A Majority of the world uses MB for Megabyte and Mb for Megabit.. Anyone who does not is a uppercrusty snob who doesn't care for conventions and is ultimately trying to confuse people and be official.. Standardization organizations tend to suck because they suffer from analysis paralysis. Take for instance the OMG standards organizations who failed to standardize CORBA interfaces due to an lack fo agreement among commercial developers, I was once told getting commercial competitors to agree on a standard is like herding cats. The two ways of standarizing terminology: intuition or use. People are not going to adopt terminology from a standards body which doesn't adopt intuition or use as a method of adopting terminology. Like if a standards body was to use "SuperChomp" instead of "MegaByte", there would have to be a good intuitive reason for someone to use that name instead of MegaByte..


Debate on comment from September 2nd

edit
The above text can and should be removed in accordance with Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#How_to_use_article_talk_pages as it allows "Deleting material not relevant to improving the article". The comment is not even signed and borders on vandalism. People restoring this useless text repeatedly, did not even bother to add the missing signature. --NotSarenne 19:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#How_to_use_article_talk_pages is a guideline for your own comments on talk pages, it does not give you the right to alter or remove the comments of others. It is an opinion you do not agree with, a big difference from vandalism. Likewise, there is no policy against removing someone's comments because they didn't sign. Their ip is recorded in the history, and their are bots that often come around and auto-sign for people who forget. --Marty Goldberg 19:30, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Let me tell you, I'm baffled. Regarding your last point, I did not claim a missing signature justifies a removal. What I meant is if you care so much about rules or guidelines and this single comment, you should (but don't have to) at least add a proper signature to it. Now, let's get to the main point: "Removal of other's comment". Since you're not willing to read the guidelines over there, let me copy the section over here:

Others' comments

It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Do not strikeout the comments of other editors without their permission.

Never edit someone's words to change their meaning. Editing others' comments is sometimes allowed, but you should exercise caution in doingso. Some examples of appropriately editing others' comments:

* If you have their permission
* Removing prohibited material such as libel and personal details
* Deleting material not relevant to improving the article (per the above subsection #How to use article talk pages)."

--NotSarenne 19:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

And once again, that's your personal opinion that its not relevant to improving the article. Since you have a propensity to want to read what you want in to guidelines rather than actually reading them: That editing guideline is towards actual vandalism or comments that are disruptive to discussions on the talk page (such as if someone were to suddenly interrupt this and post "you're all a bunch of morons" on this page). You *will not* find an admin that sees the user's statement as anything other than their statement on usage, and their attempt at a meaningful contribution. And once again, an ip not signing is not a statement on their lack of sincerity or value of the content. --Marty Goldberg 19:55, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
What are you tryint to imply with "once again"? You've never told me this before. It is not just my personal opinion. It is an obvious fact. If those guidelines were referring solely to vandalism, they'd clearly say so and not use the phrase "not improving the article". The latter obviously includes rants and chatter that may very well be on-topic but not about modifying/improving the article or providing sources that could incorporated into the article. As you might have noticed I'm planning on penalize the author who added the text because I don't care who added it for what reasons. Stop putting words into my mouth by saying "not signing is not a statement on their lack of sincerity or value of the content" because I never claimed anything like that. --NotSarenne 20:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Which again, is your opinion, not fact. *You* are interpreting his statements in that manner, it does *not* make it a fact. I can say none of your comments here are in regards to improving the article as well, but that wouldn't make it fact. His comment is a common example of contributions on talk pages, it addresses itself as an opinion on usage for the actual article's content, and it does not violate any of the policies or guidelines. If you insist on interpreting the guidelines how you want to make disruptive edits to remove other people's valid comments on this talk page, admins will get involved. --Marty Goldberg 20:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Obviously, text has to be interpreted to a certain degree to be perceived and understood by a human being but I'd been surprised if a significant amount of people would disagree with me about this part of the guidelines. Yes, the comment is "common example" and it's also an example for text that may safely be removed in accordance with relevant guidelines. You are actually not supposed to threaten me with admin intervention over such a disagreement. I would , however, do not mind in the least if some admins finally got involved. --NotSarenne 20:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Once again, don't start giving directives to people as you've also done on their talk pages. You're not an admin, and that's not a threat, but a fact - your edits are being viewed as disruptive by longtime contributors to Wikipedia and are being watched. An admin has also been directed towards this page. And once again, its not an example of text that may be safely removed - again and again, that's your opinion. The text is simply someone's contribution that goes against your position, as you stated in your initial edit to remove it. --Marty Goldberg 20:21, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Please, provide some evidence that shows the comment improves the article and if you can't, stop arguing against facts. You're also wrong when you claim that I just wanted to remove it based on the viewpoint. The text could very well be inverted in its meaning and it would still contribute nothing to improve the article. --NotSarenne 21:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Once again, your opinions are opinions not facts. Stop arguing against this simple fact. You also very clearly stated "blanked; this was no discussion; it was a sermon and a cheap attempt to insult", and did the edit during the context of your barrage of kib/mib/etc. pushing edits as User:217.87.99.127 and other ip's. The more you talk, the more you prove to people that your are indeed Sarenne, right down to the same reasoning, attitude, and propensity to run around in circles. As stated, admins have been contacted and will weigh in. Until then, this page stays, regardless of any conditions or claims on other people's need to prove you may try and dictate. Again, you are *not* an administrator. But I know you won't be able to resist writing just one more time to argue and argue and argue as you have been on every single page you're in a debate on. Just like old times Sarenne. --Marty Goldberg 21:11, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply
Could you explain the difference between an opinion and a fact and tell me why your opinions are apparently facts? You accuse me of a "barrage" because I'm able to edit more than one article per hour? I edited only a handful of articles. Can you imagine that the similarities in reasoning and running in cycles is the result of your attitude towards anyone who supports the IEC standard prefixes? You don't have to tell me that I am no admin. I never claimed being one nor do I have to be one to make edits in accordance with the references guidelines. I hope you know that I cannot prove that I am NOT Sarenne and, furthermore, it's up to you to prove that I am Sarenne, if you like to claim that in public. I've truthfully you and your friends several times that I'm not Sarenne and I've also asked you to stop your false accusations. --NotSarenne 21:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Okay, both of you should take a time out.

NotSarenne: Is the above comment really that big of a deal? Yes, it was insulting and not ultimately useful in helping improve the article, but it is not clearly gibberish and completely unrelated either - you could interpret the statement as saying that because the vast majority of people use the term "MB" for "Megabyte" and "Mb" for "Megabit", stating otherwise in the article would be counterproductive. Regardless of how it's stated, there is some relevance to the article... and furthermore, there's really no point in arguing so heavily over it. Please don't disrupt Wikipedia to make a point.

Marty: Likewise, please keep it civil and refrain from making personal attacks on other users. Keep it cool and keep it focused on the article - if you have a personal issue with NotSarenne, I'd suggest you take it to his/her user talk page - otherwise, you also may be making points that don't really need to be made.

My own interpretation on this is that it's not really necessary to quibble so much over whether the above comment should be there. It's not libelous against anyone in particular, and regardless of the fact that I personally find it somewhat offensive, I don't see it as big enough of a deal to get worked up over. I say leave it there and either ignore it or take from it what you can, but otherwise just move on and continue work on the article itself. You're taking up far more space on Wikipedia's servers with this argument than the original comment does. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 22:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply