Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Automobiles/Conventions

Archive 1

Trivia/Pop-Culture sections

I've added a section explaining our current guidelines on this subject - it's been discussed many times on the main Wikiproject talk page and the consensus is always the same, so this should not be too controversial. I'm particularly pleased to have found an article that exemplifies the way to handle this stuff. SteveBaker (talk) 17:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

And me, I've created a shortcut directly to this what you've added, so we can easily point to WP:WPACT in edit summaries when we delete trivia/pop culture sections. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 05:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Cubic inches

Lately I've seen cubic inches abbreviated as "CID" instead of "in³" which is what I thought the previous consensus was. Do we want to revisit this? All things considered I'd prefer "cid" as having it in all caps looks a little less professional (and I'm not certain it's even correct). I see that cubic centimeters is now abbreviated as "cc" now instead of cm³, is it time to change the US one now? --Sable232 (talk) 02:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The in³ convention annoyed me when I first encountered it. I have come to terms with it, though inserting the ³ remains a minor nuisance. This what we're talking about is at a clash point between theoretical scientific or technical rectitude on the one hand, and practical longstanding convention on the other. By convention, "CID" was/is used — in all caps — to refer to an engine's Cubic Inch Displacement in reliable print sources such as factory service, sales, and parts literature, government regulations, etc. I can't say I've seen "cid" (lowercase) very often, though "cu. in." was a rather awkward alternative that nevertheless made frequent appearance particularly in the automotive press. I would be amenable to maintaining what I understand to be the present consensus for in³, or to a convention shift to CID, or to a permissive convention shift to allow in³ or CID (but not both in any one article, compare engvar). I would hesitate to support cid.

(Another such clash is "lb·ft", which is very demonstrably correct by longstanding convention, and "ft·lbf", which may be more scientifically precise but has essentially never been used outside of Wikipedia to refer to automotive torque.) —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 02:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know there was a in³ convention. I've rarely seen it used in automotive literature before and CID is used quite often (like here). So it would be logical to have the convention shift to CID. I would hesitate to support cid also because I just haven't seen it as often as CID and cu in[1], but I've seen more than in³. —WHATaintNOcountryIeverHEARDofDOtheySPEAKenglishINwhat (talk) 03:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Both cid and in³ are wrong as per WP:MOS. If people are using the {{convert}} template properly, it create the correct formatting for all units of measurement. For cubic inch, it's cu in using a non-breaking space in between. Roguegeek (talk) 18:10, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind, unit conventions that are considered correct for non-automotive discussions aren't always the right choice for automotive discussions. A one-convention-fits-all doctrine is not helpful. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 19:56, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Image convention #8

While grammatically and syntactically tidying up the image conventions just now, it occurred to me that convention 8 is problematic: Don't photograph private cars, it says. Um...huh? Whyever not? What cars, then, are we supposed to photograph? This convention as written makes no sense. Either it is poorly written and doesn't clearly express the underlying intent, in which case it should be rewritten, or it is spurious and should be withdrawn. Which is it? —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 03:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Ten days later, no discussion. Does nobody care if I will tidy up convention #8, then...? —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 23:24, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I somewhat understand the rationale, but the intent isn't really explained. It should be about simply protecting people's privacy and photographing privately owned vehicles (which is terrible wording) should be avoided. Privately owned vehicles should be changed to say "consumer owned vehicles" or something to that effect, though. Press vehicles are always preferred to be shot IMO. Roguegeek (talk) 00:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

OK, but this issue is not as simple as it would seem. As a matter of law in most countries, if my car is parked in public, I have no valid grounds for objection to it being photographed, even without my permission, and I am not entitled to compensation. If my car is parked in my driveway or elsewhere on my property, it may legally be photographed without my permission and without compensation as long as the photographer does not physically trespass on my property to do so. Given that, I see no sound legal basis for prohibition or discouragement against photographing privately-owned vehicles. And that doesn't even get into the logistical issues: There are almost no half-decent Plymouth Duster photos on Commons, for example, and there hasn't been a Duster press car in many, many years. With the possible exception of a small handful of Dusters in museums, the only Dusters available for photography are private cars.

Changing "privately owned" to "consumer owned" won't improve or fix anything. The language in convention #8 just does not square with reality; we need to reworkk it fundamentally or scrap it and fold its valid remnants into the other conventions.

The licence plate issue is a valid matter of privacy, and I would strongly support a convention calling for any valid licence plate be removed or digitally obscured, except at the option of a vehicle owner posting pictures of his or her own vehicle. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 01:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with your rationale. It makes perfect sense to me. I'm thinking the whole thing was meant to be a preference other than bible. I'd like to see other editors chime in on this. Ultimately, the best image needs to go into an infobox of a vehicle with as little personalization possible. This would include things like license plates or any customization. Thoughts? Roguegeek (talk) 20:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

there should be rules (in law) how to handle the license plates, here you can show those on pictures..its probably not so big issue anywhere... --— Typ932^{T | C}  20:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Category:Automotive conversion templates

These templates are duplicates of each other and should either be deleted, or, if the various naming formats have value, should all be redirected to a single one, for ease of code maintenance. Wanted to run this past the WikiProject before tagging things, as there may have been previous discussions of this issue.

• {{Auto ft.lbf}}
• {{Auto ft·lb}}
• {{Auto lb.ft}}
• {{Auto lbft}}
• {{Auto lb·ft}}

Thanks. — MrDolomite • Talk 04:19, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

And here are several more which have automotive versions that perform the same as those in Category:Conversion templates

• {{Auto in}} = {{in to mm}}
• {{Auto mm}} = {{mm to in}}
• {{Auto kg}} = {{kg to lb}}
• {{Auto lb}} = {{lb to kg}}
• {{Auto mpg}} = {{mpg}}

— MrDolomite • Talk 04:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Please use extreme caution when considering deletion or consolidation of the templates {{Auto ft·lb}}, {{Auto lb.ft}},{{Auto lbft}}, {{Auto lb·ft}}, and {{Auto ft.lbf}}. Four of these five apparent duplicates were in fact deliberately created to address certain issues common in automotive articles; namely, reversed ordering of the component units and/or mispunctuation.

There will likely always be philosophical debate over whether to be restrictive and require editors to search until they find the one and only template that will handle the units in question, or to be permissive and accommodate common stumbles with several templates, but the amount of cleanup work required is reduced by having templates that convert the most common improper formats of this unit to the correct format.

As for the fifth apparent duplicate, {{Auto ft.lbf}}, please keep in mind that unit conventions considered correct for non-automotive discussions aren't always the right choice for automotive discussions.This template was created because while ft·lbf is generally held as correct scientific & technical usage, in the automotive context this unit is unknown and not used. Rather, lb·ft has long been very demonstrably correct in the automotive context per numerous reliable sources. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 14:18, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I understand the need for the various input names of the templates to be similar, reversed, with mid-dots, with dashes, etc, as all of those combinations will help wikipedia editors find a template to format information on an article in a consistent manner. Since the name of the templates themselves are not shown in the final article content, the debate over which naming convention is the correct one can be left to the wikiproject.

My reason for raising the issue is that the output of those templates is all the same, and as such, means that any template formatting change must be made in 5 templates' wikicode. This defeats the purpose of having a template.  :)

• {{Auto ft.lbf|123}} → Template:Auto ft.lbf
• {{Auto ft·lb|123}} → Template:Auto ft·lb
• {{Auto lb.ft|123}} → Template:Auto ft·lb
• {{Auto lbft|123}} → Template:Auto ft·lb
• {{Auto lb·ft|123}} → Template:Auto ft·lb

— MrDolomite • Talk 18:28, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying. I'm inclined to reply that articles are edited much oftener than templates, but even though that's so, there's probably a way to minimise both aspects of the potential problem. I envision a single, unitised "In-Sink-Erator" style template that'll take in whatever garbage someone might feed it — wrong punctuation, wrong order of unit components, etc. — and produce uniform, correctly-formatted output. I'm not sure if it's possible to create such a template, though I've seen automated cleaners-up that do exactly this what I'm talking about, using text like

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/(\W)lbs?[\s-.·•\/]{1,2}ft([^²\w])/gi, '$1lb·ft$2');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/(\W)lbs?ft([:;,\.?!]?\s[^\d\(\)\/\\])/gi, '$1lb·ft$2');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ftlbs?([:;,\.?!]?\s[^\d\(\)\/\\])/gi, 'lb·ft$1');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ft[\s-.·•\/]{1,2}lbs?([:;,\.?!]?\s[^\d\(\)\/\\])/gi, 'lb·ft$1');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ftlbs?([:;,\.?!]?\s[^\d\(\)\/\\])/gi, 'lb·ft$1');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ft[\s-.·•\/]{1,2}lbf([^\|])/gi, 'lb·ft$1');

txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ft[\s-.·•\/]{1,2}lbff/gi, 'lb·ft');

Could something like this be incorporated into a template, or would that make an even bigger hash of things? —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 21:06, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Ill suggest we use Template:Convert... --— Typ932^{T | C}  07:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Examples of {{convert}} — MrDolomite • Talk 09:07, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

• {{convert|123|ftlbf|Nm}} → 123 ft⋅lbf (167 N⋅m)
• {{convert|123|ftlb-f|Nm}} → 123 ft⋅lb_f (167 N⋅m)

Perhaps, but it looks as though we'd need to create a new {{convert}} template to produce results containing lb·ft, with no f of any sort after the lb. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 14:15, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Torque unit: lb·ft or ft·lbf

We need to find the original discussion about this, seems that some IP editor has removed the old convention which says:

• Torque: 100 ft·lbf (136 N·m)
• Note 1: Although there are a wide variety of alternate names for the English torque unit, we will use "ft·lbf" for consistency. There has been many changes to this convention page, without any discussion on this page or project page...

--— Typ932^{T | C}  15:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Oog. Looks as if you're right. But, as Julia Child liked to say after a kitchen disaster of one sort or another, "Y'know, in a way I'm glad this happened...". The convention you point to was enacted by sfoskett (talk · contribs), acting alone and without consensus. This does not mean it's necessarily wrong, nor do I mean to suggest that sfoskett was acting maliciously in any way; immediately after putting up this convention, s/he was very careful to state on the talk page (now archived) "This is just a start, and is not intended as a final rule on things! Please comment, add, and modify according to concensus!." So it looks as though the discussion has never properly happened and the matter will need to be talked over so we can develop consensus. Let's carefully keep in mind that consistency is the primary goal of the conventions; whatever unit conversion(s) we settle on and codify in the conventions will result in consistency throughout all articles in the project.

So, the present question is which unit to use. While ft·lbf is generally held as correct scientific & technical usage, in the automotive context this unit is unknown and not used. Rather, lb·ft has long been very demonstrably correct in the automotive domain, which is where this present project dwells. I favour lb·ft, and I believe the preponderance of reliable automotive evidence weighs in favour of lb·ft, rather than any variant that contains lbf. I have a very extensive library of automotive engineering and service literature, ranging from consumer-grade "do it yourself" guides clear on up through automakers' internal engineering development records and vehicle assembly protocols (and quite a lot in between those extremes), and wherever English torque units are used, it is always some variant of lb·ft (lb-ft, ft-lb, lb. ft., ft. lb., etc.), and never any variant containing lbf. The same goes for the automotive press, which never uses any variant containing lbf. Nevertheless, my library isn't exhaustive, so it's entirely possible that reliable automotive sources using ft·lbf (or some other variant containing lbf) exist.

Unfortunately, I am leaving tomorrow morning for a work-related trip to a part of the world where internet access is mostly nonexistent, so it will be at least a week before I can formally participate in the process of building consensus (for example by actually citing references). I wouldn't presume to ask that this discussion be delayed until I'm back, but I do ask that we not close the discussion before I've had the opportunity to post support for lb·ft as this project's uniform, consistent English unit of torque. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 17:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I cant say much about this, because we use Nm here, but we should use the one which is most used with automobiles, is the same used in UK and US? --— Typ932^{T | C}  19:38, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Excellent research and comments above. Based casual searches, I would say that the output of the template should contain an abbreviation of some flavor which can be pronounced "pound feet" or "foot pounds" and "Newton meters". An AutoWeek eBrochure of Engine Performance shows uses "Maximum torque ft lb" and "Maximum torque Nm". Even the wikipedia article on Foot-pound_force#Unit_of_torque says it could be "pound foot" or "foot pound". But I think we are on the right track by using two words instead of three, as in lbf. — MrDolomite • Talk 09:45, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

MrDolomite, just as a point of clarification, the ft·lbf unit abbreviation expands to foot-pound force, not "foot-pound-foot". Typ932, I'm back from Elbonia and am jetlaggedly looking into your very good question about whether UK and US usage are the same. So far, it looks like the answer is yes, both use some variant of lb·ft (lb-ft, ft-lb, ft/lb, lb/ft, lb. ft., ft. lb., etc.). I've checked half a dozen Australian publications (prior to that country's adoption of SI Metric) and four UK publications, and still have yet to encounter any variant of ft·lbf. —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 19:38, 27 July 2008 (UTC)