User talk:Bobblewik

Hey, there, did anyone ever say: Hello, welcome to Wikipedia? Looks like you've plunged right in and are fixing all those thousands of missing metric measurements. They tried to convert us Americans but some of us are hopeless. So good job!

Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them:

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

And, while you're at it, if you'd like to do more metric conversion, please do at Dog agility. Thanks! Elf | Talk 18:32, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for google conversion tip! Good one. I responded on dog agility page. Thanks again. Elf | Talk 19:45, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Long overdue Barnstar

For tireless, and usually thankless, efforts to bring consistent to the entire encyclopedia. And for always engaging in productive, positive and informed discourse.

For tireless, and usually thankless, efforts to bring consistent units to the entire encyclopedia. And for always engaging in productive, positive and informed discourse. Duk

I would have cited your 15,000^th edit but the database wouldn't let me find it. You kick ass! Duk 21:33, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I think this is it; Your 15,000^th edit! (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_the_Alamo&diff=prev&oldid=10666198) --Duk 22:11, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you very much! The sentiment behind the token means a lot to me and is much appreciated. I have seen barnstars around and wondered about them. I have now read a couple of articles about them. Bobblewik (talk) 19:10, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To continue the theme of wikilove from above, for all your efforts on making units consistent throughout Wikipedia, visible only through your repeated appearance in my watchlist, you are hereby my hero of the day and here is a gold star (and I hope you won't take offence at being awarded an ex-Soviet honour). -- ALoan (Talk) 17:24, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I certainly don't take offence. Thank you very much. It makes the effort worthwhile. Bobblewik (talk) 20:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

YF-17 Cobra and others

YF-17 Cobra (and others)

Thanx for doing all those metrics! I was just too lazy to sit here and look up the conversion factors myself :-)

serak 05:19, 15 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Cup holders

Thank you for the rather entertaining Telegraph link. —Morven 20:42, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

You are very welcome. I noticed your interesting new article and did a google search to see what Rolls Royce might say about cup holders. I remembered US customer demand for cup holders being discussed by one of Rolls Royce senior sales staff on a Chicago radio show. That article was one of the early results and it was so amusing that I couldn't resist adding it.
Bobblewik 21:03, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thank you!

Just wanted to say thank you so much for the revisions to PLSS. I couldn't make a table that pretty with a gun to my head. Keep up the great work! jengod 19:18, Mar 30, 2004 (UTC)

Just wanted to give you due props for converting non-metric to metric. It's especially helpful in articles like Public Land Survey System. Keep up the good work! :) jengod 22:45, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Keep up the good work

Hi Bobblewik, thanks for the latest units updating, Columbia Basin Project and Grand Coulee.

Check out this free units converter (http://www.joshmadison.com/software/convert/). It might be more convenient than google. I've used it for years.

Duk 02:01, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thank your for the positive feedback. It is nice to hear. I took a look at the converter. It looks interesting. So far I have found the google converter to be very good and flexible but it is always useful to know about alternatives. Thanks. Bobblewik (talk) 19:39, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Illegal enemy combatant

Nice edits to Illegal enemy combatant! It is such a tricky subject. -- Viajero 20:27, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed it is tricky. Bobblewik (talk) 20:31, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As you are a contributer to the page Illegal enemy combatant please see the merge templage that I have put on the article and the section Talk:Illegal enemy combatant#Merge with Unlawful combatant section United States -- Philip Baird Shearer 16:20, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Requests for Bobblewik input

WikiProject aircraft

Would appreciate your input on the dispute here --Rlandmann 22:56, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

SI doesn't define "billion," does it?

Please comment at Talk:Billion#An_egocentric_attitude_of_the_United_States where a user asserts that SI defines "billion" to be 10¹². My belief is that SI says nothing whatsoever about the meanings of words such as billion, trillion, etc. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:48, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A page ripe for you

I've just finished the Geography of India which has many units. I've &nbsp'd all the units, but I don't know if all are according to the MoS. Please could you have a look; I'm sure you'll relish this page :). BTW check out this site: http://www.joshmadison.com/software/convert/ This person has a real cool units convertor for windows. =Nichalp (Talk)= 19:14, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Many thanks for the tip. Take a look at the edits that I made. I don't worry too much about &nbsp myself, but I know that others welcome it. I generally use the symbolic form when in parentheses thus (20 ft) rather than (20 feet). I also use the symbolic form in tables. I hope that suits you. Feel free to modify anything that I have done.

As far as converters is concerned, I do appreciate it when people point them out to me. So far I can manage with the Google converter (just do a google search for '20 feet' and see what it does) if Google can't do it immediately, I look for official references and do simple multiplication on Google. Bobblewik (talk) 20:00, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If you have access to a Unix/Linux machine, you may want to try units. It can convert some 2000 units. It directly converts, for instance, "furlongs per fortnight" into m/s, "2 hours + 23 minutes + 32 seconds" into seconds, or "2 ft 3 ft 12 ft" into stere (from the manual). Rl 20:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. The Google converter can do that too. Bobblewik (talk) 20:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the page certification. I've also corrected Mount Abu's elevation. =Nichalp (Talk)= 07:33, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Old question of yours

Well, not that old, really, but since it's been a while since you posted this question, I'd thought I'd bring my follow-up question to your attention. --John Owens (talk) 05:13, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

units of speed

In tables like that for USS Norman Scott (DD-690), I don't really think it's necessary to put the metric equivalent for the assumed speed in the range--it's just a figure of merit, and anyone can see that the assumed speed is almost half the max speed, which is the line above, and which is converted. It's certainly wrong to do it to two significant figures, i.e. 15 knots ~~> 30 km/h.

Also, converting weapons calibers is tricky, since the English-unit values aren't necessarily precise to the millimetre. —wwoods 09:31, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

units of time

units of inverse time

Regarding your edit to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, 'fps' is the accepted abbreviation for 'frames per second' (particularly in CG), not 'frames/s'. (If you really wanted to go SI, Hz would have been right — and it's the norm when referring to television). A quick scan of your contribs list doesn't turn up anything else where you might have changed this... but that's a mightily impressive list you've got. Keep up the good work! -- Perey 19:44, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have done some previous changes from fps to frame/s, but not recently. Only a few anyway. If you want to track them down, search for 'frame/s'. The SI form Hz would certainly work for me, but I was being conservative with my change. I know that 'fps' is accepted by some, but I do not regard that as reason to believe that 'frame/s' is unacceptable. I tried to do a web search to see if the term 'frame/s' is in use, but I failed. I won't promise to close my options but, in consideration of your response, I will certainly be less inclined to modify 'fps' to 'frame/s'. Thanks for the feedback. Bobblewik (talk) 20:06, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

units involving light

lumens

Could you eyeball Lux and Talk:Lux?

An anon has edited Lux, changing phrases like "1000 lumens" to "1000 lumen" on the grounds that "Symbols are written in singular, e.g. 25 kg (not "25 kgs"). Similarly it is lumen not lumens." I'm pretty sure he's wrong about that—that is, it applies tot he symbols, but not to the fully-spelled-out unit names—and have cited an NIST style guide on the talk page.

What I'm much less certain of is his use of "klx," "μlx", &c. These are presumably valid combinations of an SI prefix and symbol. What bothers me is that I've never, never, never seen them in use. I've always just seen the base unit, with the value in scientific notation. E.g. instead of saying "direct sunlight is about 100,000 lux," in a scientific or technical context you'd see "direct sunlight is about 10⁵ lux," but never "direct sunlight is 100 klx." But I'm no SI guru. What if anything can be said about the use of such constructions? [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 14:45, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer. I have responded on Talk:Lux. Bobblewik (talk) 15:17, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Miscellany

Hi Bobblewik, Yes, Miles do mean statute miles and not nautical miles for space shuttle distances traveled. However orbital altitudes are given in nautical miles. And thanks for the help on shuttle missions, if you want to add new missions, please use the template that can be found here. Theon 15:36, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

Of course, this begs the question (especially considering recent snafus) why they are still using miles at all?

WhiteDragon 04:53, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Bobblewik

NASA gives distances in miles and nautical miles, at least in the official mission summaries. Click on the external link in any shuttle mission to see where im getting my info from (its public domain). (also you can sign your name using three tildes (~) or sign with date using four tildes) Theon 16:19, Mar 13, 2004 (UTC)

While updating all the ship articles to the new table code would be good, I think it'd be best to coordinate this through Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships first, since they have a defined standard for them. I've therefore reverted your table changes to the 3 or so ship articles, not because I think it's a bad idea in general, but because such a wide-ranging change should have consensus before we do it. —Morven 06:25, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Discuss it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships —Morven 19:01, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Same happened with some Album articles where you changed "sec" to "s". Discuss it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums --KeyStorm 17:53, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Graphics in two modes

I think I disagree with a lot of your changes [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Graphics_in_two_modes&diff=0&oldid=14026241), but I'd like to discuss them rather than try to hog the page. And in some cases, I'm neutral; in others, I think you've done okay.

If you want to go and fix the units, that's fine.

I don't really see the importance of lowercasing the section heads, but I don't object.

Maybe my biggest objection is rooted in the how-to nature of the piece; you seem to have another take on it. This is not an article; it does not need to conform to any particular encyclopedic style. "I" is me, of course; I'd rather say "I" than use elaborate circumlocutions. This page is intended to be an exposition of my working methods -- and I don't presume that anybody else does things exactly the same way. For instance, "I rarely begin a new project from scratch in Photoshop; I'm more likely to import a digital camera photo to start with, or start a project in FreeHand and export it to Photoshop." That's all about how I work. Somebody else might have a totally different take on the matter.

If somebody else comes along and wants to detail his -- or her -- working methods, then that's fine, too. But this is the way I do it, and I don't want to try to pretend anybody else works the same way.

Related to this is the issue of color -- color in language, that is. This is a dry, dry subject, like all technical subjects; there is not much room for color, or flavor, or chatty talk, or whatever you like to call it. But why take out what little there is? This is not an article at all; no image is being upheld. Why take out "Avoid staring at progress bars."? It's a sincere recommendation, and a real hazard to be avoided.

You deleted several section heads at the bottom of the page. Maybe it's not clear, but that is where I intend to put in work -- in fact, the main body of the page. Everything you see so far is preliminary; it's an introduction to the meat. Granted it's not there yet, but that's where it goes. Those are titles for techniques I intend to demonstrate here.

I have not the first idea what you mean about "in which jurisdiction?". Anybody can go to eBay and buy all the used software he can pay for, and pretty cheap, too. Sometimes the old version is fine for your purposes; sometimes you want to pay to upgrade -- but still cheaper than buying new.

Mostly I don't care too much about the he/she thing; I think it's silly, but I tolerate it. But I have to draw the line at The Mouse. Mickey Mouse is a he -- there's not much question about it, just ask Minnie.

I think what bothers me most about your edits is that they are all about form, not about substance. If you want to gain favor with me, think about substantial contributions. Another big, important thing with me is comment on the talk page. If you offer a little rationale, that might put your edits in a different light.

You should understand that I invested a great deal of effort in this piece, and all that only by way of preparation for the actual expositions -- the example workflows, the step-by-step demonstrations of how to get work out of your box. All that work is still undone, and the main reason is that within a couple weeks of beginning, the piece was crapped on by a certain user, who went on to crap on a lot of smaller things I've done, too. Now, maybe he's cooled out, but so has my enthusiasm for the piece.

So, if you want it to be completed, you need to complete it yourself (assuming you're an experienced graphics arts professional); or, if you expect me to complete it, be more encouraging in your edits. It's not my thing; you can do what you like with it -- but that cuts both ways.

One way or another, I expect this tutorial will get moved to Wikibooks. If you don't feel qualified to make substantial contributions, you might see if you can figure out how to do the interwiki move without breaking everything. Personally, I think it's a fantasy; interwiki moves are destructive. But maybe you can figure out something I cannot.

Good Luck! — Xiong 熊 talk * 19:41, 2005 May 21 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this here. I started editing the units and that is my main focus. All the rest is secondary to me. In fact even the unit edits are not so important for me. So feel free to revert everything, I will not be upset.

I got drawn into editing the content first with the phrase toss off. It is sexual slang in British English and I am pretty sure that you would not like it to be there if you knew what it meant. I am sure that the article is improved by removing it.

Then I noticed the phrase "Older versions of popular applications can often be picked up, legally". I remarked on the jurisdiction because that presumably relates to law in the United States. We cannot say that laws in other countries are the same. Since it says 'can often be', it is sufficiently qualified to remain, but I just wanted to remark on it.

As far as the 'I is you', then perhaps it would be worth saying so in the article. Wikipedia doesn't have a concept of 'I' that I am aware of.

I agree with you about Mickey Mouse.

In summary, I do appreciate the effort that you have put in. I can understand how annoying it is to have your work modified. In some articles, I stand fully by my edits, in this one they were an attempt at improvement but I am not worried if they are undone. So feel free to put it back the way you want. I will not mind at all if you to undo some or all of my edits. They are not important to me in this article. Keep up the good work. Bobblewik (talk) 20:08, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not going to revert your edits. Maybe you're still missing my point. Right now, the value of the entire tutorial hovers near zero. It's always possible that somebody else will come in and add the examples, the actual instruction blocks I planned out; somehow, I doubt it -- I think it more likely that the whole thing will get shoved into the Bit Bucket. Right at the moment, my thought is that all effort expended on this tutorial is wasted -- that there are more Wikipedians interested in kicking over castles than helping to build them. I'm not going to waste my time shoring up a large and difficult project if the community has no interest in preserving and developing it. Show me that your interest is a constructive one. — Xiong 熊 talk * 09:45, 2005 May 22 (UTC)

Perhaps I am missing your point. I am sorry if I don't quite understand. I don't think your efforts are wasted, it looked like a reasonable contribution to me.

As to your unhappiness with Wikipedia in general, please do not take it out on me. I am not responsible for the actions of others.

You asked me to show you that my interest is constructive. I would like you to accept that I act in good faith. I do not have to explicitly sell myself to you and you do not have to sell yourself to me. We both Assume good faith about each other. If you want to judge me, look at my contributions and form your own opinion. If you think I am operating in bad faith, then complain about me to others.

In a final attempt to make you feel better, I recommend that you undo the edits that you don't like. I am not your enemy. Please be happy and assume good faith. Bobblewik (talk) 13:08, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Xiong your page looks very interesting and a very worthy contribution as a resource for someone trying to understand computer aided graphic art. But why would you want to stop working on something because of minor edits from Bobblewik? Surely by doing this you are spiting yourself more than the wikipedia community? That is your time and effort in that page don't abandon such a good start for the sake of editorial control. All authors who publish have to compromise with the copy editor, or in science with their fellow authors. Think of the big picture. Alternatively host it on a seperate web site and write a smaller page on wikipedia with a link to that page. Either way you should not let copy editing be a factor that kills a project. David D. 17:22, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Metrics in US State template

Please see this discussion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Infobox_U.S._state#km2). Would you be willing to tackle the process of adding standard measurements. It seems unintuitive to me that US states have their areas (etc) listed in km rather than miles. I would prefer both. Apparently, it would be just switching 48 states. I'd be willing to split the task with you -- 24 each doesn't seem too bad, 48 seems collossal. What do you think? Avriette 02:23, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your request. My priority is ensuring that metric units are included. This is a huge task already. I do not want to increase the scope to ensuring that non-metric units are included. So I am sorry I don't want to take this on, but thanks for asking. Regards Bobblewik (talk) 15:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Templates

Hi. What is with all these text templates for planes? Most of the information is included in the infobox. Plus, an empty template is not needed, I think. There may be some use if it contains the data, but if it is only an placeholder, then I think we can wait until someone actually fills out the data. If there was some previous discussion of the template, please let me know. I have reverted Rumpler Taube for now. Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk 23:37, Mar 12, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Chris. The template is from [[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aircraft/page_content#General_characteristics)] and issues about aircraft articles are discussed on [[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft)]. There has been a lot of discussion of the format of aircraft articles. Converting to the format involves adding the template and migrating the data from within the article. Some of us have been doing that. However, it is easier to add the template to multiple articles first, so that is what I did. To be honest, I don't agree with all aspects of the template (for example the use of bold and the inclusion of rows that are merely the division of two other rows) but that template is the current one.

I would be more than happy if you raised this subject over there. I sympathise with you that 'work in progress' artefacts are not usually a good thing. In this case, I plead guilty to thinking that it is a good thing, but if you are willing to discuss it in the project page, I am open to debate. I look forward to seeing you there. Thanks for raising the topic. Bobblewik (talk) 10:14, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WikiProject Aircraft specification sections

Hi again Bobblewik. Could you please stop removing lines from the data sections of articles that reflect the current standard, as you did at Vickers F.B.5 and AD Scout. At the same time, if you're going to the time and trouble of replacing the obsolete blue tables with a text-based data section as you did at Supermarine Attacker, it's just as easy to use the standard one.

Actually, I'd really appreciate any help you can offer with the latter task - I made a stab at it a couple of months ago (working backwards through the List of aircraft), but have been bogged down since then with providing specifications for and standardising new entries. Thanks --Rlandmann 13:04, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK. I will keep to the standard table as you suggest. I was going through the aircraft by date. I will try to do more conversions from tables to text sections. Bobblewik (talk) 19:47, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Temperature lapse rate

Like environmental lapse rate, the adiabatic lapse rate is also a temperature lapse rate. Maybe others as well, AFAIK. Or maybe they are two names for the same thing. Maybe you should revert your name change, and discuss it so that those who know the details can sort it out. Perhaps what we should have is a disambiguation (for now, perhaps expandible in the future) temperature lapse rate article, or perhaps what should be done is to merge adiabatic lapse rate with this article, retaining a redirect there, and restore the distinguishing name environmental lapse rate to that section if they are indeed different. I'd say let someone else make that choice. Gene Nygaard 18:57, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt. I started dealing with the units on that article. When I examined the content and found it to be about the temperature lapse rate, I decided to move it.

A pro-metric edit by somebody else had been reverted with the phrase:

rv - it's expressed per 1000 ft, even though that's not an SI unit, thats the way it is...

I knew that was not true. I looked on the web for an original source for the ISA but could not find one. I was even wondering whether the original values are in mK/m but from what secondary sources say, I doubt it now.

I did see some stuff about adiabatic lapse rate but did not research further.

I think the name environmental lapse rate is definitely worse than temperature lapse rate. I can't see any benefit in moving it back. However, if you think there is merit in that approach, go ahead. I won't object. I don't agree but I don't care much as long as the units are correct.

The content is merely a subset of what is said in Standard conditions for temperature and pressure. So I am not even sure whether it merits an entire article to itself. Perhaps it merely needs to be a redirect to an improved combined article. Bobblewik (talk) 00:39, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Pan Am 103

Hi Bobblewik, I must have mis-understood your comments on my suggested compromises. Could you clear something up for me - would you be happy with one of them? If we just used it and let it stand for now? Dan100 (Talk) 22:54, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Happy, no. Tolerate, conditional yes. The condition is that the issue is mentioned in talk:Manual of Style so that we can document the metric guidelines for this or any other article. There are plenty of people that edit units who need to know the constraints. There is currently nothing documented to stop the same removal war happening again here or in any other article. Bobblewik (talk) 11:48, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Monty Hall problem

Hi - I agree referring to the host as "the game host" avoids identifying the host's gender, but in this case don't you think using the actual host's name (and gender) makes the article more readable? I don't mind so much making the player anonymous (although I'm reasonably certain "Jane" was used specifically so that "she" would unambiguously refer to the player and "he" would unambiguously refer to the host), but I don't really see the point in using "the host" rather than "Monty". -- Rick Block (talk) 00:38, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

I passed by this article a while back. I had never heard of the American game show and did not really understand why there was an article explaining a game show. It was readable but I didn't understand the message. Just now, I noticed some of the references to sex that were nothing to do with the 'Jane' example and decided to de-sex it all.

Then when I got into it, I started to notice that it was not really about how an obscure game show worked. Once I read the article as an interesting statistical paradox, mentally replacing 'Monty' with <term for player that knows where the prize is>, I started to get it.

It is not a big deal for me. Feel free modify it, or revert, as you think best. I won't mind. Thanks for mentioning it. Bobblewik (talk) 01:10, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Wikilinking dates

re: W. Mark Felt

I have reverted your removal of date wikilinks. I felt that you should know - could I also ask what you meant by "reduce low added value links"? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:53, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have the same question. Why are you removing wikilinks for dates? I recall some discussion on whether dates should be wikilinked and the consensus being afirmative, but that was some 18 or so months ago, IIRC. If there has been a change in reccomended style that I've missed, could you please give me a pointer to it? If this is just your own personal decision that date wikilinks should be removed, could you please hold off until there has been some discussion on the question? Thanks, -- Infrogmation 03:07, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning it. I meant that the articles such as 1974 are of little value to the reader. Linking to them many times makes the individual value even lower. The reason why some dates are within brackets is mainly so that date preferences work. Thus 3 September 1980 will be converted into September 3, 1980. It is not really a 'link' at all. The link function is merely an additional part of the implementation.

Dates that are not subject to regional variation (such as year only) do not have preferences. So the issue is not about dates, the issue is about dates subject to preferences and dates not subject to preferences. A year only should be treated just like any other term in the article like burglary. This issue is mentioned in the Manual of Style.

I know that some people link all instances of year only. I don't really know why. I hope that I have made you think about this issue. This issue is mentioned in the Manual of Style. But if you think links to the year articles are important, then that is fine by me. Be bold with your edits and put the article back how you like it. Bobblewik (talk) 03:32, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Units etc

Hi, Bobblewik. You recently changed "four inches (10 centimetres)" to "4 inches (100mm)" on The Ashes. I think it is a little unnecessary to always use SI units in preference to their commonplace equivilents outside science articles. Apart from anything, it is unusual for the measurement to be that accurate anyway. In addition, is there a reason that you changed four to 4? Cheers, smoddy 15:48, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I usually put units in parentheses entirely in symbol form. This partly keeps it compact, makes the job of translators easier and simplifies the text for those not familiar with English. Thus '(ten centimetres)' -> '(10 cm)'. That was why I chose to edit the article. Whilst I was there, I chose to change it from cm to mm and I also changed 'four' -> '4'. That edit is not a big deal for me. Feel free to put it the way you think is best. Thanks for mentioning it. Bobblewik (talk) 16:22, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cheers for the explanation – you seem to be doing a great job with units! smoddy 16:26, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

BQM-74

Hi again Bobblewik. Two comments on your last edit to this article: 1. Expressing thrust in lb rather than lbf is a very widely used convention in aerospace circles and publications. Since the vast majority of our articles here use lb, it probably makes more sense to follow this convention ourselves. 2. I'm not sure why you changed the metric conversion for 40,000 ft. 40,000 ft is 12,195 m - I could understand rounding to 12,200 m but to 12,000? Cheers --Rlandmann 23:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1. I am sure that lots of people would have an opinion on this. Could we discuss the issue in a generic talk page?

2. I am never very comfortable with conversions of altitude. In this case, the article mentioned a range expressed by the manufacturers. This depends on when the rocket motor runs out of fuel. It also depends on the number and extent of direction changes during the flight to follow an uncooperative target. Just like a service ceiling, the boundary from fully functioning to non-functioning is not sharply defined. It is a manufacturer nominal specification which is variable in operation.

I did first round it to 12,200 m because this is usually the precision I use for aircraft. But then I changed my mind because it seemed excessive precision given the very wide operating range to almost ground level. But it was a somewhat arbitrary decision. Feel free to put the value you think is best. Thanks for the questions. Bobblewik (talk) 08:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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