Talk:Dutch units of measurement

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[edit] Inconsistent

The information on this page seems to be based on the information at the external web link. Unfortunately, the information on that page is internally inconsistent and vague about how the measure varied geographically and over time.

What's the problem? Maybe the big palm that got changed from 96 mm to 100 m? (note lacking 'milli' prefix) In short, who's disputing it and why?
(9.6 cm to 10 cm) Peter Horn 02:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

212.83.87.184 09:56, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Maybe this can explain the inconsistency?

The Dutch system was not standardised until Napoleon introduced the metric system. Different towns used measures with the same names but differing sizes.

These must be completely for sure though.

valid from 1816 to 1937 Peter Horn 02:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe sometime we can filter out the dutch ones from these pages:

[1]

[2]

[3]


Immeëmosol 12:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch units of measurement#Length

akker – 7 m (????) I can't find anythig in the Dutch Wiki Peter Horn 02:34, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Editing

As part of the effort to clean up the pages relating to the Netherlands, I'm going to edit these pages by translating the info from the Dutch Wikipedia. Much of the information seems to be available on the Dutch Wikipedia, as helpfully illustrated by Peter Horn's efforts.

  • In the editing, I'll take the comments above into account, if they have not been integrated already.
  • Users who have been active in maintaining this site (Peter Horn in particular) do you have any objections to revamping? Or comments?
  • I have a problem with the name of the page. I'd prefer something like "Historical Weights and Measures in the Low Countries" or something similar.
  • I appreciate Peter Horn's linkage to the Dutch sites. I personally found it most useful. However, is this standard on Wikipedia? I've not seen this inter-language linkage on other pages. Also, is it useful to people who don't speak Dutch?

Schildewaert (talk) 06:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I've finished editing this page for the time being. Generally, the editing was primarily a matter of translating, organising and fleshing out the text. A few comments:

  • The information found on the Dutch Wikipedia pages is unfortunately mostly unfootnoted. Some of the information found on the various websites are also unfootnoted. This fact will effect the quality of this article. Anyone possessing primary sources about Dutch weights and measures is welcome to strengthen the referencing here. There must be a solid reference work out there about this. The Van Vlijmen website lists these two:
  • W.C.H. Staring, De binnen- en buitenlandsche maten, gewichten en munten van vroeger en tegenwoordig, met hunne onderlinge vergelijkingen en herleidingen, benevens vele andere, dagelijks te pas komende opgaven en berekeningen.Vierde, herziene en veel vermeerderde druk, 1902.
  • De oude Nederlandse maten en gewichten, J.M. Verhoeff, 2e druk, 1983; Publikatie 3 van het P.J. Meertens-Instituut voor dialectologie, volkskunde en naamkunde van de Koninklijke Nederlande Akademie van Wetenschappen.
If someone has a copy of these reference works, perhaps they could add the footnotes.
  • I tried not to borrow information from the comprehensive websites set up by several people, but I suspect that some of the information in this article and on the Dutch Wikipedia site has been drawn from these mostly unfootnoted sources. These websites are mentioned at the bottom of the article.
  • It's clear that this is an endless topic. You could literally list thousands of various weights and measures used in the various towns and regions in the Netherlands. It all is rather charming and colourful, but where does it end? I would suggest that in the future this article should not become a comprehensive listing of every possible weight and measure, but become more oriented towards better footnoting and the historical context. The article could provide an overview, the highlights and the significant points on this topic. Let the other websites provide the comprehensive listings.
  • It's easy to see the various articles that could be spun off from this: "Weights and measures in the Dutch Golden Age", "Weights and measures in New Amsterdam", "Weights and measures in VOC, Indonesia and South Africa", and so on. Projects for the future...
  • Flemish weights and measures were not included here. My choice about this was rather arbitrary, but after all the article does have "Dutch" in the title. If anyone wants to add Flemish weights and measures, feel free.
  • There are still a few discrepancies. I dídn't want to change the work done by earlier contributors, but not everything here was consistent with the listings on the Dutch Wikipedia. For example, how many litres are there exactly in an anker?
  • This topic lends itself to illustration with visual images, but there was precious little on Wikimedia Commons. If anyone has images of these various weights and measures, feel free to add them.

Schildewaert (talk) 08:18, 26 March 2008 (UTC)