Calculations Notation Guidelines Proposal

[Epyriel]

[Thread creation by non-staff member approved by Antvasima]

Introduction​

Currently a lot of the notation and formatting across a huge number of calculations across the site is pretty abysmal, and I think we can do better.

As it stands, many calculations suffer from issues including:

• Using far too many significant figures, with many people writing out 10 digits for every number as that is how many are displayed on most calculators (thereby over-inflating the precision of the calc while also making it look very messy and borderline unreadable). [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]
• Not including units in formulas (making double checking calculations far more difficult than it needs to be, obscuring otherwise obvious errors). [1][2][3]
• Writing out big numbers in full while failing to employ scientific notation at all (making reading big numbers tedious, resulting in the calc looking messy and rendering it far harder to read, understand, and verify). [1][2][3]

To try to help combat this problem, I wanted to make this revision to propose a set of new guidelines that people can reference to avoid many of the pitfalls above and that CGMs can link to to point out how existing or future calculations can be improved. This can be either added to the existing Calculation Guide page, or added as its own page.

Proposal​

A set of three guidelines can be introduced to check the above issues:

• When reporting numbers in calculations, please be mindful that all calculations carry with them an inherent uncertainty in the result from limitations in the precision of the data it is based on. Reporting numbers using more significant figures than what can be reasonably quantified within their uncertainty over-represents the precision of your calculation, and also makes it harder to read and understand. Instead make sure to round numbers using only as many significant figures as the uncertainty in your data would allow. As a general guideline, powerscaling calculations will very rarely have legitimate cause to report more than 3-4 significant figures.

(6) Agree: SeijiSetto, Dark-Carioca, Agnaa, Floxy178, Mr. Bambu, Naito-desu
(4) Disagree: Psychomaster35, DontTalkDT, Flashlight237, Eljoaki5
(1) Neutral: Drite77

• When writing out calculations, make sure to include units within your formulas and be cautious not to forget to account for unit conversions when working with different units for the same type of quantity.

(7) Agree: KLOL506, SeijiSetto, Dark-Carioca, Agnaa, Drite77, Naito-desu, Mr. Bambu
(0) Disagree:
(5) Neutral: DontTalkDT, Flashlight237, Psychomaster35, Floxy178, Eljoaki5

• When writing calculations using large numbers, please employ scientific notation to avoid typing out messy long strings of digits that are hard to read, or alternatively use appropriate metric prefixes to achieve much the same effect. If for some reason a long number must be written in full without rounding, at least employ thousands separators to improve legibility.

(11) Agree: KLOL506, SeijiSetto, DontTalkDT, Psychomaster35, Dark-Carioca, Agnaa, Drite77, Floxy178, Naito-desu, Eljoaki5, Mr. Bambu
(1) Disagree: Flashlight237
(0) Neutral:

Additionally, to combat the fact that many calculations lack explanations as to where formulas and numbers are taken from despite this already being guided in the Calculation Guide page, @Agnaa has suggested an additional provision on that page clarifying that a failure to follow that particular guideline is a basis for rejection by CGMs, and that the page be linked to in the Calculations Evaluation thread and in the standard greeting to new CGMs:

Calculation Guide Page:

• Please note that a lack of explanations as to where formulas and numbers are taken from is a basis for having the calculation rejected by Calculation Group Members.

Calculation Evaluations Thread + Standard New CGM Greeting Message:

• Calc group members should keep in mind the provisions in the Calculation Guide page when evaluating calculations, and should link to it as a suggestion if a given calculation falls short of its guidelines, or reject it entirely if the calculation fails to adequately explain where numbers and formulas are taken from.

(4) Agree: Mr. Bambu, KLOL506, Floxy178, Eljoaki5
(0) Disagree:
(0) Neutral:

 

[Antvasima]

@DontTalkDT @Executor_N0 @Mr. Bambu @Therefir @Ugarik @DMUA @Damage3245 @TheRustyOne @Armorchompy @Migue79 @Psychomaster35 @CloverDragon03 @KLOL506 @Dark-Carioca @Aguywhodoesthings @Agnaa @Dalesean027 @DemiiPowa @Flashlight237 @SeijiSetto @SunDaGamer

What do you all think about this?

 

[KLOL506]

I agree that the way some people do calculations are incredibly haphazard. Almost 3/4ths of them include no proper notation, no proper links to scans, no color coding and no proper use of SI Units, let alone proper formatting of steps 1-3 or however many are required. Not to mention the incredibly poor grammar and image formatting that just puts it all over the place and makes it significantly harder to read or understand.

As for nearest figures, I just try to stick to 3 significant figures wherever possible, but otherwise it don't bother me much. It's really only relevant when you need to get the end results.

 

[SeijiSetto]

i agree with basically all of these concerns
generally drop to like 3/4 sig fig unless otherwise is required, write out formulas used somewhere so that it's easy to see what you're doing and follow your working, as well as scientific notation (either XeY or X * 10^y) for particularly large numbers like with joules for big feats

 

[DontTalkDT]

Eh, personally I don't mind things not being rounded. At least not in the middle of the calculation. At the end, it's nice to have.
One could additionally argue that in the middle it spares us having to think about rounding errors.

I'm split on units. On one hand, it should absolutely be made clear which units are actually used in the calculation. On the other hand, do I find it useful if a calculation is notated in a fashion that it can be copy and pasted into a calculator for fast checking. I think most calculators generally don't handle units well.

Use of scientific notation once the numbers go over single digit million seems reasonable. I will say that this, as far as I am concerned, could be by written 3*10^15 or 3e15 and similar fashions.

 

[Psychomaster35]

I mean, I don't really think that numbers with so many decimal places are that big of a deal. The only thing that really matters is looking at the first few decimal points if you want to be simpler without reading the rest, as reading the rest is optional.

 

[Flashlight237]

I disagree with #1. As someone who prefers to do things as accurately as possible, going so hard on the rounding makes it hard to look over what the hell you're doing. I'd rather keep all my numbers as pure as possible.

Neutral on #2. It's easier to leave units out of the math itself and have the resulting unit put after the math is done. Ex...

300/150*1.75=3.5 meters

Cube

3.5*3.5*3.5=42.875 m³

Density of water is 1000 kg/m³

42.875*1000=42875 kg

As for #3, personally, considering we got the Calc Group position for being math men, we should be/get used to reading long strings of numbers like any mathematician would. As such, put me under "disagree."

 

[Epyriel]

I disagree with #1. As someone who prefers to do things as accurately as possible, going so hard on the rounding makes it hard to look over what the hell you're doing. I'd rather keep all my numbers as pure as possible.

Adding superfluous numbers beyond uncertainty does not improve accuracy, and only makes things harder for anyone to tell what the hell you are doing.

As for #3, personally, considering we got the Calc Group position for being math men, we should be/get used to reading long strings of numbers like any mathematician would. As such, put me under "disagree."

No mathematician would ever write a long number without using either scientific notation, metric prefixes, or thousands separators. There is literally zero reason for it. It makes it harder to read at no benefit whatsoever.

 

[Psychomaster35]

Just noticed that I forgot to look at the 2nd and 3rd proposals.

For the 2nd proposal, I'm kinda neutral on it. Sure, it might seem nice to add the units to the formulas for clarity, but then again, you would've already listed the units in other measurements prior to doing your formula. IE:

Length: 5 meters
Width: 10 meters
Height: 120 meters

5*10*120 is 6000 m^3

Writing the formula as 5 meters * 10 meters * 120 meters is also correct, but somewhat too long and especially redundant if you already listed the units in prior measurements.

For the 3rd proposal, I supose I agree with it. However, only if we're talking values large enough to the point where the Google Calculator starts inputting scientific notation for large values.

 

[Epyriel]

For the 2nd proposal, I'm kinda neutral on it. Sure, it might seem nice to add the units to the formulas for clarity, but then again, you would've already listed the units in other measurements prior to doing your formula. IE:

Length: 5 meters
Width: 10 meters
Height: 120 meters

5*10*120 is 6000 m^3

Writing the formula as 5 meters * 10 meters * 120 meters is also correct, but somewhat too long and especially redundant if you already listed the units in prior measurements.

It might seem obvious and redundant here, but when you are dealing with longer calcs where the measurements for some value is 50 lines up the page amongst other calculations or paragraphs of text, or when you are dealing with units that aren’t as simple as meters times meters, it is easy for something like this to go unnoticed:

88,820 * 677 = 6.01 x 10^7 tons (Class G)

Did you spot it? This is a simple F = ma calculation for lifting strength, except the values used are kilograms and meters per second squared (hidden up the page), which means it should be: kg * (m/s^2) = kg*m*s^-2 = N, yet the equation is treating the result as if it gives metric force-tons whereas using the appropriate Newtons would give you Class M instead (based on a real example).

And that is with one of the most basic equations in physics.

What about more complicated formulas where you aren’t inputing only 2 variables?

What about this case?

-12.40 = -16.00 - 2.5 * log_10 (((L) / (3.846 * 10^26)) * ((2.226 * 10^-8) / (0.00001581))^2)
L = 7.04 * 10^30 watts

Unless you go hunting for the units up the page amidst paragraphs of text for every number you see, you might not notice that this calculation is missing a conversion factor and is in fact cancelling out parsecs with lightyears (also based on a real example).

Which means if you want to check this calculation, you either have to waste time hunting for units, or more likely miss the error altogether.

There is a reason making kids write down units in their formulas in science class is emphasized in most curriculums. It makes it easier for both the person doing the calculations to realize their own errors, and for the teacher to grade it.

 

[Agnaa]

I think I end up being neutral for all of this.

The extra decimal places are utterly unnecessary. We already accept that pixel-scaling can easily be 10-20% off, and if we have the maximum error compounding for volume, it would be ~73% off. We can't really expect our calculations to be accurate beyond the first two significant figures.

But also, idrc about enforcing this. If I see someone using 20 decimal places (as I have before), I can just tell them I personally won't evaluate it until they cut it down, if I'm not in the mood for that.

While including units could help spot issues, CGMs should really be redoing each step in the calculation anyway, where they should consciously capture those sorts of unit errors. Innocent mistakes (off by one place errors) can come up that are best caught that way.

It's a trade off between accuracy and effort/rule bloat, and I don't care which of those directions we move in, since the value gained/lost seems comparable to me.

Also, btw, for calc policy threads like these, all CGMs have a vote. You shouldn't be separating out admins/bureaus are you are in the OP.

Also @Vzearr who gave you permission to post here? (Answer off-site, in DMs, on my profile, or by editing/deleting your posts)

 

[Agnaa]

Only ex-staff who voluntarily retired without controversy are allowed to comment, you were effectively demoted. I'll delete your posts.

 

[Dark-Carioca]

I already follow more or less all three of these guidelines by virtue of never overcomplicating my calcs so I guess you could add me to 'Agree' for all three.

 

[KLOL506]

I agree that the way some people do calculations are incredibly haphazard. Almost 3/4ths of them include no proper notation, no proper links to scans, no color coding and no proper use of SI Units, let alone proper formatting of steps 1-3 or however many are required. Not to mention the incredibly poor grammar and image formatting that just puts it all over the place and makes it significantly harder to read or understand.

This is in and of itself a massive issue. This should also be addressed. Calcs these days provide no information, explanation or context behind the feat, or which lines go where and what do they represent in pixel-scaling an image.

Though I am not sure what we can do to enforce this, it isn't like people exactly have a firm grasp of the English language. And we have little to no manpower to oversee these things.

 

[Agnaa]

I think it's fine to refuse to evaluate until people elaborate.

 

[KLOL506]

I think it's fine to refuse to evaluate until people elaborate.

Ye, but that still doesn't solve the problem of poorly-written and poorly-formatted calcs. Half the time my brain just dies trying to decipher what grammar they typed in, or finding out what units they used and what color line they used to pixel scale which object.

 

[Agnaa]

Ye, but that still doesn't solve the problem of poorly-written and poorly-formatted calcs. Half the time my brain just dies trying to decipher what grammar they typed in, or finding out what units they used and what color line they used to pixel scale which object.

I mean, if it's annoying to decipher, you can refuse to evaluate it until they improve the formatting.

 

[Epyriel]

But also, idrc about enforcing this. If I see someone using 20 decimal places (as I have before), I can just tell them I personally won't evaluate it until they cut it down, if I'm not in the mood for that.

While including units could help spot issues, CGMs should really be redoing each step in the calculation anyway, where they should consciously capture those sorts of unit errors. Innocent mistakes (off by one place errors) can come up that are best caught that way.

It's a trade off between accuracy and effort/rule bloat, and I don't care which of those directions we move in, since the value gained/lost seems comparable to me.

One more thing I feel I should mention is that the proposal here is for a set of guidelines rather than hard rules.

I agree trying to strictly enforce a rule that forces everyone to cut down on needless digits and various formatting errors would be an excessively strenuous task.

But I think it is reasonable to have a set of guidelines available somewhere like on the Calculation Guide page for people who are just starting out in trying their hands at calculations to read and help stop bad habits before they form, and could potentially be linked to by CGMs on especially egregious calcs as a suggestion.

We don’t need to make CGM evaluations even slower than they already are by mandating every calc to comply with this format before getting an evaluation, but it could be helpful in that CGMs be might able to say something like:

“This is fine, but it would be helpful if these guidelines could be kept in mind for future reference.”

or

“This is mathematically correct, but the formatting could be improved. Consider the guidelines here.”

 

[Agnaa]

In that case, sure.

 

[FelpeXDopZ]

I got permission to comment here from Antvasima.

Employing an exaggeratedly large number of significant figures only makes calcs harder and more time consuming to write, read and evaluate; while it doesn't really guarantee the calculation to be more precise given the inherent observational errors coming from the limited precision of the devices used to make the measurements (those familiar with STEM careers probably know this already). And it should be remembered that the wiki makes quite some assumptions and simplifications when it comes to calculations, which already undermines their “precision” (I'm not saying this is wrong btw, otherwise a lot of feats would become overly complicated to calc or not calculable at all).
Having to deal with large numbers of significant figures also makes it easier to make mistakes when plugging the numbers on a calculator, I think we can all agree that correctly writing down a 4-digit number is easier than doing the same with a 40-digit number.
Even if we had reliable access to several significant figures of precision, like a statement of an object measuring exactly 2.718281828459045 meters, using all of those digits for a calculation doesn't serve any real purpose, we're doing power-scaling, not building a spaceship nor a particle accelerator, we just don't need that much precision, 4 significant figures should be enough for most cases. As an example, if we were dealing with an attack in the order of kilotons of TNT, an extra gigajoule makes no important difference at all on the yield.

Furthermore, if we were to seek some extreme degree of precision on every calc, then a bunch of formulas and numerical values would become useless, as they're approximations and/or depend on other factors which are often overlooked, like classical Kinetic Energy, close-to-Earth's-surface GPE, frictionless free fall time, gravitational acceleration, the speed of sound, the speed of light, specific/latent heats, density of materials, and a long etc.
Of course, rounding calculations to 3 or 4 significant figures shouldn't be mandatory, but I think it's a good recommendation as it has several pros and virtually no cons.
Pros:
Calculations look more organized and visually appealing, they take less time to write and read, they don't become unnecessarily long, no precision overestimation, less chances of incorrectly writing down a number.
Cons:
Small rounding errors (which are probably smaller than observational errors).

Here's a good example of how using 4-5 significant figures notably improves a calculation while barely making any difference on the final result:
The initial calculation used up to ~76 significant figures, and at times a single number almost used a whole text line. After that, KLOL suggested using 4 significant figures, and now the calc looks like this. Notice the relative change for the work is around 0.07%, which is completely negligible for our purposes.
Additionally, using that many significant figures (aside from not being more than just experimental noise) might not even make physical sense. As an example, say we are measuring the size of some object in meters which turns out to be
L= 3.14159… meters
If we pushed this value beyond the 35th significant figure, then we'd be measuring stuff below the Planck length (remember the calc above used up to 76 significant figures).
Using the previous calc as an example again, the value for the work used around 70 decimal places, that’d be accounting for energy in the order of 10^(-70) joules, a single electron moving 100 times slower than a garden snail has a KE in the order 10^(-40) joules.


Regarding the second point, including measurement units on calculations makes it easier for both authors and CGMs to spot mistakes. The calcs done here aren't just about plugging random numbers on a calculator, that's no big deal, but one must make sure they make physical sense, and checking the units of measurement are correct is very useful for this purpose.​

About this

For the 2nd proposal, I'm kinda neutral on it. Sure, it might seem nice to add the units to the formulas for clarity, but then again, you would've already listed the units in other measurements prior to doing your formula. IE:

Length: 5 meters
Width: 10 meters
Height: 120 meters

5*10*120 is 6000 m^3

Writing the formula as 5 meters * 10 meters * 120 meters is also correct, but somewhat too long and especially redundant if you already listed the units in prior measurements.

It isn't necessary to write the word “meter” after every length on the calculation, one should simply use the SI symbols, so just writing an “m” after the number is enough, that way the operation becomes
5m*10m*120m = 6000m^3
Which of course is not as short as skipping the units, but quite more compact than writing “meters” thrice. Perhaps units could be left out for simple calculations as in your example (as long as the units where previously listed), but when dealing with longer calculations or complex formulas (as in Epyriel’s second example) one should keep in the units to make sure everything is fine.

As for #3, personally, considering we got the Calc Group position for being math men, we should be/get used to reading long strings of numbers like any mathematician would. As such, put me under "disagree."

Real mathematicians actually deal with numerical values very occasionally (especially long ones), experimental scientists and engineers are much more used to them, and they either use scientific notation, metric prefixes, thousands separators, or a combination. I've never seen a paper or report where they write a long number like 16.1803398875cm, as measurements can't or don't need to be that precise.


I know my vote doesn't counts, but I wanted to bring up some of the points I mentioned above.

 

[Epyriel]

Bump

 

[Drite77]

I particularly do not mind big numbers in the middle of calculations, at least in the beginning/middle, but I also don't think rounding up particularly makes it innacurate, so I'm neutral on the first point.

On the second point, I 100% agree, while you can get context clues about what's happening, it makes thing a bit hard to understand sometimes.

On the third point, I also agree, while I like Big Numbas, I think shrinking said Big Numba to scientific notations makes it better for calcs overall

 

[Floxy178]

Agree with 1st and 3rd proposals.

Neutral on 2nd one if you specifically mean them being written within formulas. If their unit is mentioned before (like person lists needed values with their units and then directly calculates writing numbers only) that'd be even better imo. If you mean that units need to be shown somewhere in general, you can put me as agree for 2nd proposal too.

 

[Naito-desu]

I agree with all three to a certain extent, with the caveat that the first one would make calculating less accessible, given I doubt some users might know what significant figures means or entails. So put me as neutral for the first, agree for the next two

 

[Epyriel]

the first one would make calculating less accessible, given I doubt some users might know what significant figures means or entails.

This is a fair concern, but to compensate I have the link to a guide on significant figures in the proposal itself for those unfamiliar but wanting to learn, and a ballpark maximum listed for those who don’t want to bother.

The idea here is just to have general guidelines to offer some direction to people rather than hard rules to block people from participating. Frankly even if their accounting for significant figures is wrong, as long as more people are keeping the principle in mind (and so aren’t outputting blocks of unreadable calculations with ten+ digits for every number) I’ll count that as a win.

 

[ElJoaki5]

I disagree on the first point. I dont see the necessity since I read it fine and I use a ton of digits myself soo.

Neutral on 2nd one if you specifically mean them being written within formulas. If their unit is mentioned before (like person lists needed values with their units and then directly calculates writing numbers only) that'd be even better imo. If you mean that units need to be shown somewhere in general, you can put me as agree for 2nd proposal too.

Same as Floxy on point 2

• When writing calculations using large numbers, please employ scientific notation to avoid typing out messy long strings of digits that are hard to read,

Agree

• or alternatively use appropriate metric prefixes to achieve much the same effect. If for some reason a long number must be written in full without rounding, at least employ thousands separators to improve legibility.

I think having to delete all the comas or undoing the metric prefixes before inputting the number into the calculator is more annoying that the number just being big. These should only be used for results.

 

[Agnaa]

I disagree on the first point. I dont see the necessity since I read it fine and I use a ton of digits myself soo.

Can you read this fine?

 

[Agnaa]

@Epyriel The OP marks me as agreeing, but I didn't, I was explicitly neutral. EDIT: This turned out to be wrong

Also, idk if you'd want this done in a different thread but it feels very related to me. I think our calculations should be understandable by laypeople, since we link them from the profiles. I don't like how calculations sometimes don't even name the formulas they're using (i.e. explosion formulas, inverse square, volume formulas especially if not a rectangular prism or sphere), or just pull numbers out of nowhere (i.e. saying "214 x 95738" instead of saying that they're using the pulverisation value for generic rocks).

Especially since evaluators can gloss over these, missing mistakes in the calculation. Did they use a hemisphere when they should've used a spherical cap? Did they use a destruction value for rock, when they should've used concrete?

This is something I would actually want an enforceable guideline for.

 

[Epyriel]

@Epyriel The OP marks me as agreeing, but I didn't, I was explicitly neutral.

I assumed this message was an indication that I was OK to switch you to agreement:
https://vsbattles.com/threads/calculations-notation-guidelines-proposal.182742/post-7284343

Have you changed your mind?

Also, idk if you'd want this done in a different thread but it feels very related to me. I think our calculations should be understandable by laypeople, since we link them from the profiles. I don't like how calculations sometimes don't even name the formulas they're using (i.e. explosion formulas, inverse square, volume formulas especially if not a rectangular prism or sphere), or just pull numbers out of nowhere (i.e. saying "214 x 95738" instead of saying that they're using the pulverisation value for generic rocks).

Especially since evaluators can gloss over these, missing mistakes in the calculation. Did they use a hemisphere when they should've used a spherical cap? Did they use a destruction value for rock, when they should've used concrete?

This is something I would actually want an enforceable guideline for.

I strongly agree with all this, the only reason I didn’t include such provisions here was because some version of those guidelines are already present on the Calculation Guide page.

However if you believe some change should be made to make them more strict/enforceable I’d be happy to add it to this thread.

 

[Agnaa]

I assumed this message was an indication that I was OK to switch you to agreement:
https://vsbattles.com/threads/calculations-notation-guidelines-proposal.182742/post-7284343

Have you changed your mind?

Ah mb, I thought that post of mine was responding to something else, and I forgot about how you intended them to be guidelines rather than hard rules.

Looking back on it, you're right.

I strongly agree with all this, the only reason I didn’t include such provisions here was because some version of those guidelines are already present on the Calculation Guide page.

However if you believe some change should be made to make them more strict/enforceable I’d be happy to add it to this thread.

If we're going to be putting these proposals somewhere, I think that guide should be referred to alongside them.

Blech, but your proposal was to add those guidelines to that page, or add it to a new one, which also seems ineffective if that wasn't.

Maybe something at the end of the "The calculation" section, where these proposals would presumably be added, saying that if they're not followed, calculation group members may reject the calc? And maybe include a link to that guide in the calculation evaluations thread, and in the standard greeting given to new CGMs?

 

[Epyriel]

If we're going to be putting these proposals somewhere, I think that guide should be referred to alongside them.

Blech, but your proposal was to add those guidelines to that page, or add it to a new one, which also seems ineffective if that wasn't.

Maybe something at the end of the "The calculation" section, where these proposals would presumably be added, saying that if they're not followed, calculation group members may reject the calc? And maybe include a link to that guide in the calculation evaluations thread, and in the standard greeting given to new CGMs?

Sounds good, would something like this work as far as an update to the Calculation Guide page goes?

 

[Agnaa]

Looks good!

 

[Epyriel]

Looks good!

Alright I’ve added it to the proposal:

Additionally, to combat the fact that many calculations lack explanations as to where formulas and numbers are taken from despite this already being guided in the Calculation Guide page, @Agnaa has suggested an additional provision on that page clarifying that a failure to follow that particular guideline is a basis for rejection by CGMs, and that the page be linked to in the Calculations Evaluation thread and in the standard greeting to new CGMs:

Calculation Guide Page:

• Please note that a lack of explanations as to where formulas and numbers are taken from is a basis for having the calculation rejected by Calculation Group Members.

Calculation Evaluations Thread + Standard New CGM Greeting Message:

• Calc group members should keep in mind the provisions in the Calculation Guide page when evaluating calculations, and should link to it as a suggestion if a given calculation falls short of its guidelines, or reject it entirely if the calculation fails to adequately explain where numbers and formulas are taken from.

(0) Agree:
(0) Disagree:
(0) Neutral:

 

[Mr. Bambu]

I agree with all three of the initial guidelines. These are all basically helpful, and I can recall in recent memory cases where the calc creator would have done well to have employed them.

@Epyriel The OP marks me as agreeing, but I didn't, I was explicitly neutral. EDIT: This turned out to be wrong

Also, idk if you'd want this done in a different thread but it feels very related to me. I think our calculations should be understandable by laypeople, since we link them from the profiles. I don't like how calculations sometimes don't even name the formulas they're using (i.e. explosion formulas, inverse square, volume formulas especially if not a rectangular prism or sphere), or just pull numbers out of nowhere (i.e. saying "214 x 95738" instead of saying that they're using the pulverisation value for generic rocks).

Especially since evaluators can gloss over these, missing mistakes in the calculation. Did they use a hemisphere when they should've used a spherical cap? Did they use a destruction value for rock, when they should've used concrete?

This is something I would actually want an enforceable guideline for.

I also agree with this. The final note in the OP is a good enough phrasing for this, and you can put me as an agree to that.

Rare is the thread where I can so quickly ascertain its motives and agree to them without issue, what a happy day.

 

[Naito-desu]

I think the first proposal is fine as a general guideline rather than a hard rule. I can't really support it since I sort of only do rounding up and reducing figures at the end of a calculation, mostly as a way of ensuring that rounding up does not overly influence the end result, but it should be fine to help folks fine-tune their numbers

 

[KLOL506]

Alright I’ve added it to the proposal:

Looks good.

 

[Antvasima]

Edit: Never mind. It seems like there is a split of opinion here. Is somebody willing to ping the staff members who voted here previously to see if they are willing to change their minds based on the current drafts?

 

[Antvasima]

I updated my post above.

 

[Floxy178]

Alright I’ve added it to the proposal:

You can put me as agree for last proposal as well.

 

[Antvasima]

So what if anything do we have sufficient consensus to apply here?