https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18957
--- Comment #9 from [email protected] 2009-06-06 22:51:34 UTC --- DaSch, I'm not asking for this to be reverted in general, I'm asking for it not to be put live on Wikimedia sites, mainly Wikipedia. Regarding "we have to use something that is written down": Yes, that's a valid point, but then let's please restrict ourselves to what is actually written down in the standards. None of the standards mentioned recommends omitting the thousands separator for 4-digit numbers. That idea is taken from different typographic literature (what you call "widely followed practice"). Typographic literature is more than DIN and ISO, and as you're searching for references to the 4-digit special handling thingy, you will find references to the dot thingy (and other thingies, such as the apostrophe in Switzerland and Liechtenstein) as well. The primary reason I'm objecting is, it's unthinkable that it will be accepted. Wikipedia (at least the German-speaking community) simply doesn't work that way. All that putting this change live will achieve is users asking "Who decided that?" and boosting the popularity of circumvention templates like http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorlage:FormatZahl. If you really like to find out by experiment what the community thinks about this "most people use it wrong" attitude, propose it at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fragen_zur_Wikipedia or maybe revive http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Typographie_(Zwischenräume). That's a poll (still in preparation) about whitespaces in general, it's supposed to cover number formatting as well. Btw. as a (weak) supporter of the dot -> space switch, I really wonder about three things: (1) How will you explain our typographers that the usual non-breaking space is used? They will tell you that a narrower space must be used. (2) How will you explain that {{formatnum:1234}} gives 1234, but {{formatnum:1234.5}} gives 1 234,5? That's the behaviour I found while testing on the Ukranian Wikipedia. Is that a bug or a feature? Nobody can know because nobody discussed it. (3) How will you explain that in table-row templates like http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Verkehrsflughäfen_in_Deutschland (last coloumn), 4-digit numbers don't get a thousands separator, but 5-digits numbers do? This needs to be discussed in advance, on a Wikipedia page where enough people see it for the result to be representative. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are the assignee for the bug. You are on the CC list for the bug. _______________________________________________ Wikibugs-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikibugs-l
