Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Cyde

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: 23:17, 14 September 2024 (UTC).

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• Cyde (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log)
• Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs • page moves • block log)
• (Some) Other users of Ref converter

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Users should only edit one summary or view, other than to endorse.

Statement of the dispute

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.

Description

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.

Evidence of disputed behavior

J. K. Rowling

1. March 11th, 2006 - March 30th, 2006: User:Evilphoenix and User:Serendipodous work to properly cite and verify J. K. Rowling, going from approximately three citations to nearly fifty cited references - [1]
2. 02:31, March 30, 2006: User:Jacoplane converts the article using Cyde's ref converter [2]
3. 04:17, March 30, 2006: User:Evilphoenix reverts the change - [3]
4. 04:21, March 30, 2006: Evilphoenix leaves a note on Jacoplane's Talk page asking him not to convert the article again. [4]
5. 04:26, March 30, 2006: Jacoplane responds to Evilphoenix, explaining his reasoning but agreeing not to convert the article again - [5]
6. 11:04, April 16, 2006: User:Fallout boy converts the citations - [6]
7. 21:47, April 16, 2006: User:Evilphoenix reverts the conversion - [7]
8. 22:14, April 16, 2006: Fallout boy comments on Evilphoenix's Talk page - [8]
9. 00:14, April 17, 2006: Evilphoenix replies, explaining his reasoning and pointing to the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes - [9]
10. 00:27, April 17, 2006: Evilphoenix posts to Wikipedia talk:Footnotes, commenting on the recent changes to J. K. Rowling, explaining that he does not like the new citation system, and asking for input on the issue - [10].

    The conversation as it is on April 23rd, 2006: [11]

    The discussion includes:

    1. Evilphoenix's comment

    2.User:FrancisTyers against cite.php due to the messiness of having the entire citation in the article text: "I can't stand having the whole reference in the article body." - [12]

    3.User:Omegatron against cite.php due to wanting all the reference text in the references section, mentioning a proposal he has made to address that: "It really needs to be changed so that the reference text is in the References section, where it actually appears. I get the impression that people were in such a rush to get a real references system that they didn't try it in realistic situations much before implementing it. It's better than templates, but still needs a lot of work." - [13]

    4.User:Dmharvey preferring just one entry in the References section for each reference, instead of the multiple entries generated by cite.php -[14]

    5.User:MONGO against cite.php, stating his agreement with Evilphoenix's position: "In some articles, some editors prefer a different look, one which is approved by Wikipedia, unless someone wants to change that too. There seems to be a steamrolling effect here, where a relative few have gone and started altering articles, without discussing the changes in the article talk page." - [15]

    6.User:Doug Bell against cite.php, agreeing with MONGO: "The manner in which this is being pushed into implementation is disturbing." - [16]

    7.User:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters against cite.php, citing similar reasons to Evilphoenix and preferring Harvard referencing"Specifically, in scientifically oriented articles, an alphabetical list of bibliographic references that may be multiply referred to by name is vastly better than an order-of-first-occurence list of references by number only." - [17],"There are good things about m:Cite.php, but there are also a number of distinct disadvantages with it. Shoving it down the throats of editors who actually work on a specific article is obnoxious and in bad faith. Claiming that Harvard references are suddenly deprecated, in the absence of any WP process, but simply because a tool has been written to do conversions, is even worse."[18] [19],"...those decisions are for the editors actively involved in a given article."[20]

    8.User:Ceyockey advocating "if an article is today primarly of ref/note or cite.php format, stick with how it presently stands until a better cite.php function can be created." - [21]

    9.User:Jon Awbrey : "Once you get more than a dozen or so items in your list of references and/or bibliography, then it's time to use an alphabetized list for both. The list of references needs to be one place, not scattered throughout the text." - [22]

    Conversely...,

    1.User:Circeus preferring cite.php because he dislikes editing information in two different places - [23]

    2.User:Cyde commenting in favor of cite.php - [24]

    3.User:David Kernow commenting that {{Ref}} is problematic, but preferring a better distinction between footnotes and references - [25]

11. 07:35, April 22, 2006: User:Sandstein converts the article - [26]
12. 16:38, April 22, 2006: User:Jacoplane reverts the conversion with edit summary (changing back to old refs. I like the new refs, but they do not work for this article, which has references listed alphabetically.) - [27]
13. 18:35, April 22, 2006: Evilphoenix leaves a comment on Sandstein's Talk page pointing to the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes and asking Sandstein not to convert the article again. [28]
14. 18:44, April 22, 2006: Sandstein responds on his Talk page, disagreeing with some of Evilphoenix's requests but agreeing not to convert the article again.
15. 19:07, April 22, 2006: Sandstein adds a comment to the article asking other users not to convert the article again - [29]
16. 20:22, April 22, 2006: The very next edit, User:Nooby god converts the article again - [30]
17. 20:38, April 22, 2006: User:Cyde removes commenting on a commented out Citation that was prepared with the expectation of eventually being used in the article, and therefore was not properly converted using Cyde's converter - [31].
18. 20:40, April 22, 2006: Cyde comments on Talk:J. K. Rowling about the conversion having been accomplished - [32]
19. 01:16, April 23, 2006: Evilphoenix reverts - [33]
20. 01:26, April 23, 2006: Evilphoenix responds to Cyde's comment, rather frustradedly asking for the article not to be converted to cite.php again, pointing to the conversation on Wikipedia talk:Footnotes - [34]
21. 06:27, April 23, 2006: Sandstein responds to Evilphoenix's comment on the Talk page, concerned about Evilphoenix's aggressive tone - "I for one am reluctant to second-guess the regular contributors to this article as to what note numbering system is most appropriate, so I've added a comment to that effect to the references section."[35]
22. 18:04, April 23, 2006: The very next edit to the article, User:MPerel converts the article - [36]
23. 18:06, April 23, 2006: Cyde comes back in to make the same commenting out as before - [37].
24. 18:37, April 23, 2006 Evilphoenix reverts [38]
25. 16:47, April 23, 2006 - Evilphoenix responds to Sandstein, explaining "I've repeatedly stated my reasons for disliking the cite.php system, reasons which I believe are valid and that I am not alone in holding." - [39]
26. 18:03, April 23, 2006 - Cyde accuses Evilphoenix of violating the WP:OWN policy and stating: "..you are doing more harm than good" - [40]

Retreat of glaciers since 1850

"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]

1. 03:42, April 18, 2006: Cyde uses refconvertor to change Retreat of glaciers since 1850 from Harvard style to cite.php., [42]
2. 03:46, April 18, 2006: Cyde corrects one citation to article that wasn't changed by ref convertor and uses edit summary of "Grrrr, stupid malformed ref", [43]
3. 04:37, April 18, 2006: MONGO reverts back to Harvard style with edit summary of "Please do not alter the Harv style referencing...it makes the article text too difficult to edit with the huge refences in the text itself", [44]
4. 04:58, April 18, 2006: Cyde comments on article discussion page that cite.php is "demonstrably better" and reminds MONGO that nobody owns an article. [45]. Without waiting for a response, Cyde immediately,
5. 04:58, April 18, 2006: Cyde reverts MONGO and claims that "Cite.php is demonstrably better, see talk", [46]
6. 05:06, April 18, 2006: MONGO responds on the talk page that Cyde doesn't own the article either. MONGO asks to see who determined that this new citation style was approved by a concensus of editors. [47]
7. 05:10, April 18, 2006: MONGO provides diffs that demonstrate that the new citation style "takes up too much space in the text of the article" and asks to know who voted on this new style. [48]
8. 05:14, April 18, 2006: Cyde responds with the summary on all editing windows about articles being editied mercilessly, claims that cite.php is the "wave of the future" and that "It wasn't really ever "voted on" — the older reference templates simply became deprecated when it was unveiled". [49]
9. 05:37, April 18, 2006:MONGO responds with "I seem to miss how the editing window is more manageable when much of it is taken up by reference within the article text. The harvard style was perferred by most that worked on this article as it is alphabetical. [50]
10. 07:53, April 18, 2006: MONGO reverts back to Harvard style citations with edit summary "I have not been convinved that cite.php is better and after looking over discussions in the footnotes pages, I am still not convinced" [51]

Note

On April 18 Retreat of glaciers since 1850 was FA on wikipedia's main page [52] - intrusive changes to featured articles while they're on main page can be experienced as somewhat disruptive.

Applicable policies and guidelines

{list the policies and guidelines that apply to the disputed conduct}

1. WP:CIVIL
2. WP:NOT
3. WP:OWN
4. Wikipedia:Footnotes#Converting citation styles ("[...] seek consensus first, before converting citation styles")
5. Wikipedia:Don't disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
6. Wikipedia:Footnote3 (boilerplate: "For linked Harvard references, realised with [...] templates [...], this how-to guideline continues to be active.")

Evidence of trying and failing to resolve the dispute

(provide diffs and links)

• Many requests to add a caveat about the non-consensus use of refconverter to its project page and/or to disable its use where such specific problems are identified (all rebuffed by Cyde):

1. [53]
2. [54]
3. [55]
4. [56] (Francis Schonken mentions prior Arbcom ruling against same behavior)
5. [57]
6. [58] (LotLE's first request in this regard)
7. [59] (Cyde's claim that GPL license absolves all his actions)
8. [60] (Evilphoenix reiterates LotLE's requests for caveat in tool page)
9. [61] (Evilphoenix repeats/clarifies caveta request)
10. [62] (Cyde claims his tool does not do what it does)
11. [63] (Evilphoenix requests blacklist feature)
12. [64] (Cyde claims that blacklist cannot be performed programmatically)
13. [65] (Evilphoenix requests blacklist be fully implemented rather than just hinted at)
14. [66] (LotLE clarifies "random conversion" feature and emphasizes WP consensus process)

• General requests not to edit war over imposing reference styles preferred by Cyde (also consistently rudely rebuffed):

1. [67]
2. [68]
3. [69]
4. [70]
5. [71]
6. [72]
7. [73]
8. [74]

• Challenge/insults about "bring it on" and encouragement of an RfC by Cyde:

1. [75]
2. [76] (Evilphoenix' mention of writing draft RfC)
3. [77] (Cyde's challenge to Evilphoenix)
4. [78] (Cyde's start at insulting LotLE's requests)
5. [79]
6. [80] ("Bring it on" challenge by Cyde)
7. [81] (Evilphoenix tries to deescalate by turning it away from user-conduct RfC)
8. [82] (More insults by Cyde against LotLE)
9. [83] (Taunting about RfC)

• Attempts to insert caveat language in refconverter tool description (deleted by Cyde):

Users certifying the basis for this dispute

{Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute}

1. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
2. --MONGO 06:23, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
3. (added wikipedia:footnotes, WP:POINT and WP:FN3 as applicable guidelines above, hope that's OK) --Francis Schonken 07:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Statement by Cyde

Lulu also has a previous RfC that is worth looking into.

Lulu has painted a very one-side picture of this dispute. Here is my attempt to give you both sides of the story.

Description

This is the first time Lulu spoke to me in regards to this latest round of the conflict. Here are some key bits:

• This is extremely disrespectful to other Wikipedia editors, and a gross violation of process. What you are doing is wrong, and harms Wikipedia.
• Unfortunately, I will support a user conduct RfC against you for this misbehavior. It's really crossed the line.
• I certainly do not think you should be blocked...

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:

• This sort of reaction makes me think that, in fact, a short-term block really would be an approrpriate remedy.
• You have actively encouraged harmful edits... and have performed a large number of harmful edits yourself...
• [Y]ou advocate that everyone just declare: "Fuck consensus!" to push your particular idea about reference styles.
• I'm quite willing to take it as far as arbcom if your abuse continues.

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:

• Unreflective use of refconverter is causing many problems, and in many cases actively harming Wikipedia.
• This is extremely disrespectful to other Wikipedia editors, and a gross violation of process.
• You may also want to take a look at User:Evilphoenix/ref conversion. This is a sketch of an RfC that may be filed to try to resolve this problem (I see no reason you might not opine there, even while it lives in userspace).

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)

Statement by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters

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:

• Conversion of articles to m:Cite.php format without checking whether consensus exists among article editors to do so. Often Cyde's semi-bot "refconverter" is being used to do this; but the issue of what particular tool is used (or if it is done manually) is rather secondary to the underlying fact of a change being made. The tool just makes non-cooperative actions that much easier.
  • In cases where the current standard of citation/footnoting is poor or haphazard, any attention to notes is generally an improvement: so no harm, no foul.
  • In cases where current notes are fairly extensive and of relatively good quality, the issue of conversion should be addressed on the article talk page prior to performing a conversion. In many such pages, the issue has simply never been discussed, and few editors have objections to a change to m:Cite.php.
  • In cases where a discussion has specifically occurred, and consensus was specificially reached to use a style other than m:Cite.php, making a unilateral change shows extremely bad faith. Retreat of glaciers since 1850 was the article that I happened to be a major editor on, and that made it to the front page, where such an explicit consensus to use Harvard referencing was reached (actually, Doug Bell's tweak of {{ref_harv}}. In that article, Cyde repeatedly reverted to the anti-consensus version while it was on the front page, against repeated requests not to do so.

• Mistatement of the status of referencing technologies on MediaWiki. In point of fact, several styles are explicitly endorsed as co-equal guidelines at Wikipedia:Footnotes: i.e. Cite.php footnotes are not the only way to make footnotes. Cyde has published misleading or deceptive statements in a number of places, including Signpost, claiming that "Harvard references are deprecated, and m:Cite.php is the officially endorsed format" (or words to that effect). Such attempts to mislead other editors who may be less involved in the technology aspects show bad faith.
  • Related to the last point, denying the continuing drawbacks of m:Cite.php, and claiming it has only benefits, is rather dishonest.

• Automated tools are wonderful to have, but the capabilities added to refconverter, and the documentation surrounding it, that encourage mass conversion of articles that editors are otherwise uninvolved with, encourages abuse. In particular, the recently added function of "Randomly select a page to modify without requesting consensus" is a particularly strong incitement of semi-vandalism using the semi-bot. It appears like much of the behavior of Cyde and a couple other editors follows the logic of allowing the existence of a tool to take precedence over the wisdom of using it for specific articles. Tools should only exist to aid in actions that are desirable for reasons other than the opportunity to use the tool.

Users who endorse this summary:

1. —Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 21:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
2. --MONGO 02:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Ancillary comments by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters

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:

1. Wholeheartedly. --MONGO 04:37, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
2. Lulu's being rather magnaminously forgiving of the "ancillary issues", but still I endorse. —Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 05:41, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Response

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:

1. jaco♫plane 17:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
2. Thatcher131 19:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC) Individual editors who misuse any tool should be held accountable; the creator of the tool is not responsible for the actions of others.
3. Fallout boy 19:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
4. Nooby_god | Talk 21:43, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
5. JoshuaZ 22:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC) What Thatcher said. JoshuaZ 22:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
6. RFC on Cyde's conduct? He created an excellent tool. People love it, people are using it responsibly. --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 22:49, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Outside view

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.

Johnleemk

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:

1. I apologize for the glacier page; that was the first and last time I've ever edit-warred over references. --Cyde Weys 17:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
2. RefConverter is a great tool. It is up to the users to decide on whether they find it useful. Harvard reference system is certainly better for printed text but it is completely out of place for hyperlinked footnotes/references. The whole concept of bringing a RfC on this issue seems to me as an abuse of process. People must understand that whatever effort you have put on an article, you are not the owner (NB: Not talking about anyone in particular). A possible compromise would be to use both systems, cite.php for "live" references and an alphabetical list following Harvard style, to be added to the end of the article. Changes could be implemented to the software to allow this (as far as I see it). Regards, --Asterion ^{talk to me} 18:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
3. Guettarda 18:53, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
4. Snoutwood (talk) 19:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
5. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 19:15, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
6. Thatcher131 19:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
7. I fully endorse what Johnleemk has wrote. Asterion's comments are also quite important and should be seriously considered. -Ambuj Saxena (talk) 19:32, 24 April 2006 (UTC).
8. Yep. Note also that the tool's users (including myself) have done nothing wrong, except possibly not first looking at the edit history to see if the conversion has been attempted and reverted in the past (I've since added a cautionary notice to that effect to the tool's page). This tool's usage has been completely uncontroversial on all the dozens (low hundreds?) of articles that have been converted, except the handful that now remain stuck at the top of the tool's to-do list (this should be adressed by Cyde, who otherwise deserves praise for his work on the tool). Sandstein 19:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
9. WP:OWN clearly applies here. Trying to penalize a useful tool that many users are thankful for just for the questionably dubious actions of a couple is simply a bad thing. The fact that this page was moved from the subpage of a user that does not consider an RfC to be necessary yet indicates that this is awfully premature. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 20:50, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
10. And the <ref> format is also better than the {{ref}} format. David | Talk 21:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
11. This seems almost like if someone filed an RfC because people were using Interiot's tool too much to make RfA voting decisions. Not that extreme, but almost. the ref-converter is a useful tool and it is irrational to get annoyed at Cyde if someone uses the tool without consensus. JoshuaZ 22:25, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
12. I started to get the picture when I saw Lulu keep plugging his own (not yet written) tool and make insulting grandiose statements to the effect that Cyde should be learning from him (i.e. "I'm someone whom Cyde might be required to read to get his CS undergrad degree that he's studying for")[84] --MPerel ^{( talk | contrib)} 23:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
13. signing in agreement with Johnleeemk's statements: User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
14. kingboyk 03:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
15. Agreeing with Johnleemks statements —-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(esperanza) 2006-04-25 03:51
16. Also agreeing with Johnleemk's statement. Jude (talk,contribs,email) 06:23, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Perspective by MONGO

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)

Discussion

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.