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User talk:BilCat

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by ThurnerRupert (talk | contribs) at 01:52, 30 September 2023. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 01:52, 30 September 2023 by ThurnerRupert (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
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Welcome to my user talk page
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Departing the fix outbound

Hi Bill, Just to let you know that as of today I am done with editing Misplaced Pages, for reasons that are well explained on my talk page. It has been great working with you for almost two decades. You are one of the few people left here whom I will miss. If you feel like dropping me a line you can reach me at wikieditor07.sca9z@ncf.ca Same goes for any other Wiki friends here who are watching your page. - Ahunt (talk) 00:13, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

I totally understand. I may be joining you imminently. I'll send you a note, and hopefully we can find another venue to make fun of morons. :) BilCat (talk) 00:18, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
. - Ahunt (talk) 00:20, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
you will be both missed, the place becomes more like a haunted house full of screeching avian beings out of a surreal episode of aircraft accident investigations... The flight recorder replay is showing some very weird objects... JarrahTree 06:47, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, but I haven't left quite yet. We'll see. BilCat (talk) 02:08, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Edit of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Helicopter_Interdiction_Tactical_Squadron

Hello Bill. You recently did an edit to the Coast Guard HITRON page I had edited and you stated no source stated. The problem is, the “only” source available are the actual people, such as myself, that actually built the unit up from ground zero. Their were only 10 of us, be happy to have a “second” of one of the other plank owner members back me up on any and all info I add to this page, as, not to boast, I am a subject matter expert on. Please do me the courtesy and contact me direct on this request. I anm older now annd a dinosaur when it comes to a lot of computer and Wiki protocols so please, not to excuse my lack of this knowledge, but trying the best I can do as I always do through a 32yr military career. Appreciate your time. Charlie H10Plank (talk) 02:07, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Oops

Mixed up the before and after on the Gimli Glider edit. Mea culpa, thanks for the fix. –IagoQnsi (talk) 05:38, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

No worries. I've mixed up diffs plenty of times myself. At first I wasn't sure what had happened, but once I looked at you userpage, talk page, and recent contributions, I figured it was probably a mistake. I just made my edit as clear as possible (on then second try!), and moved on. I'm glad that you realized your mistake, and that you let me know. Take care. BilCat (talk) 07:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)

enwp uses gap or comma

hi bilcat, can you point me to the MOS where it is written that gaps are not allowed as thousands separators? the one i know: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Numbers states: "In general, digits should be grouped and separated either by commas or by narrow gaps (never a period/full point)." --ThurnerRupert (talk) 09:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, I misspoke. However, there's no reason to change from one style to another, per the WP:RETAIN principle. BilCat (talk) 21:23, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

interesting, WP:RETAIN is contradicting Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#Opportunities_for_commonality, but at least it lists strong national ties as acceptable, and reduce ambiguity as acceptable. this article has quite some comma numbers, sources are central europe where the comma is different. this then led to wrong contents like (destilled a little to make it more obvious) "it is 9.10 m long, then they added 1.5 which made it 10.25 m". i at least fall for the same, not calculating correctly any more if i see commas all over the place. so i replaced the commas with gaps (or nothing when the numbers where 4 digits) and the ambiguity was gone. would this be ok for you as well? --ThurnerRupert (talk) 23:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Strong national ties and commonality don't apply in these cases. You should probably read the extremely long discussion at WT:MOSNUM#Grouping of digits with commas is not allowed for numbers in the SI first. It doesn't specifically address your suggestions, but it does show there's no consensus for restricting the use of commas as thousands separators. Once you've read that discussion, you could raise your points, and see what happens. I will note that a German editor, User:Denniss, reverted your edits here, including your substantion of gaps for commas. BilCat (talk) 00:31, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

oh, wow, a discussion if commas are allowed for numbers in SI. i mean, if i'd work for tesla where distances are calculated to avoid running the car over a person or not i would insist alike. on wikipedia that risk does not exist. the original reason i got into this topic is screen readers. one of my colleagues is blind, and he demonstrated his piece with proudness. 2,200 was read "two comma two hundred" while it read 2200 as "2 thousand 2 hundred". i was experimenting with different ways to have both, less ambigous reading for blind and thousands separator at the same time. the best i could find was narrow gaps. in wikipedia they do not show up as a narrow gap character on screen, it is an invisible space produced via CSS. the screen reader sees 2200, while our eyes see a grouping 2 200. i keep the knowledge in mind, and when i do something i put gaps in as well. for this airplane, historic, i would not have done it normally, blind people reading such articles is just too rare (i think). here it was because visually ok people did not calculate correctly any more with all these commas. my personal preference is SI because, as an engineer, i like the connection of the base units with its derived units, a graph can be seen here, last page. but not everybody has the same taste, and it's ok :) --ThurnerRupert (talk) 04:34, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm a screen reader user and this conversation was brought to my attention. I assume your friend was using a German speech synthesiser (and screen reader) to read out the numbers. Speech synthesisers/screen readers change how they read number separators depending on which language is used. If you use a German synth to read an English page, you're asking for trouble (and vice versa). Please don't change number separators like this. Graham87 (talk) 08:33, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

very cool {{ping]Graham87}} to look at this! i saw from your homepage that you use jaws as screenreader. what speech synthesiser are you using? would you be able to test the following numbers? this one is with gaps: 1234444.2451, this one with american style: 1,234,444.245,1, 3 further examples using international varieties: recent german, 1.234.444,245.1, arabic separators: 1٬234٬444.245٬1 (UTF-8 taken from here: https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+066C), old german handwriting: 1'234'444,245'1, using quote as the arabic separator is difficult to type (this prevailed in switzerland). ThurnerRupert (talk) 01:29, 30 September 2023 (UTC)