Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Archive B5

message: Since discussion on this page regarding the prefix issue has failed to reach any consensus, nor to stop revert warring, I think that the next step should be to open a mediation request. Does anyone object to that? *** Crotalus *** 01:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there was any mediation then the current vote is at 11 support (with some conditions in some votes relating to the first bullet) to 2 oppose. Fnagaton 10:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not at all a "vote". They are comments about a proposal, which has changed since the first comment and which can and will be changed.  Sarenne 11:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are wrong, it is a vote because there are votes for support and oppose. Fnagaton 11:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are "support" and "oppose", right. See WP:VOTE, it is not a vote (nor a straw poll). Sarenne 11:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP:VOTE does not support your argument and that means you're wrong, again. It is a vote. You also call it a vote here in this diff, so that means you're not being consistent again. Fnagaton 11:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I forgot your argumentation "you're wrong, I'm right". Do you know what these " " are for ? I'm done "arguing" with you. Sarenne 11:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are wrong, the facts show it. Fnagaton 11:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: This is getting out of hand. I can deal with reasonable discussion on this (or any other) page. What I can't deal with is Sarenne's bullying campaign. This is highly disruptive to Wikipedia and it has to stop. You can't claim consensus when half the people disagree with you, and no one else is directly supporting your controversial edits. *** Crotalus *** 11:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  What is really disruptive (IMHO) is your reverts (and Fnagaton's, etc) without waiting for a new guideline, not my "initial" edits. When the guideline is changed (with a real consensus, not like what you did), I will do what the guideline recommends. Until then, I see no reason (IMHO avoiding edit wars is not a valid reason) why I shouldn't do what is recommended. This is my last answer here until I see an honest straw poll (that follows this guideline) about a proposal. All have been said.Sarenne 12:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Someone here has gotten some incorrect impressions of how guidelines work and are created. Specifically, according to policy, they are not created by voting on them, and according to more policy, consensus can change, so you shouldn't take a two-year-old consensus as indicative that there still is one today. Also, as WP:STRAW states, polls are never binding. >Radiant< 12:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No matter how many times you call things a straw poll or link other policies that don't support your argument because it's not relevant here, it doesn't change the fact that we are discussing and working towards consensus. This has already been explained to you above when you tried to unilaterally block off the text. Fnagaton 12:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *Actually, YOU may be, but Sarenne obviously is not, as xe has just stated that xe will keep revert warring over this until this page is voted upon. That is hardly a productive approach. >Radiant< 12:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that should be grounds to permanently suspend Sarenne's account until the user promises not to revert war on this subject. Fnagaton 12:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about suspending anyone's account, but I would strongly urge everyone involved to accept a voluntary moratorium on editing xB to xiB, or vice versa, until the mediation is settled. I certainly am willing to accept this. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *I do know about suspending people's accounts. There's presently several dozen edit wars on related articles. These must stop. Whatever the problem, edit warring is not the solution. >Radiant< 13:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will accept Seraphimblade's proposed voluntary moratorium on reverts related to this issue. I hope that Sarenne is willing to do the same. These reverts are not a productive use of time and I am tired of them. *** Crotalus *** 13:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Hopefully, it would be geared toward finding a solution to the issue. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: If they are interested in the topic then they would almost certainly be aware of these discussions by now. Although I did a quick check of the list and the editors Crotalus horridus,Howard and TopaTopa seem to be missing whilst having expressed an interest in the binary prefixes topic. Fnagaton 00:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually I find it quite possible that interested people are tired about tons of arguing in circles. --SLi 00:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation

message: Before I open a mediation request on this issue, I need to get a list of which users are willing to participate. Some of the statements in the section above were ambiguous, and I don't want to include any users who would rather not be involved. If you wish to participate in this proposed mediation case, please sign below. After a day or so couple of days, I will ask for it to be opened at WP:RFM.
**** Crotalus *** 12:50, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hopefully, it would be geared toward finding a solution to the issue. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

text: If they are interested in the topic then they would almost certainly be aware of these discussions by now. Although I did a quick check of the list and the editors Crotalus horridus,Howard and TopaTopa seem to be missing whilst having expressed an interest in the binary prefixes topic. Fnagaton 00:12, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Actually I find it quite possible that interested people are tired about tons of arguing in circles. --SLi 00:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Users to participate in mediation

message: From : "The above statement is clearly supported by the current discussion. If you disagree, show evidence that consensus to force binary prefixes exists NOW, not back in 2005."
:There was never a consensus to "force" anything.  The compromise reached in 2005 was that both styles are allowed, but, in specific instances, where accuracy is important, a change to standardized prefixes should be accepted.  In addition, this page is a guideline, not a binding rule.  In addition to that, WP:IAR always applies. — Omegatron 14:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not "Mischaracterization", I suggest you retract your statement. This is because there is new consensus, up above in the vote. Fnagaton 14:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What?  Radiant's Crotalus' statement about the previous consensus is a mischaracterization.  This has nothing to do with an imaginary "new consensus". — Omegatron 15:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I am rather obviously opposed to "forcing" anything, and well aware that guidelines aren't binding. >Radiant< 15:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was quoting your comment on the guideline page.  You're claiming that the consensus from 2005 "forced" editors to use units in a way they don't like, but that is not the decision that was made.  — Omegatron 15:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sarenne claimed the MoS gave him the right to force binary prefix changes in all articles. Fnagaton 16:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then take it up with Sarenne. — Omegatron 17:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I and many others did, it is a matter of record that Sarenne refused to talk and instead carried on regardless, which has lead to the situation today. Fnagaton 17:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Then go to mediation.  That a single user is abusing a guideline does not invalidate the guideline. — Omegatron 17:41, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mischaracterization by Crotalus 

message: Since there are a number of people here with strong opinions and background on the issue, can I get your opinions on a related proposal to merge all the computer unit articles (kilobyte, megabyte, kibibyte, mebibyte) into one (or two) combined articles?  See Talk:Kibibyte#Merge, for instance. 
A while ago we decided to keep them separate and use a navigation template to tie them together, but I don't think this is really the best solution. — Omegatron 17:48, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion would be to hold off on changes until  the process here is settled. Likely we will end up with many links to those articles and what they say should be coordinated with what we come up with.--agr 18:31, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The links to those articles aren't an issue.  The merged article would still have the definitions of each unit, with an anchor tag to each, and the redirects would have anchor tags.  So you could still link KiB, hovering over the link would still display "kibibyte", and clicking on the link would still go directly to the definition of kibibyte (except it would now be located at Data units#kibibyte or some such).  It would just be a section or line in a larger article instead of an article of its own. — Omegatron 20:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds cumbersome to me. I thought it wasn't good practice to leave redirect links in articles. And someone who just wants to know what an unfamiliar term means gets stuck in the middle of a long article. In any case, I'm just saying any decision should be put off until the entire picture is clear.--agr 20:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merging computer unit articles 

message: :I am going to create a couple of sandboxed versions of Commodore 128 in my userspace to test out various possibilities. I think that footnotes might be the best and least obtrusive way to go. *** Crotalus *** 22:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is this comment in the wrong section? — Omegatron 00:33, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I should have opened a new section. Actually, after some thought, I've decided that Commodore SX-64 would be a better choice to test for 2 reasons: it's much shorter, and in addition to the standard usage, it also contains an ambiguous usage of "KB" (170 KB for the disk drive, which is actually a rough estimate on Commodore's part). *** Crotalus *** 00:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe floppy disk would be better?  Some of the worst inconsistencies of terminology in that field. — Omegatron 01:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right — that article is really a mess. But I think it's better to start with a simpler example before moving on to the most complex cases. *** Crotalus *** 01:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Going to run some experiments

message: Over and over, people claim that the "common usage" of SI prefixes in a binary sense was consistent (it never was) until the evil hard drive manufacturers started using decimal prefixes to inflate their capacities.
* Crotalus: "In the 1990s, hard drive manufacturers deceptively began to use "megabyte" in the decimal sense — that is, 106 bytes — even though this clashed with common practice in the computing field."
* Centrx: "The hard drive manufacturers who apply the SI prefixes with their normal use are not doing so out of some concern over the accurate implementation of international standards, but in the interest of deceiving the customer for profit."
* Jesup: "It's true that HD manufacturers use powers-of-ten for advertising reasons"
* Rebroad: "As far as I can see, only hard drive and floppy drive manufacturers use a decimal million (10^6), primarily for marketing/misleading reasons ... I've worked in IT for 10 years, and I've never even heard of a Mebibyte"
* Cavebear: "im sure you can see where this is going. the ignorance of the general population and the desire for hard drive manufactures to write a higher number on their drives, does not change the correctness of the binary system being used to measure binary data."
* etc.
This sentiment even sneaks into our binary unit articles.  I always suspected this was a bogus conspiracy theory, especially since it is always asserted strongly and without evidence, so I did some research.  Now I'm pretty damn sure it's a bogus conspiracy theory.  I don't think hard drives have ever been measured using the binary-meaning abbreviations.  A short history of hard drive capacities, in the manufacturers' own words:
* 1954: "drum track ... 100 character positions" - IBM
* 1955: "drum ... 2048 words" - IBM
* 1956: "5-million-digit disk memory" - IBM ("byte" coined this year)
* 1957: "magnetic drums ... 60,000 characters each" - IBM
* 1963: "disk ... 100 million characters" - Honeywell
* 1963: "drum ... 2,621,441 characters" - Honeywell
* 1969: "disk ... 29.17 million bytes" - IBM
* 1976: "25 million" bits - DEC
* 1977: "nearly 15 million bytes" - HP
: Up to that point they were not using 'SI' prefix either right... But in 1977 it was already common use that a KB = 1024 bytes... so you own 'research' show that the so called 'confusion' was introduced by hardware manufacturer, who started to use decimal meaning after the use of binary prefix has been established in the field. Shmget 03:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yet no modern manufacturer is using IEC notation, nor any of them 'explain' what a MB means when their refer to the cache... Point in case that the only possible confusion, which require a footnote in their specs, result of their odd decimal use when designating the capacity of their drives. Shmget 03:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: According yo your own research, there was no transition, just the beginning of mis-use of the units KB and MB circa 1978, at least a good decade after KB has been established as a unit meaning 2^10 bytes. Shmget 03:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: There is no need to do such thing to prove you wrong. The point being that the use of KB and MB as 2^10 and 2^20 predate the use 'decimal' MB by Drive manufacturer. They didn't 'change' their mind, they chose to use a misleading notation well after the conventional usage has been established. The marketing advantage of doing so has not escaped any reasonable observer of the market, and the current disregard of these manufacturer toward the almost 10 years old now, IEC notation, illustrate that their claimed attachment to the 'standard' is very circumstantial. Shmget 03:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Please don't take my comment here as taking sides in this argument but, Omegatron, I have a question for you.  How does the fact that manufacturers have never used the binary senses of prefixes to describe their hard drives imply that their motives not to do so were not to inflate the apparent size of their capacities?  Just a question - I'm not about to wade into this. Jimp 06:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't, Omegatron's "argument" is a strawman, as demonstrated by the language used such as "Over and over, people claim...". Fnagaton 10:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Apparently, Plaintiff believes that he could sue an egg company for fraud for labeling a carton of 12 eggs a "dozen," because some bakers would view a "dozen" as including 13 items.
Western Digital must be using these IEC standards. :) -- SWTPC6800 02:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: *High five* :-) — Omegatron 23:50, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually they do NOT, see  http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=301 for example. "16 MB Cache - Bigger cache means faster performance. A massive 16 MB cache", and not 16MiB... Shmget 03:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the point was merely that a lot of people seem to assume that there's a marketing conspiracy going on, when really hard disks capacities have seemingly always been reported using powers-of-ten prefix notation.  -- mattb 02:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Please follow the link above to the IEC standard. :-) -- SWTPC6800 03:51, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I got the joke.  My comment wasn't directed at you so much as the classification of Omegatron's point as a strawman. -- mattb 23:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Binary prefixes: A challenge