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My RfA

Hi Cyde. Just a quick note to thank you for voting on my RfA, which recently passed 62/13/6. I want to let you know that I will do my best to address all concerns that were raised during the RfA. I will also do my very best live up to this new responsibility and to serve the community, but please let me know if I make any mistakes or if you have any feedback at all on my actions. Finally, if there is anything that I can assist you with - please don't hesitate to ask. Cheers TigerShark 04:11, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oral Sex

I think it might be time to close this mediation case...... KimvdLinde 21:10, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done, there wasn't much to do though. The main person on the other side was recently banned indefinitely by the community. --Cyde Weys 21:19, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I missed the latter, but I am not surprised.... KimvdLinde 21:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was actually the one who blocked him for one month and then recommended an increase to indefinite, which was then carried out, so maybe I wasn't the best impartial mediator in this instance :-D Cyde Weys 21:29, 4 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hamas

Hi Cyde, thanks for your note about the new refs style, which I've just started using, so I'm still feeling my way. I only converted the refs in the intro, by the way, so the {{note label|CFR|16|a}} edits aren't mine. Thanks for the link to your refs converter. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice-looking talk page. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:35, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes and references WikiProject

I'm seriously thinking about starting a Wikipedia:WikiProject Footnotes or something along those lines. When it comes to footnotes and references the articles on Wikipedia are an absolute mess and need serious cleaning up. It doesn't help that the old {{ref}} and {{note}} system was hard to use and very prone to falling out of date with further edits, to the point that there are isolated refs or notes that don't match anything or the numbers have gotten out of order. The Cite.php is much better and to that means I have created the Ref converter, which works to convert properly formatted old-style refs and notes to the new Cite.php. Of course, a lot of the old-style refs and notes were done incorrectly, and so lots of human hands are needed. The ultimate goal would be to zero out the What links here list of {{note}}, {{ref}}, {{an}}, {{anb}}, {{ref label}}, and {{note label}}, as well as eliminating inline external links. Obviously that's a hard goal to achieve, so we would probably be better suited to go for education efforts, i.e., educate users on how to properly use <ref> and <references /> so that, over time, new references and footnotes are added correctly and ones in the old style are gradually converted. Who's with me? --Cyde Weys 01:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Intriguing idea. Of course, I just really need another project to help me with all the things to do on my personal lists. At the very least, I guess, I could go back and redo the refs on the articles I've made substantive contributions to. I'll keep an eye on this. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 02:14, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. As I said, there is going to be a big focus on education efforts, because the number of articles on Wikipedia with old and improperly formatted references is huge. I've already started looking at edit histories on these kinds of pages, identified the editors using the old style, and left them a polite note on their talk page. If we have a nice WikiProject page we can link to that lays out all of the proper stuff to do when making references it will be very helpful. --Cyde Weys 02:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have echoed this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check, let's see what kind of a response we get from them. --Cyde Weys 02:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Against my better judgment I may let myself get sucked into this. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 02:28, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the first thing I'm going to do is create a page that list proper ways to cite various sources (e.g. {{citenews}}) and describes the proper way to use Cite.php. Of course, there will be examples! --Cyde Weys 02:33, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

see also User:Cantara/Bibliography ... that user may be interested in combining forces with you. I just told you just about all I know about it. Hope it helps! ++Lar: t/c 03:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some useful links to start fixing references:

--Cyde Weys 04:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You'll definitely have to count me in. I wish I'd found your ref converter before now, because I could've used it when I converted several pages by hand :-) Also, I noticed (a bug?) that when you ran it through Katie Holmes, it did something weird with the formatting, and it ended up <ref>. Start of reference</ref>. Not sure whether that was actually a problem with the original formatting or not, but I've gone through and tweaked it all out--hopefully. :D Jud e (talk,contribs,email) 08:36, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I noticed the out-of-place periods in Katie Holmes too ... there wasn't much I could do about it though, those were present in the original ref/notes for whatever reason. Ref converter just converts properly formatted refs ... if it tried to handle every little weird thing that people do it would be a monumental undertaking. --Cyde Weys 16:53, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I love your converter! thanks much! KillerChihuahua^?!? 09:31, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Protect a page

Hey, Cyde. Almost the entire article at World War II was deleted and replaced with nonsense by an IP vandal. Could you get that to the attention of administrators? This request was added by Brendenhull 01:43, 5 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]

For future reference you can just take care of that kind of thing yourself. Just revert the vandalism. And if it's a persistent problem, report it at WP:AIV. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 01:50, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ref converter

Cyde, I've tried your Ref converter on Body mass index and it worked amazingly well (I was amazed anyway!). Some (but not all) double quotes " and other stuff was indeed munged until I used Notepad exactly as you had said. Merely copying and pasting into Notepad wasn't sufficient: I had to save your text file and open it into Notepad before copying and pasting into "edit". But someone is bound to know the solution to this: shame that someone isn't me. Many thanks. Thincat 10:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the browser tries to be too smart and tries to interpret some of the foreign characters to your local character set. Meanwhile, Notepad is just dumb enough that it leaves everything exactly the way it is, and thus works. I really do wish I could figure out a way to get copy-and-paste straight from the browser working, rather than having to download and open a text file. Ref converter is open source, so if anyone wants to take a stab, get in contact. I can set you up with a CVS account. --Cyde Weys 16:56, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use Textpad or EmEditor, never use Notepad, its a piece of... its not the best text editing solution. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:03, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I tried using Notepad2 and it was actually being too smart and it messed up the foreign language characters. What's needed in this situation is absolutely the dumbest rock on a log text editor you can find, because all you're doing is downloading a text file, opening it, and copying the contents into Wikipedia, and during that conversion, you don't want a single byte changed. Notepad doesn't change a single byte; others do. --Cyde Weys 17:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lothal

Thank you for the wikiflower. It's nice to be appreciated. I have also put an {{editprotected}} on Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 6, 2006, and was wondering if you would take care of that for me. — MSchmahl … 21:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:Mike Garcia

Mike Garcia (talk · contribs) has been changing "is" to "are" and "was" to "were" on articles again. He has said that he would go into an edit war with me if he has to and said, "Feel happy that there is nothing you can do to stop me from that [1]. I have been unable to resolve this issue with him. What can I do to stop this kind of behavior from him? I am thinking of doing an RfC but read that it requires 2 active editors to file one. Any comments and suggestions? Thanks! —RJN 04:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, not this again. I've dealt with it and posted to WP:ANI. Going to bed now. --Cyde Weys 05:03, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is irresponsible to block another user in order to gain an advantage in a content dispute. Could you please unblock Mike? Thanks. Rhobite 14:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a content dispute, it's a formatting dispute. And he's causing disruption to many articles. General consensus on these US/British issues (i.e. color/colour) is to just leave them alone, and do not go out searching for things to convert to "your way". --Cyde Weys 16:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe this is a US/British issue. In many cases, such as The Beatles and The White Stripes, it is correct to use the plural in both forms of the language. Rhobite 19:14, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In American English the preferred form is to use the singular verb when referring to collective nouns. I suppose the other way is acceptable in colloquial usage, but ask an English professor ... they'll tell you what's "correct". Apparently it's different in British English. --Cyde Weys 20:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine, but plural band names are not collective nouns. Ask the New York Times, they agree with me on The White Stripes and The Supremes. If the Times writes in "colloquial" English, as you say, then so should we. Rhobite 20:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although the question largely turns on whether one writes/speaks in British or American English (notwithstanding that some of us hail from America but side with the Brits on collective noun questions), upon which recognition we are perhaps best served to use whatever verb form would be consistent with the general language on the page (inasmuch as there is surely no pattern one can observe with respect to which articles, having been contributed to primarily by British English speakers, employ British spellings and grammar and which don't), consistent with, inter al., the Jguk arbitration case (although I'm not altogether in accord with the suggestion that one should, for instance, change BE spellings to AE where the subject of an article is American; the justification seems insignificant), concerns over intent sometimes militate that one usage be chosen over another. As our article collective noun well illustrates, even in BE one sometimes uses the singular where the intent is to refer with specificity to the group qua group (cf., group qua individuals). In the VF article, I believe the plural should be employed, given that the history reveals that the "are" formulation was used for much of the life of the article. Whether one, as Mike, should so concern himself with returning the article to the plural locution (and with changing other articles in order that they should be consistent with BE) is a different question, and one that may properly be addressed at RfC if the user about whom RJN writes is wholly recalcitrant and otherwise incivil. Joe 20:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My RfC

Hi Cyde. I wonder if you would mind if I moved the RfC on me from your userspace into mine? It just seems, well, more appropriate. Cheers, Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 16:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah that sounds fine. Please leave the redirects in my userspace intact though. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 16:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 17:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See what you miss?

I only just noted your April 1 vandalism of my userpage - made me chuckle, that did :-) Just zis Guy you know? 17:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

April Fool's: The Gift That Keeps On Giving. --Cyde Weys 19:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal/troll is back

The troll 67.160.36.12 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) I mentioned earlier who had photoshopped pictures over that AfD is back, it is currently putting non-sensical warning messages on my talk page, I took one off and it put on another. Among other fun things, it seemed to think my last name was "Zimmerman" or tried to guess that was what it was. In any event, a word/and or a long a block might be in order (and could you rv my user page since technically I shouldn't be removing warnings from my user page). Thanks. JoshuaZ 20:27, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably the same troll that made the Joshuaz (note uncapped z) user name. JoshuaZ 20:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nevermind, Gator and Teadrinker handled it, apparently our little friend tried to report me for vandalism and that caught their attention. JoshuaZ 20:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dealt with. Ugh, what an annoying troll. --Cyde Weys 20:39, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

67.160.36.12

I think a month long block is too long in this case, perhaps 48 hours? (Of course I am just a newbie admin, so point it out to me if I am obviously wrong)

Prodego ^talk 20:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look at his contribs and his overall disruptiveness. He hasn't done anything good in the past dozens of edits and he sure as hell has done a lot of bad. Him posting to WP:AIV shows that he's familiar with Wikipedia and was trying to game the system. In other words, he knows what he was doing was bad, and one month is not too long of a block for this kind of trolling, harrassing, and unproductive nonsense. --Cyde Weys 20:42, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I always try to assume good faith, (i.e. I never user the blatant vandal template), I definitely don't think a block longer then a week is necessary here, especially since this is an IP. If (s)he continues after a 48 hour block then I would support a month block, but not as a first block. Prodego ^talk 20:47, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Look at all of the warnings on this guy's page though. He got off very easy earlier without a block at all. And if you still really think the block duration needs to be decreased, post something to WP:ANI. Let me remind you that WP:AGF is an initial assumption ... it is not a suicide pact. You don't keep assuming good faith while they're shooting at you. --Cyde Weys 20:49, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I do ;-), see the vandal who attacked my userpage. However I leave this up to you, I won't contest it or anything, just giving my opinion. Happy editing. Prodego ^talk 20:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My sincere apologies to Prodego and Cyde for having inadvertently removed Prodego's last message here while adding my comment. Joe 21:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sherbert test page merge proposal

I've been editing the Sherbert Test page that you created (you and I are the only one's who've worked on it). Frankly, I think a lot of the page is redundant with the Free Exercise Clause page. I was going to propose a merger, but if it's fine by you, I'll just go ahead and merge Sherbert into FEC. --Kchase02 23:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just make sure you add a new section to that page explicitly named "The Sherbert Test" or something and then have the redirect from Sherbert Test point to that section. --Cyde Weys 23:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that makes much sense. There is already a section on the compelling interest test, which is the same thing. I think they should be merged. I can do that. --Kchase02 17:20, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"ZOMG the signals are coming thru yer TINFOIL HELMET, better get an UPGRADE"??

in the future, when leveling a block on a sharedip, could you try to give a more useful blocking description, I mean, I don't know what the hell to make of this, is it on an ip, or a username? I can't even tell--64.12.116.9 00:00, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The user's contribs speak for themselves. And my block summary was entirely relevant to his username. --Cyde Weys 00:06, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean I tried to edit a page just now and it said "ZOMG the signals are coming thru yer TINFOIL HELMET, better get an UPGRADE", without actually mentioning that there was a username involved at all, it used to just say "autoblocked because your ip has been recently used by...", they seem to have changed it, and now it just prints the blocking summary for you instead, without mentioning whether it was a username or an ip block--205.188.117.5 00:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you the same person as 64.12.116.9 above? I don't even know if I'm talking to the same person, or two different people, or what. --Cyde Weys 00:11, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, had to change ip ranges becasue every time I clicked save page I get hit with "ZOMG the signals are coming thru yer TINFOIL HELMET, better get an UPGRADE", making it kind of hard to continue the conversation--205.188.117.5 00:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you're not the Moonbat or Mooncat vandal, you just somehow happened to be using the same IP address as them? That's not entirely unlikely ... are you coming from a country with restrictive Internet access, or a school computer system, or anything like that? --Cyde Weys 00:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AOL user--205.188.117.5 00:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, I fixed it. Banning users is like walking through a minefield ... you never know when you're gonna ban a big AOL account and trap up a bunch of people in the autoblocker. --Cyde Weys 00:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

My personal opinion is that so long as they're not a wave of links, they don't hurt. I rarely do any mainspace work where date linking is an issue, but as it's at best disputed right now on either side, I try not to make it that big an issue in the mainspace. Thanks for your comments. Ral315 (talk) 00:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Deletion review/Userbox debates

You closed a few debates — what was the outcome? It looked to me as if there was consensus to undelete. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:54, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The outcome on the "Assume bad faith" in userspace one was undeleted, all of the others didn't have consensus to overrule Jimbo's T1. --Cyde Weys 00:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About damn time that one was closed. (or maybe I'm perceiving a week as much longer than it actually is) —

nathanrdotcom ^{(T • C • W)} 04:26, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're misinterpreting T1, especially since MarkSweep's assertions of T1 should probably be reversed without further investigation, but you're closer than most. I was particularly amused by someone who stated that a template had to be both divisive and' inflammatory in order to be deleted under T1, while Jimbo clearly intended or. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 01:16, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, well let's just say then that there was no consensus to undelete. On a personal note, I find it humorous that two of the most vociferous people in that debate have since been indefinitely blocked as sockpuppets. I did take that into account before closing the DRVs. --Cyde Weys 01:18, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Encouragement

I have noticed that some people have been rude to you recently, and I'm sorry to see that. Whether you're right or wrong, there's no excuse for incivility. Keep your chin up! Sarah crane 15:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AWB Cleanup on Historicism

I have to ask why you found it necessary to go through the Historicism page and essentially remove some spaces which do not affect the layout. On the other hand, some like the style == Heading == as compared to ==Heading==. What style manual enforces your style? I am not meaning to attack you, but I find the original style much easier to read than the second and since you only made source code edits, thats what matters to me. Note: Its not that I was an active contributor to that page but I have it watched just in case things happen to it and this seems purely a style issue. Ansell 01:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:STYLE. KillerChihuahua^?!? 01:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can see, that does not address white space, except at the ends of sentences and before colons. -- Donald Albury^(Talk) 02:17, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It does address heading styles, and white space is covered somewhere, I'll go digging. It is likely on a sub-page buried somewhere. KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:19, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, Dal - I saw white space addressed somewhere but its either been taken out, or I'm not looking in the right place. However, the headings was my main reason for posting the link. Ansell, which was your primary concern? KillerChihuahua^?!? 02:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[2] defines the headers issue as completely optional. I can see that the extra lines in the references part of the edit that were made would possibly change the layout there, however, extra spaces between sections do not create the difference.

I was wondering why someone found it necessary to go through a page and essentially not change its output (with the possible of exception of spare lines in the references section) Ansell 02:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since this is a matter of AWB pre-sets, that kind of thing should be taken up there. Guettarda 02:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Note that the Start a new discussion tab on a Talk: page (the "+" link) inserts a blank line before and after the heading, and spaces in between the == and the heading text. Some editors find this easier to read in the wikitext source code." Quote from the Manual of Style (Headings)

I am wondering what was so wrong with the page that AWB was flagging it. Will have a look at the AWB site about this. Ansell 02:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry guys, I didn't realize removing the spacing between the equal signs and the text in the header was gonna be such a big deal. I'll stop doing it. And don't bug the AWB people over it either; it was just something that I cooked up in regex. It's kind of annoying to see this inconsistency with spacing between multiple pages though. I wish the manual of style picked one way or the other and stuck to it. --Cyde Weys 02:46, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but I just brought the issue up on their talk page. If you could go Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser and explain it would be great. Ansell 02:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They took up the style suggestion into their "Rules of use" :) See [3] Ans e ll 08:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hah, awesome, I enacted a policy change entirely by an unintentional WP:POINT :-P Cyde Weys 08:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Closure of deletion review votes you were heavily involved in

Cyde, I have no interest in a revert war with you. Let's discuss this. My main objection is not to Template:User review being closed as a "keep deleted", as such, but (1) that it was closed by a user who was heavily involved in the discussion and vote and has a self-professed bias against all userboxes that requires him to vote "delete" regardless of their contents (i.e., you), and (2) that it was closed unnecessarily early and abruptly, even though it is customary to allow most Deletion Reviews to run until discussion on them has pretty much died away or the votes are obviously stacked one way or the other (neither of which was the case here, as the voting was still going strong until you put an end to that by archiving the vote, and as the votes for "keep deleted" and "undelete" were nearly tied, with in fact a slight advantage to "undelete"; additionally, the discussion itself, at least in my interpretation, favored an undelete, if only for the sake of a fuller discussion at TfD, considering the number of holes and the borderline, disputable nature of the template's real "divisiveness", which, as the discussion revealed, is based primarily on many editors' personal opinions of certain notorious users of a website, not on the literal contents of the template itself).

Of tertiary concern to me was that this seemed to be an unprofessional, potentially confusing rush-job on your part: you failed to leave any sort of notice of what the decision had been for the four votes you closed (three of which I did not restore, incidentally, because you were in the right in closing those: their results were much clearer and their debates less active), which I remedied by adding notices for the three at the bottom of the page, but which you subsequently reverted when you hastily re-removed the Template:User review userbox.

In case you doubt my motivations for objecting so strongly to this closure, perhaps suspecting that I have a personal vested interest in the template's fate myself (beyond the obvious fact that I voted to "keep" the template, largely as a matter of principle), I'll be honest: on a personal note, I'm deeply uninterested in userboxes at this point. I have no personal involvement in this review forum place; I visited it once a long time ago, and found it dull, though not entirely devoid of interesting points (though neither of those facts is really relevant here, despite personal opinions of the site being the justification for so many "delete"-voters votes). I don't especially care, at least in the long run, whether the template is deleted or not, as long as other, similar templates are also deleted for the sake of consistency and fairness (which you would obviously support, since it furthers your ongoing crusade to annihilate all userboxes :) cute).

But what I do care about, very strongly, is that you are abusing your editorial privileges by closing the votes of ongoing Deletion Review discussions that you personally have a very strong vested interest in. Please, especially for contentious and borderline debates like the Template:User review one, in the future, avoid closing a vote you're already involved in (or are otherwise predisposed or biased for or against), especially without any explanation for your interpretation of Template:user review's discussion and vote as "keep deleted". Whether or not it was your intent (and I'm not certain that it was), this reeks of partisan discussion-suppression, and could cause an escalation in the argument and senseless quarreling in the future if a similar situation comes up again and more users take offense (in this case, you seem to have gotten lucky and snuck past the watchful eyes of most of that page's participants, in part because you left no trace at the bottom of the page). So, please do refrain from similar closures in the future; no matter how strongly you feel that a certain template should be deleted, it's not your place to unilaterally rule such without explanation or discussion, nor is it worth all the trouble and bickering that such actions inevitably provoke. It's just so much easier to circumvent and mute all the drama by not giving people a reason to suspect your motives, and letting the discussions resolve themselves naturally and at their own pace. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else who is directly involved in the deletion review discussion for "Template:User review", should be the one to close that vote. It's just not kosher. -Silence 06:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't a unilateral decision on my part. I discussed it with numerous other admins. There was no consensus to overturn. It's history. End of story. --Cyde Weys 06:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the elaboration. Conversations with you are always so enlightening. :/ If you ever deign to tell this to the apparently insignificant masses on the appropriate pages (like the top of the DRV and the summarized bits below the Archive link), or if you ever explain who these admins are (aside from the obvious ones: the ones who, like you, voted "delete" on this template, just as other admins voted "support" :)), that'll be even better. But I won't press my luck; even getting a one-line response from you is an incredible honor, and shames me for my futile quest for proper DRV-closing procedure. Oy. Have a nice day, God. -Silence 06:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was no consensus to overturn deletion. All you have to do is count the votes, making sure to disregard the votes by indef-banned sockpuppets (of which there were a few). And the admins I was in consensus with were cabal admins. You probably know some of them. --Cyde Weys 07:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cydebot

Cydebot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has now been approved for a week's trial run. Please remember to throttle edits. If no objections are raised following this trial, you may request permission to obtain a bot flag. Rob Church (talk) 19:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jedi6 RfA

Your questions have been answered. Jedi6-(need help?) 06:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not all of them, yet :-P Cyde Weys 06:34, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm gonna finish your questions tommorrow (well I guess its technically today now :-)). Jedi6-(need help?) 07:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hay, I mean at first I thought it was a spelling mistake too until you mentioned Wikipedia:Rouge admin. Then I understood what you meant by the question. I just don't get why my RfA is making Doom127 more stressed than me. Actually I've never seen Doom this stressed and angry, even when Brazil4Linux was attacking him. :-( Jedi6-(need help?) 08:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now I have answered all the questions. Jedi6-(need help?) 04:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ContiE has impersonated me on other wikis

Hi, I'm in a potentially awkward position with an Administrator. I have read the Wiki pages on dispute resolution but I'm still not sure how to proceed.

The Admin ContiE has a personal grudge against me for reasons I do not fully understand. He has been this way since I began frequenting wikipedia.

I have done work improving the furvert article. He has basically gone on a crusade against any edit I make. He controls every furry category article and several others ruthlessly. He is an iron fist and bans anyone he edit wars with. I had uploaded pictures and he deleted them with no talking. He seems to believe I am every person he has had an edit war against. He is always using personal attacks, calling me troll without reason. I uploaded them again and he voted them for deleted, but to his surprise the person who runs the images, thank you Nv8200p, found they were acceptable once I tagged them properly. Just recently he removed both the images without himself discussing it in the talk page (unless he was the same person who discussed only one) with the edit here [4] Then ContiE assumed bad faith, added his constant insult of troll in the talk page. It appears on a completed different wiki, a comedy one in all things, somebody else stole my username and I believe this was Conti himself and uploaded them. ContiE showed it as his reason. While vandalism like his, I would revert and mention it, he would ban me permanently if I undid his edit. That is why I am asking admins for help. He holds a couple of accounts on wikipedia and I think they are administrators so I have to be careful who I tell about this. Arights 07:31, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boy, am I disappointed in you, Cyde

Hi Cyde. Boy, am I questioning myself now for supporting your RfA. For starters, I sure don't appreciate editors who are trying to clean up articles relating to child abuse, child porn, pedophilia, and related issues - which work includes working with difficult material, difficult people, and, by the way, getting severly harrased in meatspace - being on the receiving end of smart-ass remarks and undergrad-level pro-child-porn arguments from a freaken admin. Jesus.

I'd give you the benefit of the doubt there, that you just dropped in, were over your head, didn't know what you were saying.

Then, in coming by to drop off this note, what do I see but your response to a (cogent and polite) note from User:Silence: "I discussed it with numerous other admins. There was no consensus to overturn. It's history. End of story" (emphasis added)

That's just... there are so many things wrong with that. First of all, do you even know who you were talking to? Probably not. Second of all, if I may speak as a Dutch uncle: you go around with the It's history. End of story shtick, people might get the wrong impression and think that you're an arrogant little prick who can't justify his edits, which I'm sure you wouldn't want people to get that false impression. But I mean, you just don't talk to User:Silence like that. You just don't talk to User:FloNight like that.

You know, I've warned before you to stay away from the userboxes as you promised in your RfA. You know its a drug to to you.

Get some perspective, son. Herostratus 08:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, the pro-child-porn accusation is so absurd I'm not even going to bother responding other than to say, shame on you. Secondly, what do you mean by "do you even know who you were talking to"? If there's something special about these two users I'd love to hear about it. --Cyde Weys 17:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there's something special about them. They're Wikipedia editors.

Look, I gather that you're the Energizer Bunny around here, and that's great. You do a lot of great stuff I'm sure. I hate to be getting on your case. We're all on the same side. But...

"I'd just like to make one thing clear: I've never deleted a userbox and I don't forsee myself getting involved with that in the future. Why? Because I now realize that my actions weren't helping matters, so I've decided not to get involved with that anymore. There's plenty other stuff to do on Wikipedia. I'll leave the userboxes up to other people. --Cyde Weys 20:43, 2 March 2006 (UTC)" (Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Cyde)

Look, there's a way out. Take a moment to reflect. I know there's a zillion things to do and you're full of energy. But take a few minutes. What's done can be undone. What's said can be made right. We're all rooting for you.

But if you can't do it that's OK too. Herostratus 09:30, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've stayed away from userboxes a lot more than you know. So far I think I've only deleted two ... one was a Nazi template and one was an atheism-bashing template. Both clearly needed to go. --Cyde Weys 16:29, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you. It sucks one it, doesn't it? I got all GRRRRRRRR for awhile over userboxes. But I got over it, I switched to heroin, less addictive (kidding). I also learned, and changed my mind a lot over the course of the discussions. Changing the mind on occasion keeps it nimble.

I appreciate your reply, Cyde. Off-topic, but... man, it must be kind of cool, being young and getting in on a project as exciting and important as this, writing tools and other cool stuff, kind of like a cool internship, maybe? I saw that Jimbo acknowleged you and knows you. You're gonna be a star, man, and it'll carry over into life, I hope. I hope that's not too personal.

OK now that we're all warm and fuzzy, could I induce you to maybe re-look over Silent's comment in a mindful way, maybe imagine being in his shoes? I'm not asking you to change your decision, but if it led you to maybe drop him a note about maybe not wanting to have come off curtly (only if you really felt that), I don't see how that would be a bad thing. He really is a thoughtful man, I think. I voted to Keep Deleted myself, but I do understand how he feels maybe a little bit disregarded. Er, if you see your way clear to do that. Herostratus 06:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

account

It wasn´t me. --ThomasK 09:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Already changed. --ThomasK 09:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Jedi6

You might want to do the protection for User talk:Jedi6 as well history. Both IP's blocked for 48 hours. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 09:50, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just blocked 2 more here. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:04, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Essjay just nuked the underlying IP address, I think all of this guys avenues of vandalism have been cut off now. --Cyde Weys 10:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Any idea what they had against Jedi6 or was it just random? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it started after an edit war between Cyde and Doom127 over a spelling mistake or something like that on Jedi6's RfA. --TBC

^{??? ??? ???} 10:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, that wasn't a spelling mistake, that was entirely intentional. I don't make speeling mistakes. --Cyde Weys 10:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the section on WP:ANI, this guy's been running a sockfarm for about two weeks now, and as it turns out, he's a complete lunatic. This entire thing was set off by me using the term "rouge admin" instead of "rogue admin". I'm not even kidding. Check out the page history on the RFA if you don't believe me. This is the most trivial blow-up I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Someone is insane in the head. --Cyde Weys 10:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If Essjay took care of the IP address, why is the guy still vandalizing Jedi6's RfA? [5]. Don't now enough about computers to understand how he's able to do this.--TBC

^{??? ??? ???} 10:17, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Umm now he's using IP addresses in a different range. Essjay is doing more CheckUsers and he's continually banning /24 ranges. There's only so many IP addresses this moron can get before he runs out of all of them. --Cyde Weys 10:18, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the RfA incident earlier so I thought it was related to that. I'm not that bothered about my user page being protected but thanks anyway. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 10:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've unprotected my user page. It looks quiet now. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 11:00, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ThomasK

ThomasK (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Please do not unblock this account, it is being used to commit vandalism, and did so again after you unblocked it. -- Curps 18:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, whoops, sorry about that. He seemed so honest about repenting; I guess I just got played for a fool :-( Cyde Weys 18:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ref converter error

There seems to be a problem with quotes(") and your ref converter. This page provides a minimal test case. They come out with odd characters. I assume it's a encoding issue, maybe Windows related... JesseW, the juggling janitor 01:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I am unable to reproduce the bug. Make sure you are reading the WikiRefs instructions very carefully and that you are following them to the letter. If you aren't downloading the text file and opening it in Notepad or some other minimal text editor, you're liable to get problems involving non-ASCII character sets. --Cyde Weys 01:55, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Let me attempt to paste the original and resulting, wrong characters here, on your talk page. Good: “AGP specification 1.0,” Bad: â€œAGP specification 1.0,â€ BTW, I did follow the instructions to the letter; it didn't fix the problem. ;-) JesseW, the juggling janitor 02:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you come on IRC and speak with me? It's much easier to debug these kinds of things in realtime. Thanks. --Cyde Weys 02:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. On now. JesseW, the juggling janitor 03:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

My suspicion is that you're using a text editor that is too smart and it is trying to convert the garbled ASCII into something meaningful, which, of course, ends up being entirely incorrect. I notice you're running Mac OS X; what text editor are you using? You need something as stupid and naive as Notepad on Windows. Maybe you could try cat'ing the text file from the command line and copying that? --Cyde Weys 02:20, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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My RFA

Hi, this is Matt Yeager. I wanted to thank you for your vote on my request for adminship. The count was something like was 14/20/5 when I decided to withdraw the request. My decision was based on the fact that there are enough things wasting people's time on the Internet that doomed RFA's shouldn't be kept up for voters to have to think about. Regardless of the rationale behind your vote, I hope you will read this note for an extended note and discussion on what will happen before I make another try at adminship (I didn't want to clog up your userpage with drivel that you might not be interested in reading). Thank you very, very much for your vote and your time and consideration of my credentials--regardless of whether you voted support, nuetral, or oppose. Happy editing! Matt Yeager ♫ (Talk?) 01:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Allegation of serious NPA violation

Cyde, would you be kind enough to look into this matter, please? [6] It is a bit odd, in my experience, in that there is no trail of escalating verbal threats leading up to this alleged attack. Instead, the discourse has been fairly civil and restrained albeit with careless use of the term "vandalism" recently. I'm inclined to believe Southwick's version because he apparently edits under his real name and he seems to understand WP:RS and other policies and guidelines whereas Cap_j's grasp of these is limited. I've contacted MONGO separately about this matter, but he is off today. Southwick's post on WP:PAIN seems not to have produced apparent results as yet. [7] Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 02:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ohh crap, more spillover from Wikipedia into meatspace? Not good. If you can verify this I'd highly recommend bringing it up WP:ANI. This is too big for just me to handle. --Cyde Weys 02:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel the same way, but will try to obtain independent confirmation of the allegation. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 04:05, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Ref Converter

Thanks for the update. Sounds good, although the connection seems to be timing out right now when I try to go to the page. Good work! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oyyy, fracking internet connection. I wish I had a better place to put my server than at my house. Oh well. It's up now, at least. --Cyde Weys 20:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doom127

If was comproved that User:Doom127 created and used sockpuppets he will be block indefinitevely? --Pinoi 03:04, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea. Now he's claiming you're a sockpuppet of Brazil4Linux. Is there any truth to that? --Cyde Weys 03:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Cyde. Yeah, if you do a CheckUser, you'll find that the guy is the same guy. He desperately wants me indef blocked, and I'm sure he's watching my user contribs even now. I wanted to apologize about last night... All I can say is that it is in regards to Brazil4Linux and that he's found out more about me offline... I've already talked with Jedi6 about it and apologized to him about not telling him about my planned explosion sooner and the sockpuppet cultivation and such; if you want to discuss it more, I'm on AIM at the moment. Cheers! Daniel Davis 03:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you have a "planned explosion" and "sockpuppet cultivation"? --Cyde Weys 03:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To put it simply, no matter what got done, no matter how many times Brazil got blocked, he kept coming back. He found out personal details about me, about my wife and who I am, where I live and quite honestly, has me backed into a corner here on this account. To put it simply, I needed to get rid of this username, but I chose an asine and completely inappropriate way to do it. It was hostile and I'm surprised I wasn't blocked completely. I apologize to you regarding it. If you want to take further action against me, feel free. I certainly deserve it. Daniel Davis 03:28, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re:squidward vandal

I was just quickly blocking them, am now reviewing each one for approriate lenght of block. Thanks for the head's up though. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re:Block Conflict

Hi there, apologies for the conflict. When I deal out a block, I usually go on WP:AIAV for vandals, and if the vandal is still listed on that page (of course, how else would I see it? :) ) I will go to the talk and see if they have a block notice. In this case, it looked like the vandal was still unblocked. However, you are right, I will check the log in future. Regards -- Banez 19:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, there's lots of other ways to find vandals besides WP:AIV. There's #vandalism-en-wp, there's watchlists, there's CVU tools ... all of which could easily lead to a block while still leaving the user on WP:AIV. So it's best always to check first. Thank you for understanding. --Cyde Weys 19:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Too true. I will make a point of checking the block log as well from now on. Cheers Banez 19:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Psycho

Just a note on this user...I believe him to not only be a sockpuppet of User:child_p0rnographer, but probably the same with User:Easteregg, User:Ancorzonr and User:WarMach. It's probably worth a quick peek at the contribs of those users. The Psycho specifically though, is now re-adding images to pages that were removed when he was blocked for extreme bad faith examples of 3RR (see recent image addition to Bukakke). This user's really been a thorn in my side for a while, and immediately after The Psycho's block a new user vandalized my home and talk pages. --Kickstart70-T-C 22:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

sorry

sorry for citing that it didn't come out the way I wanted it to. take care Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 00:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, what is this in reference to? I don't know. --Cyde Weys 00:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, nevermind, I see you're talking about Wikipedia talk:Deletion review/Userbox debates. --Cyde Weys 00:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Early "closure" of SFR discussion

I'm puzzled you'd move a stub template before the end of the discussion period. Granted it seemed hardly likely that four or more people were about to turn up and oppose this for no apparent reason (though that doesn't always stop 'em), but it seems a little odd to do so, moreso when you're not a normal "closer" of SFD listings. (Not that you closed the listing...) Alai 01:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOLD and all that. And as far as I know there aren't any special admins who deal with SFD listings. But I'll hold off on moving the rest of the old stub-types for a bit in case anyone against the move materializes. --Cyde Weys 02:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There were other stub types involved? But I'm not claiming "special", just "usual". Nothing wrong with you doing them, I just found it a bit odd that the first one you did (that I noticed, anyway), you did early. Nothing here actually required admin action, of course, so I'm not even going to argue it's even procedurally "wrong", just as I say, slightly puzzling... Alai 16:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have a special interest in biology, maybe that's what you're noticing? I'm not really going to bother with stub types I don't care about, which is most of them. --Cyde Weys 19:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kindly butt out, please

This is a friendly reminder to butt out. ____G_o_o_d____ 10:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

danah boyd

Hi, thanks for the help with the danah boyd article. I saw that you'd had questions about a couple of the statements. References *were* on the page, but I went ahead and included additional citations next to those sentences in particular. If you have any other questions, please let me know! --Elonka 17:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde has a new friend

4.158.60.60 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) JoshuaZ 04:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bonny

Hi Cyde, you've been involved in the User:Bonaparte case at least once, according to the edit history of User talk:Bonaparte. User:Bonaparte is known for constantly creating new sockpuppets and trolling with them, engaging in personal attacks, etc. However, many of these obvious socks are not permanently blocked, as they should be per policy. I was wondering if you'd like to take a look at this case, and have a shot at User:Bonaparte/sockpuppetry and User talk:Bonaparte/sockpuppetry. This permanently blocked Bonaparte has become a high-level vandal and his socks should be indef blocked with less red tape. Alexander 007 05:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Topalov Cheating

Hi Cyde. I contacted you several months ago to mediate on the Topalov page. The other disputant did not respond, but the RV war has restarted. Rather than get in any trouble for that, I've decided to try mediation straight away. If you're willing, I'd much appreciate you giving this another shot. [[8]]. Thanks! Danny Pi 05:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki-links for you.

Go ahead and make a copy for yourself. They'll assisst you in your duties as a Admin. Martial Law 01:10, 15 April 2006 (UTC) :)[reply]

I'm sorry, I don't really know what you're talking about? --Cyde Weys 01:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Find on my User page a list of Wiki-links to different Wikipedia protocol, such as WP:Signpost and WP:SB. Go ahead and make yourself a copy of these links. Martial Law 08:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC) :)[reply]

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Happy Spring celebration / Easter (as your preferences and beliefs dictate)

Here's hoping that if the bunny leaves you any beans they're this kind! ++Lar: t/c 15:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crap, I already ate all of your jellybeans. --Cyde Weys 15:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And crap, I already ate the chick too. --Cyde Weys 16:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

-1, Cruel --Misza 13 ^{T C} 17:54, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Don't Bite The Newbies

[9]

Your words, not mine. I appreciate the work you do for Wikipedia, but just be careful next time. --D-Day^{(Wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?}) 16:26, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

He's not a newbie. He's obviously a sockpuppet of some other userboxer. Don't believe me? Just check out the contribs and how mind-numbingly fast he got involved in all of the various intricacies of Wikipedia process. --Cyde Weys 16:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is anything wrong with using {{ref label}} rather than {{ref}}?

Cyde, this regards the revision you just made of the usage of {{ref label}} to {{ref}} in the Ammonia article. I don't understand why. Would you mind explaining? I think the caret used by {{ref label}} looks very much better than the anaemic, hard-to-see vertical arrow used by {{ref}}. Can't we have the choice of using either method? I will watch for your reply here on your talk page. Thanks, - mbeychok 06:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't convert to {{ref}}, I converted to Cite.php. And the reason why is because Cite.php is the only non-deprecated references format. So no, there's really no choice. If you don't like the look of the arrow (which I hadn't thought of before, but maybe you have a point), you might want to bring it up with the Cite.php guys. --Cyde Weys 07:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have always used <ref> tags with {{cite ... templates. Are they deprecated? And what is Cite.php? Ans e ll 11:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

cite.php is the php extension that makes <ref> and <references/> work. That markup is not standard HTML so it needs a php extension. I think using {{cite... within the <ref> </ref> pair should work fine as I think it's decoupled from using {{ref}}. That's all just my understanding. Hope it helps. ++Lar: t/c 12:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered what the magic behind the ref and references tags was. Thanks. I do use cite inside ref by the way. It works well for me. Except for having the whole citation intext, thats a bit annoying. Thanks for the explanation. Ans e ll 13:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of two minds about the cite/note/url/whatever being in text right there with what it goes to. The downside is it makes the raw paragraphs a bit harder to review (but that's what preview is for, and the live preview js extension is very good in that regard, if you don't have it already you should look into it), but the upside is that you don't have to go traipsing around (as with the older {{ref ... {{note ... syntax ) somewhere else to find the stuff, it's all there in one spot. So... ya. But on balance (absent how MS word does it, moveing you automatically to the other field (footnote area of the page) to work on the cite/ref) this is the best we can do, and I think I like it better... Which is good because the other way is deprecated. Grin. ++Lar: t/c 14:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cyde, I really would like to pursue using the caret rather than that anaemic, hard-to-see vertical arrow. I am a newbie of just a few months and I would'nt have the faintest idea of how to take it up with the cite.php guys as you suggested. Also, they probably wouldn't pay too much attention to me. But they might pay more attention to you as an administrator. Would you please take it up with them? If not, could you at least tell me how to go about contacting them? Thanks in advance. - mbeychok 15:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rockero's RFA

Since you voted oppose "per freakofnurture", would you consider changing your vote to match that user's "Tentatively oppose"?

You can read how I feel on the issue at Rockero's RFA. I would also like to request that consider moving your vote to Neutral. I will admit that both the narrowness of subject matter, and spareness of Wikipedia namespace edits are weaknesses that would give me pause and might cause me to vote oppose for an editor that I was unfamilar with. I have, however, seen Rockero make many fine edits on the Southern California topics that are on my watchlist, and I think that he would make a good administrator for the English-language Wikipedia. ^Blank ^Verse 05:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but my votes are not open to being changed by lobbying. And my oppose reason is a bit more complex than merely "per freakofnurture" ... but it would take a loooong time to write out everything going through my head. He was just the other oppose voter whose reasoning most closely matched mine. --Cyde Weys 05:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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re: Ref converter

Well, I'll be damned. I was just giving you a barnstar when you popped by: thanks for the tip! How did you know I was using it? I'd been slowly converting articles by hand, and let me tell you, it was slow. This is brilliant. Really brilliant. Thanks a million. Blackcap (talk) 05:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the source code of the ref converter you'll see that it keeps quality control logs (I review these later to see what articles were changed and make sure no errors were introduced). I also watch the log live, and it was trivially easy to see that someone used the ref converter on page X. So I went to page X, and right there in the edit history I saw that you were converting references on page X. --Cyde Weys 09:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And yeah, I converted one particularly long article with 40 references by hand, and then said to myself, screw this, I'm automating it. Really, it was just a question of laziness. I saw that it was going to take a lot more time to do them all manually than to sit down and write an automatic converter, so I went the automatic route. --Cyde Weys 09:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Cyde/Archive004! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. AmiDaniel (Talk) 05:34, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ref Converter list

You might find this list I just made useful, and may even want to link to it from the tool. Saves a few clicks. JesseW, the juggling janitor 09:12, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

That's awesome! How'd you make that list, manually or automatically? I suppose I could do a new version of the tool that generates its own list from the {{ref}} "What links here". --Cyde Weys 09:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And link it yourself, this is a Wiki, be bold :-P Errr, link it on User:Cyde/Ref converter anyway. Cyde Weys 09:41, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Retreat of glaciers since 1850

A number of editors worked hard to get the harvard style of referencing in that article. I respect that your action to convert it to the style you did was fully well intentioned, but...the article is on the main page now, you did nothing to discuss this action and the major contributors agreed overall to using Harvard style. One editor even created the newer superscripting which makes or "harv_" style, which reduces the size of the word within the article text...al a spin off of this article's creation. I truly respect your edits, but please discuss this major change first.--MONGO 09:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's really nothing to discuss. Those older-style references are deprecated. There are literally tens of thousands of articles using the old outdated references ... if I stopped to discuss on each one, do you know how much time I would waste? There's also something to be said for consistency. It's really worrying that a special template was created specifically for this one article. Consistent interfaces are very important. It took awhile for me to even "see" the references on that page because they weren't what I was used to at all. --Cyde Weys 09:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well then, since I think you have acted in an overly bold manner in regards this...I mean, the article is on the main page, it passed unanimously through the nomination process for FA and you didn't once have the consideration to say, hey, let's change this around. The "style" you're using I think look awful in the edit window...it simply takes up too much room and I think it looks better at the end...who says that your style is the better version? Where was this voted on? Can you lead me to where this new style was discussed?--MONGO 10:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Clyde, please do not change the reference style without reaching consensus on the issue on the talk page for Retreat of glacierss since 1850 first. If you read the archive of the discussion, you can see that all the principle editors editors of the articles—including several prominent content area experts—discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using Harvard versus m:cite.php references. We are all entirely aware of the latter, including the disadvantages of m:cite.php. A strong consensus was reached to use Harvard references (which is not deprecated, though possibly partially eclipsed) rather than m:cite.php for this particular article, largely because of subject-area concerns. Scientific articles in journals typically use a style similar to this, and almost never use a style similar to what m:cite.php produces. Alphabetical references are strongly preferred.

Aside from following the formal pattern of scientific articles, the other large advantage of Harvard style (for this article) is the disruptiveness to editing when full citation details need to be addressed inline.

I myself use m:cite.php for many other articles. There are definitely places where it is more appropriate. For example, where references tend to contain explanatory footnote text instead of, or in addition to, citation references themselves, inlining the reference tends to be more conceptually clear. This article is not one of that type, IMO, nor in the opinion of the so-far demonstrated consensus of editors. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not "my" style, it's "the" style. See Wikipedia:Footnotes. (edit conflicted) In addition, nobody owns any articles. And the argument that a lot of people worked hard to get those Harvard references working doesn't wash with me ... because I'm pretty sure I put a lot more work into the Ref converter. Consistency is key. We can't just have every article using its own special references format with its own separate templates. This is one of the important things you learn in usability studies ... consistent interfaces = good. --Cyde Weys 10:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the work you did creating an automated tool; and you should indeed be proud of it. But just because you created a tool does not mean that WP policy or guidelines were changed in regard to referencing. They were not. Some people like the new style. I mostly like it, though it does have drawbacks as well. If style guidelines actually are changed at some point in the future (something I would definitely vote against if I saw the discussion) to actually deprecate Harvard referencing, then use of your automated tool becomes useful. And in existing articles where consensus supports the change, of course. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 16:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, now is probably a good time to get the inevitable RFC over references formats out of the way. (And not a user RFC involving me, just an RFC in general on references formats). I thought it was pretty clear when Cite.php came into play that the older styles became deprecated, but I guess there's always going to be holdouts ... --Cyde Weys 10:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Again, when did it become "the" style...and you are completely mistaken that you think that your convertor was "more" work than the research that went into the FA article. "the" style look like "crap" in the editing window in the article space...it takes up too much room.--MONGO 10:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It became the style in December of 2005. If you want further clarification I encourage you to get wider community comment at WP:RFC. I think you've spent too long working on a few articles and you didn't notice the references landscape changing around you. And it doesn't matter so much what it looks like in the edit window since the output looks a lot better, as 99% of users are browsing Wikipedia strictly to read. --Cyde Weys 10:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Editing a few articles? Okay...let me explain...the editors that did 95% of the work on the article in question preferred Harvard style referencing for the alphabetic style of the footnotes. We thought the numbers in the text were more obtrusive than the superscripted author name. We did all the referencing since December of 2005 and I never saw this style you are using. You must have noticed the article was on the main page (not that the casual reader noticed the change) and surely you can't possibly assume that a radical change such as you did without a word in discussion would not draw a raised eyebrow. I don't need to file an Rfc...I want to see the discussion that this style you support was agreed on by a large concesus of editors here. When you demonstrate that, then I can file an Rfc to argue why in some cases, har style is better, especially in scientific articles.--MONGO 11:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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@@ Line 584: / Line 584: @@
 :Well then, since I think you have acted in an overly bold manner in regards this...I mean, the article is on the main page, it passed unanimously through the nomination process for FA and you didn't once have the consideration to say, hey, let's change this around. The "style" you're using I think look awful in the edit window...it simply takes up too much room and I think it looks better at the end...who says that your style is the better version? Where was this voted on? Can you lead me to where this new style was discussed?--[[User:MONGO|MONGO]] 10:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
+::Yes, Clyde, '''please''' do not change the reference style without reaching consensus on the issue on the talk page for [[Retreat of glacierss since 1850]] '''first'''.  If you read the archive of the discussion, you can see that all the principle editors editors of the articles—including several prominent content area experts—discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using Harvard versus m:cite.php references.  We are all entirely aware of the latter, including the disadvantages of m:cite.php.  A strong consensus was reached to use Harvard references (which is '''not''' deprecated, though possibly partially eclipsed) rather than m:cite.php for this particular article, largely because of subject-area concerns.  Scientific articles in journals typically use a style similar to this, and almost never use a style similar to what m:cite.php produces.  Alphabetical references are strongly preferred.
-It's not "my" style, it's "''the''" style.  See [[Wikipedia:Footnotes]].
+::Aside from following the formal pattern of scientific articles, the other large advantage of Harvard style (for this article) is the disruptiveness to editing when full citation details need to be addressed inline.
+::I myself use m:cite.php for many ''other'' articles.  There are definitely places where it is more appropriate.  For example, where references tend to contain explanatory footnote text instead of, or in addition to, citation references themselves, inlining the reference tends to be more conceptually clear.  This article is not one of that type, IMO, nor in the opinion of the so-far demonstrated consensus of editors. [[User:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters|Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]] 16:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
+It's not "my" style, it's "''the''" style.  See [[Wikipedia:Footnotes]].
 (edit conflicted) In addition, nobody [[WP:OWN|owns]] any articles.  And the argument that a lot of people worked hard to get those Harvard references working doesn't wash with me ... because I'm pretty sure I put a lot ''more'' work into the [[User:Cyde/Ref converter|Ref converter]].  Consistency is key.  We can't just have every article using its own special references format with its own separate templates.  This is one of the important things you learn in usability studies ... consistent interfaces = good.  --[[User:Cyde|<font color="#0055aa"><span style="cursor: w-resize">'''Cyde&nbsp;Weys'''</span></font>]] 10:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
+:I appreciate the work you did creating an automated tool; and you should indeed be proud of it.  But just because you created a tool does not mean that WP policy or guidelines were changed in regard to referencing.  They ''were not''.  Some people like the new style.  I mostly like it, though it does have drawbacks as well.  If style guidelines actually are changed at some point in the future (something I would definitely vote against if I saw the discussion) to actually deprecate Harvard referencing, then use of your automated tool becomes useful.  And in existing articles where consensus supports the change, of course. [[User:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters|Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]] 16:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
 In addition, now is probably a good time to get the inevitable RFC over references formats out of the way.  (And not a user RFC involving me, just an RFC in general on references formats).  I thought it was pretty clear when Cite.php came into play that the older styles became deprecated, but I guess there's always going to be holdouts ...  --[[User:Cyde|<font color="#0055aa"><span style="cursor: w-resize">'''Cyde&nbsp;Weys'''</span></font>]] 10:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)