United States government sites generally use obsolete units and inaccessible methods
@EIAgov @WhiteHouse Next month, 23 Jul 2024 is the 26th Anniversary of the Internet Foundation. I am getting a bit tired, and writing this is just a sketch of a few issues – ones most important for the gov domain. The same things apply to all Internet groups and their sites, and methods. But the gov domain – only the United States – ought to work harder, think globally, and do better than any other domain.
EIA, Why are your pages NOT ALL accessible in SI units? And accessible in Spanish and global Internet human languages? About 1 in 5 people in the US or about 40 Million Americans do not read English. You can check. It is significant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States is a bit out of date. The American Community Survey is also a bit out of date and “too much hidden on the Internet”.
And, the ones who need the information the most in the US, might be the ones you are not serving. Most countries in the worlds are Metric, and they come to the US for school or immigration or jobs, and face obsolete units from EIA — which ought to lead in Internet accessibility, not lag way behind.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/units-and-calculators/degree-days.php
You hurt energy users, the poor, energy industries, US international competition in STEMC. Waste time in schools and mistakes in Earth commerce and space.
( site:EIA.gov ) shows about 200,000 pages today on Google search. That is tiny to maintain, but impossible for human readers. You are dumping stuff on the Internet, and it needs to be carefully tailored to users and their needs and abilities. That is possible now but you have to go back to your core principles and put in the effort. Doing it well will help you to integrate globally and for the US population which is growing by immigration and benefiting. If you make sure they can all access what is known and use global best practices and methods – not obsolete and inaccessible stuff “dumped on the Internet”.
You are not serving the US, nor the world. Even if you are a government agency, you have an obligation to serve all humans, not just English readers in the United States who can afford Internet. A small effort can share what the United States Energy agencies have to offer to the world. It has considerable ripple effect and impact on energy use world wide. Narrow thinking harms all humans.
Do not like SI as (“Systeme International”)? Then call it (“Standard Internet”) and let the US take a strong lead to share global open resources for all things. The US federal agencies ought to lead in that, but they are the ones using the worst sharing methods on the Internet. Check. I spent the last 26 years checking in great detail, but it is too much for one person. And all the “standards groups” are either paywalling or sitting on their standards. I bet you have Exascale resources that are wasted. Put them to work and make global open resources. Not more closed and incomplete systems that benefit only a few insiders.
Filed as (United States government sites generally use obsolete units and inaccessible methods)
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
