smaller unit is 1/100th of the larger then always use 2 digits. If the smaller unit is 1/1000th of the larger then always use 3 digits. And so-on.  Stepho  talk  22:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Wind speed

I have some problems with the wind speed for European storms (e.g. this and this). Some UK users wants to measure them in mph (just like the hurricane seasons in the US, e.g. 2018), but, since they involve also Ireland and other countries which officially use SI units and Wikipedia policies state in scientific articles SI units should be given first, in my opinion the primary units should be the SI ones. It's worth noting that the MetOffice (UK weather service) uses also SI units in its reports about wind speed. I personally prefer using a syntax like that: {{convert|original unit|m/s km/h knots mph|disp=off}} so that the main unit will be m/s and the others will be given in parentheses (the order inside them could be changed, though). What do you think about?--Carnby (talk) 19:10, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I can't see that m/s is likely to be that useful. The units that are of most use are km/hr for Ireland, mph for the UK, knots for maritime and aeronautical use, and finally the Beaufort number. Which you prioritise is a matter of personal preference, best leave it to the doctrine of first use unless the SI brigade weigh in. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Well, m/s is used in professional scientific publications (e.g. the ones published by the World Meteorological Organization). Is that "doctrine of first use" approved by any Wikipedia guideline?--Carnby (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) OK, fair enough if there is a real use for it. See issues like WP:ERA or WP:ENGVAR for first use. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:13, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Did somebody ring for the SI brigade? We came as soon as we heard !

If it was UK only then WP:TIES would allow for mph first. But whenever there is a mix of SI and imperial ties then WP must use SI - see WP:UNITS. Since Ireland is SI, then SI should come first. Of course, imperial conversions and knots after the SI units is perfectly acceptable. And m/s is acceptable in the conversion list for its scientific use.  Stepho  talk  22:19, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, for the the two articles cited. I suggest km/h, not m/s, because km/h is more common in more general-interest texts. But some of these articles will be on storms that primarily affected the UK, or that are otherwise UK-specific. Those should be mph-first.

Where the boundary between the two categories is is something that will need to be decided by consensus. Kahastok talk 23:06, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

MOS:TIES is for the variety of English, not the units used. --Izno (talk) 02:52, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Just to represent the hurricane/tropical cyclone/meteorology project here a bit and clarify. We take the knots that we are given by the meteorological organization in question and stick that straight into the infobox. The infobox then automatically converts it into km/h and mph and presents it as km/h first within most basins but we make an exception for the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins as they are primarily ruled over by an American agency. As a general rule of thumb, we do not present the knots or the m/s unless it is a technical article like Tropical cyclone scales, as the public generally finds it confusing from what i understand.Jason Rees (talk) 22:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

I'd still put in a plea for the Beaufort scale. It's an intuitive logarithmic scale based on the effect of the wind. 61 mph 28 m/s may be very informative to some (it actually sounds quite pleasant), but "Storm force 10" gives a far better appreciation of what's happening out there. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:42, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Unless cited in source, conversion to Beaufort wind force seems like OR to me. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 13:42, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Beaufort scale gives a conversion from wind speed in around four different units. If making this conversion is "OR", this would suggest that converting fathoms into metres was "OR"...? Imaginatorium (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but my impression is the Beaufort scale is used, at least in some cases, to estimate wind speeds based on observe conditions, when no measuring instruments are available. Therefore I think we should be very cautious about between the Beaufort scale and wind speed. By supplying inappropriate conversions we could create confusion between which is the observation and which is the converted value. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed: Beaufort scale says The Beaufort scale is not an exact nor an objective scale; it was based on visual and subjective observation of a ship and of the sea. The corresponding integral wind speeds were determined later, but the values in different units were never made equivalent. EEng 17:24, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

"We could create confusion between which is the observation and which is the converted value" applies to any conversion! Some of the SI enthusiasts insist on the conversion coming before the original value which is seriously daft, but in general any parenthesised term is understood to be a help to save reaching for the calculator. I would suggest to you that the same argument applies to wind forces, after all they are how speeds are communicated in shipping forecasts. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:46, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Imaginatorium. A fathom is six feet. I see no ambiguity (and therefore no OR) in that conversion unless you are suggesting that a foot is not necessarily equal to 0.3048 m. (Is that your point?) By comparison the Beaufort scale is a qualitative scale defined in terms of whether and how twigs fall off trees on land, or the extent to which the sea is covered in white caps. I see no reasonable comparison. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dondervogel 2: I would suggest you read Beaufort scale. You'll find that precise wind speed ranges are tabulated for a given number. There is also the relationship v = 0.836 B^3/2 m/s. Historically the scale was based upon the effect on sailing vessels, but has been rigorously defined for years now. It has never been defined "in terms of whether and how twigs fall off trees on land", that is a guide to help in assessing only. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Since when is WP considered a RS? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 00:43, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

WP is not RS, but is usually regarded as a great introduction to a subject and can lead to RSs if you wish to develop your knowledge. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Beaufort wind force scale

I'm not sure about on land, but for conditions at sea the World Meteorological Organization (WMO, 1970) defines the first 7 entries of the Beaufort scale like so:

• 0: Sea like a mirror
• 1: Ripples with the appearance of scales are formed, but without foam crests
• 2: Small wavelets, still short but more pronounced; crests have a glassy appearance and do not break
• 3: Large wavelets; crests begin to break; foam of glassy appearance; perhaps scattered white horses
• 4: Small waves, becoming longer; fairly frequent white horses
• 5: Moderate waves, taking a more pronounced long form; many white horses are formed (chance of some spray)
• 6: Large waves begin to form; the white foam crests are more extensive everywhere (probably some spray)

Dondervogel 2 (talk) 00:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Very interesting, so 50 years ago the same descriptions were used as today. Now let's consider more recent publications; try Reeds Nautical Almanac, the RYA's Yachtmaster textbook or the RYA's handbook on Weather. All three define Beaufort in terms of wind speed and then give descriptions for quick assessment. Going to the UK Meteorological office and today's forcast for Viking are is: "Wind In southwest, southeasterly 5 to 7, occasionally 4 at first, perhaps gale 8 later. In northeast, southeasterly backing easterly, 3 to 5", see here. The WMO publishes tables of wind speed equivalents, see for instance World Meteorological Organization (2017) [2004], Guide to Meteorological Instruments and Methods of Observation, p. 169–170, retrieved 23 November 2019. It you want a fuller (and harder) treatment of the subject, try Lindau, Ralf, Report on Beaufort Equivalent Scale, p. 41 ff, retrieved 23 November 2019

There are two issues here. (1) should Beaufort be included and (2) is Beaufort a properly defined scale. Your argument seems to be Beaufort is defined in terms of twigs falling off trees, ergo it is not a proper scale, ergo it should be ignored. I think the issues need to be separated; Beaufort is rigidly defined for what it does and is in daily use by professionals and amateurs alike. Whether to include Beaufort or not is a different question that can be discussed on its merits and usefulness. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:12, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Im my opinion the Beaufort scale is not important here. I was asking whether using SI units or mph in storms involving Europe. All countries except the UK use km/h (most common) or m/s (professional publications), whereas the UK uses mostly mph (sometimes with km/h conversion) and sometimes knots. The units used in web or traditional sources about wind speed are mainly km/h, mph, knots and m/s; I have found only one instance of Beaufort number (probably there are also others, but in general they are seldom used). In my opinion, summing up the question, I would stick to the units used in the cited sources (UK mph and the rest of Europe km/h), except for tables, infobox or dubious cases where SI units should be preferred for storms involving Europe.--Carnby (talk) 10:50, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Martin of Sheffield I never said the Beaufort scale should be ignored. On the contrary, we should use it whenever our sources do. I just think we should not convert a wind speed to Beaufort force because we don't know how. The links you provide are all valuable (thank you - I shall read them with great interest!) but I still don't see how they would help us carry out the conversion without OR. Which of the many conversions provided in Table 1 of the 2003 paper by Lindau, Table 5.1 of the 2014/2017 WMO document, or similar table by da Silva et al (1995) would we use? Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:04, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Carnby I am strongly against following sources because the sources are all different, leading to inconsistency between articles at best and interminable edit wars at worst "My source is better than your source". If there's a need for guidance (and clearly you think there is) we can provide it here. I have no objection to mph in UK and km/h elsewhere (no ambiguity results from that), but that's different from following sources, which differ. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 18:10, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@Dondervogel 2 So, using mph for storms involving mainly the UK and km/h elsewhere (general articles about European storms and storms which involved more other countries) is a good guideline?--Carnby (talk) 11:42, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

My personal preference is km/h (or m/s) for all articles, but I accept mph is likely more common in some (perhaps most) UK contexts. I expect there are some situations for which m/s is more common even in the UK, especially in a science context. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 12:29, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Abbreviated page numbers

As with date ranges (see above), number ranges in general, such as page ranges, should state the full value of both the beginning and end of the range, with an en dash between, e.g. pp. 1902–1911 or entries 342–349. Forms such as 1901–11 and 342–9 may be used where space is limited (such as in tables and infoboxes), or where a citation style formally requires it. (As usual, quotations are not changed.)

What would be an example of "a citation style formally requir[ing]" abbreviated page numbers? The link provides no examples of this. I propose that (a) the second sentence should be deleted, (b) whatever citation style they are referring to should be deprecated, and (c) non-lazy page numbers should be required in all contexts. This would aid in machine-readability in downstream use of citations, and avoid ambiguity with wacky numbering schemes in which "page 13-5" means "page 5 of chapter 13" (not "pages 13–15 from the beginning"). ―cobaltcigs 16:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

MLA allows, if not requires, abbreviated numbers. --Izno (talk) 16:44, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

2019 vs. 2019–present

Which is appropriate? 2019 or 2019–present? Especially since 2019 is the technical present. livelikemusic talk! 02:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Common sense is the best guide here. If there are differing views between editors, seek consensus on the talk page. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 09:03, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

"Present", like "current" and "today", is a word to be avoided because, unless the article is rigorously maintained, it will become misleading. If the topic is time-limited to this year only, say 2019; if it is open-ended, then make that fact evident using the format "2019– ". --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

You can't do "2019– " – MOS:DATERANGE specifically says not to do open-ended date ranges like that. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:57, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

That's a pity, it seems a good way to indicate it. For a more direct and especially relevant to this discussion reference, see MOS:DATETOPRES. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:21, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately, MOS:DATETOPRES does not cover what happens when the start year is the present year.  Stepho  talk  21:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

'Present' isn't specifically mentioned in this Dates and Numbers part of the Manual of Style at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Statements likely to become outdated (shortcut MOS:CURRENT) but the same principles apply as for 'currently', 'now' and the rest; it's to be avoided. There's further advice at WP:ASOF. 92.19.24.131 (talk) 11:42, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

The automobile project uses {{infobox automobile}} which prefers "2019–present". As mentioned above, just saying "2019" implies it was only this one year, so it needs some form of continuation. However, the "2019–" suggested above suffers from the same fate as ""2019–present" for unmaintained articles - ie when read in 2024 it looks like it continues to 2024. Perhaps we should have a template called {{present|year=2019}} which works a bit like {{as of}} that puts such articles into a special category when the current year is higher than the provided year and that can be regularly checked.  Stepho  talk  11:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

And you likely shouldn't be doing that – it shouldn't advance to "2019–present" until it becomes 2020. The only way around that would be something like "Sept 2019–present" – that might be OK. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:00, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you IJBall, that is what I am talking about. People seem to be misunderstanding; this isn't about 2019–present vs. 2019–; this is about whether or not 2019–present is appropriate when 2019 IS the present tense; surely, that would mean it'd simply be 2019 only? livelikemusic talk! 03:29, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Agreed that adding the month makes it better - and the automobile project does encourage the use of start and end months for production dates when they are known. But what if the exact month is not known?  Stepho  talk  11:31, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

So then when it comes to dates we are gonna use the month and the year? Arjoccolenty (talk) 09:50, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

What is the context here? “XXXX–present” is used frequently in sports infoboxes in lists of playing or coaching tenures (see basketball, football and baseball examples). This format works well to show current team in a list of tenures. I don’t see a need to change and adding month doesn’t make sense for a variety of reasons. Rikster2 (talk) 23:06, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

The confusion is when XXXX = 2019, so essentially you are saying "present-present". I'm comfortable with "2019–present" even though at an absolutely literal level it's a little odd. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:12, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

It seems rather odd to me too. Apparently some people feel very strongly about it: [37]... Maybe "from 2019" would be a good alternative? Or some similar form like "beginning 2019", "as of 2019", "2019 (ongoing)", etc... --IamNotU (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with anything that is not just "2019" since that makes it sound like the duration of what you were dating has ended. Arjoccolenty (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Except, 2019–present is redundant, since 2019 is the present tense. It's counterproductive. Simply stating 2019 does not imply anything, as in most cases of Wikipedia, it is followed by information pertaining to that year. Or, in the case of {{Infobox person}} in terms of {{Marriage}} is it simply implied. That template even does not do 2019–present for marriages. livelikemusic talk! 21:38, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not even gonna bother with this anymore because clearly you won't stop until you get your own way. Saying it as "(2019)" means that it took place and ENDED in 2019. There is nothing to show that it is ongoing. That is why I have an issue with it. It does not look accurate. But I'm done with it all. You won't accept anything unless its your way. Arjoccolenty (talk) 22:52, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@User:livelikemusic. Just 2019 has only a single number where a start and end date are normally expected - implying that it was only within the single year and did not go further. There must be some indication that the end has not been reached. 2019–present, 2019-, starting 2019, etc have a fixed start date and an open ended end date, so they obviously give more information than just "2019" and are therefore not redundant.  Stepho  [[User Talk:|talk]]  22:56, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

@Stepho-wrs: I'm speaking in terms of it being presently 2019. Not 2020, or 2021, etc. 2019–present as long as it is 2019 is redundant. Because 2019 is the present tense, and trying to state otherwise is false — as previously presented by IJBall, hence why templates like {{Marriage}} only mention the year, etc. If it were an issue, the template would evoke "–present" if the current year were used or any subsequent the marriage is present. livelikemusic talk! 23:11, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

I am also speaking as it being presently 2019. My examples were stated with that in mind. "2019" can be implied to cover both the start and end dates (ie 1 year or less). "2019-present" leaves the end date open ended, therefore it gives more information than just "2019". The continuing nature must be expressed in some form.  Stepho  talk  01:24, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

• "since 2019". Tony (talk) 06:52, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

dates

Re unlinking centuries, etc. In the MOS, it would very helpful if the MOS guidance on centuries, etc., could be explicit about not linking them. Otherwise, editors get accused of disruptive edits and told to revert their work, like me on my talk page. Thanks Hmains (talk) 00:50, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

which fraction should i use for 6½ ?

i have asked the question in teahouse and a member suggested to ask opinion or suggestion of you also.

Calliotropis_limbifera contains 6½ whorls. i have never edited wiki page containing fractions. i have read MOS:FRAC, but i am undecided.

{{frac|6|1|2}} OR 6{{frac|1|2}}

please advice

Leela52452 (talk) 13:08, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Leela52452: {{frac|6|1|2}} would be preferable. For one, with the template, you don't have to worry about spacing; it's all handled automatically. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:27, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Date format date

I've seen many edits which change the date parameter, on templates such as {{use dmy dates}}, to the current month (examples: [38], [39]). What is the perceived benefit of doing this? ―cobaltcigs 17:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

It’s some stupid script and it’s counterproductive because it obscures the length of time the particular date fmt has been in use on that article, plus needlessly churns histories and watchlists. EEng 18:09, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

While I agree with EEng, the rationale is that the updated date shows when the date formats in the article were checked. For example, if an article had a tag dated December 2009 (ten years ago), one might suspect that subsequent edits could have introduced dates that conflict with the proclaimed style. If tagged December 2019, one might hope that the dates are consistent. Johnuniq (talk) 22:32, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I do apologize. I thoughtlessly assumed, without checking, that the date referred to when the template was first added. So now I don't know what to say. I didn't even know we had automatic thingamajigs for checking this, though in retrospect it would, of course, be surprising if we didn't. EEng 22:45, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

This was being discussed at Template_talk:Use_dmy_dates#"date=":_parameter_meaning_drifted but just fizzled out.

Since there are 2 desired but contradictory uses for the parameter, perhaps there should be 2 parameters - one for when it was added (|added-date=) and another for when the article was last checked for conformity (|checked-date=).  Stepho  talk  23:39, 29 December 2019 (UTC)