Duplicate Trope: Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Units

What's the difference between Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Units and Unit Confusion? The latter trope has no description at all (since it's just a subpage), while Unit Confusion's description is extremely brief. Neither one directly mentions the other (Unit Confusion does mention Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, but it doesn't seem aware of the subpage and doesn't make a distinction with it.)

And both lists seem to contain the exact same thing — there are a few more things on Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Units that don't list units at all in places where you'd expect it, but both have those, and both also have examples that use units inaccurately or vaguely. We could split them along those lines and move things that don't fit onto the proper page, but the problem is that that doesn't really match what Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale means.

I suspect that what happened here was that a lot of examples from Unit Confusion got put on Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, then ended up on a page identical to Unit Confusion when that page was split. Probably the desire to square-peg round-trope the thing about the Kessel Run into the old unified Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale page contributed.

But that's just my speculation. The important part is, what should we do with these? Clearly distinguish them, and if so, how? Or merge them? If so, under which title?

(I'd lean towards merging under Unit Confusion, since lacking a "sense of units" doesn't seem to match the supertrope about scale — Sci-Fi writers who use excessive sizes or distances or whatever because they mixed up the units can go under those pages instead.)

EDIT: Tsch. The page is No Sense of Units... could someone fix my post?

edited 3rd May '12 1:09:28 PM by Aquillion

Unit Confusion refers to things like mixing up what the definition of a unit is, stuff like claiming a light year as a measurement of time.

No Sense of Units refers to things like how population demographics don't match up.

If nothing else, No Sense Of Units needs a proper description. I can't tell what it is supposed to be, so I don't know if it is a duplicate trope or not.

That's a really weird way to organize split subpages. It turns them all into Engrish snowclones; "sense of scale" is a phrase used in English, while "sense of units", "sense of distance", "sense of energy"... and the other ones aren't.

We're not just men of science, we're men of TROPE!

I think we also need to make sure that whatever we end up doing doesn't step on Writers Cannot Do Math's toes too much.

If that's the case, then No Sense of Units probably needs a rename, since it's being used to refer to writers who mix up units (or fail to specify units), and, I mean, it's a pretty unintuitive name.

Though, of course, with no description at all it's hardly a surprise that it'd be misused. We should at least give it a description, but we have to be sure everyone agrees on what it means, first...

Wait, by units, did it mean military units?

edited 3rd May '12 1:13:43 PM by Aquillion

@ Aquillion #6:

It doesn't necessarily relate to that, but it can include it (I think it might have originally included that). The number of armies needed to conquer a planet (and the size those armies need to be) would fall under this category.

Perhaps a better name would be Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Demographics.

edited 3rd May '12 3:56:34 PM by Peteman

The subpages' titles were done by This Troper (as you can see in the History), and were intentionally made to follow a "Sci-Fi Writers Have X", where "X" is "No Sense of [topic]". Intentional Engrish for Funny was a side-effect of the massive move.

As a counter-example, if we went with "Sci-Fi Writers Have No X", then the index would be:

• Sense of Units
• and so on for each individual page.

In context, the "Sense of Units" would appear as a positive standpoint on a (generally) negative page. See how The Other Wiki uses it and compare.

EDIT: Valid point, but that would conflict with the general idea of the page being "unit-less numbers". (E.g., "It decreased by 0.3!" would not make sense in a demographic page.)

edited 3rd May '12 4:14:14 PM by totlmstr

Fandoms are insane.

Now that I've looked at it some more, I think it is a valid page, but I really wish that the criteria for what examples should be included on it was better defined.

Why not NoSenseOfScale/Units and so on for the subpages? I just don't see how they're supposed to be sensible titles or funny ones.

We're not just men of science, we're men of TROPE!

If the page is supposed to be about unitless numbers, why is it that only three of the examples actually involve any (and one of those is stats in a video game).

The examples all seem like No Sense of Scale But With Numbers. Few are actually about units. (BTW "billion" versus "million" is not a matter of units.) Also several are plain wrong. Don't see anything unique or redeeming. Vote cut.

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

@rodney Anonymous:

We'll need a place to put the figures that are improperly set that don't fall under the other categories.

The problem appears to be that in splitting the no sense of scale trope, this was created as the Other option.

^^ Not sure what that is supposed to mean besides "yep". Rephrase?

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

I think the problem is that all these tropes are subtropes of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, but that this particular subtrope is just awkwardly shoving in all the ones which didn't fit under Distance, Time, Mass / Size, Energy or Velocity. I would vote to put these back into the supertrope.

So, what's the consensus?

I kind of agree with putting SFWHNSOU back under the supertrope. Unit Confusion looks like a distinct trope. Overlapping examples should get looked at and cut from one or the other if they don't fit.

Calling someone a pedant is an automatic Insult Backfire. Real pedants will be flattered.

Clocking due to lack of activity.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

It can be if the way to reach it by units (peta, zeta, giga, etc.)

Donate money to Skullgirls, get a sweet poster.

Still no. Meters, seconds, pounds, barrels, and kilonazis are units. Numbers are not units. SI prefices are not units. It is conceivably possible to count the number of numbers, in which case the unit would be numbers, but that is weird.

Better to make no distinction than an incorrect one.

edited 14th Jun '12 5:32:09 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.

Should we get a crowner to put this back in the supertrope?

Sure. As it currently stands, it's just The Same But More Specific.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Crowner bolted to thread.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

What does "restore to the supertrope" mean? What about "merge in"?

edited 19th Jun '12 3:01:15 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.