Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/SEWilco

message: I wrote in the RFC:
: [Note: In my opinion SEW's skepic contributions to climate change were unhelpful in the past; they are not being raised in this RFC because SEW seems to have stopped editing the substance of the climate pages.]
Jmabel asked "whose" because perhaps with several certifiers its no longer clear. "My" is WMC, though others may agree. All I meant by this was that the issue of SEWs skeptic contributions has merely died down rather than been solved; this RFC is without prejudice to that. Since the issue of dredging up old problems *is* one of the issues, I'll add that I would not RFC/A him based only on whats past. William M. Connolley 21:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

message: ...says Splash. Which is fair enough. But the terms of the parole are unclear. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Admin_enforcement_requested#William_M._Connolley.27s_parole_-_enforcement. My assumption (given there) is that the arbcomm intended to be reasonable. So far the arbcomm have declined to clarify their meaning. I still wish they would. William M. Connolley 19:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nothing in this RfC diminishes William M. Connolley's need to abide by the remedy in the Arbitration Case 

message: Note: SEW has finally got the ban he was looking for: . William M. Connolley 19:21, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  SEW has finally got his ban 

message: Notice that the climate change RFA is re-started Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2. SEW is doing his best there to be unhelpful; if he ever settles down then hopefully we could get some consensus-building. But with his current attitude it seems unlikely. William M. Connolley 10:08, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFA 

message: I think a newcomer who has not even seen the articles involved (and can't afford the time to do so), but who has a good overall perspective on the topic of footnotes vs. embedded links, is ideally positioned to give a neutral overview of this latter topic.  Yet, I am biased toward protecting my ability to use footnotes because all my articles seem to need them.  I certainly am neutral on the RFC, because I don't even know what it's all about.  But I do know about this topic, see my entries above.   
Footnotes vs. embedded links:  The two types of articles (the twain) are the articles that do need footnotes to help the reader and the articles that do not.  (The readers' needs that are met only by footnotes are well described in both Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Footnotes.  If a dispute arises about whether the article-reader needs footnotes or not, for a given article, then hopefully an arbitration panel could decide that limited dispute.)  When footnotes are not needed, I see a lot of advantage to using the embedded links system that Slim Virgin describes above, especially for multiple references to the same source without any future maintenance.  And his system uses automatic numbering which is well-known (I had thought) to be incompatible with the automatic numbering of footnotes within the same article.  Never the twain shall meet applies here.  But I do not yet see why footnotes can't be mixed with embedded links with a text segment for the reader to click on, rather than a number.  Possibly the embedded text links would be harder for the reader to find than the numbered links, but that is not giving up very much if the reader is helped much more by the footnotes, is it?  
I suppose that some of the disputed articles do mix the twain in that they are technical and need footnotes to help the reader and also use many newspaper and magazine sources which are best handled with embedded links plus augmented citations below in an Other references section.  But can't the embedded links be the non-numbered type?  Or is the problem that the footnote advocates (SEWilco etc,) insist on all references being only to footnotes?  
I myself would think the first question to be decided is, are footnotes needed, to help the reader?  I'm guessing that everyone agrees they are needed.  In which case I'm mystified, what is difficult about using footnotes together with non-numbered embedded links?  P.S.  I'm "throwing this over the fence" in an attempt to be helpful, NOT because I enjoy the misery of writing this but because I thought I saw a need that I could fill, as a responsible and considerate citizen.  For7thGen 23:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Links to citations (aka "footnotes") do not have to be numbered, but the original styles used numbered links.  Non-numbered Wikipedia:Footnotes were also added to  Kyoto Protocol  and were replaced with unlinked citations with assorted errors.  Errors which I mentioned in Talk:Kyoto Protocol, and are impossible with WP:FN or apparent when an editor tries out a newly added WP:FN link.  Errors which remain in the current version.   (SEWilco 04:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Never the twain shall meet(?)