Talk:Chain (unit)

message: The page shows a side box with 11.821 mile/chain. It's easy to show consistency with the rest of the article: 80 chain/mile and 5280'/mile = 66'/chain x 80 chain/mile = 16.5'/rod x 4 rod/chain x 80 chain/mile, etc.  Or, 1 mile/80 chain = 0.0125 mile/chain. 
--KCK 21:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: In the side box headed 1 chain =, under Imperial units, is the equivalence 1 chain = 12.5x10^-3 miles.  That figure should be 12.5x10^-2 miles, or 125x10^-3 miles, which is 0.125 miles, which is one-eighth of a mile.64.193.92.84 00:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind. It looks like that is because those not meter units are auto calculated(?). That's pretty cool. Lieutenant pepper (talk) 21:24, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  The conversion factor in the infobox was bogus. Fixed now, thanks. Hqb (talk) 07:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Side box error:

message: :Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
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BetacommandBot 04:55, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif

message: :Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot 20:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Sectional appendix chains.gif

message: I think it is very much in use in India. All land measurements/survey for commercial purposes are done using the Chain. India is hugely influenced by Britain in this and a lot of other things. And we stick to our traditions. 59.180.161.253 (talk) 17:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Usage in India

message: Removed/Edit: "It is important to remember that the miles and chains are used to identify locations, not as an actual measurement of distance."
This claim has no citation and is, in any event not-factual. Certainly not as entered in any event. Chainage can be seen marked with spray paint on many structures such as platforms which confirms that there is no active intermingling of metric with Miles/Chainage. Example. Down platform, Mansfield, Nottingham. Recently spray painted chainage intervals in bright pink every 22 yds. Avoiding trespass one should be able to mark off 22 paces along these marks. Locations will continue to be marked in M/Ch but the fact that this is a measure of distance has passed over the head of the original editor. Relay locations (locs), AHB, AOCL, CCTV, Tunnels or other crossing, other equipment are referred to by M/Ch and there has been a rolling program of clearly identifying the same across the UK which anyone can check. Mileage/quarter marker posts are retained usually on the "up" side, which provide benchamark offsets to chainage. If reinstated it needs proof/citation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.3.101.212 (talk) 21:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed Non-Factual Claim 

message: I remember from some research I did years ago (unfortnately I have lost the references) that the acre was the amount of field that a plough team could expect to do in a day.  It was a furlong long and 1 chain wide.  Does anyone know it this is supported by the size of medieval strip fields?
Dave Catlin (talk) 08:50, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chain - Furlong - Acre 

message: The following details about British railways was removed, as it is not relevant to article on chains.  It might fit under miles or an article on railroads.
:there have been instances of using miles and yards (on the former London Midland Region of British Railways) and more recently kilometres and metres. Northern Ireland Railways uses a system of miles and metres. 
:Railways were required originally to set posts at quarter mile intervals indicating the route mileage, and the mile and quarter mile posts can still be seen.
::The company shall cause the length of the railway to be measured, and milestones, posts, or other conspicuous objects to be set up and maintained along the whole line thereof, at the distance of one quarter of a mile from each other, with numbers or marks inscribed thereon denoting such distances.
75.150.168.6 (talk) 16:51, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Some railway details removed

message: I removed the claim that the "symbol" for chain is 'ch' from the first sentence of the lead: see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-06-09/Op-ed on excess parenthetical detail in the lead. But I know of no evidence that this would even be correct: it is true that SI units have "symbols", which are explicitly not "abbreviations", so that by way of simple example, in Italian chilometro would have to be abbreviated without a 'k', but Italian uses the SI symbol like everyone else. However, I do not think there is any body, in the UK or anywhere else, laying down specifications for "symbols" for historical units. Chains were commonly abbreviated 'ch', but I bet 'chn' and other possibilities also occurred from time to time. So I think the infobox should also be changed. But anyway, this is a classic example of something which merely clutters up the first sentence. Imaginatorium (talk) 16:03, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good reason to remove it from the infobox (which I have done).  If anyone finds a source, of course it can be re-inserted.  We should not be synthesizing information by inference from an assumption that the SI pattern holds for non-SI units.  —Quondum 16:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  The photo on the right was added with an edit summary "image of usage": this is evidence that "chain" may be abbreviated "ch", but we knew that already. A "symbol" is something different: normally part of an ISO standard, and specifically not an abbreviation but a sequence of one or more letters; this is not evidence that ISO claims 'ch' to be the symbol. (This is a subtle but real distinction, like the distinction between "use" and "usage", not to mention "abusage"). Imaginatorium (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need evidence of the "symbol" usage 

message: The chain was already the surveyor's unit of measurement in the 9th century AD - Winchester, Oxford and other Saxon towns were laid out using it.Vince Calegon 11:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  history/origin 

message: The article says that there are 100 link in a chain, yet the chain is defined as having 100.084 links - not 100 exactly. Why not? Surely this article should explain? --88.97.11.54 (talk) 12:32, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: This is an obvious spoof so I have deleted it. By definition there are exactly 100 links in a chain. --88.97.11.54 (talk) 15:12, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is there a decimal remainder chain/link 

message: I think the "Forestry tools and equipment" shortcut box at the lower part of the article does not belong here. 2A02:8084:9842:4000:85D8:1FDF:DF4C:8B3A (talk) 07:48, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the "Instrument" section of the article, it does. It seems that an actual chain is used in US forestry work, therefore it is a tool or piece of equipment. Akld guy (talk) 08:56, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forestry tools and equipment 

message: I suggest we create a number of redirects to this article in the form Chain (22 yards), Chain (20 metres), Chain (30 metres), etc (which could each redirect to a suitable subheading or anchor point, if there is one). Then an article quoting a distance in chains could use a piped link to the appropriate redirect (e.g.  32 chains) instead of direct to the article. The link will then have a tooltip that clarifies what a chain is. -- Dr Greg  talk  14:27, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Just use , that way you can use the level of accuracy appropriate to the context. Thryduulf (talk) 14:40, 21 July 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Though creating the redirects will be harmless.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:36, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguating the chain 

message: I really ought to have stated the full proposal rather than assume that all interested parties were already following, so let me do so now:
* we already have two articles, chain (unit) and Gunter's chain, that overlap so much as to be in effect wp:forks. Each discusses surveing chains in general, Guntner's chain in particular, other measuring chains, the statute chain as a legal measure, other chains that are de facto but not de jure measures. All in all, a mess that [IMO] needs disentagling.
* we have a third article surveying chain that at present is a redirect to Guntner's chain, even though there are 'competitor' surveying chains.
* so the proposal is that we have these three articles
#chain (unit) be only about the statute chain [measure], with a main link to its basis, Guntner's chain.
#surveying chain be about all types of surveyors' and engineers' chains, with main links to the unit and the detailed article [with a summary] on Gunter's chain, but describes all the other chains itself.
#Gunter's chain is about that - and only mentions [via link back to the surveying article] that other chains exist[ed] (naming them). IMO, there is relatively little work to do on that article; it is mainly the unit article that has become bloated.
Does that change anyone's view? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:15, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification