File talk:Metric system adoption map.svg

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Cherkash in topic Colors

Related maps edit

These 3 maps

show the year of adoption of the metric system by country, but the coloring is quite different from this (File:Metric system adoption map.svg) and between each of them. For example, this map shows shows several countries in southern African and central Asia colored, but those maps don't. These discrepancies are mistakes (in either) or is there some other reason why these maps aren't colored several regions that presumably have adopted the metric system? --Shadowxfox (talk) 19:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Puerto Rico edit

Puerto Rico is under the jurisdiction of the USA, so unless anyone has information otherwise, it should be colored gray, not green. Cousin Ricky (talk) 17:03, 24 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Burma and Liberia edit

I think Burma and Liberia should be colored yellow (or another color, but yellow gives good contrast) and the description should say "In process of metrication". See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia#Measurement_system and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma#Units_of_measurement. My SVG-editors couldn't open the file properly (looks all weird) and I only just noticed the file was made with Inkscape (which I have no experience with) so I'm not sure I should attempt this myself. As for Antarctica, since it's not a country it's worth considering to just crop the image and make it go away. W3ird N3rd (talk) 21:54, 3 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Officially adopted in the U.S. edit

US has, of course, adopted the metric system (as stated by NIST [1]). Since 1866 (Metric Act [2]) it may be used. Since 1975 it has been the "preferred measurement system for U.S. trade and commerce" (Metric Conversion Act [3]) - but it is not mandatory. Fair Packaging and Labeling Act makes it mandatory along with customary units. -- 2001:16B8:3213:F400:A8F7:2A87:82AA:CFB8 23:50, 27 November 2019 (UTC)Reply

Extent of metrication in the United Kingdom edit

@DeFacto: Your assertion that the metric system is not mandatory in the UK is irrelevant. Nobody said that it was - all that was done was to replicate information from the CIA World Factbook which says "At this time, only three countries - Burma, Liberia, and the US - have not adopted the International System of Units (SI, or metric system) as their official system of weights and measures". Will you please therefore remove the banner that you placed on this image. Martinvl (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Martinvl: the key for the green colouring says: "Countries which have officially adopted the metric system, use is mandatory (possibly with some exceptions)" (my emphasis). And even with the proviso "possibly with some exceptions", the fact that the UK is the same colour as France is highly misleading. You know, and I know, that the UK is not metricated to anywhere near the same level as France. As for what the CIA World Factbook says, it's content is controversial anyway, and I wouldn't accept it as a reliable source for anything to do with measurement systems - as on the same page it also says: "... the American adaptation of the British Imperial System known as the US Customary System."!! Do you accept that as factually accurate too? It's assertion that "At this time, only three countries - Burma, Liberia, and the US - have not adopted the International System of Units (SI, or metric system) as their official system of weights and measures" is inaccurate/misleading as it is not the whole truth where the UK is concerned, as the imperial system is also an official system of weights and measures there. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:33, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: Please read The Units of Measurement Regulations 1995. Those regulations are pretty explicit in the requirement to use metric units, apart from a few specific instances for "economic, public health, public safety or administrative purposes". Martinvl (talk) 15:37, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: yes I've read it, and yes, it explicitly supports my case that the imperial system is still officially in use by the UK too, meaning the diagram presents a misleading picture of the UK's status. Perhaps Cherkash could colour the UK blue, to represent countries that officially use more than one measurement system? -- DeFacto (talk). 19:08, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Cherkash: I have modified your descriptions so as to remove any ambiguity about the status of metrication in the UK. Martinvl (talk) 17:43, 14 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Defacto: Everybody has different views on the degree of metrication in various countries and how it should be measured. In order for the information on the map to be meaningful to readers of WIkipedia in all languages, the input needs to be correlated by some organisation to ensure consistency across all entries. The The World Factbook is prepared by the CIA for the use of U.S. government officials, and its style, format, coverage, and content are primarily designed to meet their requirements. As such, there is a degree of uniformity across the way in which it covers information related to different countries in a manner that neither you nor I have the time (and possibly the expertise) to do. If you feel that the degree of metrication in the UK is somewhere between that of say France and the United States, (which I concede it is), then please find a reliable source that provides a measure by which the degree of metrication can be consistently measured in every country in the world and which also quotes the result of such measurements. Until you can do that, please accept the World Factbook as being the best source available, which is why I modified User:Cherkash's text to bring it into line with the Factbook. Martinvl (talk) 16:28, 15 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Martinvl: I'm generally opposed to changing the file description (and specifically, the sources) to retrofit what you think should be the sources used. So when you replaced "Information based on data from the CIA World Factbook, en:Metrication in the United States, en:Metrication" with "Information based on data from the CIA World Factbook" I take objection to that. So I'm going to revert this.

Another separate point is the discussion of the UK case, which should be extended to other countries: it is actually quite common around the world to use at least some traditional units as a secondary system along with SI units. That's why the legend used to provide for such exceptions via a deliberately vague "(possibly with some exceptions)" clause. I don't see a problem with that. In fact, to account for every such secondary system's use on a per-country basis wouldn't be beneficial for an overview map like this. Cherkash (talk) 15:54, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Cherkash: By all means revert; I will step away and it will be up to you to deal with DeFacto. Martinvl (talk) 16:44, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: I've only reverted the sources. And I actually agree with you on the legend and how green should be uniformly used on this map except for 6 countries/territories, and I've said as much above. So thank you for your contributions and please keep up what you've been doing. @DeFacto: please feel free to weigh in (see my comment above). Cherkash (talk) 20:32, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Cherkash: the problem I have is that the UK uses some imperial units as their primary "official" units and without any metric equivalents required. I think the map needs to distinguish the UK from metric countries. Another colour on the map would be fine, and help avoid the false implication that the UK has metricated. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:00, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: Which "primary 'official' units" do you have in mind? Please catalogue them? Martinvl (talk) 21:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: none in particular, but I could pluck out a few examples: "miles", "yards", "feet" and "inches", as used on official road signs; "pints" as officially used in pubs and by the milkmen, "furlongs" as an official unit in horse racing for track distances, "chains" as officially used in the railway industry for line distances, "stones" and "pounds" as officially used in boxing, wrestling, and horse racing for competitor weights. And I expect, now you seem to have stepped back in again, you could probably think of several more. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:12, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: As I mentioned above, it's not uncommon in various countries around the world to use their traditional systems of measurements alongside the metric system. So the UK is not too different in this respect and barely deserves special treatment. Apart from the traditional uses you mentioned (some of which are secondary to the SI unit markings), most official business is conducted in metric units. Here are excerpts from en:Metrication in the United Kingdom:

Since 1 January 2000, the remaining non-metric units, allowed by United Kingdom law without supplementary indicators for economic, public health, public safety or administrative use, are limited to:

  • the mile, yard, foot and inch for road traffic signs, distance and speed measurement,
  • the imperial pint for the dispensing of draught beer and cider, and for the sale of milk in returnable containers,
  • the acre for land registration, (note: The acre was removed from the list of units permitted for economic, public health, public safety or administrative purpose from 1 January 2010 as the Land Registry Office had ceased using it some years previously.)
  • the troy ounce for transaction in precious metals.
Dual metric/imperial road signs became mandatory from March 2015. Distances and speed restrictions seem to be the only exception (as they are shown only in imperial units).
Cherkash (talk) 23:06, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Cherkash: you misunderstood my post, none of the examples I gave were where imperial is used as secondary to metric, they are all where imperial has to be used as the primary system. Yes, there is a small exception to imperial being exclusive in road signs - in response to the disproportionate number of road crashes involving foreign lorries, metric may also be used on height and width restriction signs, but nowhere else ([4]).
It is a mistake to use that article as a reference, English Wikipedia is not even regarded by its own policies to be a reliable source, and that specific article, apart from being out of date with respect to Weights & Measurements law in the UK, and with its content being inaccurate and controversial, only really covers the limited areas that have been "officially" metricated (naturally), which is only some of the areas related to bureaucracy and administration related to economic (retail trade by weight or measure), public health & safety and government administration (lawmaking).
Other areas that also use measurements, but for which metric units are not required include: sports and leisure activities (course, court, pitch equipment sizes, people and animal weights and heights, etc.), clothing sizes, electronic equipment sizes (screen sizes, print resolution, etc.), tools (paint brush widths, chisel widths, drill sizes, hammer weights, abrasive paper, etc.), DIY materials and many more.
Even where metric is nominally required to be primary, it rarely dominates. With land sales, for example, plots are advertised and marketed in acres ([5], [6]), even if the final transaction is recorded by the administrators in those units converted to hectares in the government's land registry. For Health & Safety stuff, what could be more relevant to that than road speed limits - which are compulsorily given in miles per hour (with metric units banned), or car-worthiness tests which record car mileage in miles? What about baby weights - recorded in the hospital in kilograms, no doubt, but proudly disseminated in pounds and ounces? Opinion polls too regularly show a popular preference for imperial units and the news media, especially the popular press, and BBC output, tend to favour the use of imperial units.
So you see, the UK is, by no stretch of the imagination, a country which has "officially adopted the metric system". The best we can say is it's a "mainly imperial system country which has adopted the metric system for a limited number of applications related to retail trade by weight or measure and the administration of certain health & safety related and government administration related areas." And I'm not sure how many other countries, other than the US, are un-metricated to a similar extent (BBC article about it). -- DeFacto (talk). 11:08, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: Paragraph 1.10 of the final report of the Metrication Board reads "Thus while most sectors are metric or largely metric two major sectors are not: retailing of weighed out foods and many sales by length, volume or area; and speed limits and road distance, height and weight signs." Of those areas that were identified in the report, the weighing out of food etc was metricated in 2000, it became mandatory to show dual units on road height signs in 2015 and at the same time lower case "t" (tonnes) became mandatory for maximum weights on road signs. All that remains on the list is road speed limits and distances.
In respect of your list, you cherry-picked a few examples. When did you last go into a DIY shop to buy timber or paint? I checked the B&Q site. Drills, chisels and abrasive paper are metric while hammers and paint brushes are specified in imperial units. (You got 2 right out of 5).
In the dairy industry, all wholesale transactions are conducted using metric units, the cheese and butter sectors of the industry are wholly metric. Together this makes up well over half of the industry. Milk sold in glass bottles only makes up 3% of milk sales. If we move onto the alcoholic drinks industry, again the wholesale sector of that industry is wholly metric (including taxation rates), in the retail sector, wines and spirits are wholly metric. The only part of the industry where it is mandatory to use imperial units is the retail sale of draught beer and cider. Canned and bottled drinks must be in metric units (though 568 ml cans are permissible). Again you have grossly overstated the case.
I had a look around Tesco last weekend. Everything, including loose vegetables was priced and sold in metric units. Waitrose and Lidl (where my wife and I normally shop) are wholly metric (apart from milk which is sold in "1.136 L/2 pint" containers.
If you look at the construction industry (roads, railways and buildings), medicine, manufacturing, surveying, stationery, all that you will see is metric units. In conclusiuo0n, I think that you are over-stating the case for imperial units, especially when your argument did not touch on the above industries. Martinvl (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: we know that most retail trading by weights and measures has been metricated, and the UK engineering and science industries use metric units as a matter of course, I don't think that's been disputed, but that is only a subset of the use of measurement units in the UK. What did that report say about all the types of measurement that haven't been (and probably never will be) metricated yet? Of distances in horse racing, or the size of horses, or the weight of the jockeys, or the weight of wrestlers or of boxers? Or the weight of babies, or of adults? What did it say about the size of television screens, computer monitor screens, mobile phone screens, printer resolution, chisels (yes, here), drill bits (yes). They are the proof that the UK is nowhere near metricated yet.
And talk about cherry-picking - I didn't say you had to buy everything in B&Q! And no, road height or width limit signs do not have to have metric units on them too, most are imperial only, but where they do have metric, they also have to have imperial. We buy our fruit and veg in open-air farmer-style markets when possible, and often fresh meat too. In such places, produce is, apart from being tastier and having low food miles and a smaller carbon footprint, inevitably priced and sold in imperial units too - why do you think that would be the case if the UK is metricated?
I think we need to wait until the UK population use metric measures everywhere they have a free choice of units too, and not only for shopping and working where they are compulsory, before we can say that the UK has metricated. Unless, of course, we want to mislead readers of our content. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:18, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: The current questions is not what the UK population wants - it is what the outside world perceives the case in the UK to be and the CIA perceives the UK to be sufficiently metric that they advise their people that the UK is metric.
Earlier on today you wrote "And I'm not sure how many other countries, other than the US, are un-metricated to a similar extent". If there are other countries that are unmetrticated to a similar extent, then they too should have the same colour as the UK. Unless you can positvely identify such countries, or positively demonstrate that they do not exist, it is improper to adopt your definiton for the UK and the CIA's for every other country.
Also, for the record, it is now mandatory for all new height and width warning and proihibition road signs in the UK to have dual units - see Sections 5.5 and 5.6. I am surprised that given your interest in the motor industry you had not picked that up. Martinvl (talk) 21:27, 17 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Martinvl: you wrote "it became mandatory to show dual units on road height signs in 2015", which is not true. If you had written "it became mandatory to show dual units on all new road height signs in 2015", I would have agreed. I'm surprised that you had not picked that up. I notice that you didn't acknowledge all the un-metricated areas of British life, but just kept repeating the few area that are (partially) metricated.

And no, we shouldn't be emphasising and promoting false perceptions of what the UK is, or pretending that an ill conceived account in the CIA book is somehow reliable or worthy. What we should be emphasising are the actual facts. Wikimedia is supposed to be a trusted source of authoritative and accurate information, and not a source of fake news or fake information to feed the urban myths about the metric system. If we do not know the facts, then we should say nothing, and not invent stuff, desperately trying to justify it with a cherry-picked source, regardless of it's accuracy or reliability. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:18, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@DeFacto and Cherkash: I have checked Commons:Project scope/Neutral point of view for the official Commons viewpoint where disputes arise such as we are having are resolved. That page says that although the file should not be changed the "dispute notice" should remain in place to allow users to take what action they see fit. Since the wording on the dispute notice that DeFacto supplied is directed at other Commons editors, rather than Commons users, I have reworded it so that it addresses the correct audience. Martinvl (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: the template documentation, explaining to the editor how to use the template say: 'Add {{disputed diagram|why}} to the top of the disputed diagram, replacing "why" with your reason.' (My underlining). So I restored my reason. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:57, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: The final sentence of the page COM:NPOV states "However, neutrality of description should be aimed at wherever possible, and in any event neither filenames nor text may be phrased in such a way as to constitute vandalism, attack or deliberate provocation". I do not regard your reason as being couched in "neutral" terms - in particular the use of the phrase "the UK has only adopted it for certain applications" understates the degree of metrication in the UK. The Oxford Concise Dictionary describes the word "certain" as "some though perhaps not much" which is an understatement of the true state of affairs. Will you please reword it to show that the majority of applications in the UK use metric units. Martinvl (talk) 18:08, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: COM:NPOV only applies to the text in the description box for the file, not to the reason for adding a 'disputed' template. And even if it did, my reason does not contravene it, and as they are the reasons for th template, I see no reason to change them. The UK has only "oficially adopted" the metric system in a few areas to do with retail trading by weights and measures and government administration/bureaucracy. Sure commerce and industry largely uses metric too, but not for any "official" reason, but because it chooses to. Most other applications of measurement units, in most other walks of life, use imperial units, as we have seen above, so to say the UK is a country "which [has] officially adopted the metric system" is, at best, misleading. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:12, 19 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: Your work in Commons tells me that you are a good photographer – I would not be surprised to find out that you are a professional photographer. Unfortunately I cannot say the same about your knowledge of the law. What you have written, and especially the way in which you use the word "official" has a very strong flavour of WP:SYN. My own understanding of the law, based on a module that I did at university on business law and what I have read regarding the application of metrication and the EU, is as follows:
Prior to the UK joining the EEC, British law regarding weights and measures applied to commercial transactions only. The professions were left to look after their own affairs.
Once the UK joined the EEC, EEC directives became part of British law. In some cases nothing needed doing to the existing law but in other cases, British law needed adjusting in order to reflect the requriement of the directive. In the case of units of measure, laws regarding trading needed changing but other aspects of life that handled units of measure were dealt with by the professions concerned, but they were part of the law just the same.
 
Channel Tunnel Rail Link wayside marker
Suppose, hypothetically, that a hospital's procedures (imported from the US) required that their staff to use degrees Fahrenheit instead of degrees Celsius and a patient died as a consequence of a resulting mix-up, then the hospital could have been sued for malpractice on grounds that the EEC directive (which is part of the law) demanded that degrees Celsius be used for all public health purposes.
The reason for this was to ensure that no country used non-tariff regulations to inhibit trade – for example the Channel Tunnel Railway Line was required by law to use metric units so that any contractor anywhere in the EU could compete with UK contractors on equal terms to bid for the contract. Another example was the construction of the Millau Viaduct in France where five teams bid for the contract. The winning design was by a team headed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and English architect Norman Foster.
Does this put my case into perspective? Martinvl (talk) 21:27, 20 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl:
 
Level crossing information plate showing its distance along the line as 14 miles 8 chains
you are totally missing the point. I am not disputing that the UK uses metric units "officially" for some purposes. What I am disputing is the portrayal on this map of the UK as if it has "officially adopted the metric system" to the same extent as France, Germany, etc., when, as we have seen above, we know that it has not, and indeed officially uses the imperial system for many purposes, including ones related to safety.-- DeFacto (talk). 07:07, 21 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@DeFacto: I think you are confusing "officially adopted" with "widespread acceptance and use". The former is the case (as already outlined above by Martinvl), while the latter may not be. For the purpose of this map, only the official adoption (in law and by the government decrees) is relevant. And so while some of your arguments and examples of everyday use are no doubt valid, this doesn't take away from the fact that the UK is officially a metric country. Cherkash (talk) 23:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Cherkash: no, I'm not confusing those two things. It is "official adoption" that I am concerned with. The UK has two officially adopted systems, the imperial system is mandated for some "official" applications and the metric system for many others. For that reason, I believe it is misleading to colour the UK the same as France on the map, with the key implying that only the metric system is officially adopted there. And similarly, the key impies that the US hasn't adopted the metric system officially for any applications, when it has. Further, I don't think the CIA Factbook is a reliable source, and indeed the US government's National Institute of Standards and Technology say of the CIA Factbook that it "is one of the often cited sources of the U.S./Liberia/Burma metric myth", and describe why they think the CIA say that and how it is "perpetuating the metric myth and elevating the map to a pop culture meme", on this webpage. -- DeFacto (talk). 11:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: The default system of units for "official" purposes in the United Kingdom are metric units - imperial units are only used for a few specific named exceptions. Paragraphs 1.1 and 1.6 of the current version of the Weights and Measures Act 1985 clarifies this with reference to The Units of Measurement Regulation 1986. The word "official" does not enter into any of these pieces of legislation, so by the word "official", I assume that you mean "economic, health, safety or administrative purposes" (as per the 1986 regulations). I therefore regard the banner that you added to the article as being misleading. [signature added later] Martinvl (talk) 11:00, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: I'm not sure why you think we would limit "official" to just those four specific applications. Perhaps it's because they just happen to be the four applications that fall within the scope of that legislation. And what could be more safety related than speed limits, for which the 'official' unit in the UK is mph? Why not include the official 'system of units' for horse racing? What about the 'official' use of miles and chains for railway route specifications? The fact is that the UK has two officially adopted systems, the imperial system is mandated for some "official" applications and the metric system for others. -- DeFacto (talk). 22:18, 20 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
@DeFacto: You used the word "offical", not me. If you do not like my definition, please give me a clear and unambiguous definiton of what is meant by the word "official", backed up by a reliable source. Martinvl (talk) 20:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: look at the first post in this section - one from by you, that's where the word "official" was first raised in this discussion. And it is the CIA's implication that the UK's single official measurement system is metric that I take issue with. Yes, metric is a measurement system which is used "officially" for some applications in the UK, but the same can be said about the imperial system too. And given that in the same publication, the CIA also claim that "... the American adaptation of the British Imperial System known as the US Customary System", it is clear that they aren't exactly a reliable source for facts relating to measurement systems. Tell me this: do you support that latter assertion too? -- DeFacto (talk). 09:40, 22 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Martinvl: please do not removed the "disputed diagram" template from the file until the ambiguity in the case of the UK, at least, has been fixed. There is no way we can accept that the UK is the same case (colour) as France. To say of the UK that it is one of the "Countries which have officially adopted the metric system" is unacceptably misleading without given the narrow context that applies too. As you well know, the UK has oficially adopted the metric system for some purposes and officially uses the imperial system for others. It is a bi-measurement-system nation - so why not add another colour to avoid misleading readers? -- DeFacto (talk). 22:28, 23 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

@DeFacto: I've actually already addressed this point at least once above. To wit: many, if not most, countries use similar dual systems. How is the UK's situation in any way unique? And why does it deserve a special treatment?
I'm copying verbatim my statement from above, which extends what I just summarized: "Another separate point is the discussion of the UK case, which should be extended to other countries: it is actually quite common around the world to use at least some traditional units as a secondary system along with SI units. That's why the legend used to provide for such exceptions via a deliberately vague "(possibly with some exceptions)" clause. I don't see a problem with that. In fact, to account for every such secondary system's use on a per-country basis wouldn't be beneficial for an overview map like this." Cherkash (talk) 02:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
Hector Vara makes a similar point with a bit more flavor to it in "An Exclusive Measurement System?" section of his thesis (pp. 387–390 in the PDF referenced in the image description). Please take a look. You may realize that what you perceive as the uniquely UK's situation, is not so unique among countries after all. Cherkash (talk) 04:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
None of this answers my basic concern though, that it is misleading to represent the UK in the same colour as, say, France. In fact, it is more evidence that we need another colour then, for countries that adopt more than one system. It certainly isn't evidence that we should continue to mislead. And the caption does not (as far as I can see) caution against exceptions. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
It is also misleading to represent the UK in the same color as the US. For pretty much all properties, splitting countries into two (or three, or four) groups is going to have countries in the same group that are quite dissimilar. To pick a more concrete (linear) example, w:List of countries by life expectancy#UNDP_(2018), broken down by decades would put the Czech Republic (79.2 years) and Sao Tome and Principe (70.2 years) in the same group, a different group from the more similar Chile (80.0 years) and Guyana (69.8). That's inevitable. w:Myanmar units of measurement and w:Metrication in Canada indicate that there are complexities in other countries, as well; I don't see any solution besides referring to an external source.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:18, 3 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Alternative diagram edit

Here is an alternative diagram already on Commons that I found. It uses different colours, in a way similar to what I was hoping for in this diagram. Perhaps we could (as Jmabel suggested on Com:Village pump) cross-link it, and with a neutral wording which Jmabel might like to help use compose. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:19, 7 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

  • I have added a gallery showing alternative maps of the world, each of which has a different perspective of metrication and identified where each of he authors obtained their data. I propose that this gallery be replicated in each of the maps concerned, but modified so as not to replicate the main image in the gallery. This can be done by commenting out one line of code. Look at the code and you will see what I have done.
  • I have removed two of the citations as neither were used in drawing up this map. If you look at the article en:Citation you will see why I removed them. Furthermore, the citation by Buchholtz was a particularly poor reference as it did not represent any original work which was showed up a number of errors: in particuar the US does not use Imperial units, but Customary units while Myanmar (where its own customary units were in widespread use) is in the process of adopting SI (I have seen photographs showing that petrol is sold by the litre and road distances are given in kilometres).
Martinvl (talk) 21:41, 7 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: Do you want to give consideration to doing "other versions" via a template (similar to e.g. how it's done in the description of File:Anatomy of the Human Ear.svg)? This is a rather common way of doing it on Commons. Cherkash (talk) 03:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Cherkash: good idea - I've added the template I created, and test in File:Metrication.svg. -- DeFacto (talk). 07:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Martinvl: statista, the publisher of that article by Katharina Buchholz, is a company that provides statistics and survey results to businesses, lecturers and researchers. Yes, she seems to confuse the British imperial system with the US customary system, but then so do the CIA in Appendix G of their "World Factbook". On the other hand, Vera confuses England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom with each other, using them synonymously - but that's not uncommon either, and we would probably not use it as a reason to dismiss their dissertation as totally unusable (although there could be other good reasons to do that, which we might discuss later). -- DeFacto (talk). 10:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

Colors edit

This map is a pain in the eyes for color blind people with difficulty to distinguish between red and green. Aren't there some basic guidelines here to prevent images like that? מור שמש (talk) 15:58, 2 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

@מור שמש: I've tagged the image. You can do this yourself in the future for other images with similar issues. This increases the chance that someone will fix it. Cherkash (talk) 23:57, 7 July 2021 (UTC)Reply
Awesome, thanks a lot. I didn't know about this template, good to know. מור שמש (talk) 15:01, 8 July 2021 (UTC)Reply
No problem. Have fun with it! Cherkash (talk) 23:33, 9 July 2021 (UTC)Reply
@מור שמש: On an unrelated note: did you notice how your signature added with four tildes comes badly mis-formatted? (With date broken up in two parts, etc.) If this is a universal bug with R2L languages, or even if it's something wrong with your signature only, I suggest reporting to the Commons developers in one of the main support forums, so that it can be fixed. Cherkash (talk) 23:35, 9 July 2021 (UTC)Reply
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