Talk:Binary prefix

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Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

A work-in-progress timeline for this topic is being developed at /History.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8

Contents 1 Oh My God! 2 Image deletions 3 Hard drives "always used decimal"? 4 Problems with bare links for references 5 Alternate proposal 6 War has never been so much fun 7 About prefixes and units 8 Enlightened by Cho v. Seagate Technology (US) Holdings, Inc. 9 Giga vs. Mega 10 220 KiB and counting 11 Basic English 12 Proposal: Keep redirects from KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB neutral 13 Common usage and standards 14 Absurdity of binary prefixes 15 Archive time? 16 "The bad-ass of kibi promotion is Wikipedia." 17 Counterproposal 18 Original research 19 Ongoing timeline work 20 POV section 21 The timeline 22 Paragraph beginning "Might be argued" in "adoption" section 23 Use of POV heading in "Absurdity of binary prefixes" 24 "Commonly, historically, but improperly used" 25 "Commonly, historically, and correctly used" 25.1 Binary Prefix Confusion from 1968 26 Not SI Prefixes Prefices 27 Prefixes vs prefices 28 We need a name for the SI prefixes 29 Windows PowerShell 30 Introductory section 31 IEC 32 IEC 80000-13 33 RFC discussion of User:Greg L

[edit] Oh My God!

What is this tebibyte rubbish. Computer stuff is binary not decimal. If someone doesn't understand that a terabyte is an inherently binary value then they're going to think they got a free bonus chunk of disk, like a gmail account. They tried to say Pi is 4 before now, I for one will not call it pipi.

How does one go about trying to get nonsense like this repealed. tebibyte gibibyte, you must be joking. 83.70.247.123 02:18, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, another one judging rather by sound then by sense. No, "computer stuff" ist not strictly binary. Processor, bus and network frequencies are even strictly decimal. Therefore, transfer rates are also strictly decimal. Yes, 10 Mbit/s of 10BaseT is decimal. Ever since. So which kind of what Terabyte could be transrered how fast over 10BaseT? Using binary prefixes in computer stuff is ok, but using same names as for decimal prefixes is less wise at least. Especially, if decimal prefixes are validly used with computer stuff as well. --213.183.10.41 20:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually the first post is quite correct in the statement that computers "stuff" is inherently binary. A circuit (or hard/optical disk) inherently is either on or off (or written or not), which is correlates to binary. This includes network transmissions. The decimal bandwidth capacity is assigned completely after the fact. The only reason these come up as decimal is that the protocols are design to be decimal, they could just as easily be designed to meet a binary standard.

Metric standard aside, the fact is that KB, MB, etc. were originally used primarily as a binary measure (before any of these network protocols and large HDDs existed). It would have made far more sense to create a new name for the decimal measurements. HDD manufacturers knew most people wouldn't know the difference, and they chose the less honest measurement. Jbrownos (talk)

Jbrownos should take a careful look at the Timeline; MB was widely used by the HDD industry long before the OS's even started reporting capacity in MB. There is one early published use of MB in a binary sense but MB and variants were far more often used in publications a decimal sense until Apple started reporting HDD capacities that way. KB has never been used for an HDD (the first one was 5 million characters) and even the first FDD usage by IBM and Shugart used KB in a decimal sense. Again the system and controller folks confused that one too.

BTW, since computers today are inherently binary, shouldn't the prefixes be in binary multiple bits, that is, 10 and 20 are not very good binary numbers. If programmers really used prefixes they would be 8 or 16 and extensions there to. The fact that the so called binary prefixes are always used with decimal numbers so that conversion requires a conversion factor suggest to me that they are just a short hand and not used in any real manner.Tom94022 (talk) 22:50, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image deletions

It's absurd to suggest that we can describe computer GUI dialogs with sufficient detail that a user could figure out which dialogs we're talking about when we can just use an image. Using these images in this article is a very clear case of fair use. Please remove the fair use dispute tags. — Omegatron 05:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, and have both removed the pending deletions and added text to your images to explain why these images meet all fair use criteria. Tom94022 06:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Now they've been nominated for deletion. Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion#Image:Seagate_160_GB_hard_drive_box.jpg — Omegatron 23:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

And the consensus, as of this date/time, seems to be keep Tom94022 23:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hard drives "always used decimal"?

Following my previous contribution (now in Archive 1), it seems that in modern times, all hard disk manufacturers use, as far as possible, binary GB. This has not always been the case. Take, for example, Maxtor's D540X 4D. The "80 GB" model has 158816*16*63*512 = 81964302336 bytes. The product manual instead gives the capacity as "82.0 GB" (it also, interestingly, says 30735581184 bytes is "30.0 GB").

Then there are older drives, the 90431U1 model which is 4343463936 bytes, or about 4.04 GiB (funnily, the "173" model is about 16.21 GiB, and 17,002,440 KiB. The Quantum Fireball 4.3AT CR43A101 is 8895*15*63*512 bytes (about 4.304 decimal GB, 4.008 GiB).

While I haven't found a manufacturer that defines KB, MB, or GB as anything other than powers of 1000 (or something like "one billion"), manufacturers have, for whatever reason, made hard drives which are a little over an integer multiple of 10⁶2¹⁰ or even 2³⁰ bytes (I don't have an example of 10³2²⁰ handy, but I'm sure it's out there). They knew that 1024 was important to some people. Perhaps this is because it's far more convenient to go between KiB and block counts than not-actually-SI KB. It's also pretty obvious to me that Quantum wanted 4 binary GB, but also to present the drive size in marketing GB - the marketing reason is also why hard drives are just a little over a multiple of 10¹⁰ bytes, while just a little under a multiple of $10.

And then, the use of K, etc, as powers of 1024 is not "incorrect". It is not SI. It never claimed to be SI. It's confusing, sure, that 1K = 1024, but it's no more "wrong" than using m to mean mile. Meaning is based on context, and the context has been largely binary ever since we stopped using BCD.

I would change these, but the article's HUGE. Elektron 22:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

it seems that in modern times, all hard disk manufacturers use, as far as possible, binary GB

They do?

it's no more "wrong" than using m to mean mile.

It's no more "wrong" than using "kg" to mean "437 million graham crackers". I can define it to mean whatever I want. As long as I don't claim it to be SI, it will not be "wrong" ... right? — Omegatron 23:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

In modern times, the available capacity is a production yield decision. All drives have somewhat more capacity than specified; they are set to provide a particular value in the manufacturing process and if u knew the "secret" commands you could gain access to the additional capacity. IMO, the set capacity is placed a little above the stated capacity in 10^10th units to allow for the loss of capacity due do defects grown in use. Therefore, over the life of the drive, the customer is never denied the advertised 10^10th capacity. We would have to talk to manufacturing folks to see exactly what they are trying to achieve but I doubt if it has anything to do with binary units. Tom94022 00:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I meant that HD manufacturers use 10⁹ GB. The addressable sectors (and what I refer to) never include spare sectors - they're transparently remapped on a write to a bad block, and presumably on a read from a block with a consistently high error rate. You never see them. Therefore, over the life of the drive, the customer is never denied the advertised 10^10th capacity. does not follow (and I'm not sure what you mean by "10^10th") - the number of spare sectors is pretty small, and I suspect less than 1%. What I'm talking about is how hard disk manufacturers have, quite consistently, made drives in near-multiples of 1024 or 1024³, instead of the "usual" 1000³, and how they've sometimes advertised a 81.96 10⁹ drive as "80 GB", when they could've called it 81 GB (and they call it 82 in the manual) or just not added the extra sectors. Yes, they say "1 GB = 1000000000 bytes", but they give you a little extra for no apparent reason. ⇌Elektron 13:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with bare links for references

I have replaced the bare links used as references in this article with proper citations per Wikipedia:Footnote. The essential problem with bare links (a URL with no other identifying information) is that they frequently break, and without data like news article titles or website page titles, it is often impossible even to know where to look for a replacement source. (Archive sites like the Wayback Machine or Google sometimes help, but often do not.)

For example, the following statement has become unsourced because its old ABC News link no longer exists, nor appears to be readily accessible in an archive:

Western Digital offered to compensate customers with a free download of backup and recovery software valued at US$30. They also paid $500,000 in fees and expenses to San Francisco lawyers Adam Gutride and Seth Safier, who filed the suit.

The editor contributing this "source" failed to provide any information that would allow us to find a replacement for it. (It's entirely possible that one of the existing sources has this information, but I leave this to someone prepared to do a thorough source review to fix. I'm just making it easier for such a review by properly citing the sources.)

In short, bare links should be never be used as sources for Wikipedia articles. You don't necessarily have to create a fully filled-out citation, but at least include basic title and/or descriptive information (date, author) with the reference. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate proposal

Should we mention the "dikilo"/"dimega" proposal in this paper? http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/information-units.txt — Omegatron 00:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As much as I like Markus Kuhn, I don't think it satisfies any requirements for notability (it's a paper published on a website and not endorsed by anyone else). It also breaks down at 1000^30, where the "next power of two" is 1024^29.9, not 1024^30. It also doesn't solve anything that the IEC proposals don't, and could cause more confusion — "b" almost universally means bit, and if you want to use a "SI" Mbyte, there's no way of saying "M means 10^6" except by spelling it out. The byte's a de-facto unit anyway, and converting between advertised Mbps to "real" 10^6 B/s is often a factor of 8, 10, ~20 (WiFi), ~16 (USB 2.0), or something equally strange. ⇌Elektron 11:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] War has never been so much fun

My edit has just been reject as "vandalism". This is ridiculous! We can disagree all day whether M means 1000^2 or 1024^2 but this sentence is a quite different issue. In any case, 'M' is definitely not a binary prefix. The binary prefixes are Ki, Mi, Gi, Ti, Pi, Ei. Therefore, the sentence "Binary prefixes are often written and pronounced identically to the SI prefixes, despite the resulting ambiguity." is not only incorrect, it makes no sense at all. Who pronounces MiB as MB? I pronounce the former mib as in MiG (or meh-bee-bite) and the latter em-bee (or mee-gah-bite). I don't see how you could pronounce any of them identically. You could add an introduction like "SI prefixes are still frequently incorrectly used for values that are powers of 1024 instead of the unambiguous binary prefixes." but that's later explained in the article, thus redundant. --217.87.98.171 00:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Your edits have been reverted as vandalism because your IP and your other "anonymous" IP:

• Have been used as for single purpose edits against MOSNUM policy.
• Have been asked by at least three different editors to not make changes to contrary MOSNUM policy yet you continued to do so.
• Have been used to write personal attacks against other editors on their talk pages and in article talk pages.
• Have been asked not to harass those editors on their talk pages yet you continued to do so.

Fnagaton 00:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Even if you consider some of my edits as vandalism, that doesn't justify reverting whatever I edit. There is nothing wrong with "single purpose edits" and it's only against WP:MOSNUM by your definition. Also you have to specify the exact revision because WP:MOSNUM has been modified not so long ago and will likely change again. Furthermore, you've shown hostile behaviour towards me by talking in bad faith about my edits on the talk page of your friend. You are accusing me of being a sock puppet just because I do care about IEC standard prefixes and have the same opinion as someone else on this topic when there are in fact millions of people and at least dozens if not hundreds of wikipedia authors sharing the same opinion. You are even accusing me of stalking now. Stalking is a criminal offence! In fact you're doing exactly the same, you're monitoring my edits. I've told you more than once that I am not User:Sarenne and not in anyway related to this user. I do however assume that this user was banned in bad faith and if this user misbehaved it was very likely due to provocation by your group and zero-tolerance regarding a flawed and recently modified policy WP:MOSNUM. The policy is flawed in so far that use of IEC standard prefixes is not a question of style but correctness and adhering to current standards. The policy is also badly worded which allows you to get away with your constant reverts. "There is consensus that editors should not change prefixes from one style to the other, especially if there is uncertainty as to which term is appropriate within the context". As said it's not about "style" if you write 64 kB instead of 64 KiB. It's about style if you write 65.5 kB instead. The word especially makes no sense here. If an author is not sure, he certainly should not edit it at all before finding sources to make things clear. Then it says "When this is certain, the use of parentheses for IEC binary prefixes, for example, "256 KB (KiB)" is acceptable. Why are they merely acceptable? Obviously, the current wording puts anyone who likes to use the modern prefixes for clarity and correctness into a big disadvantage despite being an international standard. It is not up to Wikipedia or some contributers to decide what is standard and what isn't. How can you even argue that nobody knows or uses this standard (which is wrong) if Wikipedia which is supposed to educate people and provide objective and up-to-date knowledge, is now strongly opposing spreading this knowledge and sticking to outdated conventions? --217.87.98.171 01:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

And once again Sarenne, this is not the place to push your views and agenda on kibi/mibi/gibi useage at Wikipedia. Same old stance, same old tactics, same old attitude, etc. As you were explained by Fnagton on your other ip related talk page, these things are set by WP:MOSNUM, which is the standard here. Take it up there. Your arguments, right down to the very wording, have all been heard before - all by Sarenne. You're not saying anything new, or doing anything different than the last time. And there's a lot more involved then just a "few people" or wording that was slanted in a certain favor. The wording was reached through consensus. As you were also told, "MOSNUM has been changed due to debate and consensus being formed by a large group of editors agreeing what should be done. You are also mistaken, the pro-IEC binary prefix arguments do not hold water and that is reflected in the result of the debate and consensus." To borrow some of your usual sarcasm: Any further questions? Then take them to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates_and_numbers) --Marty Goldberg 07:42, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Look, I'm not insulting you the least when I say you are paranoid. How often do I have to tell you guys, that I have absolutely nothing to do with Sarenne - except that we apparently share the same view on the binary prefix issue. Further, I am not insulting you but just stating facts, that you do not even understand basic English sentences. My native tongue is German. What does this tell about you? Nothing you could be proud of. Wikipedia policies are no standards by any means. They are guide lines and can, in fact, be modified - even inversed - any time, any day. Duck and cover! Yes, there's actually nothing new to say about binary prefixes. Everything has been said but you're still not accepting the facts. You're even trying to add confusion where there was none by arbitrarily mixing MB and MiB, so that any lay-man will never get the difference and consider them synonyms. You are not trying to spread knowledge and get rid of myths, no you are trying to reinforce these myths and hide knowledge. There are even such non-arguments as "because nobody knows what MiB means, it adds confusion". What utter nonsense! It is linked directly. Do you think readers are so stupid that they get confused by a single term they don't know? Then what's the point of Wikipedia at all if you only dare to expose people to facts (or non-facts) they already know (or assume to know)? "the pro-IEC binary prefix arguments do not hold water" Nice phrase but pure bullshit. The meaning of MiB is unambiguous for laymen and "experts". That alone makes it extremely useful. Furthermore, it is not up to you or anyone else at Wikipedia to decide what is standard and what isn't. How often do I have to repeat this simple fact? "and that is reflected in the result of the debate" You confuse quantity with good argumentation. "and consensus" Even WP:MOSNUM says that there is no consensus. Or did you change it during the last 12 hours? By the way, en.wikipedia.org is only a part of Wikipedia. If you actually checked one of the other languages, you'd see that in some of them the IEC prefixes are accepted and in wide use. But I guess explaining why English men have a problem with SI units would be considered anti-american/british but maybe you get the idea: Euro UK USA Inferiority complex --08:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.87.98.171 (talk)

The current consensus in WP:MOSNUM#Binary prefixes is that "There is no consensus to use the newer IEC-recommended prefixes" and also "There is consensus that editors should not change prefixes from one style to the other" and also "stay with established usage in the article, and follow the lead of the first major contributor.". This also has parity with the other related MOSNUM guideline which says "use the units employed in the current scientific literature on that topic.". The meaning of this guideline is clear that the terms used in the majoirty of relevant reliable sources is to be used. In all the articles you and your other "anonymous" IPs have edited this means you must use KB, MB, GB, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte as the primary units used in the article. If you don't agree with the policy then stop your "anonymous" IP hopping, stop your threats to circumvent the system, create a user name and debate the topic on WT:MOSNUM. What you propse increases the ambiguity in articles by using terms that are not widely used. Fnagaton 10:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not hopping. Maybe you're not aware of the fact, that in Europe most consumer internet accounts have a dynamically assigned IP address. I've also explained that this is not a style issue, it's a question of correctness. The meaning of kB, MB, GB is not clear at all because you're ignoring the fact that many literature features footnotes or explanations regarding these units because use of the prefixes does not conform to use of them in any other field of science. It has also been explained that "obvious to an author" is not equivalent to "obvious to a reader". Please, see WP:OBVIOUS. Also, please, look up the meaning of ambiguity because it is not the same as ignorance as you seem to imply. I will try to fix WP:MOSNUM at a later time but not by now because it requires to inform a lot of people about the discussion and encourage them to get active because otherwise your team will simply overpower facts with quantity as last time. Last but not least, I'd like you to stop spreading lies about my identity, my intentions or edits on the talk pages of your friends. --NotSarenne 18:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

By your own admission "You're not going to ban me this way because it's child's play to circumvent such a silly ban.". You write comments like Sarenne, you edit like Sarenne, you use the same ISP as Sarenne and you attack the same editors who got Sarenne banned. KB, MB, GB, kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte as used in those articles are correct. Their use matches that used by relevant reliable sources. By the way you are not allowed to WP:CANVASS which "is sending messages to multiple Wikipedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion." Fnagaton 19:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

You know very well that you threatened to ban me first which is a policy violation as well. So we're even in this regard. There are a few million people using the same ISP as me. If Sarenne has the same native tongue as me, it's not surprising if my English style is similar. Like-wise, there are many people supporting the IEC binary prefixes, for example, the IEC members. I don't accuse of being a sock puppet of specific users albeit they all show the same hostile attitude and disagreement with my position. I have not violated WP:CANVASS or claimed to have any such plans. If you actually read it, you'll see that your claim is plain wrong and this isn't the first time, you have waved a policy in front of me inverting the meaning of the actual policy because quite obviously you either didn't read or at least did not understand it. --NotSarenne 20:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually no, you attacked editors who reverted you when following policy by accusing them of using sock puppets, and that is a policy violation. You vandalised my talk page with your attack. Your editing record demonstrates you are at fault here. I have told you before to not harass me and other editors yet you continue to do so. You will stop now. You admitted to having plans to canvass at "18:40, 1 November 2007" above when you wrote "it requires to inform a lot of people about the discussion and encourage them to get active ". Fnagaton 21:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

That my very well be your view of reality but I can assure you in my reality, you used the term "sock puppet" first and then I used it in a reflective manner. If you are allowed to accuse me of something, I'm certainly free to do the same. I do not actively accuse you or your friends of using "sock puppets" though. It's just every time you throw dirt at me, I'll throw it right back to you. Fair, isn't it? So far you have informed a lot more people than I have and you used a huge amount of prejudice. Do you even realize that you sound like a broken record? I came here to improve the article within the tight bounds of the current WP:MOSNUM policy but you're constantly turning this into a feud. Apparently your vendetta against Sarenne and IEC prefixes has made you deaf for any kind of facts and arguments that do not fit your personal preferences. --NotSarenne 00:37, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

You are completely wrong because you used the term sockpuppet first. Your use of the word combined with mentioning old binary prefix history, something Sarenne would know and a new user would not know, is the final straw that made me conclude that you are a sock puppet of Sarenne. Here is the proof, firstly in chronological order all my edits that I addressed to you and your previous "anonymous" IP edits: Revert changes [1] [2] [3] MOSNUM explanation [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] You revert someone elses change [9] You first mention "sock puppet accounts" here [10] Also in this edit you mention the "anti-kib tag team" and "how few people contributed to it and the weak arguments" these phrases plus your previous edits and comments give very strong evidence that you are Sarenne. The final straw was your personal attack later on in that comment, you are a sock puppet of Sarenne. So now I have proven you to be wrong I demand you retract and apologise for your lies that you are writing about me. What you are doing is deliberately misrepresenting me and as such you are acting against policy, so stop it, retract all your lies (which would be all of your recent edits) and then stop responding to my edits because you are harassing me and other editors. Fnagaton 15:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems you're right that I used actual term sock puppet first. This was however in response to your comment here: [11] which implies that you consider me a potential sock puppet. I did then check some of your recent edits on the topic, about User:Sarenne and discussions about the binary prefix issues You and others have been accusing others of sock puppetry quite a lot there in cases that were similar to my edits. I've noticed with these few checks that you and others are frequently getting emotional and rude concerning the IEC standard prefixes, So it was just a question of time before you'd use this term against me. Do you seriously deny that you are anti-kib - short for against the IEC standard binary prefixes - and are teaming up with a couple of editors to prevent use of them? You should also read Talk:MB and realize that my edits to this talk page were alright in accordance to the guidelines. Further, I clearly have not violated any policies to the best of my knowledge under this account. Every single time that you and your friends accused me being in violation of a policy, you and them were wrong. I will certainly not apologize for anything, even if I made some minor mistakes, especially due to your extremely rude and childish stance against me. I believe at some point we were even in concern to rude behaviour but at this time I consider me the victim of your harassment, if you keep insisting that there is any harassment going on. --NotSarenne 17:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Do not mistake "rude" with "being efficiently accurate with my arguments". Do not forget you used multiple personal attacks first. Stop with the "implies" rubbish and trying to misrepresent what I write with your ad hominem. The facts prove you are wrong so apologise and retract your edits. Your continued stalking and harassment only go to prove how bad your behaviour is and how I am justified for creating a sock puppet report about you. Your refusal to apologise for your actions shows this. I did accuse Sarenne of using a sock puppet, by adding facts and references to his sock puppet report, and the result of that was the user was banned. Fnagaton 17:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish you say? I wrote "I wonder how many sock puppets you have." That is not the same as a claim and it's roughly the same as implying that I am Sarenne by writing "I hope it's not Sarenne coming back" and it's none of your business because I didn't write that to you but Marty Goldberg. Oh wait... just kidding. Anyway, regarding Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry, I see that you're again reading a policy to the letter but don't get the idea. I knew the term since long ago and I have occasionally been editing articles, reverting vandalism etc. without using an account for years without causing any conflicts. Perhaps because I rarely edited any controversial article or just didn't check what happened to my edit. So I'm not unfamiliar with Wikipedia. You're interpretation is that this is "another prove" that I must be Sarenne. Oh well, believe whatever you want, but please, cease your vendetta. You're smarter than me, aren't you? Shouldn't you give in then and stop wasting your time? --NotSarenne 18:19, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The fact is you made direct accusations which are untrue without any evidence. You have been proven to be wrong and you still fail to retract and apologise. You are acting against policy. The rest of your edit misrepresents that actual facts of the situation. Fnagaton 18:50, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Do you confuse talking and stalking by any chance? Would you mind to explain these oddities: Special:Contributions/QuinellaAlethea, Special:Contributions/HyperColony? --NotSarenne 18:30, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

You are not just talking. As demonstrated above you write lies about me and then refuse to retract and apologise when you are proven to be wrong. You personally attack me and other editors and because of your bad behaviour I have told you to stop writing about me and stop responding to me yet you continue to do so. So stalking as it applies to your actions is "to follow or observe a person persistently, especially out of obsession or derangement". Prove you are not stalking me by complying with the warnings I gave you and your other anonymous incarnation. Do not forget it is your actions and bad behaviour that cause you to be warned in such a way. Obviously those others editors are examples of people who disagree with your behaviour. Fnagaton 12:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

You should rather link to the history of my talk page, so that readers get the big picture. What the heck makes you believe you can address me on my very own page and then forbid me to write a response on the very same page. It is violating exactly the policies that you were waving in front of me. Further, what do you think gives you the right to forbid me to answer you on whatever page you are talking to me? If you had any kind of honour and actually believed in what you said, you would have addressed those pseudonymous users and asked them to not participate in something that is none of their business. --NotSarenne 17:54, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

The "big picture" as you put it is actually you writing lies about me, there is policy which states you are not allowed to use your talk page to wilfully misrepresent other editors and you are violating that policy. I do have honour and those editors obviously see you are at fault and since they are not attacking me (like you do) and are addressing the fact you are being disruptive then they can comment as they see fit. The fact is you are violating policy and your reply by your own admission also proves that you are stalking me. Fnagaton 18:27, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About prefixes and units

I'd like to explain why this revert is unjustified: [12]. MB is a unit but not a SI unit because bit and byte are no SI units. k, M, G, T are SI prefixes. They are prefixes because you put them in front of units. A unit itself can be considered a suffix because you put it behind a value. MB is a (scaled) unit but never a prefix. Therefore, the sentence made no sense and I modified it. Maybe sentences don't need to make sense here, so the revert might be okay. Who knows? --217.87.98.171 04:38, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Once again, that's misreading the si prefix article. Specifically, its talking about the K, B, and G prefix added to the unit (bit, byte, etc.). It is not stating to use K, B, and G alone. The traditional usage is KB (or kB), MB, and GB. --Marty Goldberg 04:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not misreading. The current sentence reads the decimal meanings of KB, MB, and GB are often referred to as SI prefixes. So MB is referred to as a SI prefix? No, it's not. M is referred to as SI prefix. MB is a unit, not a prefix. --217.87.98.171 05:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Enlightened by Cho v. Seagate Technology (US) Holdings, Inc.

I see:

"Seagate has denied and continues to deny each and all of plaintiff's claims, and denies that anyone has been harmed or deserves compensation. The Court has not made a decision on the merits. ..." -- http://www.harddrive-settlement.com/notice-email.htm

"A hearing has been scheduled for Feb. 7, 2008, in San Francisco Superior Court to approve the settlement" -- http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=storage&articleId=9045141&taxonomyId=19&intsrc=kc_top

"One gigabyte, or GB, equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity. Accessible capacity may vary depending on operating environment and formatting. Quantitative usage examples for various applications are for illustrative purposes. Actual quantities will vary based on various factors, including file size, file format, features and application software." -- http://www.seagate.com/content/pdf/datasheet/disc/ds_portable.pdf

Q1. Has Seagate here now dreamed up brief clear neutral-point-of-view that we could/ should copy/ paraphrase into Gigabyte, Megabyte, etc.?

Q2. Should Binary_prefix#Legal_disputes reference this dispute also?

-- Pelavarre 13:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

You might want to add that all these lawsuits took place in the USA. This confirms two things: First, the US law system is very abuse-friendly and second, the universal well-defined meanings of kilo/mega/giga are widely-unknown due to refusal of the USA to use SI units. Quite obviously, the wrong companies were sued. Of course, Microsoft and Apple (albeit to a much lesser extent) are so powerful that nobody who's right in his mind would dare to sue them. --NotSarenne 15:09, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Giga vs. Mega

Gigabyte and Megabyte describe this 1024 = 1000+-2.4% dispute of people gibbering of maybe bytes differently. That difference is confusing and pointless?

At Megabyte, we say 'the term "megabyte" is ambiguous'. At gigabyte, we say "the usage of the word "gigabyte" is ambiguous, depending on the context', and then our two articles go on to diverge farther from there. Admittedly, the audience who gives adequate time & attention will eventually see that megabyte links to gigabyte which links here, but should we be requiring so much time & attention for the reader to walkaway with a correct understanding?

-- Pelavarre 13:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

People are free to make fun of things but pronouncing mebibyte as "maybe bite" is just as childish as saying "I pee a dress". It mebi funny but it's completely irrelevant for a factual discussion. I remember well that people used to make fun of "giga" too before it became common. If your point is that the current articles on the issue are sub-optimal because they are too overloaded with too many criticism, discussion, repetitive information, inconsistent use of prefixes and that the same is unnecessarily duplicated in related articles, I'd agree. --NotSarenne 17:24, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 220 KiB and counting

"This page is 220 kilobytes long. It may be helpful to move older discussion into an archive subpage. See Help:Archiving a talk page for guidance."

What kind of kilobytes are those? (Answering the question is not the point. It's unfortunate that we raise the question every time we publish such a message.)

-- Pelavarre 13:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It was, indeed, 220 KiB (and not 220 kilobytes) when your wrote that as one can verify by looking at the history which shows the size in bytes without use of prefixes. That's a good catch. It would be neat to either fix the message to use "KiB" or otherwise, to be "neutral" on this issue, use of prefixes should be avoided. --NotSarenne 15:23, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

It is actually kilobytes in the binary sense (225,644 bytes = 220.36 kilobytes = 220.36 KB), someone a long time ago changed the template to display KiB when the other wikipedia templates use kilobytes and KB. Fnagaton 16:16, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's what I wrote, isn't it? That's why I also say, get rid of the unnecessary use of prefixes in this case. The article history doesn't use prefixes either and I believe, this would be appreciated regardless of how you'd like to define "kilobyte". It certainly does not help, if Wikipedia is inconsistent with itself. Actually, I dare to question the use of "byte" in this context. Text should be measured in terms of characters which is not the same in case of UTF-8. --NotSarenne 17:29, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Not it's not because the other templates use the term "kilobytes" or "KB" in the binary sense. Therefore the correct option is to not use KiB but to use KB instead and the edit history for the template also show that is the case. Fnagaton 18:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Basic English

Could someone who has studied English or is a very good English writer, explain why this revert is justified: [13]? In how far, is my edit worse than the other revision? To me "[...]decimal prefix meanings of KB[...]" really makes no sense. I've explained above what prefix is and that KB is not a prefix but a unit. --NotSarenne 20:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally I don't think the revert is justified in that your original statement is unambiguous, while the reverted statement arguably is ambiguous in that an uninformed person might think that KB, etc., are prefixes. An informed reader would recognize that they are prefixed units and deal with the prefix separate from the unit. In the end, I doubt if the potential confusion is sufficient to justify the angst. Tom94022 03:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response and the edit. Though I do think that this version was better: [14]. Maybe the grammar isn't quite correct? Let me explain why I consider it better: The first online mention of the term binary prefix seems to be this here: [15] by Markus Kuhn. So, strictly speaking, it refers only to KiB, MiB, GiB etc. but not to SI prefixes used in the "binary sense". The term "binary prefix" seemingly did not exist before this standard. With that in mind I'd say that your phrasing was less clear than the previous version. That's also why I think the headline of the paragraph "Binary prefixes using SI symbols" is nonsense. It should be "[something] expressed (ab)using SI symbols" or similar whereas I'm struggling with the [something]. These are not binary values or numbers. Apparently it should be "multiples of powers-of-two". --NotSarenne 02:45, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Keep redirects from KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB neutral

In my opinion it is not useful to repeat information like 1 kB may denote either 1,000 bytes or 1,024 bytes on the disambiguation pages. Otherwise, these will always additional places for disputes regarding the binary prefix notation. The reader must follow the links anyway to understand why there are different meanings/uses and which of them is used in what contexts. I think the current pages for TB is most appropriate, so KB should read like this:

* kilobit (kb), a unit of information or computer storage
* kilobyte (KB, kB), a unit of information or computer storage

Any objections? --NotSarenne 16:59, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I support this proposal. There's already enough discussion in the individual articles - there's no point in encouraging it to spill over into the re-direction pages. Thunderbird2 17:19, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer to get some other opinions first. As it affects several articles, it may be wise to raise in wp:mosnum before carrying out the change. Would you object to that? Thunderbird2 18:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

My opinion is no longer accepted here. I just wanted to let you know, that there is no point in waiting for a response from User:NotSarenne. I'm almost certain the proposed changed would be accepted though as long as it's not me who makes them. You could certainly try to discuss it at WP:MOSNUM, if you think that's necessary. --217.87.59.247 18:35, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Common usage and standards

There seems to be a conflict between (1) how words like megabyte and gigabyte are used by most speakers of English and (2) standards proposed or adopted by various bodies.

Is there also a US-EU split or a Windows/Linux split here?

Maybe we should indicated which language communities, regions, professions, etc. use the various gigabyte vs. gibibyte terminology.

Basically there are two meanings of the mega, giga, tera serios of prefixes: powers of 1000 (as in the metric system invented over a century ago in France) and powers of 1024 (used in recent decades mostly in reference to file size).

Nothing personal about it, I'm just reporting what I have seen and heard. --Uncle Ed (talk) 04:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting idea, but it sounds like Original Research. If you can find research that has already been done on this subject, and is widely published outside the Wikipedia reference frame, why not? 84.196.45.22 (talk) 11:02, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Absurdity of binary prefixes

Hasn't everyone noticed that the so called binary prefixes are always used with decimal digits which, IMO. is quite absurd since it forces conversion factors for each change in prefix. Isn't the whole idea of prefixes is to not have conversion factors, just shift the digit point? Binary prefixes might make sense with digits in Hexadecimal or Octal but then the prefixes would not be of the form 2^n*10 (n=1,2,3,etc) but two would be raised to other powers such as 2¹² for a 3 Hex digit shift or 2⁹ for 3 Octal digits. Also note that a 3 digit shift doesn't make a lot of binary sense either, two or four would be much more binary. Since programmers and engineers are generally lazy, this further suggests to me that binary prefixes are never used in any serious engineering and/or programing calculations but instead are shorthands used by technical, marketing and GUI persons to save space in reports, advertisements, displays, etc. Therefore, IMO, when these prefixes were used in a binary sense, they were never intended to be precise values and should not be interpreted in such a manner. Tom94022 (talk) 00:34, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Recently I did an example that shows exactly how much consensus the IEC "standard" has in the real world. A while ago on Wikipedia we had one user edit hundreds of articles to change from kilobyte to kibibyte (and all of the other units as well) so since this would alter any attempt to use Google to judge real world consensus on this issue the searches are conducted with "-wikipedia".

Historical use search terms	Results
kilobyte -wikipedia	1,940,000
megabyte -wikipedia	6,190,000
gigabyte -wikipedia	3,640,000

Total: 11,770,000

IEC Search terms	Results
kibibyte -wikipedia	28,800
mebibyte -wikipedia	17,100
gibibyte -wikipedia	19,000

Total: 64,900

Consensus for historical use: 99.449%

This shows the IEC standard does not have consensus in the real world, so I don't think the IEC can be seen as authoritative in this regard.Fnagaton 08:57, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

"the moon is made of rock"	1670
"the moon is made of cheese"	27500
"the moon is made of green cheese"	25900

Obviously, we'll need to change the article about the Moon. Though the color appears to be in dispute. Iron Condor (talk) 00:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't make my point clear, k = 1024, M = 1,048,576, etc are absurd! Ki, Mi, etc. happen to be an unfortunate necessity resulting from incompetent and/or lazy programmers at Apple and Microsoft using K,M, etc. in an unusual way without explaining their usage. Tom94022 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

K=1024 etc is not absured. What is absured are the attempts by the IEC to rewrite what is already well known. Most of the world disagrees with the IEC. Fnagaton 21:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yr statistics are questionable since you cannot tell whether megabyte and kilobyte are used in a decimal sense or a binary sense. Pick your own term, but u never addressed my observation that the combination of decimal digits with a binary prefix doesn't make a lot of sense. Tom94022 (talk) 22:04, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What "proportion" is irrelevant to my point, as is the use of base ten numbers with binary prefixes. My point is more than 99% of the internet uses those terms and less than 1% use the so called IEC "standard". You may think it doesn't make a lot of sense however I think it makes perfect sense. Fnagaton 23:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

But your statistics do not say anything to wheter those terms are used in a binary manner. Did your research exclude pages of hdd-manufacturers, access providers, network hardware manufacturers, blank DVD manufacturers and all the other guys using these prefixes in a decimal manner? I wouldn't be surprised if them amount to half of your hits. And, intentional or not, those guys support the "so called IEC standard". At least they do not support the binary meaning of SI-Prefixes. --213.183.10.41 (talk) 18:31, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Your point is still irrelevant because the proportion of those used in the power of two sense is not important to the point I am making. The point is that the -bi terms have very limited use in the real world. Your guess of "half" is just that, a guess without any substance. Fnagaton 22:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Archive time?

The length of this Talk page gives me a headache. CapnZapp (talk) 18:52, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "The bad-ass of kibi promotion is Wikipedia."

I completely agree with this site: http://www.wandawanders.com/content/view/124/73/

There should be a prominent section on these articles making it clear this scheme isn't agreeable to all. CapnZapp (talk) 18:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The website is down but the article is still in Google's cache http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:4eyBLXmTx5AJ:www.wandawanders.com/content/view/124/73/ Do you really think it's a noteworthy article? --217.87.88.179 (talk) 18:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I objected strongly when the changes were made to the style manual back elsewhen, and it was clear that no actual consensus was really achieved to "force" the changes onto Wikipedia. My attitude still is that the whole issue of KiB vs. KB is nitpicking over nothing, and in fact the articles that try to push the term "kilobyte" to mean 10^3 bytes rather than 2^10 bytes is nothing more than naval gazing.

Time will tell if the proper choice was made, but it certainly doesn't meet with "current" industry practices and popular usage. I have other battles to fight over than this one, so it seems that only those with a real axe to grind and a desire to push a POV are winning here. I have patience, and ten years from now we will see if these silly terms get adopted into mainstream computer culture or not, at which time all of this nonsense can be edited out of Wikipedia for once and for all. And I'll be here ten years from now still working on Wikipedia in one form or another. --Robert Horning (talk) 06:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but I don't quite understand what are you trying to say. Who is an axe grinder? In how far is this related to naval gazing exactly? What is "nonsense" and which are the "silly terms" in this context? Also what makes you certain you'll be still here in ten years and what relevance has this assumption? Please clarify. Thanks. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 18:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing silly about an encyclopaedia attempting to distinguish between two different definitions of megabyte, when both definitions are in common use by the computer and communications industries. I think the term "bad-ass" is completely inappropriate, but if the blame lies anywhere, it is with the computer industry as a whole for failing to standardise on the meaning of this and related terms. Thunderbird2 (talk) 09:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses consensus so it is silly to try to use terms that do not have real world consensus. Since kibibyte etc do not have real world consensus and do not have consensus in Wikipedia either then it is not the place of individual editors to try to enforce use of kibibyte etc. Don't worry Robert many other editors (including myself) have caused the binary prefix entry for WP:MOSNUM to change from the version that enforced using these neologisms. It now makes it perfectly clear that "There is no consensus to use the newer IEC-recommended prefixes in Wikipedia articles to represent binary units." Fnagaton 10:43, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

At the end of this year we should look at the adoption of the IEC binary prefixes. A full decade is long enough to see if the standard will ever be adopted by the computer industry and technical press. If the adoption rate is the same as today, the manual of style should discourage the use the IEC prefixes on Wikipedia. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 01:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If Wikipedia wishes to make unambiguous statements about computer storage and data transfer rates (and in my opinion it should), then it needs to have unambiguous units in which to express such statements. Thunderbird2 (talk) 11:34, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Which is to specify the exact number of bytes and not use the "bi-" neologisms because they are not widely used and can cause confusion. Fnagaton 12:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is a good way of removing the ambiguity. Let us hope that editors start to follow it. But the confusion is caused by the ambiguity that was there all along, not by the attempts of the IEC to resolve it. Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

If the IEC had said "kilobyte" is now defined as 1024 bytes (like the JEDEC did) that would have made more sense as it would have followed real world consensus. Much better than inventing new terms that don't used used by the vast majority of people, even after nine years. ;) Fnagaton 16:01, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Fnagaton, there is no real world consensus on a binary meaning of SI-prefixes in conjuntion with Bits or Bytes, and it has never been. Despite JEDEC, most hardware manufacturers at least also use the decimal meaning of SI-prefixes. Some are even this schizophrenic using both meanings in one product (motherboards, cpu, graphic card: memory amount/bus rates; harddisks: magnetic memory/cache memory). You may say IEC-prefixes are uncommon or even nearly not existent. But considering a binary meaning of MB a real world consensus are visionaries. And exactly that's reflected by the result of the wikipedia consensus: there is no consensus if MB is decimal or binary. It is simply ambiguous or context sensitive at best. --213.183.10.41 (talk) 19:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

So if I want to talk about 2 GiB of RAM I should say 2147483648 bytes of RAM?! As for confusion, simply wikifying MiB would remove any confusion as to what a MiB is. If you prefer to use GB, the context should make it clear which one you're talking about. The gigabyte page lists when the 1024-based definition is used and when the 1000-based definition is used. Andareed (talk) 13:15, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

The suggestion is that 1 GiB would be written as 1 GB (1024³ B) and the decimal gigabyte as 1 GB (1000³ B). I don't know whether the context (without this clarification) would make it clear to an expert. But we are not writing for experts, and it certainly does not make it clear to me. Thunderbird2 (talk) 13:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

This is ridiculous imho. There's no need for the additional redundancy. People familiar with GB/GiB know what the contexts where GB = 10^9 and where GB = 2^30 (and if not they can read the articles on GB or GiB). As for experts, I doubt most people are familiar with the Kelvin temperature scale. But if you look at the article on the Sun, temperatures are written exclusively in degrees Kelvin with no Fahrenheit or Celsius equivalents given. Andareed (talk) 20:18, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm equally comfortable with the use of GiB for disambiguation (as an alternative to 1024³ B), but others disagree. At the moment WP:MOSNUM#Binary_prefixes permits both styles. Thunderbird2 (talk) 13:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Andareed, using -bi (especially with it wikified) as the main unit adds confusion because in the majority of cases it changes the article units compared to the units found in the sources relevant to the article. Consistency with real world language and hence consensus is important. I also think using -bi as disambiguation adds confusion by introducing less well known terms than is expected by common use and that found in real world consensus. Your solution, wikifying it, can be equally applied to the existing terms kilobyte/megabyte/etc to make it clear to the reader how many bytes it is and this way it doesn't introduce an extra neologisms. For example if the sections existed in the pages then using something like [[kilobyte#Binary use|kilobyte]] or [[kilobyte#Decimal use|kilobyte]] would work. Fnagaton 15:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

What is the meaning of "confusion"? Exactly nobody is confused when they read MiB or Mebibyte. Not a single person. Some people confuse "confusion" with "lacking knowledge of terminology". What does neologism mean? Are neologisms something bad? It's derived from ancient greek, neo means new and logos means word. kilo is also ancient Greek and the word kilo means thousand. It's not a new word. Shouldn't the English Wikipedia use English instead? Is anyone here from ancient Greece? Mebibyte is a relatively new word but Megabyte isn't exactly old either but every educated person knows that "mega" means million and its definition hasn't changed for centuries. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Confusion - The "lack of clearness or distinctness" or "the state of being confused". It easily demonstrated that you are wrong what you write "Exactly nobody is confused when they read MiB or Mebibyte" with this web page where you will note it is claimed that "1 KiB = 1000 bytes and 1 MiB = 1000000 bytes". Neologism is "a new word, meaning, usage, or phrase" and is perfectly valid English. If you look at the JEDEC standard then you have "kilo (K) (as a prefix to units of semiconductor storage capacity): A multiplier equal to 1024 (2¹⁰)." and "mega (M) (as a prefix to units of semiconductor storage capacity): A multiplier equal to 1,048,576 (2²⁰ or K², where K = 1024)." which refutes your claim. Fnagaton 22:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

So if someone accidently writes 1*1 = 2, that proves there are people who believe that 1*1 is literally 2? Wouldn't someone agree that it's far more likely this person just made typing mistake? In any case it's exactly as I wrote. This person isn't confused. This person did not know what KiB meant and had to look it up. A pity isn't it? A person who does not know everything. How can this be? JEDEC has exactly zero authority and they can speak for a very tiny fraction of the industry only anyway. The IEEE and other many other international standards organisations have authority, they have adopted the IEC standard and encourage its use. Kibibyte is also a valid English word. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 22:51, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Your 1*1=2 example is irrelevant because it does not tackle the actual issue and because the example I gave goes way beyond a simple typo. You are wrong because JEDEC is authoritative and "is the leading developer of standards for the solid-state industry". The supporters of the -bi prefixes can be said to not have authority by the simple fact that the terms -bi have only ~0.5% use in the real world after nine years. Also ANSI/IEEE Std 1084-1986 says "kilo (K). ... In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 2¹⁰, or 1024" and "mega (M). ... In statements involving size of computer storage, a prefix indicating 2²⁰, or 1,048,576". Lastly, your statement about "kibibyte is valid English" is ignoratio elenchi. Fnagaton 23:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

My example is just as irrelevant as yours. JEDEC maybe the "self-proclaimed" whatever but this is like-wise irrelevant. Wikipedia is not a semi-conductor. So what JEDEC believes is of no concern. Again, you misinterpret Google results. This has been explained to you more than once and your 0.5% figure is absolutely irrelevant. You also forgot to mention that you're quoting a deprecated standard. The IEEE has revised this standard and adopted the IEC binary prefixes. They are the status quo whether people use them or not. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 23:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

No your example is not relevant for the same reasons given above, your example also relies on a false premise. I also note you don't offer any evidence to support your claims, your claims are incorrect so it is no wonder you cannot support them with reliable evidence. The "standard" you mention is at best a failed standard since it is not widely accepted, it is obviously not the "status quo" since the state of affairs in the vast majority of the industry is to not use those prefixes. I am not misinterpreting the Google results (I also note you do not show how, instead you just make a baseless claim) the 0.5% real world consensus is directly relevant to this subject since Wikipedia:Verifiability is official policy here. Fnagaton 23:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You want me to explain why Google results cannot be used to determine how wide-spread certain words are? Are you serious? Standards cannot fail because standards don't compete. Products based on standards may fail because the products compete on the market but standards exist or do not exist. It's no race. Standards can be revised or deprecated. The IEC binary prefixes have not been deprecated. Your example relies on a false premise. The author of the public mail writes "The MiB (and its derivatives) was invented by hard drive manufacturers in a very lame attempt to make their drives capacity look bigger". This could not be further from the truth and everybody here knows that very well. This person is not confused at all. He's trying to create confusion by intentionally misusing these units. The mail is from "January 24, 2008". A bit late for confusion especially if the very same mail contains a software patch to make use of these units. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 23:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

(out dent) The Google test is a very good and accepted way to show how often certain words are used in the real world, especially words like kilobyte/kibibyte because those words are not likely to be used by other topics except the subject they are related to. Also this "anonymous" IP user from your ISP who writes on this same subject used the Google test. It is funny how you claim the Google test "cannot be used" when is refutes your argument. The JEDEC standard, which is authoritative, trumps the other so called standards you support. Now you are making conclusions "He's trying to create confusion by intentionally misusing these units" where you don't supply any supporting evidence, so it is illogical for you to state what you just did. Like I said, your argument relies on a false premise, actually now it is more accurate to say your argument relies on more than one false premise. Fnagaton 00:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The current Google test is 1-dimensional. It should be 2-dimensional, with the second dimension being time. I mean: if you do a simple Google search, you get all search result accumulated over time, in this case over the last 10 years. A more correct Google test would be to divide the results in 10 classes, one for each year, to see the evolution over time of the usage or non-usage of certain words.

I am not a Google expert so I don't know how to do this. 84.196.45.22 (talk) 11:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

It is not accepted at all. I'm almost certain it's even mentioned in some Wikipedia policy. The internet and especially the www are only a tiny fraction of "the real world" and they are not representative. For most people, there cannot be found any evidence of their existence anywhere on the web at all and even Google indexes only a fraction of the web, not to mention that many information is copied and repeated like mailing list archives which leads to very wrong numbers, very quickly but the ratio differs for each and every single case, except that older information is more likely duplicated than newer. Regarding "intentional misuse", it is obvious that there are only two possibilities: intentional or non-intentional misuse. You claim that the person is confused. I claim he isn't because you don't go ahead and write a software patch to use KiB/MiB/GiB without knowing what these units mean. The patch looks actually correct, so he does not seem to be confused after all. So if he didn't mistype 1000 instead of 1024 in his mail, he must have done it on purpose. Or do you think he suffers from multiple personality disorder? This would be hard to prove. After all it's much more likely that he thought one thing and typed another. These kind of things happen. Do I have to prove it with Google? So we're back to zero. There is still not a single person confused about the meaning of "KiB". It's just that some people don't know what it means and some may pick the wrong unit on accident. --217.87.88.179 (talk) 00:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Of course it is accepted, but it just happens to show you are wrong. Your point is fallacious because there is no reason to suggest that Google gives more weight to indexing kilobyte over kibibyte, so the terms from the search results therfore show the proportion of the consensus in the real world. Your statement about "you don't go ahead" and the follwoing statements about the software patch contradicts itself. Your later claim about "multiple personality disorder" is irrelevant and shows that you have not provided any valid supporting argument. The bit about "don't know what it means and some may pick the wrong unit" is actually one definition of being confused, so you refute yourself. So to sum up you are wrong because some poeple are confused about the units as demonstrated by the link I supplied. Fnagaton 01:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Verifiability The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth.

It doesn't matter if kibi is more accurate. The "Reliable sources" in the computer industry and technical press do not use the IEC binary prefixes. A few standards organizations have proposed a new method of measuring binary storage capacities but the industry said "No thanks". -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand why you guys are wasting your time with a previously multiply blocked and banned user evading under multiple ip's - User:Sarenne, User_talk:NotSarenne, User_talk:217.87.59.247, etc. etc. etc. and now the same dialup location, Special:Contributions/217.87.88.179 --Marty Goldberg (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm thinking maybe an sprotect is in order for this page for the time being? --Marty Goldberg (talk) 17:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes definitely. Users Sarenne/NotSarenne certainly love to hop IPs in their ISP. Fnagaton 17:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Y Semi-protected temporarily. — Satori Son 18:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

After reading all of these replies, I have only one argument. Wikipedia should not spearhead, it should follow. It should reflect general usage, not try to change it. Let's hope we are allowed to change back all those kibibytes soon, and get rid of the confusion and embarrassment ("why is Wikipedia so elitist and weird?") once and for all. CapnZapp (talk) 22:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Counterproposal

For writing, discourage use of SI prefixes in either sense (binary or decimal), and instead use, respectively, KiB/MiB/GiB/... (IEC) or KdB/MdB/GdB/... (new in this proposal, and modelled on IEC). For speaking, or writing in full, abandon the (to say it politely) "problematic" IEC pronunciation proposal, instead use SI pronunciation for both, but always (no exceptions!) provide an indication about which meaning applies by either saying, e.g., "binary megabyte" or "decimal megabyte", or, when useful for efficiency and making certain that no confusion would result, explicitly setting up a context ("all quantities that follow are ..."). The reasoning behind this is that any attempt to reclaim SI prefixes for decimal use only seems futile (and the reader will never know for certain what MB means without a declaration of which convention applies), if desirable at all, and that IEC pronunciation is "problematic". [Duly noting that this is a more appropriate place to talk about this than the main article, but also questioning the encyclopedic neutrality of the main article(s).] -- RFST (talk) 23:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Don't use KiB or KdB. Intsead use the terms that are found in reliable sources relevant to an article and disambiguate stating the exact number of bytes using 10ⁿ or 2ⁿ notation if needed. Fnagaton 23:58, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea, but I don't think it is the role of Wikipedia to invent a new notation. In any case the "dB" notation is not workable because of the confusion with the decibel. Where I agree completely with RFST is that the ambiguity in MB and GB is highly undesirable. There are articles that appear to use both meanings within the same paragraph, without even drawing the ambiguity to the reader's attention. Fnagaton's suggestion is a good interim measure if followed, but no long term solution. Personally I prefer to disambiguate using 50 MB (MiB) rather than 50 MB (1024³ B), but that is a matter of taste. In the long term let’s just hope the computer industry gets its act in order. Thunderbird2 (talk) 08:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

"Wikipedia" (or whoever is most active in it, see elsewhere) is already pushing "IEC", so an attempt to bring a bit of balance should not be lightly dismissed. There is no confusion with dB because, even if they could be relevant with the unit bel, multiple prefixes are not permitted (compare with kg), and in fact would remove any existing confusion with B for bel, but I consider this point quite irrelevant. As long as byte itself is not outlawed for use with SI prefixes because it is itself a number of bits (and not even a nice "decimal" multiple), and as long as address and data bus widths and their consequences continue to make "binary" multiples very visible (which would be forever), arguments mainly in the consumer realm should not dictate that binary multiples be relegated to ridiculousness without actually resolving the state of confusion that we are in. -- RFST (talk) 16:30, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I accept there is no real ambiguity with dB, for the reason you give (although that does not mean there can be no confusion). So let's consider your suggestion further. There is no doubt it would be great to have a concise notation to allow us to distinguish between the decimal and binary senses of MB. For that reason, and like I said from the beginning, I do like your idea. But doesn't it fall foul of Wikipedia's rules against self reference? Thunderbird2 (talk) 17:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I used "confusion" too often, and in different ways. "Self-references are entirely acceptable on talk pages", but, at least as far as my little sample of web search engines is concerned (just leaving a trace for indexing: KiB MiB GiB TiB PiB EiB ZiB YiB KdB MdB GdB TdB PdB EdB ZdB YdB), this seems to be an original idea (which is hopefully not a bad thing), which does beg the question how it could or should be launched (and I very much doubt that consumer products would run with it): maybe someone might bite the bullet for their product to be referenced as an alternative? — RFST (talk) 21:03, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

While possibly true, the "Files" section is complete original research. You can't claim the contents are easily verifiable or obvious facts either (see WP:FACTS), since the section makes claims about a situation over 20 years ago. Further, claims about "most operating systems today" also can't be taken as fact, since I doubt anyone can easily verify this statement for most operating systems around today. In short, the Files section needs to be backed up by reliable sources or removed. Andareed (talk) 06:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually WP:FACTS is entirely appropriate - the contents are easily verifiable. There is lots of documentation about 20 year old software but it is not necessary to find it since there are thousands of observers of the old software who can either attest to or rebut the facts. Furthermore, some of the 20 year old software still works on todays computers - I easily booted several MSDOSs last year to verify the presentation of file and device capacity. Finally, today "most" computers run Windows so the statement is correct. But it goes further and in the footnote lists other significant computers whose presentation of files the editor easily verified. So IMO, this is not original research but a compilation of easily verifiable facts and your flag should be removed. Tom94022 (talk) 08:10, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, Andareed, thanks for the pointer: WP:FACTS is exactly what this is, as Tom94022 writes. Go to your friendly neighbour computer user ("someone with a reasonable knowledge"), and ask him to check his system (which doesn't take a minute). If you prefer, look at the manual pages for those systems (and try to understand them!), but a simple verification is far easier and pretty much equivalent to pointing at and perhaps citing from the manual page. Maybe you'll have to ask several neighbours, but that's equivalent to having to check multiple references. What might be upsetting you is the fact that I have spent the effort of carefully outlining the circumstances, so that if anything changes later on someone won't just think someone made a silly mistake, or so that anyone doubting the accuracy of the entry in 2020 will see that the information is almost 15 years old and needs to be reverified (possibly leading to updating the reference and maybe the entry itself). My mistake was to leave the list of primary sources in the article itself at first, for lack of experience with Wikipedia tags (at first I considered the discussion page, but there it would only get separated and lost), and presuming that someone else might apply any required editorial remedies, rather than just making an unsupported entry (lots of those in Wikipedia, not seldomly going unchallenged). (I cannot speak for later additions to the "Files" section, but the designation as "complete original research" cannot apply to the whole section because currently only the later addition refers to a now historic situation, while the original referred to only the most current versions of some very alive systems.) Oh, and obviously the list wasn't really in alphabetical order... — RFST (talk) 18:31, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, no no no. WP:FACTS is (a) an essay, not policy (and thus can't just be pointed at to settle arguments), and (b) specifically for things which could be verified in a moment by a casual reader. "Asking one's friendly neighbour computer user" is definitely not something which falls under this. It's the epitome of original research. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I mentioned the essay (yes, I knew it wasn't policy or even a guideline) because some people prescribe to this philosophy. My argument was that even if you go along with this essay, I doubt most people have friends/know someone that would know, f.e. how VMS formatted file sizes 20 years ago. Andareed (talk) 20:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm only defending my list of primary sources (for present-day systems), and am not entirely happy about the later modification, but I leave it to others to make any appropriate and unbiased changes. If you don't have such a neighbour to save you time for the present-day part of it, you can install and try the systems yourself (which is time-consuming but straightforward). But there will be plenty of knowledgeable people who will read this and be able to intervene if it is incorrect, so you don't have to worry. In the end, I just documented my entry the way I would want to see it documented if someone else had written it, in a way that addresses any reasonable doubts I might have, and then some. I believe the requirement of verifiability is amply met, especially in the "spirit of the law", if (maybe) not entirely in the letter. — RFST (talk) 05:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

If we use this concept, we wouldn't need to reference anything. For example, why add references in the World War II article? We can just ask our neighbourhood war veteran what happened and confirm everything in that article. Andareed (talk) 20:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

With your friendly neighbour computer user, you just look over his shoulder and see for yourself that it is as described. It's not a matter of opinion or selective memory or limited visibility or whatever here, the neighbour is just an enabler of your own verification, saving you some time (you can do it all yourself if you prefer). As I wrote, this is equivalent to referencing the manual pages (assuming a bug-free implementation), except that it is easier to just check (manual pages can be difficult to understand, they do not exhaustively describe everything, and you'll maybe also have to install the system to have them anyway). — RFST (talk) 05:29, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Andareed, but, I believe if there is no documentation, it is better then nothing. Although, he says, "There is lots of documentation about 20 year old software", so why cant somebody look this up? 10max01 (talk) 20:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Note the screen shot on the right, also cited in Section 1.1 of the article. It establishes that PCDOS at least at 3.1 provided decimal digits without even commas. Similar pictures are in the MS DOS encyclopedia. There are similar screen shots posted about for Apple DOS. I haven't looked but I bet there are such for the other 20 year OS's. There are also text books and manuals floating about. I don't think it is necessary to do such a compilation of such available facts to make a factual statement. It should be sufficient that those of us editors who used such OSs can attest to the facts. If anyone can rebut such a statement then the editor would have to retract or re-edit, but absent proof to the contrary, well established and known facts should not need attribution Tom94022 (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Going back to User:Andareed's war analogy, that's like saying that Churchill's meeting with Roosevelt and Stalin doesn't need referenced because there's a photo of them shaking hands. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:26, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Thumperward is wrong about OR and improper in reverting the page! The four OSs cited by RFST are not original research! The operating systems as published by their manufacturers are the primary source and RFST is the observing secondary source. All he has to do is identify specifically the version of the OS he observed (e.g. which Windows at what release). Whether this is in the main body or footnote or in combination is a style choice; personally I prefer to keep the body as short a possible. I am posting a copy of this in Thumperwards talk page. I suggest after a short period, RFST can reformat per this suggestion and update the page as he sees fit. Tom94022 (talk) 23:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

No. A primary source would be documentation of such facts by Microsoft, Apple etc.; a secondary source would be reference to such documentation. The observations of Wikipedians may never be taken to be sources in themselves. Please take the time to read WP:OR and its supporting materials. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I did take the time to read read WP:OR and its supporting materials and I read it again. I can find nothing in the references that precludes the executable code itself from being a published primary source. Anyone can observe the executing the code and become a secondary source as to what it presents. All RFST has to do is identify the executable he observed.Tom94022 (talk) 02:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Tom94022, this is the relevant section from WP:OR:

Unsourced material obtained from a Wikipedian's personal experience, such as an unpublished eyewitness account, should not be added to articles. It would violate both this policy and Verifiability, and would cause Wikipedia to become a primary source for that material....All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

I don't see why RFST can't simply find a valid secondary source for this - I don't believe that Thumperward and Andareed disbelieve RFST, they're just keen to see this done right.  This flag once was red  02:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

On what basis do you contend that the published version of an OS is NOT a primary source? There are millions to hundreds of millions of copies floating around. Therefore the policy u cite does NOT appply Tom94022 (talk) 03:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Tom94022, there are millions of copies of "Pride and Prejudice" floating around, that doesn't mean I can interpret my copy and publish it on Wikipedia. I can only state that "Prof. Higgins has interpreted Pride and Prejudice to mean..." The published version of an OS is, in this context, the very definition of a primary source. Someone's *verifiable* comments on that OS are a secondary source - and completely valid here. Put another way - if you feel that the published version of an OS is *not* a primary source, what is it? A secondary source? A tertiary source? It's the original - primary - source.  This flag once was red  —Preceding comment was added at 03:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify that, because I notice you changed "is a primary source" to "is NOT a primary source": the published version of an OS *is* a primary source. *Someone's* interpretation of it is a secondary source. If this *interpretation*, i.e. the secondary source, is (a) verifable (i.e. you can provide a cite) and (b) is not by a Wikipedia editor then all's well. If, however, you can't cite the reference and/or the only reference is yourself, then, per WP:OR it's not OK. Hope this clarifies it.  This flag once was red  03:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Consider an example where I claim a Mathematical statement is true by adding my own proof. Mathematically inclined users could verify my proof is correct, much like users could verify that the listing of ls/dir is correct. However, I think we can all agree that my proof, even though it may be correct and verifiable, is original research and should not be in Wikipedia. Andareed (talk) 02:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Agree and I proudly admit I had nothing to do with writing Windows. Therefore, I contend there is nothing in violation of WP in my observing and reporting its performance so long as I cite the specific version I observe. Tom94022 (talk) 03:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Your contention appears to be incorrect. WP:OR prohibits observation and reporting on a primary source:

All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

Tom94022, you stated earlier that you've read WP:OR - this is section 1.3, could you re-read it and explain why you feel that observing and reporting on a primary source is OK? This seems to me to be a very basic violation of NOR, and I feel I must be missing something if you continue to believe it's not.  This flag once was red  03:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Please look at the screen shot above. IBM is the publisher of PC DOS v 3.10 and the diskette is the primary source. The original diskette has a copyright notice, indicating that IBM thought it was a published work. If an editor writes that PC DOS 3.1 reports file sizes in decimal digits with out commas or prefixes he/she is not interpreting, analyzing or synthesizing any claim and therefore NOT in violation of WP:OR. He/she could take a screen shot (as I did in that case) to prove that they are accurately reporting their observation but it is not here required any more than it would be for any other attributable statement. If the editor mis-report, then some other editor will point it out, but in no way is such reporting OR. Or if it is, then everything is OR cause everyone of us is an observer of what we cite or quote. Tom94022 (talk) 03:40, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd already seen the screenshot, it doesn't alter the facts here. You are interpreting your observation. You and I both know what the screenshot shows, and what it represents, but we both have some knowledge in this field. An uninformed third party without any knowledge of OSs would have to take it on trust that what you observed represents what you claim it to represent. If you were to, instead, cite a secondary source then the hypothetical third party could lookup that source and arrive at their own conclusion. Your claim that everything is OR because we are all observers of what we cite is off the mark: if it's cited it can be verified, if it's uncited it can't. This is the rationale behind WP:OR, and why I'm so keen to see claims cited correctly.  This flag once was red  04:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense, I am describing it no more so than if I describe a written paragraph from a learned treatise. Tom94022 (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

It would be nice if people didn't keep destroying my content based on an invalid interpretation (!) of WP:OR, which specifically states that "descriptive claims" are allowed. My original entry was directly supported by the reference material (putting it a notch above most of the rest of the article, if I may say so myself); anyone who has objections against the present form of the section and/or its relation to the references should modify the section itself and/or add appropriate references, not remove the references and then claim that citations are needed. — RFST (talk) 05:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

RFST, since multiple editors are reverting your changes it looks like you are trying to make changes that do not have consensus. I advise that you take a break and edit something else. Fnagaton 11:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

RFST, I referenced this when I reverted your most recent addition but I guess you didn't see it:

       * only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
       * make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source.

I hope this clarifies why your "descriptive claims" were reverted. Surely the easiest thing to do would simply be to provide a verifiable reference to support your additions? As I stated on your talk page, I have no objection to this being added - indeed, I think it would be a useful addition to this article - provided it's correctly cited.  This flag once was red  12:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

There is nothing but description in RFSTs footnote and everything is readily verifiable, so I reverted to the original. I then added specific citations to Windows versions to make it even easier to verify. Hopefully a MAC person can to the same for OS X. Red Flag, please be more explicit in defining what you find to be "analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims" about the footnote, they appear to be purely descriptive to me and easily verifiable by person educated in the specific operating system. Note that RFST apparently could not verify Windows but I could. The most I think is fair is that u put a fact citation on the MAC OS X. And since multiple editors are in disagreement, I suggest the policy is to leave the citation until consensus can be reached. Tom94022 (talk) 17:19, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Tom94022, as far as I can see the consensus is largely for leaving the edit out until it can be cited - 2 editors want it in, 5 editors have reverted it as OR.

One of us can't count. I count 3 editors (me, RFST and 10max01) in favor of retaining and 2 or 3 in favor or reverting. NOT A CONSENSUS Tom94022 (talk) 22:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

From the recent revision history:

• User:Fnagaton - revert: "I agree that it violates WP:OR"
• User:This flag once was red - revert: "only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowl"
• User:Wgungfu - revert: "No WP:OR allowed"
• User:Thumperward - revert: "again, using original research as a reference isn't allowed. it can't be that difficult to dig up a reliable source for this data"
• User:Andareed - revert: "You can't claim original research as a reference - see talk page"
• User:Tom94022 - add: "Undid revision 195184890 by Fnagaton (talk)NOT OR, added Solaris cite"
• User:RFST - add: " it is WP:OR which states that "descriptive claims" are allowed"

I can't see any edits by 10max01, but even allowing for an "add" vote from 10max01 that's still strong opposition to un-referenced edits - 5 editors (hardly the "2 or 3" you claim) vs. 3. This flag once was red  23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Edit: OK, I found 10max01's comment on this talk page, not on the article page:

I agree with Andareed, but, I believe if there is no documentation, it is better then nothing. Although, he says, "There is lots of documentation about 20 year old software", so why cant somebody look this up?

I'm not convinced that 10max01 is either for or against - but I'd welcome clarification from 10max01. This flag once was red  23:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

You note that RFST could not verify the claim re: Windows, but that you could. Note from WP:OR that:

only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge

If RFST was unable to verify the claim with respect to Windows, how can it be verified by a layperson without specialist knowledge? If you or RFST simply cited the claim - i.e. by providing a reference to a verifiable secondary source - this whole issue could be easily resolved.

The criteria is not a laypersons knowledge but that of an educated person. Perhaps RFST is a UNIX person who has no access to Windows or maybe he was just lazy. Regardless, those he couldn't cite are worthy of a fact citation and not oblivion as OR. Tom94022 (talk) 22:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The criteria is:

...by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge...

The reason for the removals is because RFST hasn't provided any references, despite repeated requests to do so. And as both you and RFST have demonstrated, it's trivial to replace the unreferenced claims - far from the "oblivion" you suggest. This flag once was red  23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, the reference you cited for Windows was:

Microsoft Windows 2000 version 5.00.2195 Service Pack 2 and XP version 2002 Service Pack 2 as displayed in Windows Explorer and elsewhere

This is an interpretation, by an editor, of a primary source. This fails WP:OR. What would satisfy WP:OR is something like "Joe Bloggs, writing in Windows World, notes that Windows Explorer shows file sizes in 2^8 multiples".

Either Windows does or does not display file sizes in 2⁸ multiples. If it does so, then to say so is descriptive and what Joe Bloggs has to say may or may not be correct. What would you have us do if Joe Bloggs said those versions of Windows expressed file sizes in decimal, copy his misteak :-)? Isn't it is far better to refer to the primary source than to Joe Bloggs! Tom94022 (talk) 22:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it's far better to cite verifiable secondary sources, as you now appear to starting to do. This flag once was red  23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I continue to fail to understand why one or both of you can't simply provide references for the claims made in this section - surely it can't be that hard to find a verifiable secondary source that supports these claims? Would a possible solution be to ask that a neutral, uninvolved editor arbitrate?  This flag once was red  21:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is so easy to do so then why don't you do it. The reason I think it isn't easy is because it is so obvious from the primary sources that no one bothers to say so. The one exception maybe the Unix cited by RFST which should have such information in the reference manual for the various command modifiers. The other place it might be stated is in the trial records of the various litigations but those are generally not readily available. Tom94022 (talk) 22:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Uh, because it's not me trying to add unreferenced content? The onus falls on you to provide to cite your sources, not me.  This flag once was red  23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Following up on the above I added a cite to the Sun's Solaris command reference which confirms RSFTs description and added a facts needed citation to the MAC. In a few minutes I will find a citation for GNU. IMHO, NEITHER CITE WAS NECESSARY I hope this will stop this nonsense reversions Tom94022 (talk) 22:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This still looks like primary source - it's a man page. Can't you find a reference to someone interpreting this or commenting on it?  This flag once was red  23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This is madness. Goodbye. — RFST (talk) 03:16, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Please see the discussion of this specific topic at No original research/noticeboard Tom94022 (talk) 06:51, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I appologize for never coming back. I wasnt looking to vote either way, as I believe many of you would have been better to advise this situations, and my point was adressed. I did not save this page, as I rarely come on wikipedia anymore, therefore wouldnt have been able to participate. I was against the original research, and what I was stating was IF this evidence was so easily found, then it should be found and their would be nothing to debate. This is my clarification, although the issue seems resolved.10max01 (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ongoing timeline work

Talkspace isn't an appropriate place for this material. The last version is held at Talk:Binary prefix/Archive 7 for now.

If users are going to continue to work on it, it should be moved to userspace. If someone is willing to adopt it, I'll see about fixing the archives up. Just let me know either here on on my talk page. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Archive is not a place for something that has been recently updated. Why don't u move it to its own page and link it back from the binary prefix page? Tom94022 (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

According to WP:Archives "you should leave current, ongoing discussions on the existing talk page." Also Achiving should be by consensus of the editors 1 against and 2 for is not archiving. Accordingly, unless someone can give a good reason, I will reverting the timeline. Tom94022 (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The material in question originally dates from three years ago. As I said, I'm happy for it to be moved to userspace if a user is willing to host it. However, this ~70k blob is not conductive to current talk discussion, and if it belonged on talk in the first place it isn't appropriate now. Consensus is developed by discussion; it isn't just a majority vote, so your "2 to 1" statistic is meaningless. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Tom94022. The prefix timeline is a valuable resource that should be kept accessible. Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:17, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The most recent update to the timeline that I can find was Feb 2008; with 2 editors for archiving and 2 against, doesn't sound like consensus is close, so it seems the appropriate decision is to restore it while consensus is developed. After all the policy is that the archiving should only take place when consensus is developed Tom94022 (talk) 00:03, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Consensus is for content disputes and things not covered by policy. This is policy. Talk pages are not the personal scrapbooks of random editors. I've already suggested an alternative (moving the thread off of talk space). WP:ARCHIVE is inapplicable here; please pay attention to the arguments I'm making. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:15, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Discussion continuing at User talk:Tom94022#Talk:Binary prefix archival. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the page. Feel free to move the page from Talk:Binary prefix/History to Chronology of prefix usage if it's felt that it's ready for articlespace. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] POV section

From the article:

It can be argued that the main purpose of the binary prefixes is to clarify that, according to national and international standards, the traditional SI prefixes always refer to powers of ten, even in the context of information technology. Therefore, rather than measuring the success of the binary prefixes based on how commonly they appear in technical and marketing literature, it may be more appropriate to judge them by their success in restoring the original power-of-ten meaning of the standard SI prefixes in information technology. Binary prefixes are only convenient for a small number of information-technology quantities, most notably the size of address spaces (e.g., of RAM chips). They provide no practical advantage for quantities where powers-of-two times a small integer are not preferred numbers, such as file sizes, download speeds, line rates, symbol rates, clock frequencies, and tape or disk capacities. There, decimal prefixes are far more convenient for mental arithmetic.

This seems like a car crash, POV-pushing and completely unsourced. This should be fixed -62.172.143.205 (talk) 07:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. --shreevatsa (talk) 20:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The timeline

Thumperward first removed the timeline from this talk page and has now deleted the link to it from the article. My opinion is that this valuable resource should be retained, and that the best place for it is this talk page. What do others think? Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the best place for the timeline - when/if it's completed - is on the main article. Until then there's a link to it from this talk page. This gives people the opportunity to work on it. I tend to agree with Thumperward - if it's an ongoing work it shouldn't be referenced on the main article.  This flag once was red  18:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I never suggested that it belongs in the main article, but I would like to be able to access it and (where appropriate) update it. Where is the link to which you refer? Thunderbird2 (talk) 19:08, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

No, it was me who thought it should - once finished - go on the main article page. The link is at the top of this page, just above the table of contents. The text reads "A work-in-progress timeline for this topic is being developed at /History." (going back through the history of this page, I think *you* may have added the link ;-) )  This flag once was red  19:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't recall doing that (don't deny it either - memory like a sieve). Anyway, I'm OK with it like that. Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:16, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Here we go again; please someone tell me why the link cannot be in the article? There are many links to talk pages in articles. Personally I think it the timeline is too long for the main article but is perfectly linked from the history section of the article. Maybe I will just move the timeline to an article and then see what Thumperward does to get rid of it Tom94022 (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem whatsoever with it being moved to its own page in the article namespace and linked from here. I've indicated as such previously. What is unacceptable is a seealso tag which points to a page in the discussion namespace. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Paragraph beginning "Might be argued" in "adoption" section

I removed the unsourced opinion about how to measure the success of adoption... the one beginning "might be argued." This is out of line unless it says who, exactly, makes this argument... and the who should be a reliable source.

The "adoption" section now merely states facts about adoption without trying to evaluate success or failure. And we should keep it that way. If someone can find suitably reliable sources that state judgements about whether the new units are succeeding or failing, those would, of course, be appropriate to include.

That paragraph makes the point that, according to current standards SI prefixes always mean of 10, even in IT contexts. That's important and I moved it to the lead paragraph.

I changed the last sentence of the lead paragraph to read, simply, "These prefixes are being adopted slowly." I think this conveys both the sense that they are being adopted, and that the adoption is slow, without emphasizing either "adoption" or "slowness." Dpbsmith (talk) 22:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

P. S. Just for the record, I happen to agree with the first two sentences of the "might be argued" paragraph. That is, I agree with the material I removed. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Use of POV heading in "Absurdity of binary prefixes"

OK Andareed, you win. But my point, which is that biased headers are not conducive to sensible debate, remains. Perhaps the editor who posted the disputed header would like to rephrase it? Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

As the person who posted the section, I admit to POV not bias, and think POV is perfectly acceptable in a talk page. Tom94022 (talk) 04:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not mean to imply that your comments were biased. Only that POV in the heading (which in this case was misinterpreted if I recall correctly) is inappropriate, and can lead to a biased discussion. Thunderbird2 (talk) 07:00, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

To yr point, it hasn't drawn a lot of attention. I do believe that because of need for scaling when you change prefix and the "non-binary" nature of shifting the binary point (i.e. 10 and 20 are not good binary numbers) no one uses binary prefixes (k or Ki, etc) in any serious calculation. In my POV, this makes binary prefixes absurd, meaningless, useless, etc, for other than marketing or summary applications. So do you have a better suggestion for a caption? Tom94022 (talk) 16:31, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

One way of keeping the POV out of the header might be to rephrase it as a question. Something like "What is the point of binary prefixes?" would be an improvement Thunderbird2 (talk) 16:42, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Commonly, historically, but improperly used"

I changed a section title to "SI prefixes commonly, historically, but improperly used in the binary sense". The appearance of this section before the binary prefix section can give the impression that this is somehow preferred or endorsed by Wikipedia. I believe the reality is that this is still the most frequently used set of designations.

But, unlike ordinary dictionary definitions, which are descriptive rather than proscriptive and simply reflect frequency of usage, SI prefixes are defined by a standards organization, and the use of SI prefixes with binary meanings is not correct, however common it may be. Dpbsmith (talk) 12:00, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm removing your edit because it is POV. Also the prefixes are defined as powers of two by the JEDEC, so they are not "improperly used". Fnagaton 13:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It is a fact that they are improperly used, though it makes the section header too long to put it there. — Omegatron 19:25, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

As you see above I mention the JEDEC. This is the standard. In the standard you will see it defines kilo (K) as "A multiplier equal to 1024 (2¹⁰)." You will also see that it defines byte (B) as "The unit of storage capacity equal to eight bits.". Combining these two terms together to make KB/KByte etc means KB/KByte/kilobyte are defined in the JEDEC standard as 1024 bytes. The section header says "SI prefixes..." this isn't entirely accurate since the prefixes are not SI per se but rather they are collections of letters that just happen to use roughly the same letters as SI. Also the de facto standard in that commonly used in modern language. Omegatron you will be correct to say they are improperly used when only when the majority of people agree with you in the real world and to date you do not have that support, you have nowhere near that support, so you are wrong because the JEDEC standard and common use trump your point of view. Q.E.D. Fnagaton 19:39, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Omegatron. No amount of quoting JEDEC can alter the fact that the main international scientific and engineering standards bodies define the prefix mega- to mean one million, even when applied to bytes. That convention is followed by the telecommunications industry and by manufacturers of hard disk drives. The software and semiconductor industries are the exceptions to this perfectly good rule. The IEC standard offers a very dim light at the end of a dark tunnel. The way out (for the computer industry as for Wikipedia) is to follow that light. Thunderbird2 (talk) 20:41, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No amount of trying to quote the "scientific and engineering standards bodies" can alter the fact that the JEDEC defines those terms and that the real world consensus says that your point of view and the point of view of the "standards body" you prefer is nowhere near being the standard you think it is. It is not correct to push to use one certain "standards" body when the majority of real world consensus does not follow that body. That is why Omegatron and you are wrong. See also. Fnagaton 20:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The JEDEC standard makes interesting reading. The most complete definition in the present context is that of the prefix mega. It speaks volumes:

• mega (M) (as a prefix to units of semiconductor storage capacity): A multiplier equal to 1 048 576 (2²⁰ or K² , where K = 1024).

• NOTE 1 Contrast with the SI prefix mega (M) equal to 10⁶ , as in a 1-Mb/s data transfer rate, which is equal to 1 000 000 bits per second.

• NOTE 2 The definitions of kilo, giga, and mega based on powers of two are included only to reflect common usage. IEEE/ASTM SI 10-1997 states “This practice frequently leads to confusion and is deprecated.” Further confusion results from the popular use of a “megabyte” consisting of 1 024 000 bytes to define the capacity of the familiar “1.44-MB” diskette.

Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

While I think that section heading is too long and inappropriate, I agree with Dpbsmith's point that the lack of context seems to convey the wrong impression. I have added some context at the top of the sections. shreevatsa (talk) 23:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, this was reverted? I have restored the text, please discuss. It seems accurate to me. shreevatsa (talk) 01:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what JEDEC says, because JEDEC can't define SI units. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You are missing the point, so I will spell it out. The definition implies first that a megabit in "semiconductor storage" is: 1 Mbit = 1024² bit, whereas if it is moving from one computer to another ("data transfer"): 1 Mbit = 1000² bit. Confused? There's more. They then point out that the binary definitions are deprecated by IEEE and are included only to reflect common usage. The JEDEC definition is full of holes. Thunderbird2 (talk) 00:11, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong Thunderbird2 because the JEDEC standard spells it out that K and M are defined as powers of two and it basically says that the SI definitions go against what is accepted and therefore defacto and correct use for the subject. The JEDEC definitions are not full of holes, that is your POV. The IEEE and SI definitions are "full of holes" (to use your language) because they go against real world consensus. The fact is that the units you prefer do not have consensus for use, so do not keep on pushing for them to be used. If you are really interested in reducing what you think is ambiguity rather than pushing for certain units to be used then disambiguate using the exact number of bytes with power notation, like it says in MOSNUM. Fnagaton 07:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Fnagaton, please stop inventing a real world consensus which never existed. Neither the one nor the other way. The whole discussion is due to the lack of such a consensus. Also in real world, independently of whether the decimal or the binary meaning is considered, you loose either major operating system/software manufacturers etc. or the mass storage media manufacturers/network hardware manufacturers/ISPs etc. Both groups are big enough to be relevant to a "real world consensus".--213.183.10.41 (talk) 19:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong because I am not inventing anything and do not attempt misrepresent me while sitting behind your "anonymous" IP account. The situation is accurate as I have described it and I have provided data that shows this to be the case. Also the consensus is a matter of record here on Wikipedia during previous discussions on this topic. Fnagaton 22:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Wrt the original point: I think it is wrong to call the section "historically, but improperly used". The IEC prefixes were introduced only in 1999, and it was made a full IEEE standard only in 2005. The reference to the SI note about "They should not be used to indicate powers of 2" is from 2006, although probably older references exist. So until recently, abusing the SI prefixes for binary usage had been the only way to indicate them, and it has been so much common that it was even mentioned in the JEDEC standard, with a caveat. So all those people historically using SI prefixes in the binary sense weren't "wrong" then; the usage is only wrong now. The rules have changed recently, so it's not fair to retroactively label the old usage as breaking the rules. And all those still using the SI prefixes are arguably doing so because that is what they are familiar with; it takes time for change to happen. shreevatsa (talk) 01:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, both decimal and binary conventions have been in use, and one of those conventions is wrong. :) That SI didn't make a statement about it until 2006 doesn't mean that they approved of it before then. Keep in mind that the original use of "1k" to mean "1024 bytes" was just an approximation, and was perfectly correct. It's only when you get to bigger numbers that the binary convention becomes erroneous. — Omegatron 03:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Shreevatsa I changed your edit because it is still not correct. Using them as powers of two is not "wrong" and only some standards bodies have deprecated the use, the JEDEC for instance still defines them as powers of two and the JEDEC is a standards body. Your edit implied all standards bodies and that is not correct because only some have. Also just because a standards body you might prefer defines something it does not make the use of something that goes against the standards body wrong especially in the case when that "standard" has not been widely accepted. Have a look at the comment from Greg on my talk page about why and when Wikipedia ignores some "standards". Obviously in this case the real world consensus is to not follow SI/IEEE/IEC and that means using KB/MB/GB with powers of two is not "wrong". Omegatron you are wrong for the same reason because both decimal and power of two use is correct, it's just that the standards body you prefer for this particular subject is not widely followed. A "standard" that is not widely followed by the real world is a failed standard and Wikipedia wisely makes the choice to ignore those standards. This is shown by the clear wording in WP:MOSNUM#Binary prefixes regarding the consensus. Fnagaton 06:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the wording regarding consensus makes it clear that disambiguation of the binary KB is acceptable using either 1 KB = 1024 B or 1 KB = 1 KiB:

• There is no consensus to use the newer IEC-recommended prefixes in Wikipedia articles to represent binary units. There is consensus that editors should not change prefixes from one style to the other, especially if there is uncertainty as to which term is appropriate within the context—one must be certain whether "100 GB" means binary not decimal units in the material at hand before disambiguation. When this is certain the use of parentheses for binary prefixes, for example "256 KB (256×2¹⁰ bytes)", is acceptable, as is the use of footnotes to disambiguate prefixes. Use of IEC prefixes is also acceptable for disambiguation (256 KiB).

Thunderbird2 (talk) 07:23, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

For disambiguation, not the main units. Not forgetting what the guideline then goes on to say: "stay with established usage in the article, and follow the lead of the first major contributor." Fnagaton 07:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean your favorite version of the MOSNUM says that. The "first major contributor" rule was added without discussion, just so that it could be used to override consensus in situations like this one. If there is no site-wide consensus (as the first sentence states), then the issue is decided on a per-article basis by the editors of that particular article, according to the needs of that article - not by an arbitrary rule that favors one style over another. — Omegatron 03:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Commonly, historically, and correctly used"

Some here are saying that Adobe, AMD, Apple, Computerworld, Dell, EE Times, HP, IEEE Computer Magazine, Intel, Kingston Technology, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsung, Symantec, Toshiba, and a host of other publications, computer manufacturers and software companies have got it wrong and a bunch of esoteric standards nerds have found the one true method of measuring computer storage capacity.

There is no legal obligation to use this IEC and ANSI/IEEE standard. Every IEEE standard has these disclaimers. "Use of an IEEE Standard is wholly voluntary." "The existence of an IEEE Standard does not imply that there are no other ways to produce, test, measure, purchase, market, or provide other goods and services related to the scope of the IEEE Standard." After the ASME vs Hydrolevel antitrust case [16] was upheld by the Supreme Court[17] standards organizations are abundantly cautious about pushing their standards.

The use of MB and megabyte for binary values is more than common usage, there is 50 years industry practice codified in ANSI/IEEE and other standards. The previous standards formally defined what the industry was already using. Coining new terms like mebibyte is an attempt to change industry practice. In 1984 the ANSI/IEEE Std 91-1984 and IEC 60617-12 standards recommended that everyone start drawing schematic symbols of AND gates as a square box with an ampersand in it. Changing something that the industry thinks is working is very difficult.

The only significant usage is in elite standards groups. I would have the say the adoption of the IEC binary prefixes is minuscule and static. One of the major points on the consumer confusion argument was the difference between RAM, floppy disk and hard disk measurements. Floppy disks are gone, and all hard disk now come with a disclaimer stating that a GB is a billion bytes. The rest of the computer industry is staying with previous ANSI/IEEE standards that define KB, MB and GB as binary units. -- SWTPC6800 (talk) 23:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

There is a much longer and deeper history of usage of kB (KB) and MB to mean 1,000 bytes and 1,000,000 bytes respectively. It was the failure of Apple and Microsoft beginning 1984, to explain their then unusual usages that created the ambiguity. Given the binary usage came second it seems unreasonable to now require the rest of us to conform to the rather narrow usage solely with regard to primary memory. IEC and others recognizing the problem came out with an unambiguous prefix system, Ki, Mi, etc. which is slowly being adopted. I seem to recall the same situation when cps was replaced with Hertz; people always resist change. Tom94022 (talk) 00:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to talk about which interpretation is legal, consider that the government hardly ever enforces the use of units of measure except when used to measure something in sold in commerce. The binary prefixes are bigger than their decimal counterparts, so someone who sells something that is described with the binary prefix is not shortchanging the customer, and so is not likely to be prosecuted. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Those are the only examples you can come up with for the binary usage? I can come up with a lot more that use the prefixes according to the standards. The overwhelmingly vast majority of instances of k- or M- mean 1,000 or 1,000,000, and the overwhelmingly vast majority of people associate k- and M- with 1,000 and 1,000,000, especially in countries that are not the US.

As for the standard binary prefixes, I see several instances of software being updated to use units correctly, and no instances of software being changed back to the ambiguous definition. Maybe we'll see this abandoned in the future, but adoption is clearly increasing at present. — Omegatron 03:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Binary Prefix Confusion from 1968

When Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were 13 years old this letter appeared in Communications of the ACM

Morrison, Donald (March 1968). "Letters to the editor: Abbreviations for computer and memory sizes". Communications of the ACM 11 (3): pg 150. ACM Press. 

Editor:

The fact that 2¹⁰ and 10³ are almost but not quite equal creates a lot of trivial confusion in the computing world and around its periphery. One hears, for example, of doubling the size of a 32K memory and getting 65K (not 64K) memories. Doubling again yields a 131K (not 130K) memory. People who use powers of two all the time know that these are approximations to a number they could compute exactly if they wanted to, but they seldom take the trouble. In conversions with outsiders, much time is wasted explaining that we really can do simple arithmetic and we didn't mean exactly what we said.

The confusion arises because we use K, which traditionally means 1000, as an approximation for 1024. If we had a handy name for 1024, we wouldn’t have to approximate. I suggest that κ (kappa) be used for this purpose. Thus a 32κ memory means one of exactly 32,768 words. Doubling it produces a 64κ memory which is exactly 65,536 words. As memories get larger and go into the millions of words, one can speak of a 32κ²(33,554,432-word) memory and doubling it will yield a 64κ² (67,108,864-word) memory. Users of the language will need to have at there fingertips only the first nine powers of 2 and will not need to explain the discrepancies between what they said and what they meant.

Donald R. Morrison

Computer Science, Division 5256

Sandia Corporation, Sandia Base

Albuquerque, N, Mex.

-- SWTPC6800 (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Morrison, this started out using K as an approximation of 1024, not K=1024! I contend that it was the ubiquitous use of K and M by Apple and Windows to characterize drive size that caused the consumer confusion. We, the practitioners, well understand the distinction but the lay person doesn't. Isn't it a pity that Jobs et al hadn't read Morrison's letter by 1984 when Mac began using K to characterize Floppy Disk formatted capacity. Same thing for Gates with Windows. If, as Morrison suggests, they had taken the trouble to explain what they meant or adopted another symbol, Apple and Microsoft would not have created this mess. Tom94022 (talk) 16:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Using "1k" to mean "1024" is perfectly fine. Using "64k" to mean "65536" is what caused the problem. — Omegatron 03:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Not SI Prefixes Prefices

Hmmm... some people keep calling kilo... mega... giga... &c. SI prefixes when used to specify quantities of binary storage units.

When used in this manner, these are not SI prefixes, therefore it is extremely confusing to refer to them as such in the section heading, and I would suggest that to refer to them as such is to imply that the SI use of these prefixes is the only correct use of them ever and that any other use of them is implicitly wrong and bad so don't do it right? Sounds like a non-neutral point of view to me...

84.9.125.170 (talk) 21:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I think there is a (somewhat philosophical) confusion here involving the use–mention distinction. The right name for the prefixes mega-, giga-, etc is "SI prefixes", and their adoption for the binary sense clearly happened long after they were introduced as part of the SI. Now the "philosophical" question: "Is an SI prefix still an SI prefix if it is not used in the SI sense?" I would say Yes. "SI prefix" refers to the words (the "mention"), not the meaning ("the use"). I agree with you that it needs disambiguation specifying the context in which it is used (indeed, that is what I think is the whole problem :P), but the name for these words remains "SI prefixes", and to make things clear, "SI prefixes used in the binary sense", is the best I could come up with. Making up new names like "SI-like prefixes" or "pseudo-SI prefixes" will only add to the confusion, because the prefixes are *identical* (as you yourself wrote) to the SI prefixes. They are not different prefixes deserving a different name, just the same prefixes used differently. --shreevatsa (talk) 21:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No. There's no confusion and no ambiguity and no philosophical problem. The Système Internationale is what it is, and it defines the prefixes clearly, and it does not define or endorse any "binary sense."

If you buy an "Troy ounce" of gold from me, I can't deliver an avoirdupois ounce and say casually, "Oh, I thought you meant a troy ounce in the avoirdupois sense." When you said "troy ounce," you said exactly what meaning of the word ounce you were referring to, and no misunderstanding is possible.

If you want to use kilo- to mean 1024, fine, when you do so you are not using the SI prefix kilo-, you're using some other kind of prefix. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, and with 84.9.125.170, that using "kilo-" to mean 1024 is not SI usage, and hence it seems wrong to call it a SI prefix in this context. I felt that the only appropriate name for the {"kilo-", "mega-", "giga-", etc.} set of prefixes is "SI prefixes" (note: name for the prefixes themselves, not usage), so I had called the section "SI prefixes used in the binary sense" to make it both clear what the prefixes were, and that the usage was not SI. You have decided that the appropriate name is "SI prefix names". I think this is a bit cumbersome, but it's okay. For the record, I think "Traditional binary prefixes" is an acceptable name for that section too, and looks better than "SI prefix names, when used in their non-SI binary sense." (The section mentions that these prefixes are identical to the SI prefixes anyway.) --shreevatsa (talk) 23:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi

(formatting messed up a bit when I used the :: but this is in reply to the end of the thread above)

If your point is that it may be more appropriate to say 'SI' prefices to highlight the fact that the prefices are derived from SI, then I understand this, although disagree.

When you say that the right name or description for the mega, giga prefices is or are SI prefices I would also disagree. They are merely words or parts of words and their meanings or descriptions derive from their use and application, not their original definition.

If they are re-used as convenient prefices for a similar system of multiples, then this new use or description is not automatically wrong, it then as now has its own separate meaning and existence, and it is completely irrelevant to even mention SI except perhaps by way of explaining the source and reasons behind the adoption.

The meaning and application of words change over time, the application of these prefices has expanded to include their use as binary prefices, and when they are used as such, this use does not match the definition of SI prefices and therefore they cannot be described as such.

I for one see absolutely no ambiguity in the dual use, with the result that if you are talking about

   quantities of bytes / words in any application
   bits on memory chips

then mega means 2^20 and is not an SI prefix, and if you are talking about

   bits on a wire

then mega means 10^6 and is an SI prefix

the main test would be that if you are counting storage units defined in terms of powers of 2 you use prefices that are also defined in terms of powers of 2.

84.9.125.170 (talk) 02:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prefixes vs prefices

Could we please stop changing prefixes to prefices? First, both are correct and generally Wikipedia policy is to leave things as is in this case. Secondly, most computer science literature uses prefixes rather than prefices. Andareed (talk) 00:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Greetings fellow editors. As this article is about prefices and not a single prefix, I think we should rename it to Binary prefices, and link Binary prefix to it. I also think the answer to the question above is quite obviously no. Oh yeah and I corrected the spelling in the heading. 84.9.125.170 (talk) 05:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

To the anonymous editor. I did try to look up prefices without much luck. I did find prefixes more commonly used. Wikipedia's spell checker doesn't recognize prefices but does recognize prefixes. Since prefixes was first, and there is no justification for prefices you really shouldn't be making such global changes. You are also likely in violation of one of the several Wiki policies (watch out for WP:3RR). So please stop it. Tom94022 (talk) 06:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

My dialect is British English, with some experience in New Zealand English (I'm a Kiwi) and Singapore English. I suspect "prefices" *may* be a valid variant on prefixes, but I can't say for sure. Dictionary.com returns *nothing* for "prefices" and this for "prefixes". Given that the article original has "prefixes", and that "prefixes" is perfectly valid, WP:ENGVAR ("Retaining the existing variety") suggests that "prefixes" should be retained.  This flag once was red  06:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting just over 4,000 Google hits for prefices (compared to 3 million prefixes) and I'm inclined to think it's just a hypercorrection error. The -ices ending is the plural of the Latin -ex/-ix ending, but of course prefix is not pref-ix but pre-fix, fix being an English word (albeit with Latin roots) with no reasons whatsoever for Latin inflection. -- Jao (talk) 07:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In reply to the anonymous Tom, Flag, and Jao, and not forgetting the anonymous Andareed, I think prefices both looks and sounds better than prefixes. 84.9.125.170 (talk) 08:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Noted. But what's your point? An editor on Wikipedia thinks A looks and sounds better than B, so we should all ignore past practice, common usage and etymology?  This flag once was red  08:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't that the entire point of the article this talk page is for? Arguing about "looking and sounding better" as opposed to "past practice and common usage"? A war-within-a-war! (I go with "prefixes". I also go with "Mega/Giga" not "Mebi/Gibi", simply because 99% of the time, I'm talking to lay-persons, who think I have a speech impediment when I use "Mebi/Gibi". My job is to fix computers, not spend 10 minutes "educating the masses.") 71.193.198.73 (talk) 19:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

If that editor is me then of course yes. 84.9.125.170 (talk) 09:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The editor above was obviously being bold. 0x54097DAA (talk) 18:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

On the first occasion, sure. I think we all assumed good faith on the first occasion.  This flag once was red  19:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] We need a name for the SI prefixes

This problem with the use-mention distinction crops up again. There is a need for a name for the set of words {"kilo-", "mega-", "giga-" etc.} in the article. Previously, the phrase used was "SI prefixes", because it was felt appropriate at that time. Now there has been some disagreement over this (see above), with the contention that if they are not used in the SI sense, they cannot be called SI prefixes. So if this is valid, then we need an alternative, unambiguous name for the prefixes. Parts of the article use "SI prefixes" for them: "The new standard [..] the SI prefixes will henceforth only have their base-10 meaning [..]" and at least one part uses "SI designation", as in the phrase 'the phrase "decimal unit" will be used to denote "SI designation understood in its standard, decimal, power-of-1000 sense" and "binary unit" will mean "SI designation understood in its binary, power-of-1024 sense."' Both these sentences are talking about the words themselves, but if you take the viewpoint that SI prefixes unambiguously mean "SI prefixes used in the SI sense", then they seem redundant (or wrong). So we need a new name for the words which can be used. I propose "metric prefixes", since these prefixes came into common usage with the metric system in the 18th century, and the phrase does not seem to have the connotations of dictating usage of these prefixes. An alternative name would be fine too. We just need to decide on something, or else this will continue to remain confusing. shreevatsa (talk) 13:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The SI prefix article states "also known as metric prefix" so that could still lead to confusion. I think SI-style or SI-type would work, or use quote marks as in "SI" prefix.

Sorry can't resist saying that the prefix usage in the 18th century would have been mostly if not completely restricted to the French, and therefore not common. 84.9.125.170 (talk) 14:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree. The problem with "SI-style" or "SI-type" prefixes is that they are misleading -- these prefixes are not like the SI prefixes, they are identical to the SI prefixes. How about "Greek prefixes" or "kilo-style prefixes"?

Or maybe we could put a 'In this article, "metric prefix" will be used to mean the prefixes like kilo-, mega-, giga- etc., independent of the sense in which they are used.' (Or the same for "Greek prefixes". Come to think of it, we could do the same for "SI prefixes" too ;-)) shreevatsa (talk) 04:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that the term "metric prefix" still conveys the impression that they are used in the SI sense, and so might confuse the reader. My suggestion is "KMG prefix" as in 'In this article, "KMG prefix" will be used to mean the prefixes like kilo-, mega-, giga- etc., independent of the sense in which they are used.'. Thunderbird2 (talk) 07:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

"KMG prefixes" is inventing terminology that some readers may mistake as being "official terminology" so I wouldn't agree with that choice. Just say "traditional prefixes" or "common prefixes" or even "prefixes". Fnagaton 09:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

To call them SI-style etc. could be considered appropriate because the most common use of them at the moment is in relation to SI, and more people will recognise them in this context than in any other.

However, these prefixes at least up to mega have been used in science even before SI existed, and the computing industry has used at least kilo to signify binary multiples before SI existed.

If not SI or KMG (which I quite like) then why not MKS-style (or -type) as they were known before the advent of SI. This will clearly indicate their derivation whilst ensuring that they are not incorrectly named. 84.9.125.170 (talk) 11:35, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

So how about "traditional prefixes"? Webster's 1828 dictionary has kilogram as 1,000 grams, they were applied to non-metric explosive power of bombs circa 1945 and, as late as 1968, my Webster's only has decimal meanings for kilo and mega. Tom94022 (talk) 23:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Windows PowerShell

The section about command-line interpreters is really blown out of proportion. I know dozens of shells and command-line interpreters but I don't know any which support binary prefixes. The support in the PowerShell is also pretty obscure "1 kB" becomes 1024? So what happened to the "B", the "bytes"? That's not how you calculate with units. And "mb" is anything but "Megabyte". It might millibit. It's beyond my comprehension what the developers where thinking when they implemented this but I doubt we need a hole section on it. --217.87.114.55 (talk) 16:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your feedback. I added this section because I strongly feel that it is impotant to mention the fact that the usage problem described in this article is not only limited to floppy disks, HDDs and optical discs, etc., but also exists in current shell scripting languages that were created even after the introduction of the symbols Ki, Mi, Gi, etc. by the IEC in 1999. The way it has been implemented by MS is as confusing as the floppy disk and CD-ROM/DVD usage of the prefixes.

As stated above the given example, in PS all prefixes are case-insensitive, which is quite distinct from other areas were these symbols are used. Therefore "mb", "MB", "mB" etc. are all the same in this programming language (see example). The reason why the "B" for "bytes" is missing is because this is used for calculations that don't actually require units, it just returns the number of bytes as an integer (the ls command also returns the number of bytes without any prefix). Also there are no millibits etc. only bytes are used in this implementation. Ghettoblaster (talk) 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is that it generalizes from a single example. Is there any other "command-line interpreter" (that is noteworthy) with similar support? Also if we keep listing software that uses prefixes in a way that doesn't conform to IEC 60027-2, even if it's just software since 1999, there would be no end. Microsoft and their Windows are already covered. Even if you want to show how absurd this "feature" is, I think the examples take to much space and are hard to understand if you're not familiar with programming and shells. I believe "PS C:\>" is just the prompt, I find it hard to digest and I don't see how this piece of software deserve a whole section. Let me also add that programmers who are one of the few who might have to work with powers of 1024, virtually never used any prefixes at all in their code. If you want "1000", you have to spell it out. If you want 1024, you have to spell it out. I don't know of any programming language letting you write "1k" instead. That's what makes this whole prefix discussion so absurd. The people who established this convention, aren't using it themselves professionally but use it only colloquially in comments or spoken language. The people who normally wouldn't need to know this at all have only disadvantages because of this convention. This PowerShell example is the first I've ever seen where these prefixes are embedded into a language. It's another example how this corporation solves problems by making them worse. A better place for this might be broken by design. --217.87.102.163 (talk) 20:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Introductory section

Hello, I have reorganised the introductory section mostly back to how it was earlier, because I think it makes more sense. The point is not to group similar usages together etc., but to give a clear idea to a new reader what the issue is. The mention of the JEDEC standard only makes sense after the reader knows that there are two systems of prefixes, and the fact that certain areas of computing always use the Greek prefixes (kilo/mega/giga) in the SI (decimal) sense was put there only to underscore that the issue is ambiguous. Roughly, here is the information that the introduction ought to convey:

• There is a need for binary multipliers
• It was traditional in some areas to use the Greek prefixes for this
• This was inconsistent with SI, with other areas, and even with itself (e.g. "1.44 MB"),
• so it was ambiguous what "megabyte" etc. meant.
• The IEC introduced new prefixes to solve this
• The new prefixes were taken up by many standards organisations, and is now recommended by them.
• The old system is (understandably) still somewhat common, and things like the JEDEC standard reflect this fact.

The article as a whole still needs a LOT of improvement before it is intelligible to a new reader (the point of the article is to be helpful, after all :P), e.g., I think the history section should come after the discussion of the two systems... someone needs to spend time cleaning it up so that it is actually useful and holds a reader's interest (is skimmable, etc.) For now, I have attempted to make the introduction clear. shreevatsa (talk) 20:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IEC

Okay. Exactly WHO gave IEC the authority to tell us what to use? 85.225.114.237 (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

No one. Use on WP is determined by consensus. Thunderbird2 (talk) 14:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And the consensus is to use what is commonly used and that is not IEC.DavidPaulHamilton (talk) 22:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

And the WP consensus is that there is no consensus. (Although people on both sides claim that THEY have consensus.) 71.193.198.73 (talk) 19:04, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus to use ambiguous units like megabyte, unless accompanied by an explicit disambiguation. The consensus is that use of IEC units is an acceptable way of doing this. For example 128 MB (128 MiB). Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:52, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

MOSNUM mentions IEC is unfamiliar and to use familiar methods.DavidPaulHamilton (talk) 02:08, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no consensus for that statement. That's why it carries a 'disputed' banner. Thunderbird2 (talk) 08:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is consensus for that statement.DavidPaulHamilton (talk) 04:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

What's your evidence that there is consensus, because I sure don't see it. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no indication the original comment was asking about use on Wikipedia :) shreevatsa (talk) 04:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Its true, but um, then the answer is still consensus. I can go out and say that my method is the way of the future, but if no one listens, then the old method stays. consensus isnt always a majority of ALL people :D 10max01 (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] IEC 80000-13

IEC 80000-13 has now replaced subclauses 3.8 and 3.9 of IEC 60027-2:2005, which covers the binary prefixes. Caerwine Caer’s whines 20:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Are there any changes of substance? Thunderbird2 (talk) 21:56, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RFC discussion of User:Greg L

A request for comments has been filed concerning the conduct of Greg L (talk · contribs). You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Greg L. -- — Omegatron (talk) 00:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC) — Omegatron (talk) 00:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)