[WikiEN-l] Consistency

Tue Mar 23 05:59:00 UTC 2004

On Monday 22 March 2004 15:04, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> In the tables for [[Montana]] (a state in the United States) and
> [[Germany]] (the country in Europe), we learn that Montana is 381,156
> km^2 and Germany 357,022 km^2.  To Americans such as myself, these
> numbers have no intuitive meaning.  I know via conversion factors how
> long a kilometer is, if I stop to think about it, but still the
> numbers mean nothing.
>
> This bugs me, but I consider that particular argument to have been
> lost a long time ago, and with good reason I suppose.  (Although I
> think in the case of km^2, it would be sensible to express both
> numbers and not omit mi^2.)

It is possible to change the software in such a way that, for example, 
{{num:km2:357022}} would render as 357,022 km<sup>2</sup> for users and 
visitors from Europe and as whichever mi<sup>2</sup> for users and visitors 
from the US.