Template talk:SI multiples

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Templates for deletion This template was considered for deletion on 2007 August 23. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

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[edit] Missing fractional units

Is there some reason why this table doesn't include fractions of the base units? The absence of the millihenry, microwatt, and picofarad are quite noticeable in their respective articles, as would be the decibel, centimeter, millivolt, microgram, and femtosecond if this template were used in these units' base articles. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 00:40, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Um… I suppose I should thank the readers of this template for not pointing out to me that the fractional units are in a second column to the right of the others, and apparently have been there since Urhixidur created the template. But I'll point it out anyway, since I raised the supposed issue. Considering the effort I took to cite specific instances where the non-missing prefixes would be essential, I couldn't be more embarrassed over my inexplicable failure to notice them. I apologize to Urhixidur for my error. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 19:53, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I actually just did exactly the same thing as you.... I think it needs to be rearranged. Fosnez 11:14, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why does this exist?

Seriously - why? This template seems to be used on any unit page. This information is *highly* redundant. If you want to know about SI prefixes, look at the page SI prefix. Can I please nominate this for deletion? Fresheneesz 08:43, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't see the point of it, either. --Heron 19:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I have no idea. — Omegatron 21:18, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
The primary reason it exists is because most of the articles which formerly existed for various prefixed units were deleted and changed to redirects to the base unit. If somebody gets there through one of those links, then they shouldn't have to figure out that they need to go to another article to find the information they are looking for, which in most cases will probably be the meaning of the prefix or of the symbol combination which was linked in the text of another article.
That said, it is probably only the prefixes with -meter/-metre and with -gram that need all of the prefixes. Many of the others could get by with a more limited range of those prefixes that somebody actually uses, not things like zettateslas or petahenries or attopascals. Gene Nygaard 02:55, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
I could add a cutoff parameter, e.g. "cutoff=12" to not display anything above 10^12/10^-12. Han-Kwang (t) 07:14, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, the ranges used most for different units are not usually symmetrical for the negative and positive exponents. For example, for hertz the negative exponents are basically never used, but up through PHz at least are fairly common.
The ones that should be cut off are those which aren't powers of 1000 (c, d, da, and h), for most everything except meters and liters. Gene Nygaard 13:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) OK, so highcutoff=9 lowcutoff=-6 skipfrac=1 to show everything from micro to giga without the c/d/da/h. It should be possible with wiki parserfunctions, although I'll probably need to write a script to generate the convoluted wikicode. But you would end up with ugly tables with empty cells like this:

prefix value prefix value
mHz 1e-3 kHz 1e3
MHz 1e6
GHz 1e9
THz 1e12

Filling the left-hand column and boldfacing the common multiples would look better and is easier to implement:

prefix value prefix value
mHz 1e-3 kHz 1e3
μHz 1e-6 MHz 1e6
nHz 1e-9 GHz 1e9
pHz 1e-12 THz 1e12

Han-Kwang (t) 16:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template with bolding for common prefixes

(moved from my talk page - Han-Kwang (t) 09:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC))

Hankwang: Please explain your motives with the new SI table you've added to three articles. Earlier, you made your best case for deleting SI tables (See discussion on Kelvin talk page, here). Now you seem to be embracing them. Why? Also, I don’t see the value of a replacing a pre-existing, arguably more attractive table with a template-based one. It seems to me that a template is a tool to expediently create new tables that one may or may not want to use. But once a table is already there, why replace it with a template-based one(?); especially when someone can always come along later and nominate the template for deletion, as you did earlier. How can anyone have such a dramatic, 180° change of heart? Please explain. Greg L (my talk) 20:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I still think the table is overkill, but there were some good arguments in the deletion discussion to keep it, and if the outcome of the discussion is to not delete it, then it makes more sense to improve it. Whether the current layout is more attractive can be debated, but at least it is uniform across all pages that call it and all articles that use the template will gain from any improvements of the layout. I can think of other changes as well, but my first goal was to make the difference with the previous version as small as possible. If the template is there to stay, I would personally prefer it to be smaller and as a floating object rather than a big dedicated section. By adding a parameter anchor=SI_multiples or something like that to the table, existing links from other pages would keep working.
I will not propose the template for deletion again, if that is the reason you reverted my edit on kelvin etc. But even if it were, that would not have been a valid reason for reverting: either there is consensus to keep this type of information in articles (which seems to be the case), or there is not, in which case the information should be removed whether it is transcluded or not. So please consider undoing your reverts. If you have a problem with the layout, change it in the template or tell me what you want.
Han-Kwang (t) 09:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I swapped the left and right columns and added column headings. Han-Kwang (t) 09:58, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Wait now I saw what you meant, it's the name and symbol columns that were mixed up. Sorry, fixed now. Han-Kwang (t) 18:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Suggestion. Especially if there can be more than one anchor, and I think there can be, the code that would be associated with a parameter anchor=SI_multiples should always be added, even if the parameter isn't filled in, and if it is filled in, that should only result in a second html anchor. Note that including a section header in the article also gives an anchor. Not sure if I'm making my point clearly enough. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Here are some suggestions:

  1. Actions based on present but empty parameters are nonintuitive. It should require something along the lines of "k=bold" rather than just "k="
  2. The cutoffs discussed above should be implemented.
  3. The default should be to not include the prefixes centi-, deci-, deka-, and hecto- with some mechanism to include some or all of them if they are actually in fairly common use with some unit.
  4. The anchor suggestion above.
  5. The documentation needs to be rewritten (perhaps using the /doc subpage now becoming common in templates, something that can be edited without any danger of editing the template itself.

Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:26, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I've made a new template, Template:SI multiples 2. I suggest that you place further comments on the corresponding talk page. When everybody agrees on the new template, it can go live or be moved back onto this template. Responses to your suggestions: (1) I think it is more important that the template is flexible, consistent, and has an appealing layout. (2) done. (3) done. (4) Not sure. Multiple anchors on a page with the same id are not valid HTML, and a section ==SI multiples== already generates an anchor "#SI_multiples". (5) done. Han-Kwang (t) 19:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improper floating?

For some reason, this template is ignoring the float:right style that someone added some time ago to try to make the resulting table optionally float to the right. Instead, it ends up centered, with no text flowing around it. I don't know enough about the MediaWiki template markup or styles to try to fix this. --DachannienTalkContrib 17:02, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, it displays fine in Opera, but indeed not in Firefox. I'll have a look. Han-Kwang (t) 19:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)