Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Argentine units of measurement


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

The result was no consensus. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  11:30, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Argentine units of measurement

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Another article based almost entirely on the very bad Cardarelli source and the equally bad Washburn and Clarke books. Furthermore, all these supposedly "national" units of measurement were actually imported from Spain when Argentina was a Spanish colony. Thus, I am unconvinced that this is an actual topic. Units of measurement used by the native inhabitants of the area would be a different matter but I can't find any good sources on that topic. Reyk YO! 12:06, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Argentina-related deletion discussions. SharabSalam (talk) 12:15, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. SharabSalam (talk) 12:16, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete per nomination. The sources aren't reliable, and even supposing we could turn up better references describing specifically Argentine variants of units used much more widely, that would hardly merit a dedicated article. Such hypothetical variants could be fit more usefully in Spanish customary units, for example. Pre-colonial systems of measurement would be more interesting, but I'm not sure they should be called Argentine (that's a bit like calling the Haudenosaunee Confederacy part of the United States). XOR&#39;easter (talk) 17:25, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep - When this was last discussed the evidence that the Cardelli reference was bad turned out simply to be some issues over Japanese units, and in fact Cardelli is supported as a good source by numerous other reliable sources. The same goes for Washburn and Clark. The deletion rational here appears to be that all the references are bad, but this is not substantiated. The article itself gives reasons as to why these units are not the same as Spanish customary units (because they varied regionally - similarly to the way in which US gallons are not the same as Imperial ones). Hence units are given here used in Buenos Aires that differ from the customary units of Spain. And here also. And also here. And here as well. Wow here too. Double Wow - here's an entire 1939 research paper on Argentine and other South American customary units. As with the previous discussion about the unit Stueck, I think there is an argument that perhaps these units should all be merged at a particular level (e.g., into a wider list), but in this case this has already happened (they are merged at the country-level), and I think this avoids WP:DICDEF issues.
 * EDIT: given the number of references there are in this case findable via a simple GBooks search I'm also going to say this is a pretty obvious WP:BEFORE failure. FOARP (talk) 12:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The NIST "endorsement" of Cardarelli was one line in an FAQ webpage from 2004, hardly the in-depth evaluation that the previous AfD sold it as. XOR&#39;easter (talk) 16:56, 22 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Whereas the "evidence" that Cardelli (and Washburn, and Clarke, and...) is bad is basically editor chit-chat. Meanwhile one of the main claims made by the nom (no such thing as Argentine units) turns out to be demonstrably untrue based on the above sources, and people have been talking about Argentine units for decades before Cardelli was published. FOARP (talk) 08:38, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I resent that claim. I have spent quite a lot of time looking at various bits of the Cardarelli book, using reason, intelligence, and, yes, your precious "sources" (I have checked against standard reference works, in other words). Your view appears to be that the mindless copying of confusion, inaccuracy, and plain nonsense from "proper printed books" is to be regarded as superior to actually critically looking at claims. Of course Cardarelli's book is WP:RE-"LIE"-ABLE, but it, or rather, the part of it (not endorsed at all by NIST, or anyone else) relating to historical units is by and large an uncritical and careless scraping of much older books (by Clarke and others) many of whose confusions might be forgiven at that time. Even so, I have pointed out that Basil Hall Chamberlain managed a vastly more competent treatment of Japanese unit after Clarke but a long time before Washburn. Again, I have to point out that many careless errors and confusions have been found in Cardarelli which have nothing to do with Japanese units in particular. (Stupping tons, Pittsburgh=Petersburg confusion, etc etc). Imaginatorium (talk) 09:26, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In this case, before simply saying that Cardelli is bad the nom might have looked to see whether Argentinian units actually exist - and the evidence seems pretty conclusive that they did. FOARP (talk) 20:56, 24 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen Cardarelli's later book but his earlier one is a mess. I've found Koizumi Kesakatsu to be much more reliable, and not only for Japanese units. I don't have immediate access to Koizumi's Zukan: Tan'i no rekishi-jiten (i.e. "An illustrated historical dictionary of units") but I do have on my lap my copy of the 4th edition (1981) of his Tan'i no jiten (i.e. "Dictionary of units"). Koizumi writes in the latter (for the three units I bothered to look up), that the frasco was specifically Argentinian, that the vara was multinational, and that the Mass was Austrian. So the content of this article isn't all wrong, or even all misleading. But it's unreliable, as any article on obsolete units must be if based on Cardarelli. An additional problem is that -- to me, at least -- it's intermittently incomprehensible. For example, I've now read this four times but I can only start to guess at what it means. Delete it; don't rush to delete a replacement by somebody who demonstrably (i) knows something about metrology, (ii) reads Spanish, (iii) has access to an academic library that's strong in Spanish, (iv) has the regular editorial superpowers -- though I'd guess that a redirect to something like "Non-metric units in South America" or "Obsolete units in South America" would be better. -- Hoary (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hoary, old chap, I think you must be looking at a historical version. The incoherent bit was written by now-gone user Shevonsilva, and the Austrian units were where the same Shevonsilva accidentally copied Cardarelli's list of the next entry to Argentina in alphabetical order. Both have gone now. Imaginatorium (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Oopsie, I really must be careful when browsing the interwebs with PrecatastropheZilla (select names of charlatans/narcissists; view the world as it was before they assumed power). I'll have to think about this, and pontificate afresh. Meanwhile, do we have reason to doubt Koizumi's indication that the frasco was specifically Argentinian? -- Hoary (talk) 23:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes: according to wiktionary "frasco" is a Spanish (as well as the more obvious Portuguese) term for "bottle". It's not really a unit, just a word for a container that might have had a specific connotation in Argentina (but might not). Imaginatorium (talk) 03:49, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Koizumi writes -- Hoary (talk) 06:58, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * This seems similar,again, to the discussion over "Stuck". The mere fact that something means something in a particular language does not prevent it also being a unit of measurement. FOARP (talk) 21:29, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, but there are "genuine" units, like feet or picometres, then there are "containers-used-as-units", whether sacks, bottles, or words like "load". These may have conventional sizes associated with them, but anything written in ignorance of the fact that they are also containers should not really be accepted on its own. I really wonder if Koizumi, for example, realises that frasco is another Spanish word for bottle. And, FWIW, this really is not comparable to stuck, which is an abbreviation of an Anglicisation of a German word, ''Stückfaß", which is a type of wine barrel. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:49, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Keep. There are enogu hgoodsources. Whether we will need one for every possible country isa separate question, bu there is enoughdistinctivecontnet here to make an article.  DGG ( talk ) 09:54, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 17:55, 26 December 2019 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   21:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete : Wikipedia would be very slightly better without this "article". I can imagine a real article on the use of Spanish units in South America, but it would include reference to at least one work of scholarship (probably in Spanish) on the topic. The problem with all the references cited is that while they are PPBs ("proper printed books"), they are all collections of anecdotes, of varying levels of reliability. Going back to the earlier historical sources, people like Washburn were obviously not actually experts in the culture of almost all of the countries they were listing units for; they did their best with what they could find on the Internet. Oh, wait a minute, whatever people used before the Internet. And the proposer is right that there are not any Argentinian units; these are (Spanish) units which were used in Argentina (and I think this is actually what all of the sources say). The current title is either inaccurate if it is using "Argentine" as an adjective, or ungrammatical if using it as a noun. Imaginatorium (talk) 06:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep Passes WP:GNG.-Splinemath (talk) 23:42, 5 January 2020 (UTC)


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