Talk:Q229478

Overly long description

According to the Wikidata guideline for the description data of an item, its length should be between two and twelve words and [i]f the description goes onto a second line it is probably too long, and if it goes onto a third line, it is almost definitely too long. The current description of this item is 24 words long and stretches over 5 lines.

I propose that we shorten it from: an intergovernmental organization established by the Metre Convention, through which Member States act together on matters related to measurement science and measurement standards (BIPM).

To: an intergovernmental measurement science and measurement standards setting organisation. (9 words over 2 lines)

Does anyone have any objections to this, or comments or other suggestions? DeFacto (talk) 21:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

I've updated it per my proposal. DeFacto (talk) 15:56, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

"IBWM" is not common enough to be listed as an alias

@DeFacto: The page Help:Aliases states that " All of the other common names that an entry might go by, including ... acronyms and abbreviations ... should be recorded as aliases". The text "IBWM" is not common.

You have been arguing this case on the English Wikipedia and you asked question of User:Idealigic and User:Arathald regarding your choice of sources.

You described one of the sources that uses "IBWM" as being "a letter from the Director of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures itself [my emphasis] ...". The director never used the letters "IBWM", he used "B.I.P.M.". Unfortunately you made a "schoolboy error" by working from a translation of a document, not a transcript of the original document. The document that you found was in the "Official Journal of the European Commission" which appears in many languages. The Dutch version contains the text "Origineel: Frans" ("Original: French"). The French copy can be found here.

I repeat, the initialism "IBWM" is not sufficiently common to be used on Wikidata. Martinvl (talk) 21:30, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: it seems common enough to me. The US government, including NIST, used it in its documents and it often appears in English translations of non-English-language scientific and academic papers and reports. What could we possibly gain by denying readers the ability to find the meaning of it here? To me, it seems like a pointless act of pedanticism to leave it out. Let's err on the side of caution, and not waste our time trying to define how many instances of it we need to be able to find for it to qualify as 'common'. DeFacto (talk) 15:25, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: When replying to User:Arathald on the English Wikipedia, you wrote "And if you think it was 'misused', it'd help if you explained how, and by whom". Since this comment applies equally to Wikidata, let me give you an example. The SI Brochure, first published in 1971 and now in its 9th edition has been reviewed over the years by many people of many different nationalities.

The groups and individuals on the editorial panel are known as the CCU. It is a "heavyweight" team. If you go to page 106 (PDF page 108) and pages 211/212 (PDF pages 213/214) you will see the names and acronyms of a number of organisations in both English and French. You might notice that the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) retains the English language in both lists, that the World Health Organisation (WHO)/Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) translates both its name and acronym into the local language and that the acronym "ISO" does not map onto either "International Organization for Standardization" or "Organisation internationale de normalisation". You might also notice that the "International Electrotechnical Commission"/"Commission électrotechnique internationale" uses the acronym "IEC" in both the English and French texts. In keeping with these lists you should follow the rules that normally apply to that organisation - in the case of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures the acronym being "BIPM" regardless of whether it is derived from English or from French.

This document shows quite clearly that each organisation has its own conventions and these are the conventions that should be used. Martinvl (talk) 17:15, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: the permitted Wikidata aliases appertaining to an organisation are not restricted to just those endorsed by that organisation itself, otherwise we wouldn't see 'bedroom tax' given as an alias for Under-occupancy penalty (Q10492328) or 'Boris Bikes' for Santander Cycles (Q807961). The notion that an alias cannot be used because the organisation doesn't use it is nonsense. The idea of aliases is that readers can enter a commonly used term, including ones translated into English from another language, to search for an item, and it will find the item they are looking for. Here's a random list of publications that refer to the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as the IBWM:

• Susan Park (2018). International Organisations and Global Problems: Theories and Explanations. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108577595.
• Sanjay Misra; et al. (2019). Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2019. Springer. ISBN 9783030243050.
• Guoyao Wu (2017). Principles of Animal Nutrition. CRC Press. ISBN 9781351646376.
• Yong Bai, Qiang Bai (2018). Subsea Engineering Handbook. Gulf Professional Publishing. ISBN 9780128126233.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
• "Exchange of Letters between the Commission and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures". EUR-Lex.europa.eu. 1965.
• "5 FAH-3 H-300 ORGANIZATION ACRONYMS". U.S. Department of State. 2018.
• "Congressional Budget Justification" (PDF). U.S. Department of State. 2016.
• "GUIDE FOR IDENTIFICATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF METRIC STANDARDS" (PDF). NIST. 2003.
• "Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate" (PDF). U.S. Government Accountability Office. 1997.
• "International Organizations: Contact Information". U.S. Department of State. 2007.
• "Radioactivity Calibration Standards" (PDF). NIST. 1975.
• "Systems Of Electrical Units" (PDF). NIST. 1963.

Why, logically, would we want to omit it from the aliases? DeFacto (talk) 17:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: I looked at the list that you gave me and noticed that it was identical to the list you posted for User:Idealigic on the English Wikipedia, so my answer will cover both questions.

1. I notice that in spite of my objections, backed up by objections from User:Arathald to the item entitled "Exchange of letters ...", you continued to list that item. This item is clearly not reliable as it was a translation.
2. The item 5 FAH-3 H-300 ORGANIZATION ACRONYMS is not applicable as it is a list of "organization names for TAGS use". Looking at that list, I notice that they use "SA" for "South African Airways". The code "SA" is the IATA Airline code for South African Airways - the acronym used by the Airline being "SAA" in English or until 1997, "SAL" in Afrikaans. Similarly "KL" is used for KLM rather than the usual "KLM". This demonstrates that TAGS use is not the same as the everyday acronym of an organisation. I therefore reject this entry as a candidate for listing "IBWM" as being in common use.
3. Based on the TAGS argument, I must also reject every entry that has the text "International Bureau of Weights and Measures (IBWM)" as it is probably a link to the US Government TAGS list. If the text "IBWM" appears without the defining text "International Bureau of Weights and Measures", it might be worthy of discussion. This observation eliminates most of the remaining entries. You can check them for yourself; I am not doing your research for you.
4. The first English-language edition of the SI Brochure appeared in 1971. In that edition the CIPM (who approved the translation) emphasised that they expected the French language acronyms to be used, so we must eliminate the two entries dated 1975 and 1963 as being serious contenders for the list.
5. Finally, please do everybody a favour and list the page numbers - when I looked at the last entry, it was directed to the cover page and found the text "BIPM" on Page 6, but I am, not trawling through 70 odd pages to look for "IBWM" to cover your poor linkage.

This leaves pretty well nothing in your list which is why I want to delete "IBWM" from the list of aliases.

Martinvl (talk) 15:39, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: you seem to be ignorant of the purpose of an 'alias'. They are alternative names for an 'item', like nicknames, acronyms, and translations. If the 'item' is an organisation, they are not restricted to aliases that the organisation uses itself, or even to ones it condones. 'IBWM' is clearly used as an alternative for "International Bureau of Weights and Measures" in the literature, especially in US government publications. Your arguments are irrational and make no sense. You are stonewalling and inventing your own rules here. For instance, you seem to be assuming that your personal objection to an official EU translation has any merit. I do not agree with you that, even if the original was in French (which is not established) that official EU translations into English are not reliable sources, and if they use the natural initialisation of the English translation that is clearly support for the inclusion of that alternative in the Wikidata entry. In fact none of the arguments you present have any merit, as you casually 'reject' obvious uses on spurious grounds, and using unconvincing and unsupported 'logic'. And you did not even comment on the 21st century books that I cited. Note too that pdf readers have a search facility, meaning that if you want to find a word in a pdf document you easily can. DeFacto (talk) 06:31, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: I am totally aware of what an alias is. I am also totally aware of what a tag is. Wikipedia describes a tag in the article en:Tag (metadata). From the point of view of Wikidata the fundamental difference between the two is that an alias can be used as an input while a tag can be used as an output (For example "What is the FAM TAG for BIPM?") The two might have the same value but that is not always the case. Since a tag is an output parameter, it can be stored in Wikidata as a parameter - I know that there are a few lists of tags, but if you want to add "IBWM" to the list of US Government Foreign Affairs Department tags, you might have to create a new property. See Help:Properties for more information. Martinvl (talk) 21:05, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: this is not about 'tags', that is your straw man argument (Q912820). Look at the source samples I offered, all of them, particularly the books. Search for the usage within them. Look at online acronym directories such as Abbreviations, AllAcronymns, Acronyms and Slang, IMWORD and Definition Meaning. There is no doubt that IBWM is an alias, regardless of whatever else it might be. DeFacto (talk) 06:48, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: The RfC on the English Wikipedia raised by Hqb regarding the use of "IBWM" as an aaccronym for the "International Bureau of Weights and Measures" appears to have reached its natural even though it has not yet been formally closed. Looking at the responses to that RfC, I see that nobody supported your assertion that "IBWM" is a valid alternative accronym for the "International Bureau of Weights and Measures". In view of this, we can assume that the use of the accronym "IBWM" is so small as to be insignificant and as such we can safely assume that no-one will use it as an entry point into Wikidata. Will you therefore please remove it as an alias. Martinvl (talk) 19:56, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: what would be the advantage of removing this alias? As I see it, even if it was rarely used, the benefits of keeping it (it helps non-expert users to find the item) far outweigh the benefits of removing it (none that I can think of). DeFacto (talk) 06:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

@Defacto:: Please read Help:Alias. In the section "Criteria for inclusion and exclusion" you will see

All of the other common [my emphasis] names that an entry might go by, including alternative names; acronyms and abbreviations; and alternative translations and transliterations, should be recorded as aliases.

Consensus on the English Wikipedia has determined that "IBWM" is not a common accronym for the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Now please remove it (and while you are doing so, please also remove "ICWM" and "GCWM" from the Alias columns of their respective pages). Martinvl (talk) 13:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@Martinvl: yep, I've read Help:Aliases, which is why I thought "IBWM" should be included here in the first place. I also re-read (and I recommend you do to, to remind yourself) Help talk:Aliases#Abbreviations, which was a similar discussion to this one, and it was clear there that it was desirable to keep this initialisation of the English name for very good reasons. Indeed Mike Novikoff supported me there saying [a]nd as a general rule of thumb I'd consider just that: the probability that any user will ever search for a particular combination, plus whether it can or cannot be found already (e.g. the starting part of a longer term is redundant, hyphens are not distinguished from whitespace, and so on). And Jura1 offered their support too, saying I don't think we should exclude abbreviations just because they are not used by the subject of the item and I disagree with the exclusion any acronym or initialisation that has been used in the real world, even if it has only been infrequently used, because it may help users find the relevant data. To keep bringing this up, with no new reasons for doing it and no explanation of what benefit its removal would bring, is unnecessary and a complete waste of time.

And BTW, You can ignore Wikipedia talkpages with regard to this, as it has its own policies and guidelines which are unconnected with those here. It will be interesting though, to see, if that discussion is ever formally closed, if the rules about consensus there are followed, or if it is just treated as a vote. DeFacto (talk) 20:37, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

@DeFacto: In order to keep Wikidata in line with Hqb's RFC on the English Wikipedia, I think it worthwhile looking at the current version of the SI Brochure. The official text is the French text while the English text is an authorised translation. If you compare pages 106/107 with pages 211/212 you will see a "List of acronyms used in the present volume" in both English and French. In my view it is noteworthy that the acronyms "BIPM", "CIPM" and "GCPM" are identical in English and French even though the English and French initialisms are different. On the other hand, the French equivalent for the "World Health Organisation (WHO)" is given as "Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS)". This more than confirms that the official view of the International Bureau for Metrology is that the organisation has only one acronym - "BIPM". I have therefore removed "IBWM" from list of alternative names. As per my earlier comments, if you wish to create a Wikidata property that maps objects onto their FAM TAG, please do so. Martinvl (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

@Martinvl: as we know, unlike Wikipedia, Wikidata does not have redirects. So that is where aliases are useful; they allow a user to type the alias and be directed to the mother page. So, to maintain the ability to find this page by entering one of the initialisations used for it in the literature, I've restored that alias. I hope you can now appreciate the full value of using it. DeFacto (talk) 21:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Location of the BIPM

The BIPM has diplomatic status and is therefore not legally located within any French administrative unit. Moreover the Parc de Saint Cloud is a "domaine nationale" - I don't know how this affects being within the commune of Saint Cloud. It does however have a French street address. I have therefore made changes to reflect this and also to remove Wikipedia as the source of any information (Wikipedia is not a reliable source). Martinvl (talk) 17:50, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Per the documentation for headquarters location (P159), the value is a town and the qualifier location (P276) is used for the building name, so I've updated the entry to reflect that. DeFacto (talk) 20:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: Like Wikipedia, Wikidata requires verification. Please align your statement with a reliable citation. If you download this document and read paragraph 1.2 (page 2), you will see the text "France is the depositary of the Metre Convention and host State, the seat of the [B]ureau being located in Sèvres, within the Parc de Saint-Cloud". The original text (in French) is shown on Page 8. This is probably something to do with French Law. Now please undo your changes and follow the sources - the easiest way to do this is to replace "Headquarters location" with "Head Office location" and discard the text "Saint Cloud". Martinvl (talk) 21:47, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@Martinvl: the location of the Pavillon de Breteuil is a geographical fact. I guess the confusion you mention possibly arises because of the postal address that the BIPM use. The postal address is explained by the fact that the entrance gates to the Avenue du Pavillon de Breteuil, which goes through the estate, and off which lies the entrance to the Pavillon, are on the Grande Rue, which is (mostly) on the Sèvres side of the Sèvres/Saint-Cloud boundary line. Take a look at these maps which clearly show the boundary line between Saint-Cloud and Sèvres: OpenStreetMap, Google Maps & Michelin, and you'll see that there is no doubt on which side of the boundary the Pavillon de Breteuil sits. DeFacto (talk) 08:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto: You have overlooked the fact that the Pavillon de Breteuil enjoys extra-territorial status (which is not shown on the map). I suggest that you Google "BIPM extraterritorial" to find out more. So unless you can come up with a reliable source stating that either the Pavillon de Breteuil or the BIPM headquarters are in Saint Cloud, stick to what the sources say and do not indulge in your own Original Research. Martinvl (talk) 10:22, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Martinvl:, whatever its diplomatic status, the Pavillon is geographically located in Saint-Cloud, as shown on the linked maps. If you can find an official map showing that it is within the boundary of Sèvres then please bring it to the discussion. Without such new information, I will leave it at that for now. DeFacto (talk) 13:28, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@DeFacto:There is obviously a conflict between your interpretation of the map and/or Wikidata property on the one hand and the statements made in the French Parliament and also BIPM website on the other. Unless you can find a reliable source that resolves the conflict, I think that a statement by Mr Bernard Kouchner, French Minister for Foreign and European Affairs about a locality in France carries more weight than an interpretation of a map by an anonymous Wikidata editor, especially when the French minister's opinion matches the opinion on many websites and the only websites that quote your opinion are websites that copied what you wrote in Wikipedia. May I also draw to attention that according to the French Wikipeida, the Parc de Saint Cloud straddles three communes - Saint-Cloud, Marnes-la-Coquette and Sèvres. Martinvl (talk) 17:03, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

@Martinvl:, none of that brings anything new to the table, and its not my "interpretation of the map" that places it in Saint-Cloud, it's clearly shown in Saint-Cloud on at least 3 independent and usually very reliable maps. The 3 maps I linked above also show the Parc in relation to those 3 communes, and show the Pavillon in the portion of the Parc that's in Saint-Cloud.

Whilst you were in French Wikipedia did you read its article on the Pavillon de Breteuil? Its first sentence reads: "Le pavillon de Breteuil est un ancien trianon du château de Saint-Cloud (aujourd'hui détruit), situé à Saint-Cloud dans les Hauts-de-Seine (adresse postale rattachée à Sèvres)". Which, as I'm sure you know, says it's located in Saint-Cloud in the Hauts-de-Seine (postal address attached to Sèvres). There is certainly a misunderstanding somewhere, but I'm comfortable, unless we manage to find a map telling us something different, for now saying that the Pavillon is in Saint-Cloud with its postal address in Sèvres. DeFacto (talk) 19:06, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

I chose my words very carefully. It is my understanding that under Napoleonic Law, the location of a building is determined by the location of its front door. An example of this is in the twin towns of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog on the Belgian-Dutch border where people have "emigrated" by bricking up their front door and putting a new front door in a few metres away. (See here and en:Baarle). Since both Belgian and Dutch civil law are derived from Napoleonic Law, it appears to me that the "front door rule" also applies in France. This suggests to me that you mis-read the map and took the middle of the building rather then their "front door" as the controlling factor.

Since Wikidata is multi-lingual we should, if there is any discrepancy, apply local law when reading maps (ie Original Research). The only way to avoid original research is to strictly apply unambiguous textual sources. BTW, is the French Wikipedia reliable? Martinvl (talk) 20:20, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ The assertion that the BIPM headquarters are in Saint-Cloud is not backed up by the reference supplied, but the cited reference states: "The BIPM is situated in the Parc de Saint-Cloud, at Sèvres, in the suburbs south-west of Paris." Since both Sevres and Saint-Cloud are outside Paris (as defined by the Departement of Paris), we cannot state that the BIPM is in Paris, but in 2016 a new administrative authority (Métropole du Grand Paris was created to administer the Paris departement and surrounding departements including the Departement of Hauts-de-Seine (which hosts both the communes of Sevres and Saint Cloud). Thus this description is covered by the text "in the suburbs south-west of Paris". M oreover, "Paris" is better known to the average reader than is either Sevres or Saint-Cloud. For that reason, I have replaced "Saint-Cloud" with "Metropole of Greater Paris". Martinvl (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)