Talk:Unit of measurement/Format of articles about units

Format of articles about units

---

Discussion on format moved here from Talk:Metre

Consider, I want to know how many nanometers in a meter. I type 'nanometer' in search, and I get directed to metre. Nowhere does it tell me. Only when I follow the 'See also' SI prefix do I get my answer in a round-about way. Many readers wouldn't know what SI is, nor would they consider looking there for the answer. Say I typed 'nanometre' in the search I get a different page that does answer the question.

Micrometre page tells me how many micrometers in a meter, but Centimetre and Picometre redirects back to Metre. The pages could do with some cleanup and consistency and with consideration for the different spellings of metre (meter). -- CraigKeogh 05:33, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I fixed nanometer to redirect to nanometre. Gene Nygaard 06:28, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

You can see from the history that there used to be articles at picometre.[1] I agree that it was fool-hardy to get rid of them. At that time, the info about various prefix combinations for the eliminated articles was included here under 'metre'.[2] However, since then, someone has lost sight of the plan, and has failed to insure that that information remains here. I think all of those articles should be re-created, since that attempted reform has obviously failed miserably. Gene Nygaard

Then, when we have a full set of prefixed articles, we could merge and redirect all those silly 1 E-9 m and the like articles to the more useful (more likely to be searched for, easy to link) prefixed units such as nanometre. Gene Nygaard 06:46, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Why do you consider 1 E-9 m etc. to be 'silly'? Like the Eames film Powers of Ten, it organizes objects by size, which is an interesting way to cross-cut experience. --Macrakis 14:56, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I am glad the individual articles for <prefix><unitname> have gone. The meaning of each term is very simple but the articles managed to make it look complicated. I would rather include such terms in a clear and standard way within the article about the unit. This is the approach taken in kilogram (not done very well) and in bit (done very well).

I agree with you that 1 E-9 m etc are silly and should be abandoned. Bobblewik 23:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

(moved from Bobblewik talk page)This in in response to your redirection of all the "1 EX m" pages to metre, without any discussion(that I have been able to find), or explanation. Those pages are useful, and used by many people - redirecting them without explanation verges close to vandalism. I have reverted your changes, and I look forward to your explanation of them. Please excuse the shouting in the subject line - I was just disturbed by what appears to me to be a unilateral, unexpected removal of quite a large amount of content from the current version of the 'pedia. JesseW, the juggling janitor 21:56, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

(moved from Bobblewik talk page)I agree with JesseW above. I have also undone your redirects to watt, kilogram and metre. Note that you also created a large number of double redirects. -- JamesTeterenko 22:34, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

As with Macrakis, I like these articles. I know that a few months ago, I spent some time traversing through them because I found them interesting. If these articles are redirected, is someone planning on merging the content into Orders of magnitude (length)? If not, are you suggesting scrapping the content completely? If consensus is reached on this topic to redirect them all to the same place, please:

• check for and fix the double redirects
• In the edit summary, link to the discussion where consensus was reached

-- JamesTeterenko 16:07, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Guys (JamesTeterenko and Macrakis) in particular. The whole set of unit articles is a mishmash of inconsistency. We could have a main article for each SI unit and 20 subarticles (1 per prefix). But what we have is main articles that often do not even give the official definition clearly and early in the article. Some unit articles have no subarticles and are the only source of explanation of prefixed multiples. Others have a few subarticles and some have have many. I don't think any have 20. The number of subarticles appears to be random. With a few exceptions, the subarticles are statements of multiplication, references to other prefixed articles and fairly low added value content.

Handling prefixed multiples within the main article is simple, scalable and comprehensive. This is presumably why it was done with kilogram, bit and byte.

From the discussions above, it is clear that some user enquiries would get directed to an individual page about the prefixed unit. Other user enquiries would go to the main page about the unit. I noted the desire for a cleanup in consistency and agree with it. I followed the exortation to be bold with my edits and took action. I did not act to disrespect you or any of your work. My action has involved:

• Revised the article style with the objective of clarity.
• Revised the article style with the objective of consistency between different articles about SI units.
• Listed *all* the prefixed versions of the unit within the main article.

One of the benefits of SI is simplicity. It would be ironic if an article about an SI unit does not look simple. Furthermore, the benefits of prefixes is best explained when you see them all together. Showing how a kilometre relates to a millimetre is not difficult in a list. The individual articles of prefixed units made it look complicated.

There seem to be two major issues:

• 1. How to provide comprehensive support to people seeking knowledge about units and prefixes.
• 2. How to provide comprehensive support to people seeking knowledge about orders of magnitude.

My main interest is (1). If I am not mistaken, your main concern appears to be with (2). I am interested to read more from yourself and others. Bobblewik 17:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

There is often more to it than the information about the units themselves. Orthography, redundancy in symbols with other things sharing the same symbol, external links specifically applicable to a certain prefixed unit.

Damn it, Bobblewik, if you are going to do this, follow the rules. No loss of information. Did you see the JamesTeterenko comment below about Kilowatt (album)?

So tell me, where in the metre article will I find the information that used to be included in the micrometre article, concerning the alternate spelling of this unit: "A micrometer is also a name for a measuring instrument."?

Where in the metre article do I find the information about the millimicron being an old name used for the nanometre, which used to appear in the nanometre article?

How many more tidbits of information like this have you carelessly thrown away? Gene Nygaard 04:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

To answer your specific points of loss:

• micrometre: 'alternate spelling', 'measuring instrument'. The text was kept and moved by me to the metre article. It was deleted in this edit: 21:25, 11 September 2005 Centrx http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metre&diff=23060757&oldid=23060686
• nanometre. 'millimicron'. The text was kept and moved by me to the metre article. It was deleted in the same edit: 21:25, 11 September 2005 Centrx http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metre&diff=23060757&oldid=23060686

Perhaps I should have kept track on what other editors were doing but it is difficult.

Yes, I deliberately selected and edited other content during the move. I note that when Jmp tried a merge with minimum editing of content, Rktect complained about exactly that (18:48, 27 September 2005 UTC Talk:Historical_weights_and_measures#Merge_with_History_section_of_Units_of_measurement.3F). It is difficult to please everybody.

Yes, perhaps I should have carried the link to Kilowatt (album) across, or created a disambiguation page. I may have not given that link the priority that it deserves. Mea culpa. If anyone wants to resolve that, they are welcome to help out. I am convinced that the benefits of a strategic cleanup of unit articles is worth a little effort. Bobblewik 12:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Then I stand corrected. You did the right thing on those, Bobblewik.

The problem, of course, is that we don't have a "differences" page to compare when information is moved to one article or another. So when you are changing the articles to redirects, it is incumbent upon you, the one who knows, to make sure that all the information ends up somewhere—even if you don't think it is significant.

Then even if you remove it right after that in a separate edit, at least other editors will be aware that it is being removed. But it should involve that separate edit after the information is moved. That's the main point I'd like to make.

A secondary point is that in some cases the information that would clearly have been relevant in the subsidiary article will be considered peripheral and irrelevant in the main article, by editors who are unaware of the history of the combination of these articles. So we editors who are aware of what is going on need to be aware of this problem, and to explain why some of this information needs to be retained after these moves are made. Gene Nygaard 12:57, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

You make fair points. Separating the edits can be helpful i.e. copy first, save, then revise content and save again. In cases like this it can be convenient for audits of the history. I will try to make more use of that procedure.

It can also be reasonable for editors to be unaware of the redirects and the grand scheme. I agree that we need to watch out for it. I think part of the problem was due to a user objection to mentioning prefixed multiples in the base unit article. Hopefully that specific part of the problem will not be so great once the scheme settles down.

I note that when trying to implementing the scheme for hertz, I moved all the subarticles correctly (I hope), certainly in good faith. Unfortunately, I saved Megahertz by mistake without a summary. This got reverted with the comment that it was a bad faith redirect. Most of the content is a duplicate of Radio frequency, is order of magnitudes, or is about computers that seems to me to be less than vital. I created Orders of magnitude (frequency) as a repository. Feel free to see if you can succeed where I failed in getting megahertz moved to hertz. Bobblewik 14:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

We are getting too many colons, so I am continuing on the left. I don't have too big of a problem with what you did. Yes, please, be bold. A couple of us had a problem with what you did, undid it, now we are chatting. This is how it is supposed to work.

So, now to the issue at hand. My main concerns are that I do not want to lose encyclopedic content, and I want Wikipedia users to get the information cleanly (i.e. no double redirects). I agree that we have two issues, which you have labelled (1) & (2). Since (2) is not your key interest and is the set of articles that I believe have value, I think we can settle to leave those alone. (If someone else wants to offer another idea, I'm open to discuss it. I am not stuck on leaving it as is, but I do think the content is of value.)

That leaves us with issue (1). I am comfortable with removing the unit + prefix articles, but only if we address my concerns of not losing content and keeping things clean. To do this, I suggest:

• for pages that are currently nothing more than a dictionary definition which is easily understood in the main article: just redirect to the base unit
• for pages that have some other content: move content into the appropriate article & redirect to the base unit (e.g. merge examples in Zettametre to 1 E21 m & redirect Zettametre to metre)
• for pages that include other meanings as well as the unit of measure: redirect to base unit & link to it at the top of the base unit article. (e.g. when kilowatt is redirected to watt a link to Kilowatt (album) should be placed at the top of watt)
• when you create a redirect, fix all the double redirects

What do you think? -- JamesTeterenko 22:24, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Excellent four bullet points. That could work well. Sorry that I forget the double redirects. I am aware of the problem and I forget about it sometimes. I wish the problem of double redirects could be solved in software. If a solution is not forthcoming, a way for editors to search Wikipedia for (new?) double redirects would help. I hope others will comment on the plan you have outlined. Bobblewik 11:39, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok. As long as the content is not lost, I am happy with any solution. I put in some work cleaning up the 1 EX m articles, but if someone wants to merge them all into one page, or do some kind of transclusion, I have no particular objection. It was the fact that you redirected before merging the content that I objected to. Good of you to be working on cleaning up this section! JesseW, the juggling janitor 17:42, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm reverting all these moves User:Centrx has just nuked all the content from the old pages that was moved here. I would suggest that you get the metre page 100% right and THEN do the redirects *after* a good discussion and notice in the talk all the other unit pages. - SimonLyall 07:03, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

In the interest of retaining content, the moved content might could be temporarily appended to the end of this article; though it would be messy, it would be no less messy than what the article was in the changes of the past few days. The other parts of article, though, ought to remain the same, for the reasons abbreviated in the edit comments. - Centrx 20:46, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Discussion on format moved here from Talk:Volt

There seems to be an effort to format the unit of measurement articles in a standard way. While this is a laudable goal, some choices are being made that I think seriously diminish the utility of Wikipedia to someone who is not already knowledgeable about the subject, moving more in the direction that the first poster in this discussion complained about:

• The lead to the articles is cut to the bare minimum of text, relying on links to supply all information.

• For derived units, the "Definition" section consists solely of an equation with no text whatsoever. e.g.

1 V = 1 W/A = 1 m²·kg·s^–3·A^–1

Such a definition is useless for anyone not knowledgeable in physics, and not very useful for a physicist. It is not even the formal definition, which is "the potential difference across a conductor when a current of one ampere dissipates one watt of power." The rubric "1 W/A" doesn't say that to very many people.

• The definition section is followed by a table of "SI multiples" which is of limited value at this point in the article to a nonspecialist who is trying to find out what a volt is, making them more likely to just give up. Most specialists already know what mega, kilo, milli, micro, nano etc. mean.

• The text definition is relegated to a section called "Explanation" but informal language that might give a nonspecialist a hint is excised.

• A section called "Origin" says who the unit is named after; valuable information, but that is not what origin means.

I believe the lead paragraph in articles about technical subject should strive to give an average reader some idea of what the subject is about and what the it means. Rigorously accurate technical definitions and discussions should follow a more informal introduction.

I'm not sure this is the best place to raise this issue; if someone knows a better one, please suggest it. --agr 12:28, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

The table of SI multiples should be there, if the multiples redirect to the article for the main unit.

I agree that it is important to have the information about the eponym in the article.

It is also good to spell out other units, at least on first use, rather than often-cryptic symbols, even if they have a link. Gene Nygaard 09:15, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

There is also the question of where the table should appear in the article. I think it should be toward the end, perhaps just before the table of other units. --agr 12:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Discussion on format moved here from Talk:Coulomb

I somewhat agree on the list of prefixes, but other unit articles have them and there are conversion factors given here with obscure prefixes. As to I C = avogadro's number electrons being a common misconception, I never heard it before. Many believe a good way to spread such memes is to debunk them in popular articles. People who never heard of them before learn of their existence and a good part of the time do not remember if they are true or false. Citing a conversion factor that is five orders of magnitude different seems enough to me. --agr 14:47, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

1. We can link to the prefixes, like zC
2. I would completely disagree about debunking them. Who would think such a thing? Anyway, I don't see many references online so I probably got the "common misconception" meme from this talk page. I don't have a problem with it being removed.

Talk:Avogadro's_number#Amp — Omegatron 15:24, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly about the table of prefixes, but others seem to be for keeping them. See Talk:volt. I objected to a lot of the recent changes to SI unit articles and have been trying to fix them, but I can live with the unit prefix tables. Spirit of compromise and all that. --agr 12:48, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand the point. Just link to the prefix or spell it out on the first use. When is someone going to use a hectocoulomb, anyway?

Also you could use a template if they are all the same table. — Omegatron 15:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

---

I object to including a table of prefixes with every unit. The list is, in my opinion, vain and worthless. Few of the prefixes are ever seen in use with the base unit, and many of the prefixes refer to quantities with no physical meaning (since you can't have a charge smaller than that on an electron, or that order of magnitude). The coulomb article already refers to the SI article, which explains how the prefixes work for *all* SI units. Please remove the table as it bulks up the article with no net information benefit. We love to be prolix on Wikipedia...you'd think a project with 100,000 editors would be more concise. Padding belongs in high school essays, not here. --Wtshymanski 18:30, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion for format of unit articles

Based on what I have seen happening with unit articles, I suggest that units articles are made more consistent. In the absence of any proposals, I suggest the following information in this order:

• Spelling variations.
• Symbol.
• Statement of whether it is an SI unit.
• Definition in words.
• Definition in equation form.
• Origin of the name
• Selected conversions
• History
• See also
• External links

I was not particularly keen on stating the multiples. A link to prefixes should be adequate so I have some sympathy with those that delete the table of multiples as unnecessary. The current situation of having some subarticles for multiples is inconsistent and is the worst of all options. I think readers might benefit from some combination of:

• a table of multiples spelt out
• a link to SI prefixes
• sections on selected multiples that have useful content

I certainly think the articles should be made simpler and more clear. What do others think? Bobblewik 22:25, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

The intro should (as they now generally do) state the physical quantity that is being measured. If the unit is part of some other system (cgs, English customary) that should be mentioned too. I would include the person the unit is named after in the intro as well, unless it is a long story. Having a heading for what is usually a single sentence is overly pedantic. An explanation section is appropriate where there is something to say. As much as possible, the beginning of the unit articles should give the lay reader some idea about what is going on. To that end, some examples of the unit's use may be appropriate. Of course non-SI unit articles should include a conversion to SI.

For SI units, at least, I would include the full prefix table, but towards the end of the article. The compelling argument for me is that if someone encounters yottaflob and does a search on it to find out what it means, they ought to be taken somewhere, preferably the flob article. They shouldn't be expected to know that yotta is a unit prefix and to search on "yotta" and then on "flob". That means every combination needs to be spelled out somewhere, and the unit articles seems the best place for it. And the hard work has already been done.

The counter argument seems to be that no one uses most of the prefixes in connection with a given unit. I recently edited the farad page which had said that the only prefixes used were micro, nano, pico and atto. Well, there are now kilofarad supercapacitors available. The reason for the prefix system is to anticipate unknown uses. Perhaps we could highlight or mention separately the more commonly used prefixes.

I'd also suggest a template for all unit articles, with links to Units of measurement Metric system SI Conversion of units and other major articles.

Here is my revised format suggestion:

• Intro
  • Unit name
  • Spelling variations
  • Symbol
  • Statement of whether it is an SI unit, base or derived, or part of another system
  • quantity being measured, with link
  • Origin of the name, if simple sentence.

"The flob (Fb) is the Yablovian customary derived unit for frambulence. It is named after Julius P. Flob, the noted 19th century masticator."

• Definition
  • in words
  • in equation form
  • for non-SI, an SI conversion factor (" 1 Flob = ...")
• Explanation, as needed. E.g. other uses, expository info, etc. For non-SI units indicate where used (region, field of study, ...).
• Selected conversions (other units of same measurement quantity ("1 sneergle equals 123.45 Fb), generally not prefixed or compound units unless important)
• History
• Examples of use
• Table of prefixes
• See also
• External links
• Units of measure template (TBD)

--agr 14:30, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

What is the point of the table of prefixes? — Omegatron 16:39, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Please look at the second and third paragraphs of my comments above ("For SI units, at least, ..."). --agr 17:34, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

You make fair points, agr. Here are some further thoughts of mine:

• I think the origin of the term deserves its own heading but it isn't a big deal. Perhaps it should be near the history section since it is time related. In many cases, that is where it was before I moved it. I think unit articles should start with clear succinct and quotable information that enables readers to match the quantity to the unit and equations. Additional information such as origin and history are of secondary importance to the reader that needs quick and easy reference material.
• For the reasons you suggest, I think the 20 multiples (prefix+unit) should be listed in the main article for each SI unit. I don't really care where it is within the article, so the bottom is fine by me. With non-SI units, the prefixes do not actually belong to them. The kilotonne and larger multiples should be listed but I am not so sure about unlikely multiples such as millitonne and dekawatt hour.
• There could be a reference to the relevant Orders of magnitude (<quantity>) article. This would allow us to keep most of that sort of material out of the main article. So if anyone wanted to know amazing facts about kilotesla and megatesla, they could go to a single article rather than multiple orders of magnitude articles.
• Selected conversions. As you suggest, they should be selected rather than comprehensive.

Other than that, your list seems fine to me.

As far as the table of prefixes is concerned, I would prefer not to have them. But the current situation of inadequate sets of subarticles is worse than having a simple table in the main article. The example given by agr of a search for yottaflob seems a reasonable test case. The current situation is not good but if there are other solutions than that proposed, I would be interested in them. Bobblewik 18:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I am unable to find any hardcopy reference that repeatedly lists *all* the SI prefixes for *every* unit. All the units work the same and take the same prefixes - a simple reference back to the SI article should be sufficient. Many of the prefixes, when applied to the unit, have no physical representations. --Wtshymanski 22:35, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right, it should be sufficient to just link to the SI prefix article. I am sure that you are also right when you suggest that no hardcopy reference lists each prefixed multiple for each unit. But Wikipedia is not hardcopy, it is hypertext. Personally, I would be satisfied with just a link to the SI prefix article. But the reason for the inclusion is not for people that enquire about the base unit and go directly to the main article, it is for people that do not. An objective is to provide support for a request for yottaflob. Currently there is an inconsistent mess whereby some prefixed multiples have an article to themselves and some don't. If we add 20 definitions of the prefixed multiples to the main article, we have a scalable comprehensive solution and we can eliminate the random collection of subarticles.

I can't think of a better solution for cleaning up the mess of subarticles. If you can, it will be welcome. What do you think about them? Bobblewik

Merging them into one or keeping them separate should be decided on a case-by-case basis. See megabyte for one example. — Omegatron 00:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I looked at megabyte but I don't know what I am supposed to be looking at. What are you trying to say? Bobblewik 00:58, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Compare kilojoule, megajoule, kilobyte, and megabyte. We decided to keep each byte article separate and provide a navigation template for all of them instead of merging into byte. — Omegatron 02:19, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

I understand now. Do you think you can get those opposed to tables of prefixed multiples to agree to it? Bobblewik 11:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Although Wikipedia can be a hardcopy it most frequently isn’t used as one and if it is, it is most often a single printed out article.

It’s in my opinion convenient to see a short reminder list of prefixes in/as the conversion section of metric (not only SI) units, see e.g. de:Vorlage:SI-Präfixe, followed by details on very frequent ones (e.g. cm) or such with a certain history of interest (hPa, daN) possibly in sections of their own and a note on which prefixes make sense in physical reality (YF certainly doesn’t), if not all apply (Ym and ym are useful, though seldomly used).

All prefix+unit articles, e.g. centimetre and centimeter, and symbol articles (e.g. cm), if not disambiguation pages, should be redirects to unit. I’m a little uncertain about gram and kilogram, because although SI, in which kg is a base unit, is the international system nowadays it would strike me as inconsequent and biased to make gram redirect to kilogram instead of the other way around. That means I like a lexical lemma concept better. Otherwise we would have a bunch of stub articles like this:

“A millifoo (mf) is a bar unit of baz.

1 mf

= 0.001 f.

See also: SI prefix Category:Unit”

The orders of magnitude articles (1 Ex y) are useful in principle. To be so in practice, they need all to be filled consistently. I’m not sure whether they should contain, among RW examples, all units and measures.

Christoph Päper 15:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. If I understand it correctly, there are several activities being proposed:

• Redirect articles of SI multiples (e.g. centimetre) to the article of the main unit (e.g. metre). I see no problem with gram being redirected to kilogram. I would not want kilogram to redirect to gram. The SI base unit of mass is unique in having a prefix. As far as readers are concerned, clicking on 'gram' would result in the kilogram article where the information is held. In information delivery terms, that is no different to clicking on kilometre and getting metre. If people really think Wikipedia readers cannot cope without a gram article, I could tolerate an exception whereby gram has an article to itself.
• Ensure that the article of the main unit makes a reference to each multiple. Thus somebody clicking on a Yottaflob link gets redirected to the flob article where Yottaflob is defined. The working proposal is for a table of prefixes, but that is just one method.
• Minimise examples such as 100 pettafarads is the capacitance of blah blah in unit articles. Examples will be deleted or moved to repository articles such as Orders of magnitude (capacitance).
• Ensure greater consistency and ease of reference within unit articles. Suggestions have been made on this page. For example, the official definition should be provided early in the article and distinct from surrounding text. Bobblewik 15:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Redirection to base units

I do NOT agree with merging everything into their base units, it disrupts the narrative flow, and information is being lost. Please do not redirect like that without establishing some consensus! Fawcett5 17:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

How long does one wait for this consensus? After over a week of cleaning this article up you're the only person to disagree with what I'm doing. And, what exactly is it that bothers you? You say information is being lost. I ask you "What information has been lost?" As to your narritive flow: I say that this is not the place. There is simply no room in this article for a narrative of every unit in every measurement system ever used. That is why we have History of measurement, Historical weights and measures, Metric system, Centimetre gram second system of units, SI, Imperial unit, US customary units, gallon, litre, yard, English unit, Ancient Roman weights and measures, Ancient Greek weights and measures, metre, kilogram, etc. Or would you suggest we merge this entire narrative here? Jimp 3Oct2005

I am not complaining about the cleanup of this article per se, I am opposed to Bobblewik going around and redirecting perfectly good articles like Megawatt to their base unit. In his edits he claimed that the consensus for doing so was established on this talk page, and I dispute that such consensus has been established. The fact that there is no room here is exactly why things should not be redirected to the base unit. This is a perfect example of where wikipedia:Summary style should apply. Fawcett5 20:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I now I see what you're talking about. Yeah, my mistake, I'd thought that you were talking about what's happening at this article. Actually this issue becomes rather sticky when you consider that a base unit in one system may not be a base unit in another. For example, isn't the base unit of length in cgs the centimetre whereas in SI it's the metre? Now there's food for thought. Jimp 4Oct2005

To avoid this kind of confusion in future and reduce the size of Talk:Units of measurement I've put this discussion on this new page. User:Jimp 7Oct05

I don't think it's good to simply redirect commonly used units such as the megawatt and the kilowatt-hour to their base units. Certainly, these articles should link to their base units. However, energy bills are in kilowatt-hours, not watt-hours, and power stations are specified in megawatts, not watts. Redirecting these makes as much sense as to redirect foot to inch, or to redirect both to length. I guess in the extreme, we could redirect everything to one enormous article called information or something similar. (;->

IMO the question for is, what makes it easiest to find the information?, and I think articles on both gram and kilogram are justified, as are articles on megawatt and kilowatt-hour. These are all commonly used terms with plenty of scope to be reasonable-length articles, rather than remaining forever stubs. It's acceptable to redirect MWt and MWe to megawatt, but redirecting all the way to watt makes the linkage from articles which use these terms far less useful, so it's to be avoided.

Similarly, for historical units, that is, units that were once more commonly used than they are now, and will therefore be found in historical articles. For example, should centimetre redirect to metre, or to cgs system? Both redirects would be arguable; Which is preferable will depend on the nature of the link or the search that has led the reader to this place. So, the better solution is a short article (not a disambiguation) that links to both articles for more details. That's what wikilinks are for!

There's also a POV consideration. Almost everyone currently supports the SI system in general, but not everyone in all circumstances, there's quite a variety of viewpoints in fact. Slavishly redirecting to SI units could therefore be seen as a form of advocacy. Andrewa 13:54, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

PS I do agree with the redirect of watt electrical, but I think it and MWt should both point to MWe (or alternatively all to Megawatt). The other two are mainly used in the context of the MWe, so in practice it's a sort of intermediate unit, derived certainly but also itself the source of other unit definitions. Andrewa 14:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I think units with prefixes should redirect to order-of-magnitude pages. For example, Nanometer should redirect to 1 E-9 m. This presents users with pertinent information (if you search for "nanometer", a list of examples illustrating the scale of a nanometer seems appropriate), and if a user really wants to get to Metre, he/she can follow a link from 1 E-9 m, or just type in "meter". I'm being bold and implementing this myself; leave a note on my talk page if you have any objections. —Keenan Pepper 01:58, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Additional problems

Interwiki

One thing that is irretrievably lost when prefixed units are redirected to the root word, or to kilogram in that case, is the interwiki links to the prefixed units in other Wikipedias. Most of the time, this isn't any big loss; nonetheless, we should be aware of its existence. Gene Nygaard 14:02, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Linking not involving the prefix

Bobblewik has taken it upon himself to start linking units in the form nano[[metre]]s (which shows up as nanometres), now that he has redirected all the prefixed units. I think this is a particularly bad idea. Better to use the redirects ([[nanometer]]s), or probably okay to avoid the redirect by using explicit piping of the form [[metre|nanometers]], so that the whole word is highlighted as a link, IMHO.

Using the redirects gives us the additional advantage of still being able to use the "What links here" function to find articles using a particular prefix.

The problem is that people seeing only the "metre" part in blue, with the "nano" or other prefix in black, are less likely to click on it if it is the prefix they don't understand. And that, of course, is most likely going to be what they don't understand, especially for units generally used by most everybody, such as meters, grams, litres, watts, volts, and the like. Gene Nygaard 14:02, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I thought links were supposed to be that way. If people think the whole word should be linked, that is fine by me. Bobblewik 15:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Changing redirects to base units to redirects to orders of magnitude

User:Keenan Pepper (talk) has been changing the redirects from prefixed articles to the orders of magnitude pages rather than the base units.

I think that is a bad idea. Better to restore the articles under the prefixed units and to throw out the orders of magnitude pages, in my opinion, though I'm not suggesting that they be thrown out. I really do think that the individual articles for commonly used prefixed units (especially if they have pecularities in their usage and history, or lots of interwiki links and the like), and redirects for less commonly used prefixed units, is the way to go. Comments? Gene Nygaard 02:27, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I was thinking of the reasons a user might search for a prefixed unit like "nanometer". It seems much more likely that users would search for "nanometer" because they want to understand the scale of a nanometer, than because they've never heard of metric units. Therefore Metre seems like an inappropriate article to redirect to. 1 E-9 m is better because it gives an impression of how big a nanometer is in terms of molecules. Also, Meter is easier to find from 1 E-9 m than the other way around; if Nanometer is a redirect to Meter, then users might never find 1 E-9 m even if that's just what they're looking for.

On the other hand, it might be better to have a real article at Nanometer and move the scale examples there, making 1 E-9 m a redirect. "1 E-9 m" is a rather cryptic title to those unfamiliar with computer exponential notation. —Keenan Pepper 02:43, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I like that idea more the more I think about it. We should have an article on Nanometer and a section called "Examples of things that might be measured in nanometers" or something. That would take the place of 1 E-9 m, 1 E-8 m, and 1 E-7 m, I suppose. —Keenan Pepper 02:55, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

We have just been going the other way. It is trivial to explain a multiple and unprefixed unit together. It is more difficult to explain when the same information is spread over 22 articles. I cannot imagine explaining nanometre to somebody without mentioning metre and terms for other multiples such as millimetre and micrometre.

The explanation of millimetre is simple with the explanation of metre and the associated multiples. The concepts are simple and non-technical. I don't believe anyone would seriously explain a millimetre as 1 E3 m. Bobblewik 12:36, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Digging up dirt on prefix unit pages

I was editing an article on a pharmaceutical that gave its dosage in micrograms. I was shocked to see that the wikilink redirected to the base unit article. The only information about micrograms on the kilogram article is the multiple and symbol. Digging through page histories, I also came across the magnitude pages such as 1 E-9 kg, and saw that that information had been merged into one large chart called Orders of magnitude (mass). Because both of these (base unit page, and magnitude chart) are so extensive, its difficult to locate the information on the prefix unit. I would be into the idea of recreating at least some of the more notable prefix unit pages, and perhaps organizing the bulk of the information in an infobox. I worked up a rough idea User:Andrew c/unit here. I understand completely that this information is redundent if you go to a number of other sources. However, I find it helpful to have this information on a smaller scale. What do others think?--Andrew c 23:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I think the order-of-magnitude articles and the prefixed unit articles should be merged. For example, 1 E-9 m (quite an ugly and cryptic title as it stands) should redirect to nanometer, which would have a basic definition and then a list of lengths on the nanometer scale. —Keenan Pepper 23:49, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, why does nanometer redirect to 1 E-9 m? Who in the world is going to search for 1 E-9 m? Anyway, I had only been looking at the mass pages. It appears that someone has merged and redirected all the individual orders of magnitude pages for mass, but that hasn't been done for length yet. This of course raises the question of where the individual order pages (such as 1 E-9 m) should redirect (if they aren't kept). For mass, they redirect to the BIG chart (Orders of magnitude (mass)). You suggest redirecting to the individual unit pages if they ever get recreated (perhaps per my initial proposal above?). Good ideas, I'll wait for more imput before being too bold. BTW, do you have any criticism for the infobox template idea on my userpage? --Andrew c 00:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it looks great. Let's hope the idea doesn't get shot down. —Keenan Pepper

I suspect nanometer redirects to 1 E-9 m to get around the metre vs meter argument. Personally, I suspect both should redirect to nanometre. This isn't just Anglo-centric facetiousness. In the U.S., metric units are not generally considered standard use, certainly not relative to any other English speaking country. In the vast majority of English-speaking countries that routinely use these units (and for the vast majority of English-speaking people who routinely use these units), "metre" is the standard spelling. This convention would also disambiguate the unit from the measuring device for when people do searches. Rhialto 06:28, 11 November 2006 (UTC)