In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)}), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 10:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC).
Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.
This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.
Certain editors are using Ref converter to convert articles from {{Ref}} or {{ref_harvard}} to <ref>. However, other editors have objected to this conversion, and prefer to use the {{ Ref}} template for article citation. Nonetheless, Users are repeatedly using the ref converter on certain articles, despite requests on the Article Talk page and commented into the Article to not use the ref conversion
Note: much of this statement was originally written by User:Evilphoenix who is on wikibreak and has written a brief statement below (but has not currently signed as certifier).
Note2: This RfC is not a referendum on whether m:Cite.php is a good technology. All participant agree on this question.
"But in the case of Retreat of glaciers since 1850, we actually had this specific discussion several months ago, and made a conscious, consensus decision to go with Harvard referencing. We're not idiots: we made that decision for specific reasons... maybe consensus can change with discussion, but not by fiat." - [41]
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
(provide diffs and links)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
I'd like to comment(without having yet read what anyone else has had to say) that this RfC was moved from my User space, where I was not yet intending to file it, to the RfC space, without my permission and against my wishes, while I have been (and still am on) Wikibreak. While I am not particularly happy with Cyde's actions, I feel that when I last was on Wikipedia (two days ago) that Cyde was at least discussing things. I feel that the evidence I was gathering was more to deal with the conduct issue, more than the issue of whether or not things should be converted using his ref converter, it was how the ref converter was being approached. Again, there was still discussion ongoing when I went on break. I feel that these are two seperate issues, and I'm not sure this is going to end up being the best way to approach dealing with them. Now I'm going to look and see what's been said in my absence. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 20:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Lulu has painted a very one-side picture of this dispute. Here is my attempt to give you both sides of the story.
This is the first time Lulu spoke to me in regards to this latest round of the conflict. Here are some key bits:
Here, we see he is already threatening to file an RfC (which would be this, by the way) in his first contact with me in days. Lulu isn't interested in resolving this dispute at all; for whatever reason, he's simply out for blood.
This is the second time Lulu spoke to me in this conflict. Here are some key bits:
Here, he is already threatening me with blocks and ArbCom. At this point I basically just started ignoring him, and he responded by editing the Ref converter pages with some very dubious charges. He also abused the Ref converter updates list and spammed vaguely threatening warnings to over a dozen users' talk pages; here is an example. Here are some choice bits:
Upon realizing that his attempts to intimidate me with various threats weren't working, he went ahead and threatened all of my users directly with this RfC. And then he went through with it all targeted the RfC at "Cyde and ref conv users", but he later modified that to read merely "some ref conv users".
I don't know why Lulu seems so antagonized at me, but his behavior is questionable, to say the least. He started off in a very negative tone and made it clear that there was going to be no reasoning with him; it was his way or the highway. This RfC is the inevitable conclusion of that. If you read his statements you'll see that he cherry-picked his diffs so as to exclude all of his own questionable behavior that I have outlined above. And if you actually read my diffs that he's linked to, you'll see that they're nowhere near as bad as he makes them out to be. Lulu is on some sort of a crusade against ref converter right now and I haven't the foggiest idea why. All I can say is that it is sad it had to come to this.
Now, if you'll compare my interactions with Evilphoenix, you'll see that they were the polar opposite of Lulu's interactions with me. We were civil with each other and were making progress towards a resolution. I was working on a blacklist of sorts to prevent the same pages from always showing up in the WikiLinks program. We made so much progress in such a short time that Evilphoenix blanked the page, saying, "I have temporarily cleared this page. Within the page history is a sketch of an RfC that may or may not end up being filed. Discussions have been ongoing with the involved parties, so I don't personally feel that it's really the time to move forward with this particular RfC right now." But then Lulu unilaterally reverted the page and went live with it, keeping intact the parts that Evilphoenix had originally written that Evilphoenix thought were on their way to being resolved.
In short, the entire reason this whole mess blew up is because of Lulu's irascible, incorrigible, and abrasive behavior. I am perfectly capable of having calm and reasoned discussions with other users, as my interaction with Evilphoenix and many other editors illustrates. The problem is, it takes two to be nice and rational, and Lulu simply wasn't having any of it. Through all of his various posts I've linked to this in statement I believe I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lulu's behavior is unacceptable and needs to be examined by the wider community at large. Consider this my motion to rescope this RfC to include Lulu. -- Cyde Weys 23:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I am less concerned with detailing specific past edits than with moving forward in a productive manner, and with an understanding by all involved editors that consensus must be reached among those involved in editing particular articles. There are a few general categories of problems with some actions by User:Cyde and a few other editors:
Users who endorse this summary:
(Note: Cyde has since corrected his misstatements that Lulu refers to below.)
Most of what Cyde adds in his statement is false. For example, what he characterizes as the "first time Lulu has ever spoken directly to me." was something like the fifth or sixth comment (all on related matters) I had left on Cyde's talk page; he had previously responded to several of them. I also engaged in some earlier threads involving him at some other talk pages around this issue. There's also some factual errors in things like the number of editors whom I contacted to express my concerns about misuse of refconverter; but in general, I did indeed contact several (and "threatened" none). I did not, of course, revert Evilphoenix' talk page either, as Cyde claims; I did, however, move Evilphoenix' draft RfC to this live one (how that gets called "reversion", I can't even begin to imagine).
But those sort of things seem like really petty matters to quibble about. I am simply trying to convince Cyde to encourage appropriate use of refconverter rather than encouraging misuse of the tool. I am happy the tool exists, and acknowledge that the majority of uses of it have been quite appropriate. Rather than try to prolong endless personalizations, I really would like to reach a compromise in which appropriate guidance is provided to users of refconverter; a few words of change to its project page would resolve this whole matter. This rather narrow concern is why I did not bother reporting the many, many examples of personal attacks that Cyde engaged in around these issues, nor add that issues like WP:PA, WP:AGF and the like to the dispute issues. I am thick-skinned enough to forget about those actions, and really only care about Wikipedia article space not undergoing continuing harm from misconduct by Cyde.
Users who endorse this summary:
(preliminary remark:) I applied some tweaks to the Statement of the dispute above. [84]:
Hope that is OK.
Cyde (and others) are correct: this RfC isn't exclusively about Cyde's behaviour, and maybe that behaviour isn't even the main point. For me, the main point of this RfC is: Don't make software that, without warning to the user of the software, can short-circuit ArbCom rulings. In this case: conversion of Harvard references to numbered footnotes (which are different citation styles).
So I think the software should be made thus that it warns the user that such conversions are possibly contentious, and should (preferably - or: necessarily) be discussed on the talk pages of such articles prior to conversion.
Whether conversion of {{ ref}} type numbered footnotes to <ref> type numbered footnotes on a systematic scale is a good idea, and whether this can be done without prior discussion on the talk page of the article in question, are other topics that can be discussed in this RfC as far as I'm concerned. The quoted ArbCom ruling didn't say anything about that (<ref> type numbered footnotes didn't even exist at the time), and the present content of the applicable guidelines would allow such conversions. But we can ask ourselves the question whether that would be a good idea.
Tentatively, I'd say this can be done by "refconverter" type of software, but maybe as a precaution, first see what the outcome of discussions like the following leads to:
(knowing this is hardly the place to make publicity for a guideline proposal, but nonetheless:) And maybe have a look at wikipedia:semi-bots, an attempt to approach the kind of problems treated in this RfC in a more generic way (and less ad hominem). -- Francis Schonken 08:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Just for clarity: I just voted to convert the J. K. Rowling article to cite.php, using Cyde's refconverter ASAP. In that article it's all only about numbered footnotes (not Harvard references), and the numbered footnotes-with-templates as defended by EvilP et al. are a faulty implementation of WP:FN3 (while not switching to "label" variant for multiple references to the same footnote, and while the numbering is further disturbed by a footnote not linked from the text), where Cyde's refconverter proved to be able to put straight this erroneous implementation of numbered footnotes. -- Francis Schonken 16:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned this RfC can be closed. Don't know about closing procedures for RfC's. Regardless of whether I'd be doing this by the book: I want to make it clear that I have no knowledge of any remaining issues that need solving with Cyde (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Cyde#The other user conduct issue for the last one there might have been in which I'd have interest, now closed).
Whether problems weren't actually inflated by having recourse to RfC: I suppose they were. On the plus side: the problems, whether they were big or minor, they got solved. And I'd be happy to close this somewhat artificial way of tackling issues. -- Francis Schonken 21:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
There is no RfC here (and certainly not a user conduct RfC). I have done nothing wrong and even the originator of this RfC, Evilphoenix, thinks it's too early to go this route and would rather continue making progress in discussions (see here, which Lulu subsequently reverted). Most of the actions listed above have nothing to do with me other than that my open source tool was used; by the same token, can we file an RfC against Linus Torvalds because some hackers use Linux? -- Cyde Weys 17:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.
While Cyde could have been a bit less zealous in his promotion of the tool, I can see little wrongdoing on his part. It is not his fault if other editors abuse his tool. The glacier article clearly has all the indications of a revert war, so yeah, he was wrong there. I should note that J.K. Rowling has a really disturbing footnoting system (try it for yourself) that confuses the hell out of readers, however useful to researchers or editors it might be. Cyde has definitely been overzealous in promoting m:Cite, but you gotta' admit that {{ ref}}, etc. ain't pretty either — especially looking at how Rowling's article uses them. This is unrelated to Cyde in particular, but Lulu has been spamming user talk pages complaining about Cyde's tool (probably in a misguided effort to impose a moratorium on its usage), and a bunch of other stuff has been going on as well. Cyde is definitely not the only one at fault here, and at least 2/3rds of this RfC have nothing to do with him. If he wanted to play tit for tat, he could just as well bring up Lulu's conduct, which has been just as questionable as his (sticking NPOV tags on pages in Cyde's userspace, etc.). Oh, and one last thing... Johnleemk | Talk 17:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
While Evilphoenix may have decided that he was going to wikibreak and not attend to this matter...all that was added to the Rfc by Evilphoenix were diffs and some commentary. I see nothing wrong with moving this outside userspace since a number of other editors also have complaints and Evilphoenix is (was?) only one of them...as clearly shown in links above. My perception of the "problem" is the lack of grasp the programmers have when discussing this matter with someone who is merely an editor such as myself. I ahve clearly stated that I am not convinced that cite.php is "better" over ref|note becuase I find it takes up too much space in the editing window. When I first started with Wikipedia about 15,000 years (edits) ago...I was clueless as to how to edit an article. I routinely see newbie editors that make simple mistakes and mess up formatting...I can't understand why we need to make the basic editing area more complex by incorporating the reference. I recognize that in ref|note, the risk is high that footnotes get out of place if someone removes a note link and or moves sections around. As far as Harvard style, I can see no reason that cite.php is currently better for the same reasons...namely that the editing window is full of reference, but primarily because the references are no longer alphabetical.-- MONGO 04:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
— Apr. 25, '06 [09:28] < freakofnurxture | talk>
Users who endorse this summary:
So, protect the ref|note templates...why is that a big deal? The bolding of boilerplate "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it" is ironic...it goes both ways. An examination of the Wikipedia:Footnote3 page clearly demonstrates that numerous styles are accepted as does the guideline page on citing sources. Until myself and a few others discovered the alterations to the Wikipedia:Footnotes page and made adjustments there, it indicated that m:cite.php was essentially the only way to go with footnoting. Yes, you can't stop people from editing "your" prose or "your" citation style. Exactly.-- MONGO 10:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Mongo - there is too much fooling around with ref styles going on - this is very bad and must stop. Merecat 04:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Note: As high-risk templates, {{ ref}} and {{ note}} already are protected, so we're only concerned about the vandals with admin privileges. — Doug Bell talk• contrib 11:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Comment Care to go a bit further with that implication? •Jim62sch• 01:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
In reading the evidence re the JK Rowling article, I was totally unimpressed by the evidence against Cyde. The evidence against Evilphoenix, however, I found to be rather compelling. To wit:
In other words folks, seems to me that it isn't Cyde's behaviour that needs to be commented upon. •Jim62sch• 22:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
I am aware at this moment of this RfC but am not allowed to participate above. ( SEWilco 04:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC))
I don't want to take sides here (or Cydes, either), but I wanted to mention a couple things:
That said, I see a few things that are making disharmonious:
Here's an example where discussion helps out: Someone recently edited Minnesota State Highway 3 to indicate that it ends in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Even though the references I had said that it ends at Minnesota State Highway 110 in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, I didn't immediately revert the article and complain to the editor -- I mentioned why I believed my version was correct, and confirmed that the next time I was in the neighborhood. He did some checking of his own and found that I was correct. So, the dispute was resolved harmoniously without anyone reverting anything.
-- E lkman - (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
<ref sort="Snape, Severus">Severus Snape, Pixels And Potions, p. 23</ref>.
Cite.php would sort on the sort key.
All signed comments and talk not related to an endorsement should be directed to this page's discussion page. Discussion should not be added below. Discussion should be posted on the talk page. Threaded replies to another user's vote, endorsement, evidence, response, or comment should be posted to the talk page.
In order to remain listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, at least two people need to show that they tried to resolve a dispute with this user and have failed. This must involve the same dispute with a single user, not different disputes or multiple users. The persons complaining must provide evidence of their efforts, and each of them must certify it by signing this page with ~~~~. If this does not happen within 48 hours of the creation of this dispute page (which was: 18:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)}), the page will be deleted. The current date and time is: 10:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC).
Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.
This is a summary written by users who dispute this user's conduct. Users signing other sections ("Response" or "Outside views") should not edit the "Statement of the dispute" section.
Certain editors are using Ref converter to convert articles from {{Ref}} or {{ref_harvard}} to <ref>. However, other editors have objected to this conversion, and prefer to use the {{ Ref}} template for article citation. Nonetheless, Users are repeatedly using the ref converter on certain articles, despite requests on the Article Talk page and commented into the Article to not use the ref conversion
Note: much of this statement was originally written by User:Evilphoenix who is on wikibreak and has written a brief statement below (but has not currently signed as certifier).
Note2: This RfC is not a referendum on whether m:Cite.php is a good technology. All participant agree on this question.
"But in the case of Retreat of glaciers since 1850, we actually had this specific discussion several months ago, and made a conscious, consensus decision to go with Harvard referencing. We're not idiots: we made that decision for specific reasons... maybe consensus can change with discussion, but not by fiat." - [41]
{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}
(provide diffs and links)
{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}
I'd like to comment(without having yet read what anyone else has had to say) that this RfC was moved from my User space, where I was not yet intending to file it, to the RfC space, without my permission and against my wishes, while I have been (and still am on) Wikibreak. While I am not particularly happy with Cyde's actions, I feel that when I last was on Wikipedia (two days ago) that Cyde was at least discussing things. I feel that the evidence I was gathering was more to deal with the conduct issue, more than the issue of whether or not things should be converted using his ref converter, it was how the ref converter was being approached. Again, there was still discussion ongoing when I went on break. I feel that these are two seperate issues, and I'm not sure this is going to end up being the best way to approach dealing with them. Now I'm going to look and see what's been said in my absence. Ëvilphoenix Burn! 20:21, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Lulu has painted a very one-side picture of this dispute. Here is my attempt to give you both sides of the story.
This is the first time Lulu spoke to me in regards to this latest round of the conflict. Here are some key bits:
Here, we see he is already threatening to file an RfC (which would be this, by the way) in his first contact with me in days. Lulu isn't interested in resolving this dispute at all; for whatever reason, he's simply out for blood.
This is the second time Lulu spoke to me in this conflict. Here are some key bits:
Here, he is already threatening me with blocks and ArbCom. At this point I basically just started ignoring him, and he responded by editing the Ref converter pages with some very dubious charges. He also abused the Ref converter updates list and spammed vaguely threatening warnings to over a dozen users' talk pages; here is an example. Here are some choice bits:
Upon realizing that his attempts to intimidate me with various threats weren't working, he went ahead and threatened all of my users directly with this RfC. And then he went through with it all targeted the RfC at "Cyde and ref conv users", but he later modified that to read merely "some ref conv users".
I don't know why Lulu seems so antagonized at me, but his behavior is questionable, to say the least. He started off in a very negative tone and made it clear that there was going to be no reasoning with him; it was his way or the highway. This RfC is the inevitable conclusion of that. If you read his statements you'll see that he cherry-picked his diffs so as to exclude all of his own questionable behavior that I have outlined above. And if you actually read my diffs that he's linked to, you'll see that they're nowhere near as bad as he makes them out to be. Lulu is on some sort of a crusade against ref converter right now and I haven't the foggiest idea why. All I can say is that it is sad it had to come to this.
Now, if you'll compare my interactions with Evilphoenix, you'll see that they were the polar opposite of Lulu's interactions with me. We were civil with each other and were making progress towards a resolution. I was working on a blacklist of sorts to prevent the same pages from always showing up in the WikiLinks program. We made so much progress in such a short time that Evilphoenix blanked the page, saying, "I have temporarily cleared this page. Within the page history is a sketch of an RfC that may or may not end up being filed. Discussions have been ongoing with the involved parties, so I don't personally feel that it's really the time to move forward with this particular RfC right now." But then Lulu unilaterally reverted the page and went live with it, keeping intact the parts that Evilphoenix had originally written that Evilphoenix thought were on their way to being resolved.
In short, the entire reason this whole mess blew up is because of Lulu's irascible, incorrigible, and abrasive behavior. I am perfectly capable of having calm and reasoned discussions with other users, as my interaction with Evilphoenix and many other editors illustrates. The problem is, it takes two to be nice and rational, and Lulu simply wasn't having any of it. Through all of his various posts I've linked to this in statement I believe I have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Lulu's behavior is unacceptable and needs to be examined by the wider community at large. Consider this my motion to rescope this RfC to include Lulu. -- Cyde Weys 23:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I am less concerned with detailing specific past edits than with moving forward in a productive manner, and with an understanding by all involved editors that consensus must be reached among those involved in editing particular articles. There are a few general categories of problems with some actions by User:Cyde and a few other editors:
Users who endorse this summary:
(Note: Cyde has since corrected his misstatements that Lulu refers to below.)
Most of what Cyde adds in his statement is false. For example, what he characterizes as the "first time Lulu has ever spoken directly to me." was something like the fifth or sixth comment (all on related matters) I had left on Cyde's talk page; he had previously responded to several of them. I also engaged in some earlier threads involving him at some other talk pages around this issue. There's also some factual errors in things like the number of editors whom I contacted to express my concerns about misuse of refconverter; but in general, I did indeed contact several (and "threatened" none). I did not, of course, revert Evilphoenix' talk page either, as Cyde claims; I did, however, move Evilphoenix' draft RfC to this live one (how that gets called "reversion", I can't even begin to imagine).
But those sort of things seem like really petty matters to quibble about. I am simply trying to convince Cyde to encourage appropriate use of refconverter rather than encouraging misuse of the tool. I am happy the tool exists, and acknowledge that the majority of uses of it have been quite appropriate. Rather than try to prolong endless personalizations, I really would like to reach a compromise in which appropriate guidance is provided to users of refconverter; a few words of change to its project page would resolve this whole matter. This rather narrow concern is why I did not bother reporting the many, many examples of personal attacks that Cyde engaged in around these issues, nor add that issues like WP:PA, WP:AGF and the like to the dispute issues. I am thick-skinned enough to forget about those actions, and really only care about Wikipedia article space not undergoing continuing harm from misconduct by Cyde.
Users who endorse this summary:
(preliminary remark:) I applied some tweaks to the Statement of the dispute above. [84]:
Hope that is OK.
Cyde (and others) are correct: this RfC isn't exclusively about Cyde's behaviour, and maybe that behaviour isn't even the main point. For me, the main point of this RfC is: Don't make software that, without warning to the user of the software, can short-circuit ArbCom rulings. In this case: conversion of Harvard references to numbered footnotes (which are different citation styles).
So I think the software should be made thus that it warns the user that such conversions are possibly contentious, and should (preferably - or: necessarily) be discussed on the talk pages of such articles prior to conversion.
Whether conversion of {{ ref}} type numbered footnotes to <ref> type numbered footnotes on a systematic scale is a good idea, and whether this can be done without prior discussion on the talk page of the article in question, are other topics that can be discussed in this RfC as far as I'm concerned. The quoted ArbCom ruling didn't say anything about that (<ref> type numbered footnotes didn't even exist at the time), and the present content of the applicable guidelines would allow such conversions. But we can ask ourselves the question whether that would be a good idea.
Tentatively, I'd say this can be done by "refconverter" type of software, but maybe as a precaution, first see what the outcome of discussions like the following leads to:
(knowing this is hardly the place to make publicity for a guideline proposal, but nonetheless:) And maybe have a look at wikipedia:semi-bots, an attempt to approach the kind of problems treated in this RfC in a more generic way (and less ad hominem). -- Francis Schonken 08:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Just for clarity: I just voted to convert the J. K. Rowling article to cite.php, using Cyde's refconverter ASAP. In that article it's all only about numbered footnotes (not Harvard references), and the numbered footnotes-with-templates as defended by EvilP et al. are a faulty implementation of WP:FN3 (while not switching to "label" variant for multiple references to the same footnote, and while the numbering is further disturbed by a footnote not linked from the text), where Cyde's refconverter proved to be able to put straight this erroneous implementation of numbered footnotes. -- Francis Schonken 16:09, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
As far as I'm concerned this RfC can be closed. Don't know about closing procedures for RfC's. Regardless of whether I'd be doing this by the book: I want to make it clear that I have no knowledge of any remaining issues that need solving with Cyde (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Cyde#The other user conduct issue for the last one there might have been in which I'd have interest, now closed).
Whether problems weren't actually inflated by having recourse to RfC: I suppose they were. On the plus side: the problems, whether they were big or minor, they got solved. And I'd be happy to close this somewhat artificial way of tackling issues. -- Francis Schonken 21:32, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
This is a summary written by the user whose conduct is disputed, or by other users who think that the dispute is unjustified and that the above summary is biased or incomplete. Users signing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Outside Views") should not edit the "Response" section.
There is no RfC here (and certainly not a user conduct RfC). I have done nothing wrong and even the originator of this RfC, Evilphoenix, thinks it's too early to go this route and would rather continue making progress in discussions (see here, which Lulu subsequently reverted). Most of the actions listed above have nothing to do with me other than that my open source tool was used; by the same token, can we file an RfC against Linus Torvalds because some hackers use Linux? -- Cyde Weys 17:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
This is a summary written by users not directly involved with the dispute but who would like to add an outside view of the dispute. Users editing other sections ("Statement of the dispute" and "Response") should not edit the "Outside Views" section, except to endorse an outside view.
While Cyde could have been a bit less zealous in his promotion of the tool, I can see little wrongdoing on his part. It is not his fault if other editors abuse his tool. The glacier article clearly has all the indications of a revert war, so yeah, he was wrong there. I should note that J.K. Rowling has a really disturbing footnoting system (try it for yourself) that confuses the hell out of readers, however useful to researchers or editors it might be. Cyde has definitely been overzealous in promoting m:Cite, but you gotta' admit that {{ ref}}, etc. ain't pretty either — especially looking at how Rowling's article uses them. This is unrelated to Cyde in particular, but Lulu has been spamming user talk pages complaining about Cyde's tool (probably in a misguided effort to impose a moratorium on its usage), and a bunch of other stuff has been going on as well. Cyde is definitely not the only one at fault here, and at least 2/3rds of this RfC have nothing to do with him. If he wanted to play tit for tat, he could just as well bring up Lulu's conduct, which has been just as questionable as his (sticking NPOV tags on pages in Cyde's userspace, etc.). Oh, and one last thing... Johnleemk | Talk 17:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Users who endorse this summary:
While Evilphoenix may have decided that he was going to wikibreak and not attend to this matter...all that was added to the Rfc by Evilphoenix were diffs and some commentary. I see nothing wrong with moving this outside userspace since a number of other editors also have complaints and Evilphoenix is (was?) only one of them...as clearly shown in links above. My perception of the "problem" is the lack of grasp the programmers have when discussing this matter with someone who is merely an editor such as myself. I ahve clearly stated that I am not convinced that cite.php is "better" over ref|note becuase I find it takes up too much space in the editing window. When I first started with Wikipedia about 15,000 years (edits) ago...I was clueless as to how to edit an article. I routinely see newbie editors that make simple mistakes and mess up formatting...I can't understand why we need to make the basic editing area more complex by incorporating the reference. I recognize that in ref|note, the risk is high that footnotes get out of place if someone removes a note link and or moves sections around. As far as Harvard style, I can see no reason that cite.php is currently better for the same reasons...namely that the editing window is full of reference, but primarily because the references are no longer alphabetical.-- MONGO 04:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
— Apr. 25, '06 [09:28] < freakofnurxture | talk>
Users who endorse this summary:
So, protect the ref|note templates...why is that a big deal? The bolding of boilerplate "If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it" is ironic...it goes both ways. An examination of the Wikipedia:Footnote3 page clearly demonstrates that numerous styles are accepted as does the guideline page on citing sources. Until myself and a few others discovered the alterations to the Wikipedia:Footnotes page and made adjustments there, it indicated that m:cite.php was essentially the only way to go with footnoting. Yes, you can't stop people from editing "your" prose or "your" citation style. Exactly.-- MONGO 10:30, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Mongo - there is too much fooling around with ref styles going on - this is very bad and must stop. Merecat 04:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Note: As high-risk templates, {{ ref}} and {{ note}} already are protected, so we're only concerned about the vandals with admin privileges. — Doug Bell talk• contrib 11:36, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Comment Care to go a bit further with that implication? •Jim62sch• 01:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
In reading the evidence re the JK Rowling article, I was totally unimpressed by the evidence against Cyde. The evidence against Evilphoenix, however, I found to be rather compelling. To wit:
In other words folks, seems to me that it isn't Cyde's behaviour that needs to be commented upon. •Jim62sch• 22:39, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
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I am aware at this moment of this RfC but am not allowed to participate above. ( SEWilco 04:27, 26 April 2006 (UTC))
I don't want to take sides here (or Cydes, either), but I wanted to mention a couple things:
That said, I see a few things that are making disharmonious:
Here's an example where discussion helps out: Someone recently edited Minnesota State Highway 3 to indicate that it ends in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. Even though the references I had said that it ends at Minnesota State Highway 110 in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota, I didn't immediately revert the article and complain to the editor -- I mentioned why I believed my version was correct, and confirmed that the next time I was in the neighborhood. He did some checking of his own and found that I was correct. So, the dispute was resolved harmoniously without anyone reverting anything.
-- E lkman - (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
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<ref sort="Snape, Severus">Severus Snape, Pixels And Potions, p. 23</ref>.
Cite.php would sort on the sort key.
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