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There was a question this evening that related to ounces. Not being familiar with any imperial measures for weight or liquid, I had to do a bit of googling to work out how big it was in a metric measure I could comprehend.

I didn't realize there was a difference between US / UK fluid ounces, luckily the first result from my search was actually from a TSA site, which specified US fluid ounces as the measurement.

In the future should we edit to include a metric conversion, or just insist the imperial units are precisely specified.

2 Answers 2

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We should use the measurement system that is used in a particular locale. For instance, distance information for most of the world should be in kilometres but for questions on US they should use miles instead as that would be the most helpful measure in that locale.

The imperial system is used in so few countries at the moment that I don't see any need to always mention an imperial conversion whenever metric units are used. Conversely, however, whenever imperial units are used I do think metric should be mentioned since it's an unambiguous standard (no confusion between UK/US fluid ounces; as an aside, fluid measurements in UK are almost always in litres).

So: 1. Use the units relevant to a locale. 2. If imperial units are used, try to include metric conversion too, but this is not necessary.

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  • PS - By far the largest territory still using the old imperial system is the US. For a background on how/whether they are transitioning to metric read en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Dec 25, 2011 at 11:43
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    The UK still uses pints and 11oz, just saying. Try going into a pub and asking for 568cl of larger!
    – Stuart
    Dec 25, 2011 at 11:51
  • I did say unit RELEVANT to the locale. :) Similarly, for road distances in UK, it would be in miles / kilometres as both units are used.
    – Ankur Banerjee
    Dec 25, 2011 at 13:06
  • I was joking about the pints because its about the only liquid measure in the UK that's still imperial.
    – Stuart
    Dec 25, 2011 at 22:05
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    @stuart. I didn't realize a pint was actually a volume measure. In Belgium a pint or "pintje" is the smallest glass of lager you can get. <25cl
    – user141
    Dec 27, 2011 at 12:58
  • They stopped using it in the continental Europe when they swapped to metric. Britain only uses it for alcohol I think. I know on American TV they still talk about a pint or a quart(2 pints) of milk, but I pretty sure its a different unit of measure.
    – Stuart
    Dec 27, 2011 at 14:12
  • @Stuart I don't think people order beer by quantity anywhere, you are just asking for one of several standard servings, which often happens to be a pint in the UK. You can't possibly expect to get 3/4 of a pint in a pub either.
    – Relaxed
    Nov 11, 2013 at 8:45
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I think we should edit the questions to always include the measurement in both systems. I wouldn't like it if Travel-SE standardizes on either system. As far as UK/US units are concerned -- infer from context or comment.

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    If we edit a question to adapt the units, why not use an international standard (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units)
    – RoflcoptrException
    Dec 25, 2011 at 8:56
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    I agree with mindcorrosive. We can't really enforce it anyway. We should accept edits which add unit conversions alongside the OP's units, and reject edits which try to overwrite the OP's units with a conversion. In cases that are ambiguous or confusing or readers would like unit conversions they can use the comments and friendly passing editors can fulfil the requests.
    – hippietrail
    Dec 26, 2011 at 13:35

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