Talk:Jacob van Eyck/Archive 1

Archive 1

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It seems to me that the picture reported to be a portrait of Jacob Van Eyck is in fact a portrait of Constantijn Huyghens, as can be checked at the address [[1]] 93.47.100.0 (talk) 11:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Undiscussed change of reference format

So, Thrakkx has twice changed the reference format in use in this article to {{sfn}} from list-defined, which has been the stable style since I added the first citation with this edit in 2011. For reference, here's what our citation guideline has to say on this:

Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style merely on the grounds of personal preference, to make it match other articles, or without first seeking consensus for the change. The arbitration committee ruled in 2006:

Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include (but are not limited to) American vs. British spelling, date formats, and citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike.

As with spelling differences, it is normal practice to defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page, unless a change in consensus has been achieved. If the article you are editing is already using a particular citation style, you should follow it; if you believe it is inappropriate for the needs of the article, seek consensus for a change on the talk page. If you are the first contributor to add citations to an article, you may choose whichever style you think best for the article.

Thrakkx, would you kindly revert your change? Thank you. If you need help using the existing reference format (which is extremely simple) I'm happy to provide some. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:04, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

@Justlettersandnumbers: Hi. I made this change because of the inconsistent referencing format that existed in the article which existed right up until my edit. There were exactly two citations (which is why it had received the Inline citations warning): the first one was in a simple citation format and the second one in the list-defined format. Because of the inconsistency and my intention to expand on the article with the sources I had gathered, I chose to use the {{sfn}} style going forward, since I am most familiar with its usage. Since there had not been any discussion on the talk page since 2011, no major edits since 2013, and the fact that the citation style was inconsistent, I made the edit (see: Wikipedia:IMPLICITCONSENSUS). I do not consider changing literally two citations on a problematic article into a new, standard format as "radical," as you claimed in your revert. I would love to hear from a third opinion. Thrakkx (talk) 19:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I would like to explicitly clarify that the list-defined format has not been the stable style of referencing in this article since September 19, 2015, when a user added a new citation that did not adhere to the style. Thrakkx (talk) 19:36, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

About the Third Opinion request: The request made at Third Opinion has been removed (i.e. declined). Like all other moderated content dispute resolution venues at Wikipedia, Third Opinion requires thorough talk page discussion before seeking assistance. If an editor will not discuss, consider the recommendations which are made here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 20:38, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, since I requested this too early, here are my thoughts:

@Justlettersandnumbers: I think it is grossly unfair for you to claim that my changing of the citation style was "radical." You and I both know this is simply false. The article had literally two citations: one added by you in 2011 and another added by someone else in 2015. To claim that your style was "stable" is also false. The second citation style did not even match the original's. What if I had switched to the style of the second one, would you still have reverted my edit? What constitutes the stable style between two citations have been at odds for 6 years? I would say neither.

I think it was extremely disingenuous for you to accuse me of starting an edit war on my talk page, given that this is the very first sentence in the article about it: "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions." Our situation does not even come close to that definition.

You were justified in reverting my edit, made obvious by the all of the arbitration committee rulings, guidelines, and help page text that you linked to and pasted here. However, I was also justified in making the change. This article has seen no real attention since 2017. You yourself have contributed nothing since your addition of one citation and three sentences ten years ago. The copy-pasted text states that one should "defer to the style used by the first major contributor or adopted by the consensus of editors already working on the page." There was no consensus adopted on the talk page (evident by the conflicting citation styles) and you are not the first major contributor. I was certainly justified in making an assumption that I could choose a new style that I think best fits the article—one that I was familiar with—given that I essentially rewrote the entire thing today. That assumption was especially valid because of the maintenance tag about inline citations that had been on the article since December 2020 (it honestly applied since 2016 at least).

We can get totally tangled up in arbitration committee declarations, site rules, and guidelines, but at the end of the day, a problematic article that has been ignored for years finally got the attention it so needed. It's in a way better place now. Waiting to get consensus on an article as neglected as this one was simply unnecessary, so I ignored the rules. I don't believe I should have to change the citation style back. Thrakkx (talk) 22:44, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree. You were not justified in changing the referencing system in the first place, and not conceivably justified in doing so a second time after you'd been reverted. We have a rule about this for one very good reason: to prevent endless repetitions of this kind of pointless argument. I used the word "radical" because the system you have imposed on the page is not compatible with the "ordinary" in-text referencing system that most people use here, which however combines seamlessly with LDR as it had done since the second ref was added to the page. Would you kindly revert the change you've made? Or would you like me to that for you (I have a script that makes short work of it)? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 19:34, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

When you say rule, this is where you are wrong. Wikipedia has no fixed rules. I may have violated a guideline when drastically improving this page, but I did not do it disruptively. My (as of now: 8) changes were made entirely in good faith. The fact that "most people" do not use the {{sfn}} citation system is especially irrelevant on this page, because let me reiterate again, this article has not seen any meaningful attention since 2017 at the earliest. Nobody has added a single source to this page in nearly six years.

On to your reasoning for why we have this guideline (to prevent endless repetitions of this kind of argument): Why do we have to argue about this? You come out of the woodwork after contributing to this article literally a decade ago and choose to die on the hill of policy and regulation, which I've twice now established is not set in stone. I intend to maintain this article, and I believe that this new citation system best suits it. I ask that you leave me and this article alone. Why can't you be thankful that I made all of these improvements (at the expense of ignoring one guideline) and simply move on? Thrakkx (talk) 19:55, 10 March 2021 (UTC)