Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Please make a header for your evidence and sign your comments with your name.

When placing evidence here, please be considerate of the arbitrators and be concise. Long, rambling, or stream-of-conciousness rants are not helpful.

As such, it is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff; links to the page itself are not sufficient. For example, to cite the edit by Mennonot to the article Anomalous phenomenon adding a link to Hundredth Monkey use this form:.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see talk page.

Please make a section for your evidence and add evidence only in your own section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs, a much shorter, concise presentation is more likely to be effective. Please focus on the issues raised in the complaint and answer and on diffs which illustrate behavior which relates to the issues.

If you disagree with some evidence you see here, please cite the evidence in your own section and provide counter-evidence, or an explanation of why the evidence is misleading. Do not edit within the evidence section of any other user.

Be aware that the Arbitrators may at times rework this page to try to make it more coherent. If you are a participant in the case or a third party, please don't try to refactor the page, let the Arbitrators do it. If you object to evidence which is inserted by other participants or third parties please cite the evidence and voice your objections within your own section of the page. It is especially important to not remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, please leave it for the arbitrators to move.

The Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies voting by Arbitrators takes place at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision.

Evidence for Requests for arbitration/Highways/Workshop
and many more

JohnnyBGood persists in making personal attacks against SPUI
He calls his reversions of my moves "reverting vandalism".

On the other hand, Vandalism clearly states that "any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism."

No personal attacks says that this is not a personal attack, but also says "if the edit that is being reverted could be interpreted as a good-faith edit, then don't label it as vandalism." No personal attacks says that "accusatory comments such as "Bob is a troll", or "Jane is a bad editor" can be considered personal attacks if said repeatedly, in bad faith, or with sufficient venom." As a vandal is a subset of "bad editor", and JohnnyBGood persists in calling SPUI a vandal, he is making personal attacks.

Evidence presented by DavidBavousett
I'm new around here, so if I'm mis-speaking, apologies in advance, but I'm going to be bold. My intent is not to come down on one side or another of this issue, but to present something useful done by a participant...which might provide hints to a solution elsewhere, or common ground to work from.

When I first came aboard at Wikipedia, I got interested in working up a state highways WP for my own state, and WP:TXSH was born. After that, I saw all the move warring going on in California and Washington, and frankly, it made me nervous. Moreso on 22 April 2006, when User:SPUI made edits to the project page, adding completion lists (which can be found at WikiProject Texas State Highways/Completion list). Then I looked at them.

I work in libraries for a living, and deal a lot with librarians, and a LOT of what librarians worry about is what is the user likely to enter in the search box, and if they enter thus-and-so, will they get the result they are looking for. SPUI's solution on State highways in Texas demonstrates a clear disambiguation on the "main" page, and a number of redirects based on things that users *might* enter, along with an even more general disambiguator for the term "Route X". He put placeholders for all of these in the completion list for this project, and they make a lot of sense! The main page name leaves no doubt that it's a Texas highway, but anything that a user might possibly enter will still get them there, either via redirect or disambiguation. His structure for Farm to Market and Ranch to Market roads is similarly functional, and is, in fact, very easy to edit and make work! No one else at WP:TXSH has fussed, either, so I'm assuming that no one is upset enough about it to think we should do it any other way.

Should ArbCom choose to rule on the structuring of the content, I would strongly urge a look-see at the very useful structure set up by User:SPUI on the Texas State Highways project. I cannot imagine a case where a similar structure would be less useful in any other state.

As for the vitriolic edit warring between User:SPUI and User:Rschen7754 (among others), I have no evidence. Rschen7754 greeted me in a most friendly way when I came aboard, and SPUI and I have not communicated much. Rschen7754 asserts never to have been in Texas at WP:TXSH, and I don't know about SPUI (he's not listed on the Participants roster), so if an edit war starts between them, that proves, to me at least, that it's no longer about the content, but about the war. What SPUI has done in Texas is, for Texas, useful. Mileage may vary in other states, but I, for one, do not want similar warring going on in Texas!

Thanks to ArbCom, and to all the editors involved, for the work you do. Comments or requests for further discussion are welcome, either on my talk page or on the talk page for WP:TXSH.


 * Small clarification - I had originally put Farm to Market Roads at "Farm to Market Road X (Texas)", but Freakofnurture (who is in or very close to Texas) pointed out that no other place has numbered F-M roads, so the parenthetical disambiguation is not needed. Freakofnurture has also been helpful with other areas like the completion lists. --SPUI (T - C) 16:23, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Evidence presented by PHenry
The bulk of my evidence is intended to illustrate that the problem we've been having is due to intransigence and a refusal to seek consensus on the part of one specific editor, and that the great majority of the other editors who have become embroiled in this situation have indicated that they are ready and willing to seek a quick and harmonious compromise. —phh (t/c) 04:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

SPUI has moved thousands of pages without consensus

 * SPUI moves ≈70 California highway pages on March 9
 * Evidence that no consensus existed for page moves as of March 9
 * March 11
 * March 16–17
 * March 20
 * March 23
 * March 26
 * April 17–18 - starting in on Washington
 * Evidence that no consensus existed for page moves as of April 17
 * April 18–19
 * April 21
 * April 22
 * April 27
 * May 1

Freakofnurture has moved hundreds of pages without consensus

 * May 13
 * Freakofnurture thinks he shouldn't have to seek consensus for controversial moves because he's "right"; believes himself to have "pwned" someone
 * Evidence that a formal name (e.g., being "right") isn't always the best choice for an article title
 * Freakofnurture moves a page two weeks into this arbitration

SPUI has repeatedly rejected attempts to resolve this matter through consensus

 * Multiple people ask SPUI to seek consensus for moves
 * Nohat asks SPUI to seek consensus for moves
 * SPUI responds abusively
 * Rschen7754 asks SPUI to stop being disruptive
 * SPUI responds abusively
 * Rschen7754 asks SPUI to temporarily stop moving pages while mediation is taking place
 * SPUI refuses
 * Rschen7754 asks SPUI not to bring his move wars to Washington
 * SPUI refuses
 * SPUI continues to reject consensus, because he's decided that he's "correct"

Other editors have indicated a desire to resolve this matter through consensus

 * Rschen7754 seeks mediation
 * Rschen7754 crafts a proposal that would have ended the warring once and for all
 * Cockeyed optimist that I am, I request that he bring SPUI on board as a co-developer of the process
 * SPUI looks for something to complain about
 * Rschen7544 tries to mollify him
 * SPUI looks for something else to complain about
 * Rschen7544 asks SPUI if he has any suggestions for improving the proposal
 * SPUI's "suggestion" is that SPUI should get what SPUI wants when SPUI wants it
 * Rschen7544 tries one last time
 * SPUI shoots him down for good
 * Atanamir suggests a meeting of the minds
 * Tawker volunteers to mediate
 * SPUI rejects anything binding, saying "I know I'm correct"
 * Alai seeks input on a page move; is thwarted by SPUI
 * Cyde tries to measure the sense of the community w/r/t potential naming conventions
 * SPUI thinks he's funny
 * SPUI attempts to end the process 6 days early

SPUI's "effect of an article title" is a fallacy
In SPUI's evidence section, he cited the following three pages: State Route 599 (Washington)
 * The version of the page he cites uses "State Route 599 (Washington)" as the article title, yet starts with "Washington State Route 599" in the text. This inconsistency was not fixed until June 1, 2006, 19 days after it was moved to "State Route 599 (Washington)", and 41 days after it was originally moved there and reverted by PHenry.

State Route 99 (Washington)
 * This version also carries the same inconsistency as the 599 page. This inconsistency was also allowed to remain for 19 days from May 12 to June 1.  Furthermore, this page was originally moved by SPUI (then reverted by Rschen7754) on March 8, 85 days before the text of the article changed.

Route 12 (New Jersey)
 * This page was moved by SPUI from "New Jersey State Highway 12" to "Route 12 (New Jersey)" on November 28, 2005. The inconsistency in the text was allowed to remain for 185 days until June 1.

Only SPUI's fourth citation actually exhibits a case where the title "has an effect" on the text of the article. There remain several pages where the article title does not "have an effect" on the text of the article. 

Note how all three of the June 1 edits were done within minutes of each other. Freakofnurture has recently started to go through the pages he moved three weeks later to fix this oversight.

My guess is that this latest round of edits by Freakofnurture was sparked by a conversation I had with SPUI on State route naming conventions poll, where SPUI originally made his claim that the title has an effect:
 * SPUI claims "the actual name used matters"
 * I point out the inconsistencies brought about by his and Freakofnurture's page moves
 * I clarify my position, pulling the "if you actually cared" line

Allow me to clarify my "if you actually cared" line, and why this constitutes evidence related to the case, even ignoring content/style issues. If SPUI and Freakofnurture actually cared about the correct titles of these articles, they would edit the text of the article immediately after completing the move, not three weeks later after being caught in a lie by me. Their failure to do so constitutes (IMHO) frivolous editing and conduct detrimental to the encyclopedia.


 * SPUI admits (through my interpretation) his moves are frivolous
 * My interpretation

SPUI does not respect efforts to seek consensus
The following evidence is meant mainly as additions to the last two sections of evidence presented by PHenry.

Debate on Talk:List of Washington State Routes
In an effort to explain my theory on "Washington State Route X" being a common name globally, I repeatedly ask SPUI a hypothetical question regarding Missouri State Highway 64: first hypothetical question; second hypothetical question
 * Ignoring my question for a second time, SPUI responds irrelevantly, copy and pasting his response to someone else.
 * I then respond, explaining why his response was irrelevant, and pose the question for a third time. SPUI again makes no response, the above link is the last post on that thread.
 * I feel the debate is not over, as he never responded to any of my points, so 4 days later, I ask him for a response on his talk page
 * His two letter response (No)
 * I press again, admittedly lacking maturity myself
 * SPUI refuses to "grow up"

Poll on WT:CASH
In order to seek/maintain consensus on using routeboxca2 instead of SPUI's Infobox CA Route, Rschen7754 calls for a vote.

Two months later, Rschen7754 suggests closing the poll and meets no objection in the next 20 hours (an admittedly short time).


 * Rschen7754, closes debate using a common template that tells users not to modify the poll, and to put new suggestions in a separate section. Rschen7754 calls the poll (IMHO correctly) 6 out of 8 in favor of modifying but keeping routeboxca2.


 * SPUI rejects the result of the poll by editing the archived debate, and by using strikethrough tags on Rschen's comment, against Talk page guidelines

SPUI tries to scare me off Wikipedia using actual personal attacks
Apparently, Wikipedia would be better off without me...

...and the door is waiting...

...so I should get out of here.

Response to User:SPUI takes his road warring global
The debate regarding the Autobahn infobox is not as simple as JohnnyBGood makes it.


 * SPUI created the article over a year ago.
 * SPUI finished his expansion (including a completed exit list using his format) approximately three weeks later. He was the only editor on the page during this time, except for one edit by a user putting a cleanup tag on the page.
 * The infobox version of the exit list makes its first appearance 5 months later added by Doco, the same user who first accused SPUI of inappropriate behavior on the issue.

Wikipedia talk:Autobahn infobox template and Talk:Bundesautobahn 1 show that Doco does not have consensus for his alternative format. Thus in this case, SPUI has the status quo, and Doco is in the wrong.

''See also: the talk page

User:SPUI persists in personally attacking other parties involved with this arbcom
SPUI has resorted to personally attacking opposing parties in this arbcom for expressing their opinion on evidence and/or user behavior related to the matter.   

User:SPUI attempts to have this arbcom closed
SPUI for unknown reasons has attempted to have this arbcom, which multiple users, both involved and uninvolved, have deemed useful and needed closed. I would call this a continued borderline disruption to trying to solve this overall issue. 

User:SPUI takes his road warring global
SPUI has moved his edit warring regarding what he deems "right" to articles on the German Autobahns now as evidenced here.

In response to SPUI's claim of personal attacks by JohnnyBGood
I question if SPUI's moves after 2 months of dispute were done in good faith after multiple editors had brought up multiple objections that SPUI then ignored rather vocally claiming he was "right". WP:AGF will only get you so far, and in this case SPUIs actions constituted continued disruption and borderline vandalism. WP:AGF makes it very clear that continued disruption is cause to no longer assume good faith, which was clearly a resonable response in this case. And pointing this out is not a personal attack just as according to No personal attacks, "A comment in an edit history such as 'reverting vandalism' is not a personal attack." Surely this applies to talk pages as well as edit histories.

A wee bit of evidence from Rickyrab
While I have not been harassed that much by SPUI, I was only a minor participant in this issue, having jumped in well after the issue had already gained steam and was chugging out of the station. Nontheless, I feel the other participants in this argument have some sound points: SPUI's moves are in questionable taste, and SPUI has attempted to hound other Wikipedians. &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 17:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I noticed that SPUI has made a sarcastic remark on the proposed decision page of this ArbCom. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 18:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Way to go with your comment on "Route 18 (New Jersey)", SPUI...

Additional note
- For the record, goatse.cx (or goat.cx) was a website showing the infamous Goatse picture, which shows some guy opening up his derriere in front of the camera. Thus, mentioning it can be widely understood to be insulting. &mdash; Rickyrab | Talk 18:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)