Use space as a thousands separator

[RexJaeschke]

ISO-042 |   | 8.3.6 | 1 | ed | ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2018, 9.1 Each group of three digits shall be separated by a small space from the preceding digits.

Please write the number as "65 535" if applicable.

ISO-052 |   | B.4 | Last sentence | ed | ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, 2018, 9.1 Each group of three digits shall be separated by a small space from the preceding digits.

Please write the number as "2 147 483 647" if applicable.

[RexJaeschke]

I really don't like this! It seems to me that if one were going to publish a document in English (be it US or British-flavored), one would want to do so use an English locale; that is, the cultural conventions of that language.

As I think this format is French or maybe Swiss-French, could it be that someone at ISO is biased?

BTW, a few days ago, a fellow JTC 1 editor (MPEG) told me he had pushed up to the TMB a complaint about this, re ISO's failure to follow its own guidelines re cultural sensitivity. I just asked him for more info, so maybe we can cite his action in a report to ISO as to why we want to reject this.

[RexJaeschke]

I just circulated by email the paper I alluded to earlier. Unfortunately, it's an attempt to change the ISO requirement that comma be used as the decimal point in English specs, and has nothing to do with the thousands' separator.

[Q-Swan]

@RexJaeschke : I certainly agree that this use of a space as thousands separator would drive me mad as a reader. I assume "small space" means using one of the characters listed at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8515365/are-there-other-whitespace-codes-like-nbsp-for-half-spaces-em-spaces-en-space/8515417#8515417 or http://jkorpela.fi/chars/spaces.html -- which one? Would use of anything other than   prevent line-breaks in the middle of a number in the tools we or ISO use?

Aside: I did just run into use of the space as separator in a UK context. https://www.bgs.ac.uk/products/digitalmaps/dataInfo.html But I would probably consider map scales a domain-specific instance.

[murata2makoto]

@RexJaeschke You did the suggested changes in the latest draft you circulated, but do you intend to revisit this later?

[RexJaeschke]

@murata2makoto No! Rather than close issues I had completed, I simply marked them "Completed," so the whole group is aware of my resolution. Hopefully, that means we can get though the "Completed" issues quite quickly, closing each one.

[RexJaeschke]

WG4 approved on 2020-08-25.