Talk:Transatlantic telegraph cable

message: I think it would be useful to decide what the primary units should be, and stick to it. US units with nautical miles seem to predominate, but we've got many places where SI units are given first. And many places where "miles" are specified, but it doesn't say what kind of miles. In at least one section, "Preparing a new attempt", we use both nautical and statute miles. GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Units 

message: I found information about the dead Sperm Whale found tangled up in the cable. The incident was in 1932 when a cable repair ship, All America, off the Pacific coast of Columbia, dragged up a cable from 3240 feet with a 40-foot whale tangled in it. Unfortunately, the two sources that I've found are juvenile books and don't have more information. The phrasing of the Wheat book hints that there may have been more instances than the 1932 one mentioned.
* Whales and Dolphins; G. Collins Wheat (Golden Press; 1963)
* The Great Whales; Herbert S. Zim (1951)
:There is a similar incident mentioned in Submarine communications cable where a whale got caught in a cable in the Persian Gulf in 1873.  Neither of those incidents are relevant to this article, which is about a different cable. SpinningSpark 09:30, 5 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead Whale 

message: I'm breaking this out into a new section because it is a quite separate issue and makes it easier to discuss. You wrote "MOS:NUMNOTES says: "Comparable values nearby one another should be all spelled out or all in figures, even if one of the numbers would normally be written differently". If you have questions about some particular edits, please be specific."
: I don't see your changes as being "comparable values".  MOS:NUMNOTES gives examples of numbers in a list of things of the same kind.  For instance,  is not comparable, in the sense of NUMNOTES, with the the cable strands .  The two things are "nearby" but they are not being compared.  All of your changes are similar, two figures that are not being compared forced into all numerals.  We even have from MOSNUM .  There are no examples of this kind in the article, but it is relevant as it shows that MOSNUM is quite happy with nearby non-comparable items being in different formats. SpinningSpark 10:08, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that "7 copper wires" and "18 strands, each of 7 iron wires" discuss "comparable values". The various numbers of "words a/per minute" are even more comparable (they are, literally, compared in the article text). "Adjacent quantities" in MOS:NUMNOTES means directly adjacent numbers, as in the examples there. You can clarify at WT:MOSDATE. Or consult at WP:RD/L whether spelling out some or all numbers in these cases would improve the readability (I don't think so). — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 01:29, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't agree with you, the two parts of the cable construction are not being compared and are not in a comparative list.  Technically, comparing them is meaningless, the two parts serve entirely different functions.  The steel wire armour is what makes it a cable and is for mechanical protection.  The copper cores are for electrical transmission.  They are made in two entirely separate factories.  The words per minute figures are being compared, but they are not nearby with any sensible meaning of the term.  They are not even in the same paragraph. SpinningSpark 18:17, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: MOS:NUMNOTES