Talk:Earth measurements

Page Creation
I have created this page for measurements that are voted for deletion. I voted to delete one of these, but I do agree they are to insignificant for their own articles but since they are used in dialog I thought this was a good compromise. They should be linked to the List of Measurements page using this format (hour) --TOSrules 22:53, 19 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Hmm... I think any measurement that was mentioned should not be deleted. Instead, an article could have a short definition of the relevant measurement, list the episodes where this was used in dialogue and have the Wikipedia article as an "external link". I thought the problem with the deleted measurements was that they were not used anywhere? Please suggest articles for undeletion if they were mentioned somewhere.
 * Anyway, even if it is decided that all such measurements should be collected on one page (I suggest not to!), the articles should be kept as redirects to that collection page, so that links such as hour would still be possible. -- Cid Highwind 23:08, 19 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * I think these pages are useful in the cases that they actually define something useful, such as saying that this location is "X many" kilometers from that location, or a transporter or phaser beam range is "X many" kilometers. However, to have a list of random references to "kilometer" wouldn't be as useful (unless it was a term only appeared once or twice, versus nearly every ep., in the case of km). In the case of hour, it would be a useful page to define, or mention, refs that include something like, "The length of a Bajoran day is 26 hours." I've created, contributed to, or rewritten numerous articles in the fashion of defining the term, such as joule, watt, Celsius, Kelvin, etc. --Alan del Beccio 12:23, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, there is no reference that makes the claim that Earth measurements are used throughout the Federation. Although that would be convenient, each planet still uses its own methods of measurements as far as I know of. Now, Starfleet does use Earth measurements, certainly. The Metric System is commonly used but old English measurements (inches/feet/yards/miles) are sometimes used also (at least until the 24th century). Klingons also have their own system as well, which was used in.
 * But, the methodology of measuring time has never been explained fully. Stardates, and interstellar units of hours/days/minutes have always been a little vague. In the 23rd century, Captain Kirk tells the simulated Abraham Lincoln that the Enterprise can "convert" to Earth-centric time measurements. In the 22nd century, the stardate system hadn't been in use yet. The Enterprise still used Earth calender dates in ship's logs, which suggests that the measurement of time in that period is still Earth-centric.
 * There are other references which suggest that an "hour" as measured on a starship is not the same length as an Earth-hour. In fact, Vulcan-years are definitely measured differently and Bajoran days are much longer than Earth's.--Mike Nobody 12:55, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, but that doesn't excuse the fact that this page is about, and several refs within the trek universe were Earth measurements, which is what this page, and related references in this discussion are about. --Alan del Beccio 15:52, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)

It appears to be an interesting debate, this page is meant for earth refs that are to small for their own article. I believe other earth refs like cc (which I voted to keep) can be deleted and added to this article. In truth MA is meant for the refs that are not modern. But it is true that modern refs are important to this site, this page compromises both issues. If any other Earth measurement page is deleted they should be deposited here. --TOSrules 21:05, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)
 * I belive CC is perfectly acceptable to keep on its own. In terms of defining references to it, as I mentioned about-- we could note the occasions that "X cc's of Y drug" was administered and for what ailment. The fact that "modern" references are used in Trek doesn't not negate the fact that they were referred to in the "future" and are just as useful to this site as some fictional measurement. The only measurement pages that should be deleted should be the ones that were never referenced on star trek-- which, all in all, is pretty cut and dry. --Alan del Beccio 21:43, 20 Nov 2005 (UTC)

technically everything on the Earth Measurements page is referenced in Star Trek. Balance of Terror Kirk said they were motionless for 9 hours 47 minutes. The reason some or the references are deleted is because they are so abstract and unimportant. If any other article should be deleted is a matter for Memory Alpha:Votes for deletion. CC has already been on the chopping block and survived. All I am trying to say is, if something else is deleted the content of the article should be placed here. I didn't like it being put on the list of Measurements page. --TOSrules 04:41, 21 Nov 2005 (UTC)

Reverted edits
I reverted a whole series of edits that transformed this page into a very nicely-done table with a lot of information, an obviously time-consuming effort. The reasons I reverted it, though, are numerous: first, and foremost, Memory Alpha is not Wikipedia. There is a reason that the original layout was/is Wikipedia-dependant; our purpose is not to duplicate Wikipedia (or other sources), and not to become a repository for real-world information. Second, many other articles link to specific definitions on the older article page via bookmarks. These all broke with the new layout. Third, no references are provided for any of the newly-added information (knot, gallon, etc.). Fourth, A number of newly-added units have their own articles, or are entries on other, larger articles (watt, joule, pascal, etc.) There well may be a need to merge all these units on one page, but in a manner that doesn't break their links from other articles. Anyway... sorry for undoing a lot of effort. -- Renegade54 10:26, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Earth units = Federation units?
Is this Earth units = Federation units assertion accurate? I can recall a number of times where "Earth" units were used for the benefit of the crew of some Federation ships, but these ships were predominantly human-crewed, and may have been used for that reason, not just because it was a Federation ship. There have been references to ships crewed by other species, where humans are either in the minority or even nonexistent. Without a citation to the contrary, it is conceivable that these other ships use units that are more convenient for these species. (I imagine the length of a day would be an obvious convenience for species' serving on a mostly homogenously-crewed ship.) --Fastolfe 02:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not only that, but at least some ships/installations use time that is not Earth based even with many humans on board. Deep Space 9 uses Bajor's length of time, 26 hours. Of course, that may be a special case, as it is a joint Federation/Bajoran station... --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  02:44, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

From "Talk:cc" -- Memory Alpha:Votes for deletion

 * cc -- as with kilogram, seems to be a subject too generic for Memory Alpha. -- SmokeDetector47 // talk 22:36, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Undecided -- My only comment is that unlike kilogram, this is refered to constantly in most incarnations of the show. Perhaps it requires expansion, with comments about hyposprays, etc?  I'm still on the fence.  -- Dmsdbo 14:29, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, I disagree, while cc is a generic term, it is allot less known then Kilogram. cc is only said in relation to medical info as where kilogram is hardwired into the brain. --TOSrules 03:45, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep I think it needs work and some trek references, a list of doses perhaps. Tyrant 03:37, 17 May 2005 (UTC)Tyrant

From "Talk:cc" -- Merge
Ideally I'd like to see the doses of various trek medications and drugs listed in much the way prices are set up on the Latinum page. Tyrant 00:51, 18 May 2005 (UTC)Tyrant


 * While cleaning up Earth measurements I came across this page and liter. I merged the drug dosage information on Drug dosage, but did not yet change this page to a redirect (to Drug dosage), because the histories would not be properly merged. —MJBurrage •  TALK  • 17:19, 5 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Looking over this, this information is (at least in part) both here AND on Earth measurements... if it was going to be a merge, I might suggest merging this page with the existing material on Earth measurements. --umrguy42 20:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The definition of cc is already on Earth measurements, the usage example is already on Drug dosage. If possible I would add the relevant edits to each page's history.  If it is not possible to do that, I would merge the history with Earth measurements or leave it here if that is OK with policy.
 * Regardless; given its usage in Star Trek only with drug dosages, I think this page should be a redirect to Drug dosage which has a link to Earth measurements in it already. —MJBurrage • TALK  • 05:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

New mergers
I didn't get a chance to reply to this before, but what was the point of merging this again? Is cc, or is it not, a individual measurement? It seems to me if we have individual articles on other Earth hertz, watt, mile, Fahrenheit, joule, etc. then we can have one on cc and kilometer as well. --Alan 22:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Any common Earth units, such as mile, that have little independent content should also be merged into this (Earth Measurements) article.
 * The former articles on cc and millimeter each had a very short definition of the unit, and then moved on to become lists of various drug doses. The drug information is now available on the merged drug dosage page, with the definitions included here along with other common Earth-based measurments.
 * In the case of Fahrenheit, Celsius, and Kelvin; I would suggest the same thing be done. They should be merged into one temperature article, in which I would suggest sorting by the Centigrade equivalent for each reference.
 * I would make the same suggestion for other very short articles that would be more meaningful together. The ability to redirect to sections means that linking the term in an article still goes right to the units section, but the reader can then scroll up and/or down to see how related items fit together instead of clicking back and forth reading three very short articles.  Another good candidate for this would be to merge esper rating, aperception quotient, Duke-Heidelburg quotient, and general knowledge quotient all into one ESP rating article.
 * For hertz, watt, and joule; many reader probably do not remember exactly what these are, as they are not used much in daily speech. As such I think their separate articles are fine, although they should be in the See also section of this article. —MJBurrage •  TALK  • 14:09, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I still oppose. M/a is an encyclopedia, not a source of condensed lists. Each item here is an individual unit that can have its own individual article, just like every other concept that appears as its own individual article on this site. This certainly isn't how it works in a "real" encyclopedia, and I see no reason why it should be any different here. We are not the Borg. --Alan 01:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * We should not merge things just because we can. Nor should we keep things separate just because we can.  If a number of short articles are very much interrelated, then sometimes they are better together than separate.  I think that is true for the separate articles we currently have on temperature scales, and the four articles we have on ESP ratings, and these measurement articles.
 * As for "real encyclopedias", they certainly do have entries that sometimes just refer you to a more comprehensive entry elseware in the volumes, and we should not let the constraints of paper encyclopedias dictate how we organize an electronic encyclopedia.
 * With redirects able to point to sections, there is no good reason not to group certain things, any article can still link to meter, and the redirect makes it work just fine as a link to the correct section of this article, and then instead of having to click on foot, cm, mm, km, etc those items are right there where they can be easily compared. —MJBurrage • TALK  • 01:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

...and that is exactly what you are doing: needlessly merging articles. We keep things separate because that is the point of this site. We are constantly expanding lists and branching off from the types of articles you are attempting to revert this site back to. The size of the article is irrelevant, and merging each and every related concept is pointless. What's next, merging Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford, Volkswagen and Datsun together in an article called Earth automobile companies? That's just dumb. The fact that you established a double standard in making your argument:
 * "For hertz, watt, and joule; many reader probably do not remember exactly what these are, as they are not used much in daily speech. As such I think their separate articles are fine...''"

...makes me feel even more sure that merging things together based on subjective whim is a bad idea. Your choice of "acceptable articles" is purely subjective, because you cannot speak for each and every reader. Simply put, in the spirit of building the web, if you truly want to link like-topics, the best way, by the standards this site has been practicing for years, is to link these topics by making use of sub-categories and templates, if and where necessary. --Alan 23:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * When Memory Alpha was started a redirect could not link to a section heading, and so a combined article would require any links to one section to be needlessly complex. Having to type ( Earth measurements ) every time meter is linked in any article is cumbersome enough to be avoided, and so every little thing had a separate article.
 * That is no longer a problem and therefore no longer a constraint.
 * Hertz, Watt, and Joule are three separate subjects, each with significant non-overlapping content. Nothing would be gained by merging them.
 * Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, etc. are very much related, and have much overlap in their content. I strongly believe that a single temperature article is more informative and usefull than the seperate articles.
 * What exactly do you believe we can do with five separate articles (in the temperature case) that we cannot do with one main article and the associated redirects? —MJBurrage • TALK  • 02:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "overlapping content?" Celsius, Fahrenheit, Kelvin, and Onkians (can't forget that one), are all separately referenced units of temperature. There should be little-to-no overlapping content, except in the occasional case where they referenced a conversion (although, other than maybe the onkian reference, I don't ever recall that happening). Stardate is a measurement of time, should it be linked to from the time page? I don't see any difference between stardate and onkians, except for maybe page length, which has never been an issue on Memory Alpha.--Tim Thomason 18:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the article on Temperature, most of the content is the temperature comparison section which uses all three Earth scales. Then there is the bit on Absolute Zero which also discusses all three scales, and above that there is one line per scale that describes the specific benchmarks that define each scale.
 * Nothing about Memory Alpha works better if those three lines are in separate articles vs. being redirects to the temperature article. but the information is more usefull combined, as you can more clearly see the relationships when they are together.
 * Separately, each article would either include the comparison section making 90% of each article a redundant copy of the others, or they would only be the one line long descriptions of the scale with links to the temperature article making each of them a very tiny stub, and requiring lots of clicking to see how they relate. —MJBurrage • TALK  • 17:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)