Please allow imperial system site wide

Graham

@Lawrence
Difficulties again.

I need to add weight to sets to account for packing materials, however the actual weight is not shown in “advanced” tab. So need to figure actual weight to add too.
The only way I can find actual item weight in the database, is by selecting the set then clicking edit, scroll down to find weight, which is in grams.

difficult to calculate and will be very time consuming.

The best solution will be allow imperial system site wide AND also showing actual weight in inventory/ advanced tab

Thanks

Calibrick

Oh gosh, YES, please... I end up weighing something in ounces for my own data entry, but then having to shift the scale over the grams to update this site itself. It's a hassle, definitely... (as I usually forget to grab the weight in grams so end up weighing most new parts twice, lol).

Calibrick

When I say updating this site, I mean adjusting the catalog - just wanted to be clear on that. I've noticed a lot of weights match other sites, which aren't always right to start with (not all folks regularly calibrate their scales <s>).

Graham

I have many sets that need to add weight to, and many more to list.

There’s got to be an easy solution, manually weighing every set is going to be unnecessarily time consuming.

Now that we have zone pricing it makes listing sets more attractive as it’s no longer “request quote” only

@Lawrence = more commission!!

Calibrick

Actually I did have a thought that is errr against this... I believe we (US) are the only ones that stubbornly stuck with imperial (which was a shame - when I was in school, they taught us both as that was when Carter was trying to push transition - metric was sooooooooo much easier to learn!). So if BO does accommodate this, it does introduce some site risk as it would have duplicate catalog weight entries, etc., UNLESS the system had an internal converter (in which case that would be awesome, but that sounds like adding new data tables, ensuring code everywhere touches those, etc.).

I try to be fair and look at all sides, is all. Selfishly, I would of course 100% absolutely support allowing full imperial for US sellers - it saves me constant conversions during data entry and weighing stuff twice. But if it risks system stability I would not, as we are but one country among however many use the site (and the site itself is based out of Europe).

Just trying to keep it objective, separating logic from my own personal wants! ;-)

fitbricks

Up until I was 11 I had to use Imperial at school. Once I hit high school, metric was fully implemented.
I remember not liking it much but here we are 39 years later and I still feel messed up with it all.
In real situations I use both. I still give my weight in stones and ounces and my hight in feet and inches, yet if I'm buying a carpet, I'm quoting square metres. When I post, I use grams, when I buy apples I wish they came by the pound.
It's very weird. I can visualise a kilo. I can visualise a person at 12St 4 but not at 120 pounds or 53 kilos. I can imagine any length in miles but not 1 kilometre. I drive by mph and travel by miles.
It's very mixed here in the UK but generally, officially and legally, we're a metric nation and have been for decades.
I still get confused. Thank god for Google weights & measures!

I hope you guys get what you need. A solution, I guess.
For now you could use the 2.2 x system for converting your imperial weights.

Calibrick

@waynstar, I use both regularly also. A lot of my scale model work is in mm, e.g., LEDs, pin vise holes, etc. But my weight and height are always imperial, lol. For baking, it's a mix - I weigh out say flour in grams on a scale (way more accurate), but small amounts are in teaspoons/tablespoons. We've managed to mish mosh it really well, lol. Driving of course is MPH, though we've also gotten used to KPH by watching a lot of Top Gear. ;-)

Graham

@waynstar

I left U.K. when imperial was still the norm & returned 2007 - 2013. The most messed up situation was buying building materials.
All sheet goods (plywood and such) was/is 4’ x 8’ converted into lots of mm x lots of mm.
Yet sheet rock (gyproc ?) was/is metric. Not good!

The worst was “metric feet” - I kid you not!
The merchant would sell lengths of board in 8 and 10 metric feet, which was actually (if I remember correctly) 2.4m and 3m. Very ungood!

@Calibrick
A few of the best attributes of imperial :-

The number 12 is divisible exactly by 6 numbers 1 2 3 4 6 and 12
The number 10 only 4. 1 2 5 and 10

Pi is exactly 22/7 or 3 1/7 Not this nonsense of never ending digits 3.142857 ad infinitum

You can have exactly 1/3 1/6 and 1/7 not the approximations of 0.333333 0.166667 0.142857

And when working in the trade its much easier to “remember” dimensions to cut... at least it is for me

Example 27 3/8. 43 15/16. 18 1/4

Rather than 695.5 1116 464

Calibrick

@Graham, your math is waaaaaaaaaaaaay stronger than mine! I never thought of Pi in that way, huh.

Hoddie

You can use fractions with metric measurements. Seems you're confusing fractions and decimals with imperial and metric.

I grew up being taught both measurement systems, and found metric to be far easier. But the only reason we moved to metric is because our membership of the EU demanded it. Thatcher won many votes by negotiating exceptions so retailers could still sell some products - such as pints of milk - by their commonly used imperial name. This was all political though, regulations didn't prevent retailers from using imperial measurements so long as their metric equivalent was provided as well. A pint of milk was still a pint of milk and could be sold as such providing the label on the product and/or shelf mentioned the volume in ml also.

The imperial system is not as random as people claim, it can be traced right back to the Romans and their conquests of Europe. As new areas fell under their control, and new goods became available for trade within the empire, so too did the measurements used to sell those products. Something from Germany sold locally in bushels was still a "bushel of …" when traded to Italian and Spanish merchants. Imperial measurements began to become standardised by the British out of necessity during the industrial revolution, and were exported as the Brits built their empire, so it became known as the English system.

The crazy thing is that Brits were expected to be masters of imperial units and the duodecimal system used by the British currency. This was base-12 rather than the base-10 used by metric and modern currencies, and must have been a nightmare for all concerned.

Thankfully I've grown up in a metric world with a base-10 currency, and don't waste my days doing maths in my head!