Misplaced Pages

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Binary prefixes

Please do not change the decimal prefixes to binary ones without a very good reason; there have been a lot of debates over this in the past, and there is currently a consensus for leaving things as they are. Yes, it's formally incorrect, but that's the consensus. --Pak21 14:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Where can I read this consensus? The only discussions whether here or elsewhere I can find usually involve one or two individuals (always the same) with very weak (not to say invalid) arguments strongly opposing the correction and many burned others trying to convince them. WP:MOSNUM does not forbid these corrections as the use of binary prefixes is appropriate for memory chips. In fact, it says there is no consensus. Furthermore, I dispute the correctness of statements like this: "When this is certain, the use of parentheses for IEC binary prefixes, for example, "256 KB (KiB)" is acceptable ". It is clearly not acceptable especially uses like "1 MB (MiB)" or "1 Megabyte (1x2^20 bytes)" as it tries to re-educate readers into accepting that "Mega" may correctly mean 2^20 which is simply not true. It is jargon or slang, nothing more. The use of "64 kB" for "65536 byte" may be acceptable if it meant as an approximation but not as an exact value just like "True Color" is often explained as "over 16 Million colors". The convenience of constants such as 1024 and other powers of two for low-level computing does not justify or legitimate spoiling well-known decimal prefixes which have existed for hundreds of years. kilo is not some magic word, it means "thousand" and nothing else. Just to reiterate, this is an encyclopedia and not a handbook for geeks. You think you sound like an idiot pronouncing kibi? I claim everyone who says 1000 when he means and knows it's exactly 1024 sounds much more like one. By the way, mega and giga sound silly too, people just got used to it. Get over it. --217.87.99.127 15:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The consensus is in the history of WT:MOSNUM: B1, B2, B3, B4, B5 and B6. You may read all of that to catchup with what has been happening. Fnagaton 15:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Binary prefix changes

I noticed you recently changed several article to include KiB/MiB prefixes. Please do not makes these changes because they are against WP:MOSNUM. MOSNUM says There is no consensus to use the newer IEC-recommended prefixes in Misplaced Pages articles to represent binary units. It also goes on to say stay with established usage in the article, and follow the lead of the first major contributor.. The original style used in the articles you changed can clearly be seen to use KB and MB. As you can also see your edits have been reverted by at least three separate editors. Fnagaton 15:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I can tolerate KB as traditional alternative to KiB as kilo uses a lower-case 'k'. However, MB and GB is always ambiguous for non-experts on the topic. Misplaced Pages are primarily for non-experts. Otherwise, there'd be no point in reading them. Further, use of the word "kilobyte" or "megabyte" is not acceptable either. I know very well that people used to pronounce these binary units as "kay", "meg" or similar avoiding false use of kilo or mega. Likewise, writing "1 Megabyte (1 x 2^20)" will mis-educate readers and further amplify misuse of these terms. --217.87.99.127 15:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Kilobyte is definitely widely understood to mean 1024 bytes by non-experts. Similarly for the other terms. Go and read the debate and consensus in the archives I linked above. Lastly MOSNUM prohibits you making those changes for the reasons I have already given. The fact your changes have been roundly reverted by several editors should tell you that your changes are not consensus so please do not act against consensus. Fnagaton 15:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

You mean widely misunderstood. When I say kilobyte I mean exactly 1000 bytes. I've read tens of hours worth of discussions on this topic and the arguments of the anti-kib party do not hold water. I've also noticed than MOSNUM has been changed. Originally, it clearly allowed correcting articles to use binary prefixes. Someone has changed it making this ambiguous. As everything that can be said has been said and the only reasonable conclusion is to use the correct binary prefixes, let me add some non-technical and politically incorrect comparision: Let's say someone writes and article using the word "nigger" to mean "black person". "nigger" itself is no insult but you might agree that "black person" is more appropriate for an encyclopedia. So would you stick to "nigger" in non citations in historic articles because the term "nigger" was common back then? Back on topic, kilobyte and such have been misused in the past (knowingly) but that does not make it correct and thus everybody should stick (actually correct them) to the proper (modern) terms in modern articles. --217.87.99.127 16:06, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

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