Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 112

Concrete examples (year links)
The above discussions keep veering away from the point I'm trying to pin down. Can those who think single-linking of years is unhelpful please either say they want all single-year links removed, or give examples of when they think it is acceptable to link a year (or not acceptable - whichever list is shortest). I will give a few examples to start things off (apologies if this is repeating arguments made 5 or 6 years ago, but I wasn't here then):

''[Allow me to give my personal answers by interspersing. --Kotniski (talk) 13:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)]''
 * Category:Time, date and calendar templates (more than you can shake a stick at!)
 * Template:Year nav (used to navigate between year and other history chronology articles)
 * Template:Year nav topic2 (complex template with a variety of possible outputs)
 * Template:Decade category header (used in categories)
 * Category:1850 (example of year navigation in categories)
 * Category:19th century (another example of year navigation in categories)
 * Links from "year in" articles: 1854 in literature
 * I'm happy for all the above to be linked. Kot
 * Year(s) and sometimes date(s) when an event took place: John F. Kennedy assassination
 * Birth and death years (and dates) in biographical articles: Martin Luther King, Jr.
 * Publication dates of a book or other publication (eg. film): Ulysses (novel)
 * Founding year of an organisation or construction of a building or monument: Albert Memorial
 * I'd be OK with this as long as we could successfully restrict it to specific cases like this (bearing in mind that editors tend to see certain links and insert what they think are analogous ones elsewhere - leading to overlinking). Kot
 * Mentions of years in the references for an article: Eduardo Abaroa
 * Fairly pointless I'd have thought. Kot
 * Disambiguation pages: 2000 (disambiguation)
 * Yes. Kot
 * A relevant mention of a year in an article
 * Don't understand - relevant to what? Kot
 * Any random mention of a year in an article
 * No, this has long been recognized as leading to overlinking. Kot

Most of those articles don't have the relevant years linked. Would it be acceptable for any of these examples (some are obviously acceptable, so please state which ones you would use year links in), and should anything else be linked instead? (When commenting, please don't assume I support all or any of these examples.) I'm aware that many of these are from template and category space, and involve "year in" articles, rather than year articles, but if the main points are to push chronological navigation away from wikilinks and into template and category space (eg. birth and death years are covered by categories), then please say that (it will avoid a lot of arguments).

On a broader point, when removing links, can a bot make some of the necessary distinctions? If not, is it acceptable for a bot to remove all links and then rely on humans to rebuild the previously-overlinked articles? This latter point seems to be what some people are implying by their statements, and it is an important philosophical point - when something, such as date-formatting linking, gets out of control and gets entangled with other sorts of overlinking, is it best to rip it all down with some collateral damage to be fixed by humans, or rely on humans to slowly fix things the wiki-way? The latter approach relies on people carefully reading the MoS (cue much hilarity), rather than copying what they see in articles, so I have some sympathy with the bot and bot-assisted and script approaches that seem to be aiming to level the playing field and start date linking from scratch again. But if there are clear examples people can agree on, and which have utility, those should be retained. And please, please, remember that linking, though it shouldn't have been, has been used to accumulate vast amounts of meta-data that should not be stripped out without retaining the utility of the meta-data. See the links at Metadata. Carcharoth (talk) 04:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm on record as saying that links to date fragments are appropriate in articles on date fragments; links to solitary years are fine in "year-in-X" articles; this should probably be written into MOSNUM—it's a very reasonable compromise. On very rare occasions, a year-link may be justified in normal articles, but the onus is on an editor to demonstrate why it functions to significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic; a talented editor such as Anderson has shown that this may be possible, although I believe it is not commonly applicable. (In this respect, merely providing a magic blue flying carpet to a year link for discretionary browsers is insufficient). What is the difference between "a relevant mention" and "any random mention" of a year in an article?
 * There is generally no justification for linking solitary years in the other types of article listed above, except for those that are purely to do with navigation. In the J.F. Kennedy article, are you suggesting the linking of "1963"? It's not useful, IMO, because of the same old specificity–generality conundrum: if the year article is comprehensive, and in particular not culturally or racially biased, it will be huge, at least in the past hundred years, and very little of the information will be of even vague relevance to the good president. Providing such contextual information is the job of the article itself, and one of the most rewarding aspects of building a good WP article. Such context should not be delegated to a sea of factoids in isolation. Tony   (talk)  05:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Tony, you've scored in your own goal with this one. Read the events of 1963; about 20% have been directly connected by someone with the aasassination, and most of the rest are instance of trends (violence, Southern racism, the growth of the Soviet Empire, the weakness of the Soviet Empire....) which have been.


 * I agree that most of the year articles are ill-written, incomplete, and need work. What genre of two thousand articles doesn't meet that description?


 * But I do appreciate the buttering up. Please don't let this deter you from doing more of it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:16, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmm. Do you think you (Tony and Anderson) could discuss this without mentioning each other? Carcharoth (talk) 05:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * And spoil our Mutual Admiration Society ;)? You should have seen us two months ago; I'm certain you'd prefer this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, hopefully, the alternative navigation route for that sort of browsing to find out about events and other things about the year 1963, involves waiting until the end of the article (has advantanges and disadvantages), clicking Category:1963 in the United States and browsing from there. To reach 1963 takes three more clicks: Category:1963 by country, Category:1963 and then 1963. Alternatively, all year subcategories could have the year linked, so you could go straight from Category:1963 in the United States to 1963. Or you could have a link to 1963 in the article. Incidentally, November 22, 1963 redirects to the most famous event of that day. But does anyone know what else happened that day? How would one find out? Well, jumping over to November 22, we find that that page currently lists the assassination, one birth, and four other deaths. Some people will be completely uninterested in who the other people are who died on that day (thousands of people are born every day, and thousands die every day), but some will go to that page and look. That's human nature. It might not be what people want to see an encyclopedia provide, but there is a demand for it. I'm not saying that linking 22 November is the right way to satisfy that demand, but if you want to divert such demand away from wikilinking and towards categories or templates or "year in" articles, then understanding and acknowledging the demand for such navigational links is the first step in managing them. Carcharoth (talk) 05:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Anderson and I will disagree in the future as in the past on some matters, but understanding and goodwill should be encouraged in this viper's pit, not be the subject of objection, Carcharoth. I agree that someone has inserted quite a few factoids concerning Kennedy in that year article, although you do have to hunt through many irrelevant facts to find them (Britain's "big freeze", a double murder in Sydney, a triple murder in Perth, WA, ...). You'd think the US, Australia and the UK were just about the only countries on the planet in January 1963. This is a problem in most year pages: they're not a world view, but show extreme culture-centric bias. They're also by their design fragmentary: the information is isolated into disconnected facts through the whole year, where the article on Kennedy is the place to do what WP does so brilliantly: wind them into a cohesive whole that presents a context for the subject. Isn't there also a daughter article on the assassination of Kennedy? That is probably the place into which these factoids should be herded and bound together into the Internet's most cogent tertiary source on the Kennedy-related factoids currently in "1963". But if editors are really keen to retain the link to that article, well, let them make a case. It doesn't change the basic decision by the community that solitary years should generally not be linked. And, BTW, Anderson's right in that 1963 is a good example of the case for the odd exception. You won't find many like it.  Tony   (talk)  05:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * And Rome was not built in a day (gratiutous overlinking!). The existing links may contain data that could help build such articles (both the year one and the specific event ones). Sure, it will all need to be sourced and properly written, but categories, for example, are often good places to look for topic organisation when trying to plan an article and interweave different strands. "What links here" is a similar resource. The balance between tearing down the existing structure and rebuilding it, and taking it down brick-by-brick is something I'm not sure about myself. Sometimes tearing it down and rebuilding it does work better. My objection to the disagreement was more the naming of people - that personalises it - not the disagreement per se. Carcharoth (talk) 06:07, 24 September 2008 (UTC) Will be away for most of a week now, so that's my lot for this page.

To answer the direct question above about pre-1500 (or whenever) year pages: I can only say that they're quite unsatisfactory at the moment, since they're so small. They'd be less trivial and provide the opportunity for greater cohesion if conflated into decade pages, I believe. Even for the diversionary browser, they're not much good, but could be made into a great strength of WP with skilled editing; then I'd be in favour of highlighting them on the main page in a big way, and they'd be appearing as nominations at FLC and, better, FAC on a regular basis. That would be excellent, and if one WikiProject could coordinate (in some respects) all of the chronolotical pages, including the year-in-X pages that would link to them, year pages could be lifted out of their present malaise. But who's going to do this? And it wouldn't solve the current structural impediments to freely linking every year that pops up in every article, the way WP used to. Tony  (talk)  15:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I have to disagree strongly with Kotniski that linking dates of birth and death should be standard practice. I can see absolutely no justification for this unless, in rare instances, it can be demonstrated that a year-page is not swamped with irrelevant information. This is simply open the floodgates to the linking of all solitary years. Tony   (talk)  16:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I’ll be pleased to give you an example. Experienced editors know how these blue date abominations work. But they are Easter eggs to many new readers. To give you an example, when {cite book} is used. If one uses this code…

…You produce this: ) …is readers can copy and paste values into Excel, where the first sixteen digits will be treated like a real number without the necessity of hand-deleting any non-breaking spaces. Greg L (talk) 21:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If ability to copy and paste numbers into spreadsheets were really relevant, we would need to avoid using commas to delimit thousands (or we would need to use some magic to make them disappear when copied and pasted), and we would need to avoid using notation like 6.02 × 1023 (or we would need to use some magic to make it become 6.02e23 when copied and pasted). -- Army1987 (t — c) 15:01, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * For the corresponding digits of e (mathematical constant) (16-25 for 5-grouping and 16-24 or 3-grouping), the results are:
 * 5: 2640 web, 184 books, 13 scholar
 * 3: 805 web, 19 books, 2 scholar (one of which doesn't appear to be "E", actually, but intended as a random string of digits)
 * I can't find a way to get google to search for a substring of an unspaced string. I don't deny that 3-digit grouping is used for short numbers, and have no objection to it being used.  I'm suggesting that in mathematical articles where the number has over (somewhere bewteen 10 and 15, TBD) digits past the decimal point, 5 digit spacing should be used, and that 5-digit spacing is allowable for shorter numbers in those articles.
 * (If possible, I'd also like to see the nested span approach be deprecated; I have less objection to the code suggested here than to the code you inserted in pi, which might possibly fail if a browser is unable to handle a stack of 18 spans (in addition to whatever styles are inserted normally).
 * I also am stating again' that this discussion is misplaced and amounts to Greg making a WP:POINT. I admit to not having been ready for a specific proposal, but I wanted to counter Greg's edits to insert his preferred notation in stable mathematics articles against consensus, even if there were a Wikipedia guideline to use 3-digit spacing.  There's no such guideline agreed to.  If Greg wants to propose the guideline, then I want to make it clear that Mathematics articles should have their own guideline, which is properly discussed at MSM, regardless of a general guideline here.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I refuse to discuss any style issue at MSM because this is the English Wikipedia and that page is in some other language. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That was a typo -- try WT:MSM. Dicklyon (talk) 02:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * But so are the articles in question. Perhaps we should move them to the math.en or en.math Wikipedia.  :)  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 22:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since Arthur Rubin insists the issue should be discussed in a foreign language, I will disregard all his views about grouping numbers. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In that case, the mathematics articles should, under Wikipedia guidelines, disregard any guideline established here. I would ask you to reconsider.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As for Greg, I think I could propose a guideline appropriate for this discussion which we could all (except, apparently Gerry), live with. But I don't want to put words in his mouth.  I ask him to make a proposal for style guideline which he would accept, noting that (almost) all style guidelines can be overriden by subject-specific style guidelines, and we can go on from there.
 * Oh, and, since no one has spoken in favor of this guideline in this venue, this section should be dropped. I spoke in favor of it (as well as requesting helpful modifications) in MSM, where the discussion belongs.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 23:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Instead of making claims about Wikipedia guidelines which he fails to cite, perhaps Arthur would like to explain why this should be discussed in Maltese. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * He obviously meant WT:MSM (since he has referenced it several times before) and it was a typo. Also, not that "authority" has much weight with the WP crowd, but Arthur Rubin is certainly more qualified to address issues of standards in mathematical publications than anyone else in this discussion.  He has an Erdos number of 1, for crying out loud!  --Sapphic (talk) 00:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well I know as much or more than probably anyone around here about PEM fuel cells and I don’t even bother to edit that damned article—I’ve barely even looked at it, much less read it. I fear I’d go try to fix something and would get into an editwar with someone who got everything he knows out of Popular Mechanics. But I did try to be somewhat informed about competing energy technologies (solar for instance) so I could be well prepared to deal with the real world and help design products that fulfilled a real marketing need. I also try to be thoroughly familiar with all things SI and metric; it’s a classy system of units. And I’ve authored enough patent papers and white papers to actually know how to be SI-compliant when doing so. What’s got me skeptical here about Arthur’s take on this issue—and just pardon me all over the place for thinking this—is that Arthur has busied himself here denying that the SI way of delimiting numbers every three digits to the right of the decimal point is a standard that is remotely observed in the real world. He even equated this to the lack of adoption of the IEC prefixes (mebibyte, etc.) and challenged me to cite proof that the SI method is actually adhered to in the real world. While Arthur may be an exceedingly wonderful fellow to drink beer with, the above facts tell me he is certainly not coming into this argument with a sufficiently sophisticated world view and, further, that too much education on the essential facts is needed just to bring him up to speed. His arguments, that Wikipedia needs to stray from the SI on an issue that the professional math journals are silent on are… less than persuasive. Greg L (talk) 00:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC) P.S. I see he’s down below, expanding on how he can find no evidence that the real world follows the rule of the SI. Breathtaking. Greg L (talk) 00:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

←

This isn’t complex, Arthur. It’s quite clear that professional mathematics journals don’t typically deal with big numbers—it’s all mostly symbolic—and when they do, they’d don’t bother with delimiting. If Wikipedia is going to be delimiting big numbers for readability (which we probably should do), then we should do so in a way that is SI-compliant. I can see no absolutely no reason why numbers would be delimited every three digits to the left of the decimal place and then start being delimited every five digits on the right. The SI is clear that one delimits in groups of three regardless of which side of the decimal marker you are on. The only exception is in cases where you precede very special numbers with wording like “Here are the first one-hundred digits of…”. In that case, go ahead and do it groups of five. Greg L (talk) 23:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it is complex, because you keep changing stable articles such as pi. &gt;&thinsp;Several times now, I’ve stipulated that because of it’s unique nature, Pi should stay with five-digit groupings and it’s been a day since I even argued the point on Talk:Pi. See the above post; it’s short enough for those with even short attention spans. Don’t you even read posts before responding to them? You’re relying again on fallacious arguments. Greg L (talk) 00:47, 9 October 2008 (UTC)&thinsp;&lt; May I suggest the following modification of whatever 3-digit grouping rule you come up with.
 * In any article about a mathematical constant or constants, where at least one is known and stated to 15 places, and (almost) all are less than 10, any grouping of digits to the right of the decimal point should be in groups of 5, and breaking spaces (thin or not; I don't know if there is such a thing as a thin breaking space, although one could probably construct one out of a thin non-breaking space and a non-displaying optional line break character) should be used. If, instead, these are only known and stated to 8 (or more) places, this format is optional, if such spacing is frequently used in that field.
 * I'm perfectly willing to accept suggestions such as changing the "15" to "20", or the "8" to "10", but guideline as a whole should stand.
 * Careful study shows that all the articles pointed to by the pseudo-template in square root of 2 (and I don't know why it isn't a real template) meet that condition (except for the obvious readablility requirement that breaking spaces be used if a (word, formula, or number) is likely to be wider than a page), and the entries in mathematical constant. I would rather have the condition be that mathematical constants in mathematical articles be so formatted, but it's not really important to me if there is an article about the constant.  I also point to the article illegal prime which uses 5-digit spacing for an integer, but that's only formerly a featured articles, and the standards may not have been as precise back then, and it may not have been featured at the time the number was present.  (And it may be illegal for Wikipedia to have the number.)   — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 00:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As for the "real world", the only cases in which large numbers are grouped ("delimited" seems incorrect), in papers that that I've read, are:
 * REALLY long numbers, likely not to fit on a line (spaced in groups of 5).
 * Long tables of numbers with approximately the same number of digits (some spaced in 3-digit groups, some in 5-, one in 4-digit groups, believe it or not. If this were the only case, I wouldn't be able to assert it's usually spaced in 5)
 * Abramowitz and Stegun (in which not only stand-alone numbers, and numbers in tables, but also numbers in formulas are spaced in groups of 5. However, the physical constants page are spaced in groups of 3.).
 * This applies not only to US publications, but to such as Fundamenta Mathematica at the time I published there. But all of these are over 20 years old.  I haven't seen a mathematical paper with grouped digits since then.
 * — Arthur Rubin (talk) 00:29, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * (Reply to interpolated comments). All articles about mathematical constants should have 5-digit spacing, not just Pi.  Pi is just the only one Greg has attacked.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 01:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh for God’s sake, Arthur. Abramowitz and Stegun was first printed in 1964 and it is just a humungous tabular list of numbers. It was a jointly produced with the help of the NIST, which is  infinitely clear  as to the proper, modern way to express numbers that are included as part of standard prose (More on Printing and Using Symbols and Numbers in Scientific and Technical Documents: 10.5.3, Grouping digits and NIST example of proper use). Is this part of why you think “mathematics is five-digit groupings?” Perhaps if Wikipedia had mind-boggling lists of purely tabular data, they too should use five-digit groupings. But that is not what we’re talking about here. Wikipedia needs to be SI-compliant. It’s that simple. It’s quite clear from having spoken to a Ph.D. mathematician at a university this morning and having read your writings here, that neither of you guys would recognize SI-compliant writing if it bit you on the butt! And please stop insisting that “mathematics does it this way or that way.” I just communicated this morning with a mother of all mathematical journals and they’re completely silent on this issue. And now you’re here saying we should ignore the way it’s done in the applied sciences (and the way even semi-educated Europeans do it and the way the NIST and the BIPM prescribe) because you can dredge up reference books of tabular numbers that show them that way. Greg L (talk) 01:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Wrong. Abramowitz and Stegun is "tabular" in a sense, but it's the same sense a properly formatted HTML document is tabular; Chapter 1 may contain sections 1.1, 1.2 (table of physical constants), 1.3, 1.4 (table), 1.5, 1.6, etc.; Section 1.1 may contain formulas 1.1.1 through 1.1.10, table 1.1.11, subsection 1.1.12 which contains formulas 1.1.12.1 through 1.1.12.5, etc.  It contains many tables, but as far as I can tell, all numbers other than physical constants are spaced in 5-digit groups, while physical constants are spaced in 3-digit groups.  You can't say that wasn't intentional.  (Well, you can, but it would be strange).
 * Google books and Google scholar confirm that many more books and papers use 5-digit spacing for precise values of mathematical constants than 3-digit spacing, at least for representations of &pi; and e of at least 25 digits after the decimal point. (I chose "25" to be fair to the 3-digit representations; 25 digits for the 5-digit and 24 for the 3-digit.)  I can't get google to search for unspaced constants, so that may be more prevelant.


 * Oppose None of the proposals from Arthur Rubin actually help the situation and plenty of other suggestions are much better. Fnagaton 13:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose – I acknowledge that it is more or less common to format long numbers that run over several lines in groups of five. But I doubt the need of such deviation from a consistent guideline here on WP. I also suggest to always use spans for spacing. Template:spaced could easily be expanded to work for long numbers. —Quilbert (talk) 14:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Dueling proposals

 * After consideration, I propose that 5-digit spacing be used in articles about mathematical constants known precisely. You can propose that the (not exactly SI)-standard form (modified to use commas left of the decimal point) be generally used, but you really haven't done that yet, so we can't say there's a consensus to do it.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * My proposal is extraordinarily simple: Bring virtually all delimited values on Wikipedia into compliance with the SI, which underlies pretty much everything done here on Wikipedia. Period. There are some exceptions to this principle of adherence to the SI; for instance, the SI prescribes that a space be inserted before the percent symbol (e.g. 75 %). But Wikipedia wisely ignores this and follows the common practice observed in the real world. This is not the case with your suggestion that we flout the SI and delimit with commas every three digits to the left and every five with gaps on the right. The BIPM (and NIST and ISO) don’t mention any exception for “articles about mathematical constants known precisely”. Further, compliance with the SI has the virtue of following how the real world in real, every-day life in Europe works: delimiting in groups of three—regardless of which side of the decimal point you’re on. But I would stipulate that in cases where the text preceding very special numbers has wording that invites readers to count digits, such as “Here are the first fifty digits of…”, then in that case, go ahead and do it groups of five. The same should apply for large tabular seas of numeric values, such as high-precision trigonometric tables. Greg L (talk) 02:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I support Arthur Rubin's as representative of typical published typography for long digit sequences, and oppose Greg L's as an unnecessary change to a narrow class of items, those mathematical constants that people want to see lots of digits of. The break point is around 10 digits, or between physical and mathematical constants. For example, 299,792,458 m/s, but 3.14159 26536. Which is how it has been for quite a while, and nobody but Greg L is seeking to change it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I would support Greg's proposal in the paragraph before Dicklyon's if I thought we could pull it off; unfortunately, I don't think we could get it adopted. If the proposal were adopted, WP:MOS would change as shown:


 * Commas Thin spaces are used to break the sequence every three places (2&thinsp;900&thinsp;000).

Interestingly, the rule about not grouping digits to the right of the decimal is hidden away someplace away from where comma-grouping is discussed, making it difficult to find.

Please interpret my version of the new rule only in terms of how it appears to the reader; the mechanism to create the appearance is still up in the air. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 03:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * For an online readership of our range and type, I fully support Greg's line on this matter. I find the agressive stance here by [unnamed] to be odd given Greg's experience in the editing of engineering and mathematics topics. Tony   (talk)  08:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Support 5-digit grouping for very long numbers because that's the way I've always seen them grouped in the real world. Long numbers doesn't really fall under the scope of SI and NIST guidelines; these rules are meant for measurements, which are never known with more than a dozen significant figures or so. Trying to shoehorn mathematical constants and long numbers into the SI is not helpful. --Itub (talk) 09:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Any such standard needs to allow valid exceptions. For instance, geographic coordinates are usually quoted to six decimal places (and can have more, or fewer), always with with no spacing: "52.342345,-23.765134". Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This has to be one of the lamest disputes I've seen in a long time… I pinch myself, but editors really are arguing about whether to write 3.141 592 653 589 793 238 46…, 3.14159 26535 89793 23846… or just plain old 3.14159265358979323846…! Actually, I note that not one editor has proposed the third option, despite the fact that this is what is used in the article. Neither has any editor commented on the lamentable state of most of the articles about "special irrational numbers", nor about the fact that the infoboxes in such articles give the "binary" form (if such a beast really existed) before the decimal form, and also include ludicrous translations into hexadecimal notation. Oppose all proposals as WP:CREEP, lacking in consensus and an obviously serious distraction of editors from the task of improving articles. Physchim62 (talk) 13:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * No, you are wrong, Itub, when you wrote “Long numbers doesn't really fall under the scope of SI and NIST guidelines”. Let’s get our fact here straight. The BIPM’s SI style guide has a section, 10.5.3, dealing specifically with long numbers. It calls for groups of three digits. Period. This simply reflects the European’s centuries-long practice of grouping in threes to the right of the decimal marker. Further, that practice is a logical extension of how delimiting is always done to the left of the decimal marker in groups of three wherever you live; one doesn’t suddenly change to groups of five just because one is to the right of the decimal point. This issue also clearly falls with in the “scope” of the NIST (splendid |search_for=universal_in! example here), as they too have a style guide that calls for SI compliance. So too does the ISO. The US practice of delimiting with commas to the left has been adopted for use here on en.Wikipedia; we’re not going to be changing that with this discussion. When delimiting is employed to the right of the decimal marker as well, then it should be A) logical (you don’t suddenly change to groups of five), and B) SI compliant. And with due respect to Physchim62, style guides—like MOS and MOSNUM—serve a valuable editorial purpose; that’s why all publications, whether it’s the NY Times or the Encyclopedia Britannica, have one. We don’t need editors on Wikipedia inventing new systems here. We don’t need two versions of val: one called val_(SI-compliant) and the other called val_(for_mathematical_constants_known_precisely). Greg L (talk) 17:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe Greg L cited the wrong publication; it is NIST, not BIPM, that has a style guide That style guide (section 10.5.3) says
 * Because the comma is widely used as the decimal marker outside the United States, it should not be used to separate digits into groups of three. Instead, digits should be separated into groups of three, counting from the decimal marker towards the left and right, by the use of a thin, fixed space. However, this practice is not usually followed for numbers having only four digits on either side of the decimal marker except when uniformity in a table is desired.
 * [examples ommitted]
 * Note: The practice of using a space to group digits is not usually followed in certain specialized applications, such as engineering drawings and financial statements. [boldface added]


 * Notice the use of commas to group digits, anywhere, is clearly contrary to this style guide. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * (*sigh*) Here is the link to the BIPM’s style guide (which the NIST mirrors): 5.3.4 BIPM: SI brochure (8th ed.): Rules and style conventions for expressing values of quantities: Formatting numbers, and the decimal marker. I cited and linked to this in my  23:19, 7 October 2008 post, above, but may have gotten the two twisted in a copy/paste since then. Now, Gerry, let’s get real shall we? I’ve mentioned several times above that en.Wikipedia adopted the US convention of delimiting to the left with commas. Nothing we’re discussing here is ever going to change that fact . The people over on fr.Wikipedia will keep doing as they like. As I wrote several times above (it would be nice if you actually read some of the goings-on here because I’m way ahead of you here) this practice of comma-delimiting to the left is far too entrenched in the U.S. and across the Internet for you to change that with your above epiphany. None of us here in this debate on this mote of a backwater discussion is going to change the way the U.S. works in this regard nor en.Wikipedia’s adoption of that widespread convention. As I also wrote above, this is an issue of simply adhering to the three-digit practice that is common throughout Europe and which has been standardized for use with the SI. And if you’re point is that we should ignore the entire SI style guide because we ignore parts of it, I reject that as utterly absurd. We already reject the BIPM’s call that a space be inserted before the percent symbol, e.g. 75 % (5.3.7 Stating values of dimensionless quantities, or quantities of dimension one). Why? Because the real world doesn’t work that way. Well, the |search_for=universal_in! the real world actually delimits in groups of three and the BIPM and NIST and ISO know that. One doesn’t suddenly change to five-digit groupings to the right (retaining three-digit groupings to the left) just because the article mentions “mathematics” four times in the body text. We don’t need two versions of val: one called val_(SI-compliant) and the other called val_(for_mathematical_constants_known_precisely). Greg L (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Using commas to group digits, either to the left or the right of the decimal marker, is not compliant with the NIST Special Publication 811 guideline, nor is it compliant with BIPM brochure. If you want to propose something that groups with commas to the left of the decimal marker and spaces to the right of the decimal marker, go ahead, but do not claim it is "SI-compliant". YOUR PROPOSAL IS AN OBVIOUS VIOLATION OF SI. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You obviously didn’t read or understand what I wrote above, Gerry. Either that, or you are using utterly fallacious arguments that ignore common sense in an effort to justify an inane proposal. The only part of my suggestion that is a violation of the SI is that we not *pretend to* change the United States’ long-standing practice of using commas to the delimit to the left. You’re simply being absurd and childish. And since you seem to have a brain-block on this, 3.141 592 658 is perfectly SI-compliant. Your implicit suggestion that all that must go out the window with U.S.’s 31,415.926 585 is ludicrous. Finally, you’re shouting. As you no longer intend to debate here in a helpful or constructive manner, I will no longer respond to you here on this issue. Goodbye. Greg L (talk) 18:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * P.S. I now see that your response to this is to nominate the val template for deletion (your nomination notice here). Note that there are articles that use this. At least one of them has been awarded GA status. Do you enjoy being a pain for others? Greg L (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * STOP!  Wikipedia has dispute resolution procedures, I beg you to use them now. Otherwise I will refer this discussion to WP:AN: I think that the possible consequences of this dispute are sufficient to justify such a step. All users involved are being silly, but the party's over, sorry, I will not sit by and see the format of scientific and mathematical articles be fought over in this way. Physchim62 (talk) 19:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I consider it prudent to stop the use of badly designed templates that just happen to look ok when their capablilities are not pushed. For example, while 3.141 592 658 is indeed SI compliant, 86,164.555 368 mean sidereal seconds per mean solar day is not. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

←


 * It doesn’t matter what just one editor thinks Gerry. Wikipedia would grind to a halt if every editor with strong feelings on a subject flouted the general consensus and deleted whatever he disagreed with. Those two templates you nominated for deletion were extensively discussed and well received on both WT:MOSNUM and WT:MOS (here and here). You were the only holdout and were quite clear that you opposed these templates . You know full well what the consensus was regarding these templates. You also know full well that the deletion of those templates would be exceedingly disruptive and would damage Wikipedia. One of the articles that makes extensive use of these templates just received WP:GA status. To the others: (Physchim62). No worries. I’ve already filed an ANI here over what Gerry did today. Greg L (talk) 20:32, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If WP:MOSNUM were changed to read substantially as follows:
 * Large or long numbers


 * Commas are used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point; spaces or dots are not used in this role (2,900,000, not 2 900 000). Optionally, thin spaces or markup that creates the appearance of thin spaces may be used to break the sequence every three places to the right of the decimal point; commas are never used to the right of the decimal point. Note this convention is unique to the English Wikipedia. except in Technical tables may have a unique format if it aids readability. in quotations where the original does so (such as in scientific publications). Quotations retain the format in the original.


 * I would be much less concerned about the Val template. I don't mind if Wikipedia creates its very own format, as long as the community does so with it's eyes wide open. I would also want some assurance that the problems alluded to in the following passage from MOSNUM have been resolved:


 * val is meant to be used to automatically handle all of this, but currently has known bugs, principal among them, not displaying some values as typed in the code (see Talk:val). Use with great consideration and always check that it will give the correct results before using it.


 * --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)


 * All: What Gerry is saying above is unsupportable. The val template is intended for making fully SI-compliant numeric equivalencies. Examine these examples:


 * SI-compliant output
 * $6.626 J·s$ → $6.626 J·s$  Compare to NIST’s version |search_for=universal_in! here


 * $1.381 J K^{−1}$ → $1.381 J K^{−1}$  Compare to NIST’s version |search_for=physchem_in! here


 * $1.661 kg$ → $1.661 kg$  Compare to NIST’s version |search_for=physchem_in! here


 * Note that {val} uses thinspaces to the left and right of the × sign. This was a compromise solution that made everyone happy on WT:MOS.


 * What Gerry has objected to in the past (it is a bit unclear what he is complaining about here), is that {val} can also be used to make the U.S.-style delimiting on the left-hand side of the decimal point that has been standardized here on en.Wikipedia. Thus:


 * It appears that Gerry would have this written out as follows: 12 345 678 since that is what the BIPM prescribes for world-wide use. Well, this is en.Wikipedia and delimiting with gaps to the left of the decimal point is simply not in the offering here.&thinsp; It would be exceedingly naive and unrealistic to expect otherwise. It’s just that simple.


 * This specific issue (commas to the left) was discussed by very many editors back in February and Gerry expressed his opposition at that time. But Gerry’s views were heard and rejected by the majority as unworkable and impractical. All aspects of delimitnum (fully embodied in val&thinsp;) were thoroughly discussed on both WT:MOSNUM and WT:MOS, the tool was enthusiastically supported, was put forth for being made, and a Bugzilla was posted asking the developers to make the special parser functions necessary to employ it. Gerry disagreed at that time. And he’s agitating here again on the issue.


 * Uses  to create thin spaces
 * Note that there is something else that the {val} and {delimitnum} templates do. They don’t use “spaces” to delimit the fractional portion of the significand (the portion of the significand to the right of the decimal marker). Instead, they use what typographers refer to as “pair kerning” via em-based control of margins (e.g. ). Margin positioning is part of what the Web-authoring community calls span tags, which, in turn, is part of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Effectively, what appears to be a space would really only be a visual effect caused by the precise placement of the digits; the “spaces” wouldn’t be separate, typeable characters. To see the difference, slowly select the two values below with your mouse :


 * $12,345,678$ (via the em-based span tags that {val} uses. Note how the cursor snaps across the gaps)


 * 6.022 464 342 (via non-breaking spaces, note how the spaces can be individually selected)
 * One might ask “Why is em-based margin control via span tags nice?” Note how, as you select the two values above, the lower version has spaces that can be selected because they are distinct characters. Now try double-clicking on both of the above values. Note how you can select the entire significand of only the top value with a double-click. By using the technique illustrated in the top example, people will be able to select entire significands from Wikipedia and paste them into Excel, where they will be recognized as real numbers! This beats the hell out of the old system, where (as exemplified at Font size) simple regular spaces and non-breaking spaces are used to delimit numbers. These values can’t be copied and used in Excel without first hand-deleting each of the spaces from every value. Until the spaces have been deleted, Excel treats the numbers as text strings upon which mathematical operations can’t be performed. If you try, you’ll just be met with a  error.


 * True minus sign for exponents
 * And there is another bit of attention to detail that SkyLined took care of with {val}. When we hand type a negative exponent, like “-34” we type using the hyphen key on our keyboard. Even if we press the ‘minus’ key on a numeric keypad, we still end up with a hyphen (ASCII character 45). The trouble with the hyphen is it appears rather short when superscripted and looks like 1&thinsp;×&thinsp;10-34. SkyLined’s {val} template substitutes the true minus sign (Unicode &amp;#x2012;) when rendering the expression to produce $12,345,678$.


 * No-wrap
 * Of course, {val} takes care of all the nowrap details so that no part of your entire numeric equivalency will do a line-end break.


 * The {val} template is easy to use, produces gorgeous, SI-compliant output (as compliant as possible if U.S.-style commas show on the left of the decimal point), and readers can double-click to select entire significands and paste them into Excel where they will be instantly treated as numeric values without any further editing. Greg L (talk) 00:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Lets not forget to look at another number from the same web site $6.022$, and compare that to |search_for=elecmag_in! NIST's version. Are we to accept not only comma grouping and space grouping in the same article,not but in the same number, without a revision to MOSNUM? Note that the Val template also made a small binary-to-decimal conversion error too, the 699 on the extreme right should just be 7.--Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Then don’t use {val} for that value if you don’t want to. Values like that are rare on Wikipedia anyway. But if you start using the Euro method of using spaces on both sides of the decimal point, some confused reader is going to change it. Greg L (talk) 01:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Real-world example: the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics has a table of mathematical constants, which is spaced every five digits, and a table of physical constants, which is spaced every three digits. They can be flexible when needed; why can't we? I'd like to see an official publication by BIPM or SI that shows a mathematical constant with more that say 20 figures and is spaced every three digits as a counterexample. --Itub (talk) 05:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * There is tons of evidence in books and papers that math constants like pi and e are much more often printed with 5-digit groups than with 3. Greg L keeps ignoring this fact of such long numbers being treated differently, essentially as digit sequences as opposed to just values, and wants to unify such digit sequences with ordinary numbers.  In spite of the NIST/BIPM guide that says one may divide into groups of 3, division into groups of 5 remains widespread for such case.  So there's no compelling reason to change how it has long been done in wikipedia. Dicklyon (talk) 07:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Google books test: 164 hits for "14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279" vs 58 hits for "141592653589793238462643383279" and only 16 hits for "141 592 653 589 793 238 462 643 383 279". Ok, all three styles have seen some use in the real world for 30-decimal pi, but the five-digit grouping is the most popular one and the three-digit grouping is by far the least popular. --Itub (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: similar results are found for e, the square root of 2, and the golden ratio. In one case (I don't remember which) there were zero hits for three-digit grouping while there were a handful for five-digit grouping. Also note that to have a meaningful comparison the numbers need to be at least 15 digits long. --Itub (talk) 15:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've felt all along that separating digits into groups of three with thin spaces both left and right of the decimal place would be a hard sell; the only places I knew of that used that standard were BIPM, NIST, and IEEE. NIST couldn't even get the rest of the government to go along with the standard. I have finally found one additional source that follows the standard: Blackburn & Holford-Strevens The Oxford Companion to the Year published by Oxford University Press in 1999, with corrections in 2003. An example from page 805 is "40 929.397 74".


 * I've always felt it was a choice among bad alternatives; the usual US typography, which is hard to read, the BIPM standard, which is unpopular (or maybe "rare" is a better word), and Greg L's proposal, which is unique to Wikipedia. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * "In certain subject areas the customary format may differ from the usual national one: for example, articles on the modern U.S. military often use day before month, in accordance with usage in that field." The quote is, of course, from WP:MOSNUM! I we can have such a common-sense compromise for dates, why not for numbers? Why not restrict ourselves to saying that number format should correspond to English-language usage in the subject area of the article? That would be ISO 31-0 for the physical sciences, but could be different in other fields. Hence, the speed of light would be 299 792 458 m/s but the population of New York City would be 8,274,527. Physchim62 (talk) 13:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that, for the speed of light, the Google hits are about 80,000 for both 299,792,458 and 299792458, as opposed to 18.8 million for 299 792 458. I would hardly call ISO 31-0 unpopular or rare! Physchim62 (talk) 13:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Restricting the search to Google Books, the figures are 2120 for the version with spaces and 651 for the version without spaces. None of the first 150 hits in the search for "299,792,458" actually used commas to separate the groups of digits; all simply had no separation. Physchim62 (talk) 13:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * You must have forgotten to put your spaced google web query in quotes, because it is also matching pages where 299, 792, and 458 occur in different parts of the page. Also, google web has very weird rules for dealing with punctuation, so a search for 299,792,458 or for "299 792 458" can return results for 299792458. Google books has different rules, because "299 792 458" doesn't return hits for 299792458. --Itub (talk) 14:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, the figures come out about the same for spaced and unspaced versions of the speed of light, both in Google Books and Google Web. Can't say anything about the use of commas, as Google appears to systematically remove them from large numbers. Physchim62 (talk) 15:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Dueling proposals (cont'd)
I think the important distinction here is to not look towards reference books filled with tabular data for guidance here on this issue. If Wikipedia had a page filled with lots of high-precision tabular data with values less than 1—such as high-precision trig tables (who uses those anymore anyway?), then we might follow that convention for our tabular trig tables. We might have tables that look like this:
 * 90.00° 1.00000 00000 00000


 * 89.99° 0.99999 99847 69129


 * 89.98° 0.99999 99390 76517


 * 89.97° 0.99999 98629 22164


 * 89.96° 0.99999 97563 06074


 * 89.95° 0.99999 96192 28249


 * 89.94° 0.99999 94516 88695


 * 89.93° 0.99999 92536 87414


 * 89.92° 0.99999 90252 24415


 * 89.91° 0.99999 87662 99704


 * 89.90° 0.99999 84769 13288


 * 89.89° 0.99999 81570 65176


 * 89.88° 0.99999 78067 55379


 * 89.87° 0.99999 74259 83907


 * 89.86° 0.99999 70147 50771


 * 89.85° 0.99999 65730 55985


 * 89.84° 0.99999 61008 99561


 * 89.83° 0.99999 55982 81513


 * 89.82° 0.99999 50652 01858


 * 89.81° 0.99999 45016 60611


 * 89.80° 0.99999 39076 57790


 * 89.79° 0.99999 32831 93413


 * 89.78° 0.99999 26282 67498


 * Now that I’ve just made one, I just love the look of the above table. But I think for the purposes of this discussion, we should strictly limit ourselves to how standard numeric equivalences and simple numbers that are used mid-stream in the main body text ought to be expressed. I also don’t think we can even look towards how special numbers like pi are done in books since all these monster-size numbers originally came from computerized sources that adhered to the long-standing practice first used in actual line-feed printouts. I can see that notwithstanding this “source” issue, many books still saw fit to strip out the 5-digit delimiting and format them into the SI-compliant form. We simply can’t look towards the number of books that gush over high-precision values of pi nor reference books. For most numeric equivalencies and numbers used in in-line prose (those values that don’t invite readers to start counting numbers by using wording like “Here are the first 50 digits of this never-ending number…”), I don’t see why we can’t simply follow what the NIST and the BIPM and the ISO recommend here. None of them mention a special exception for mathematical constants. What are we to do with “mathematical constants known precisely” if they exceed a hundred-thousand? Is pi12 to be written like 9,24269.18152 3374 or 9 24269.18152 3374? I don’t think we want to start delimiting on both sides in groups of five nor would we want to mix it up and delimit every three to the left and every five to the right. For simple ordinary numbers in regular body text where we aren’t inviting readers to count digits, it make abundant sense to me to just follow what the standard bodies say to do: delimit in groups of three regardless of which side of the decimal marker you’re on. We would then have numbers that look like these: h ≈ $1$ and k ≈ $12,906.404 Ω$ and mu ≈ $6.626 J·s$ and e ≈ 2.718 281 828 . This is the right way to do it.  Greg L (talk) 20:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I think your "example" of π12 is just an Aunt Sally. Let me give you a real example, the von Klitzing constant – fundamental, as it happens, for watt balance measurements. Its value in current SI units, as formatted by val, is $1.381 J K^{−1}$, and its conventional unit is the ohm rather than the kilohm: are you seriously suggesting that we mix comma delimitation and space delimitation in the same number? Physchim62 (talk) 21:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Greg, like Gerry, are also violating WP:POINT in this discussion in intentionally misrepresenting my (draft) proposal which is and should be discussed at WT:MSM only. The way I see it, we're discussing two guidelines which do not precisely conflict.
 * You are proposing we formalize your guideline that we generally use the SI format (to the right of the decimal point) by inserting formatting spaces (&lt;span>, etc.) every 3 digits. This was approximately agreed upon in discussion, but it was never actually proposed as a guideline.  If proposed, I'd probably !vote to approve, even without evidence of real-world consensus.  (I'd propose a separate note than numbers with 12 digits past the decimal point are generally not encyclopedic unless they are mathematical or definitional constants.)
 * I'm proposing a separate guideline for mathematics articles with long precisely-known (unitless) constants less than 10 in value. As 5-digit spacing is what's used in the few mathematics books which actually have long numbers in them, this reflects a real-world consensus with respect to that topic.
 * — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I would agree with Arthur Rubin, with the additional point that the recommendations are only really for technical articles: general articles do not usually quote numbers with more than four decimal places. Obviously I'm in favor of using ISO 31-0 format in physical sciences articles to the left of the decimal marker as well. Physchim62 (talk) 21:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What's unencyclopedic with ge = −2.002 319 304 3622(15) (which val fails to display correctly, BTW) ? -- Army1987 (t — c) 00:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I’m done. Do what you want. Greg L (talk) 22:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * How about: "In values with five or more digits after the decimal point, these can be separated in groups of three by thin spaces (except that a single digit at the end would not have a preceding space, e.g. $1.661 kg$); but representations with fifteen or more digits after the point of mathematically defined irrational constants can optionally use groups of five digits (e.g. ); in this case, the number of digits used after the point and before the ellipsis should be a multiple of five." -- Army1987 (t — c) 01:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Makes perfect sense, Army. ;-P Greg L (talk) 01:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Physchim62's proposal

 * Change
 * "Commas are used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point; spaces or dots are not used in this role (2,900,000, not 2 900 000), except in technical tables or in quotations where the original does so (such as in scientific publications)."


 * to
 * "Large numbers are usually broken into groups of three digits by commas, eg 'the population of New York City is 8,274,527 (figure for July 1, 2007).' Certain subject areas have different rules, notably the physical sciences, and these should be respected if they are verifiable and have the consensus of editors."

What do people think? Physchim62 (talk) 22:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * It is quite unclear what is meant. “Certain subject areas have different rules…and these should be respected.” What does that mean? It seems ambiguous to me and ambiguity leads to edit warring. There is already a serious lack of standardization in our articles. The “physical sciences” includes astronomy. Our own Moon article says this in the body text:
 * “…since the common centre of mass of the system (the barycentre) is located about 1 700 km beneath the surface of the Earth”
 * “The Moon's diameter is 3,474 km.”
 * Euro-style number with a space in the fist; American-style with a comma in the second. That whole Moon article is a mess and I suspect that MOSNUM and its inability to decide on anything can probably share some of the blame. Note the “centre of mass” part first. The Moon article has “center” (U.S. dialect) seven times and “centre” (British dialect) six times. The barycentre link (British) is broken and redirects to Center of mass (American). And as you can also see from the way the numbers are formated, there isn’t even any consistency within that article for five-digit numbers! What a mess. That article used to be a FA article. And judging from your proposal, it now seems that how numbers will be formatted will depend on whether a reader goes to Moon or to Cheese. I think we need to get our act together here. MOSNUM is becoming the butt of jokes among the admins. Greg L (talk) 23:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Another Aunt Sally. Let's take another style guideline, WP:ENGVAR: it doesn't prevent problems (or edit wars), but it gives a clue as to how to solve them. Moon, from your evidence, doesn't comply with the most basic of requirements of WP:ENGVAR, that to be consistent within the same article. As for numbers, the first example is incorrect according to the current guidelines but it's hardly worse than taking readers on several transatlantic dialect-trips. Physchim62 (talk) 00:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Please be specific. What is meant by “Certain subject areas have different rules…and these should be respected.”? Are you suggesting that numbers like “8,274,527” would look different in articles that belong to the physical sciences? With your current wording, there is too much room for interpretation as to what is meant for a guideline to be posted on MOSNUM. This isn’t the NY Times where everyone has a journalism degree and works for the same boss. There are editors from different countries, different backgrounds, different educations, and different preferences to have that much ambiguity. Guidelines here need to be even clearer than those at a newspaper. Just spell out what you’re driving at. Greg L (talk) 00:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, were the number “8,274,527” significant for a physical reason (rather than being an estimate, quoted at a ridiculously low level of uncertainty, of the population of New York City on a given day) it should have a different style, that style being the one which is defined in ISO 31-0 and accepted throughout the world of scientific publication. Physchim62 (talk) 01:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That is much more helpful (although it still requires that editors go read the ISO 31-0 article in depth). I like the part where ISO 31-0 says “long sequences of digits can be made more readable by separating them into groups, preferably groups of three…”. However, I don’t think the part where it says “…groups of digits should never be separated by a comma or point, as these are reserved for use as the decimal sign.” is a good idea for en.Wikipedia. Thus, according to your proposal, the main body text in the Moon article would state that the moon has a mean radius of 1 737 100 meters. Is that right? If so, I prefer the current wording on MOSNUM. Why? Because there are a number of ways that Europeans format numbers. If I recall correctly, there are even different ways of formatting numbers within a country, like Swedish-1 and Swedish-2. Or was it Swiss-1 and Swiss-2??? Well… one of those “S” countries with blonds walking the streets in bikinis, that’s all I remember. Accordingly, Europeans are quite accustomed to dealing with the American convention of delimiting numbers with commas (as well as four or five other systems used throughout Europe); nothing much confuses you Europeans. But Americans are not nearly so mentally ambidextrous. We could always take an attitude of “F*ck ‘em if Americans are so damned ignorant, they don’t deserve to learn… they’re still using pounds and feet!” Well, my inner child agrees with this attitude to a degree. But my handy, catch-all filter that I use in deciding what is best on Wikipedia is this: The goal in all technical writing is to communicate to the intended readership with minimal confusion. So the best thing to do, IMO, is keep the current guideline—and actually do a better job of adhering to it our articles. The Moon article, to name just one, is a big mess, but I’m not about to go get into a holy war on numbers over there trying to get it consistent in spelling and formatting. Greg L (talk) 01:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Army1987's proposal
Replace the first bullet of MOS:NUM with:
 * In large numbers (i.e., in numbers greater than or equal to 10,000), commas are generally used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point, e.g. "8,274,527". In scientific context, thin spaces can also be used (but using nowrap to prevent line-breaking within numbers), e.g. "8&thinsp;274&thinsp;527" (, or using the thin space character instead of its HTML entity). Consistency within an article is desirable as always.

After the last bullet of MOS:NUM, add: Army1987 (t — c) 14:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * For numbers with more than four digits after the decimal point, these can be separated in groups of three by thin spaces protected by nowrap, or with val, which obtains the same appearance using margins instead of thin space characters. (An exception is that a single digit at the end would not have a preceding space; val handles this automatically, e.g. "$25,812.808 Ω$".) Optionally, truncated representations of mathematically defined constants with fifteen or more digits after the point can use groups of five digits (e.g. ""); in this case, the number of digits used between the point and the ellipsis, being arbitrary, should be a multiple of five (or of three, if three-digit groups are used). Note that val can fail to correctly handle numbers with too many significant digits.


 * Army1987: My 01:49, 11 October 2008, above, applies to this proposed revision of the current guideline too. Some of Wikipedia’s articles are already becoming a hodgepodge of number conventions within individual articles, sometime within the same section of an article. Under this proposal, not only would there be different delimiting characters depending on where the reader lands, but there would be different group sizes of digits (three for this and five for that) depending on where the reader lands. The first thing, IMO, we need to do on Wikipedia is go get our current articles into proper compliance with the guidelines we already have. Greg L (talk) 16:18, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The current guideline says to use commas every three places left of the point, and says nothing about right of the point. And, given the way you cite BIPM et al., I don't believe 8,987,551,787.3681764 N m2/C2 is the formatting you would advocate. -- Army1987 (t — c) 00:32, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Since no publication would use the format 8,987,551,787.368&thinsp;176&thinsp;4 N·m2/C2 it never would have occurred to whoever wrote the current guideline to prohibit a mixture of commas and thinspaces as digit grouping charcters. Therefore, the absence of an explicit prohibition in MOSNUM does not constitute approval of such a practice. The only digit grouping method approved of by the current MOSNUM is commas (except in tables and quotations). --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:17, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * So… does 8,987,551,787.368176 make you happy? Because that’s what MOSNUM calls for and that’s the standard way it’s done in the US in daily life. Also, it is well recognized by any European with an IQ that is at least as great as their heart rate. Greg L (talk) 04:36, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Greg's last example certainly complies with the practice of most American publishers and the current MOSNUM. Granted, it is a bit hard to read the digits after the decimal point. A way to respond to the difficulty would be to accept the BIPM/NIST system only in science, technology, and maybe applied math articles that contain at least one number with five or more digits to the right of the decimal point. This would accord with the usual Wikipedia practice, and the practice of some other publishers, of allowing different rules of style in different articles, so long as articles are self-consistent. Greg's idea of using commas to the left and half-spaces to the right could be adopted as an English Wikipedia house style, but I would want to see that explicitly put in the MOSNUM and see it stick. If Greg were to try such a change, I would not be the one to revert it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The use of such large numbers should, in theory, be fairly limited. Articles on fundamental constants and planetary data and mathematics, and suchlike. It would be nice to get a standardised format, but it shouldn't really be necessary to spend a huge amount of time on this, surely? I know the MoS is prone to WP:LAME stuff, and settling things at this level can avoid such lame edit wars breaking out, but why not just close our eyes, pick a reasonable standard, and stick to it? Carcharoth (talk) 05:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Sometimes it does make sense to use different standards in different places. (For example, in special relativity, there are different conventions about whether m denotes rest mass or relativistic mass; whether time-like four-vectors have positive or negative norm; whether space and time are measured in the same unit (i.e. c = 1) or not, and if they aren't, whether the timelike component of the position four-vector is ct and the metric is ±diag(1, −1, −1, −1), or they are t and ±diag(c2, −1, −1, −1); whether time is the zeroth component (ct, x, y, z) or the fourth component (x, y, z, ct); whether time is imaginary and the metric is positive; and so on, and so forth. Some of these issues have settled, but others haven't.) This does not make sense, and if in this case no one standard is used, guess about other cases... As for me, I can see nothing wrong with Mathematical_constant using five-digit groupings and Planck units using three-digit groupings. After all, this won't cause both sizes to be used in the same article, as physicists seldom use numbers with more than thirteen digits or so after the point, and, even when they do, my proposed wording doesn't forbid to use three-digit groups even for 200-digit numbers. -- Army1987 (t — c) 10:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * As for 8,987,551,787.368176, yes, it is the format used in the US in daily life, but do Americans really use numbers with that many significant figures, in "daily life"? Also, in cases such as e&pi;$0.123$ = 262,537,412,640,768,743.999999999999250072&hellip;, it becomes nearly illegible — how long do you take to you tell how many nines are there? -- Army1987 (t — c) 10:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

←


 * Carcharoth is dead-on correct in his 05:38, 12 October post, above—from start to finish. So too is Army1987, above. Big numbers with quantities of digits that require delimiting on both sides are relatively rare—there is only one such number in the entire Kilogram article (the number of wavelengths delineating the meter). High-precision values in technical articles are usually in scientific notation (only one digit on the left). After a reader has seen numbers like $0.123$ a half-dozen times in the article, delimiting to the right confuses no one—particularly in scientific articles. For non-scientific articles, the main point of big numbers is to be illustrative, the implication being “look, this value is really, really BIG”, or “look how precisely this value has been measured by them scientific folk.” For such illustrative purposes, numbers don’t even need to be delimited on the right. But for scientific purposes, where a proposed new value is being compared to another or to see whether it falls within an uncertainty, we delimit to the right because doing so makes it easier to parse and this facilitates understanding and minimizes confusion. Greg L (talk) 18:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * And in science we delimit to the left with spaces: any person, whatever their nationality, "with an IQ that is at least as great as their heart rate" to use your pathetic little snipe, can understand it. It's rare that it has to be done, but that is what is done, sorry. At the moment, this guideline forces editors to use a format which is illogical, ridiculous and used by nobody outside of Wikipedia. Are you in someway proud of that? Physchim62 (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh jeez, don’t be so quick to take personal offense to everything. To the larger issue: I’ve already explained clearly enough that Europe has a half-dozen ways of formatting numbers and European school children are taught to deal with them all. Further, Europeans are accustomed to the American system of delimiting numbers. Americans are not so mentally ambidextrous; they have been exposed to only one number-formatting system their whole life. That’s why it’s used on Wikipedia: because the American numbering notation results in the least confusion to the greatest possible number of readers. Please accept that reality. And to an even broader point. There’s tendency to make our scientific articles too complex. Advanced and obscure styles, conventions, and customs used in the scientific papers are too often being incorporated into our Wikipedia articles. Our scientific articles need to clearly explain complex subjects in simpler terms —not start looking like they were written by Ph.D.s and are ready for publication in a journal. Sometimes editors are maybe a little too anxious to show off how they are *comfortable* with “scientific” conventions. Take the example of numeric equivalencies with superscripted negative exponents (reciprocated factors) such as $\sqrt{163}$. A simple, two-component unit of measure like this is unnecessarily complex of a math concept for use here on Wikipedia when $1.661 kg$ means the exact same thing and is much more accessible to a much wider readership. If we’ve got a truly very advanced scientific article, or there are three or more factors to the unit of measure, then there is little choice, such as G = $8.854 F m^{−1}$. Some of us have got to stop thinking like we’re writing for other editors and think about who the customer is. Why would we write “The Avogadro constant L is $8.854 F/m$” in an introductory paragraph when we can write “The Avogadro constant L is $6.674 m^{3} kg^{−1} s^{−2}$ entities per mole”? The latter is much more accessible to a general audience. We’re here to make the complex less complex, not simply ralph what was in the science paper all over onto our articles. The same principle applies with numbering conventions. And I frankly think that some of our European editors have become so convinced of the innate superiority of the BIPM-prescribed number notation, that they believe that “science” can not somehow be “correct” without observing the most modern of the European numbering conventions. I think some of these editors—not all—see “science” as some sort of inroad to getting the superior Euro style into Wikipedia. “Superiority” isn’t the test; it’s simply the “degree of familiarity with the largest audience.” These editors are just deluding themselves if they think these efforts will promote the adoption of the SI numbering style in the U.S. Just like our three-year failed experiment with “promoting” the use of the IEC prefixes (mebibyte instead of megabyte, etc.), all we did was confuse our readers for three long years. Some advocates thought Wikipedia was being progressive. Others flat out were trying to promote the adoption of the IEC prefixes (I read that admission, from one proponent to another, on a talk page). But after that three-year failed experiment, Wikipedia didn’t show the computer manufacturers *the light to a new and better future.* No manufacturer was following our *lead*, readers were baffled, and Wikipedia just looked foolish. This is what happens when Wikipedia is used as a vehicle to promote change in how the world works. The simple fact is that America has always delimited with commas to the left and Americans are not familiar at all with other conventions. Taking an attitude of “well, Americans will just damned learn the new numbering system when they land on Wikipedia” isn’t the correct attitude. Flies like a lead balloon with me. As I said before, our Moon article is now an utter mess, with a hodgepodge of number styles being used it its body text. Perhaps, one day, American’s will be more familiar with other numeric conventions. Until that day, Wikipedia must consistently adhere to the numeric convention that causes the least confusion to the greatest number of readers. Wikipedia shouldn’t be used by as a vehicle to promote change in how things work. It would be quite unwise to start separating certain classes of articles (e.g. science-related ones) to begin using different rules for formatting numbers. There… I said what was on my mind. Please don’t howl over great injustices here over how I engaged in “personal attacks” and am “failing to assume good faith” and all the other red-herring diversions away from the main point: having style guides here on MOSNUM that promote writing as clearly as possible to the widest possible audience with minimal confusion.  Greg L (talk) 22:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not going to howl over personal attacks because I didn't take it as one. I will point out though that by far the most widely used thousands separator in Europe is the point-on-the-line, exactly what Brits and Americans use for the decimal marker! Imagine if you saw the speed of light written as 299.792.458 m/s – looks strange, doesn't it? Which is why someone came up with a compromise, which has actually taken very well in technical fields and is widely used. An international format for writing physically significant numbers which can't be used on Wikipedia because of this guideline. If anyone trys, this sort of edit is the result. Why on earth should the speed of light be written in the same format as the population of the United States?
 * In your laudable quest not to confuse our readers, you are actually depriving them of information. Lets take you Avogadro example, because I remember that it's you who changed mol$6.022 mol^{–1}$ to entities per mole. The first paragraph of the article used to read:
 * "The Avogadro constant (symbols: L, NA), also called Avogadro's number, is the number of "elementary entities" (usually atoms or molecules) in one mole, that is (from the definition of the mole) the number of atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12.[1][2] The 2006 CODATA recommended value is 6.02214179(30) mol$6.022$.[3]"
 * That second sentence gives two important pieces of information. 1) the conventional unit for the Avogadro constant (and the very fact that it has one, and is not simply a number); and 2) the symbol for that unit. Your version "6.02214179(30) entities per mole" doesn't give either, and is hardly any more comprehensible, given that it uses thinspace delimitation to the right of the decimal point and parenthetical expression of the standard uncertainty!
 * Anyone who studies physical science above the most basic level must come to terms with the language it uses for expressing concepts, just like any child has to learn that "+" represents and addition operation. By your misguided attempt to impose a false uniformity between articles and concepts which have nothing in common, you are condemning our readers to irritation if they already know the correct form or, worse, continued ignorance if they don't. Physchim62 (talk) 00:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, that was me who changed Avogadro constant so it’s easier for non-scientists to understand the essential nature of the measure. I don’t understand your concern. The preceding sentence (what also happens to be the first sentence of a two-sentence paragraph) states what the symbol for the Avogadro constant is: “(symbols: L, NA)”. Then the very next sentence gives the magnitude and the measure. If you think the symbols (L, NA) should be in that second sentence as well, be my guest. It seemed rather redundant to me. If scientists were responsible for school systems, they’d send policy papers to parents saying the objective was for district-wide class sizes Nclass ≤24 classroom−1. Greg L (talk) 02:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I meant the symbol for the unit, not the symbol for the constant. And I think you'll find there are far more scientists employed in school-teaching than in industrial research (I've done both). Physchim62 (talk) 11:59, 13 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I’m sorry. When I mentioned “scientists,” above, that wasn’t directed to you Physchim62. Wikipedia needs more true experts (many more) who know what they are talking about. There are far too many editors on scientific subjects contributing to Wikipedia who simply parrot what they read out of Popular Mechanics. I was referring to the guys with their heads in the clouds who write extremely dry, abstract scientific papers for publishing. Then, when it comes time for them to write supplemental curricula material for their students, they often can’t ‘walk and chew gum at the same time’ when it comes to clarifying the abstract and unclear. I’ve worked with Ph.D.’s in an R&D environment. I kid you not. There was a Ph.D. chemist in his 40s who had a phone book in front of him on a table.


 * • The Ph.D.: “Greg, if you wanted to find a company to do laser cutting, how would you find a company like that?”


 * • I told him “I’m pretty certain they have a section under ‘Laser,’ but if not, I know for a fact that under ‘Machine shops,’ there are advertisements saying they do laser cutting.”


 * • “OK. But… where in the phone book?”


 * • “Uhm… under ‘Laser’ and ‘Machine shops.’&thinsp;”


 * • (*pause*) “Well… but where in the phone book would I look.?”


 * • (*I blink once or twice*) “Uhm… in the *Yellow Pages.*”


 * • (*pregnant pause and awkward uncomfortable look from the Ph.D. as he shifted his balance a bit from side to side on his feet*) “Well… will you show me?”


 * I shit you not. This is completely true. Ph.D. scientists out of an academic setting are a diverse lot. Some can start their own companies, are extraordinarily knowledgeable about a range of subjects beyond the scope of their Ph.D., and have amazing people and leadership skills that make you want to follow them anywhere. Others however, have led a sheltered life in the academic world where they never had to order a bottle reagent on their own; everything is done for them. These sort—I’ve found—tend to have a difficult time with “theory of mind”: understanding what others don’t understand and being able to come down to their level. Greg L (talk) 17:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)