Talk:MV Queen of New Westminster

Inflation calculations may not be correct

@Trigenibinion: You recently added some cost information, including inflation-adjusted values.

This caused the page to exceed Wikipedia's built-in limit on "expansion depth."

As a result, some of the "inner" calculations may not be done correctly if at all, leading to incorrect displayed numbers.

The most straight-forward solution might be to replace

{{#expr:{{Inflation|CA|{{#expr:{{Inflation|CA|3500000|1963|1973}}+ 2500000}}|1973|1991}}+ 35600000}}

with

62371187<!-- calculated on 2020-12-26 from "{{#expr:{{Inflation|CA|{{#expr:{{Inflation|CA|3500000|1963|1973}}+ 2500000}}|1973|1991}}+ 35600000}}", hardcoded to work around "Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded" problem. --> davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 18:34, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

I've made the change, the CAD$:US$ ratios for 2018 are now consistent at 1.29CAD$=1US$ and the page is no longer in Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded.[1] davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 🎄 19:00, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I was fixing it and I saw you had already done it. Thanks. Trigenibinion (talk) 19:06, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Infoxbox detail

Adding the major overhauls that happen very 10 or 20 years to the infobox is not excessive, it is not a problem and that is the place one looks at when just wanting to know the cost of something. One should not have to parse the whole page to find out. Trigenibinion (talk) 20:22, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this to talk per WP:BRD. The purpose of an infobox is to summarize and not replace key information in the article, it also best serves its purpose when the entries are short and concise - see MS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. Furthermore in the ships infobox the parameter is "ship original cost", with no field for subsequent refit costs. There is also a problem that the original cost already quoted in the infobox is not sourced, nor were any of the refit costs you added to it. There is no problem if you want to add these details to the prose (with the conversions) if you can source the original costs but the refit costs do not belong in the infobox Lyndaship (talk) 09:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

"ship original cost" is the name of the parameter. The infobox just displays "Cost". The usage guide states that this is usually at construction time, but this ship underwent radical modifications. Trigenibinion (talk) 10:35, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

The Ship Infobox Usage guide in full says Ship original cost - The financial cost of building the ship, usually at the time of construction and using the currency of either the orderer or the builder. If other values are used (e.g. conversions), they should be specified and, if necessary, further discussed in the article. So we are discussing here as suggested, the other values refer to if the ship was converted from say a merchant ship to a warship and do not apply to refits. I would also draw your attention to the currency to be used - the orderer or the builder both of which are Canadian so why include a US$ conversion? This usage guide reinforces MS:INFOBOXPURPOSE stating An article's infobox is equivalent to a lead section. It is meant to give a brief overview, so excessive detail should be avoided when entering information into the fields. ........... Most infobox content should also appear in the body of the article, along with any elaboration, additional information, and citations. I am asking you to comply with this guidance Lyndaship (talk) 15:22, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Just a question (for either, or anyone); this appears to be an all Canadian deal, from builder to operator, so why add an additional conversion to $US currency in the infobox? - wolf 19:51, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Because the USD is being used to compare costs originating in different currencies. People from all around the world have a feel for it. It helps people understand, similarly to adjusting old values which are otherwise meaningless. The results are being displayed like INRConvert which is commonly used for Indian items. I have been thinking of writing a simple wrapper template to eliminate the boilerplate for other currencies (no crore, paise, etc.). Trigenibinion (talk) 23:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Have a look: Draft:Template:FXConvert Trigenibinion (talk) 02:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The proposal has some merit but on balance I would be against it. Regardless this is a wiki wide proposal and should be debated at a more suitable venue than the talk page of one ship Lyndaship (talk) 08:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

And where would it be discussed? This is not just about ships, but about extending the INRConvert display convention (which extends ToUSD) to all currencies. The proposal stands on its own even without deciding to apply adjustment to infoboxes. I will bring it to the INRConvert talk page first. Trigenibinion (talk) 11:15, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

WP:RfC If you intend that all currency amounts anywhere in any article should be converted to US$ Lyndaship (talk) 11:34, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Note that I only chose USD because this is now the global currency, should this change in the future, the default target can be switched in the template code to whatever. There is room for additional positional arguments, but INRConvert has some neat features so I want to discuss how much commonality there should be because some of those users complain about the expansion limit, so just extending that full functionality does not seem practical. Trigenibinion (talk) 12:21, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Ideally, the users would be able to choose a custom default target on the site preferences page. This could be added later. Trigenibinion (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The first major overhaul stretched the ship, the second one added a deck, they are not usual refits. Trigenibinion (talk) 23:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

If you source the figures this information belongs in the prose but the infobox has no provision for them - they are additional to the original cost, not a replacement of it Lyndaship (talk) 08:41, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I sourced the figures but it was reverted. Trigenibinion (talk) 11:15, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

No you didn't. The sourcing you provided was for how you adjusted for inflation the original cost of the rebuildings. What we need is a source confirming the rebuilding costs Lyndaship (talk) 11:40, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I added it after your revert. This was also reverted. Trigenibinion (talk) 12:12, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I have added what the source you provided actually supported to the prose. Lyndaship (talk) 14:53, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm still not clear on why the $US conversion has been added. It doesn't appear to be supported by the infobox guidelines. The reason provided; "Because the USD is being used to compare costs originating in different currencies. People from all around the world have a feel for it.", seems like you have good intentions, but I was looking for something more P&G or consensus based. Thanks - wolf 16:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Indian item infoboxes commonly have USD conversions made by INRConvert and it is also common to find hardcoded conversions from euro to USD or made with ToUSD. That's what inspired me. Trigenibinion (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Then I was finding American items with inflation adjustments and INRConvert provides both. I started with more USD conversions for European items and more inflation adjustments for American items and when looking at some Indian item I found out about INRConvert which provided a model on how to combine both for a few currencies more (the ones supported by the Inflation template). An advantage of doing the inflation adjustment is that generally you don't have to worry about the limited years for which ToUSD has data. But I have not attempted to procedurally adjust Eurozone items from before the year 2000. Trigenibinion (talk) 19:07, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

This is an article about a ship in Canada. While Canada and the US are often closely related in a number of subject areas, I don't see why the $US conversion is being added here, and that said, what does Indian currency have to do with this at all? - wolf 19:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Only Canadians understand what their prices mean. Lots of people understand the US dollar. Who understands Indian prices besides Indians? It is good that they are providing USD conversions. The Euro, Pound, and Yen are not obvious unless you live in one of those countries. You can approximate one Swiss Franc as one USD but most people don't know that. Bitcoin has not replaced the USD. Trigenibinion (talk) 19:49, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

You're kinda' all over the place. Of course Canadians understand what their prices mean, same for the citizenry of any country and their national currency. But conversely, I don't think non-American readers of the En-WP need the $US dollar equivalent of their local currency to understand it's global value. Again, read the infobox guidance. There has been a great deal of debate about infobox content over the years, so best to just work within the existing guidelines. (And "Bitcoin"? What does that have to with... anything?) - wolf 20:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

People don't need a conversion to a global currency to understand what their own prices mean. They need it to understand what a price mean in most OTHER currencies and to compare values. Some people think Bitcoin will replace the Dollar, others the Yuan or even the Euro. We are not there yet. I am not a USD fan, I am just being realistic and following what has been going on here. Trigenibinion (talk) 21:01, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Forget the Swiss Franc, the near equivalence with the Dollar has not been true for quite a while. I think if the SNB had not been buying so many Euros it would have reached parity. Trigenibinion (talk) 21:27, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Well, the Euro is since October the most used global payments currency. Now it is up to the masses to start buying euros instead of dollars to beat inflation. Trigenibinion (talk) 00:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) That's all um, interesting... but not really on point. The issue is infobox content and I'm not seeing where the guideline states that conversions must be added because people "need" them. One of the handy things about WP is that it's on the internet, meaning that if a reader needs to know what a CDN dollar is worth compared to their own currency (nevermind USD), that info is but a click away. Like I said, infoboxes have been contentious before and can become so again. I would, again, suggest staying to the guidelines. - wolf 01:12, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Infoboxes are a quick resource, it is not practical to manually convert every page that you visit. In some countries people even have to convert their own prices to USD (or eventually euros) to understand what they mean. As I said before, when the settings page gets a default currency preference, there could be a way for a template to convert dynamically to what the user prefers. Trigenibinion (talk) 02:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

While the world has tended to dollarization, in Europe the trend is euroization. When there is low demand for a currency in a local market, it can be a worse deal. Trigenibinion (talk) 03:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Gold is popular in India. But people don't know how much gold things cost. Trigenibinion (talk) 06:47, 1 January 2021 (UTC)