Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways/Workshop

This is a page for working on Arbitration decisions. It provides for suggestions by Arbitrators and other users and for comment by arbitrators, the parties and others. After the analysis of /Evidence here and development of proposed principles, findings of fact, and remedies. Anyone who edits should sign all suggestions and comments. Arbitrators will place proposed items they have confidence in on /Proposed decision.

Other involved parties
1) The following users are named as additional involved parties: — Jun. 2, '06  [00:49] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * User:Nohat, see [ U.S. Route 101]
 * User:Gateman1997, see WP:RFC/SPUI.
 * User:Lbmixpro, see [ move log].
 * User:Locke Cole (if he's around), see [ move log].


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Agreed. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  22:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Moved from Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Highways. — Jun. 3, '06  [03:05] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * For the record I'd rather not be involved in this arbcom thanks. I excused myself from this debate and conceded to SPUI over two months ago on his talk page and via email. I'm finally enjoying Wikipedia again writing articles and such and would like to keep it that way if it's all the same to everyone. I no longer care what names the highways end up at. Gateman1997 05:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And for the record I may have posted some comments below, but I'm still not considering myself involved. I am just concerned at how one sided this debate seems to have been to this point. Gateman1997 05:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree for User:Nohat as he's been in the thick of it from day one, especially on Route 17. Disagree for the other three users as all three appear to have lost interest before it became a full on war particularly User:Locke Cole who appears to have left Wikipedia completely. JohnnyBGood  t  c  VIVA! 00:19, 6 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Scope of this case
1) The Arbitration Committee shall clarify the scope of this arbitration case, to wit, whether the committee shall make rulings in this case with regards (a) to conduct of Wikipedia editors, (b) naming conventions of Wikipedia articles relating to numbered highways in the United States, (c) content of such articles, or (d) some combination of a, b, and c.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * I have put up the proposed decision. I come down heavy on SPUI since he was so hard headed. Make up a decent naming convention and ask SPUI to respect it. Content will depend on who edits the article. I could write quite a nice article about Colorado State Highway 17, after all I have spend man-months on that road. Fred Bauder 18:08, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * I sense that all involved parties would like to know, early on, which direction this is going. — Jun. 5, '06  [07:29] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * I second this notion. I also would like to know the scope of this case. I don't believe any of the parties involved are looking for sanctions against other users (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but rather want to know what the final end all name for these articles should be. Establishing that in my mind would eliminate any need to sanction users. JohnnyBGood  t  c  VIVA! 18:02, 9 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * I'd suggest that trying to limit the "scope of investigation" is almost always a bad idea. If someone thinks an area is important and busily piles up a bunch of evidence to support it, good for them. -  brenneman  color="000000" title="Admin actions">{L} 01:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

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Temporary Injunction number 1
1) Until the conclusion of this case, no party may move a highway-related article except to correct page-move vandalism. Violators may be blocked for up to 24 hours.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * I feel that this would be a disservice to unsuspecting Wikipedians who are not aware of this wheel war, and therefore oppose this proposed injunction. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 18:52, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The temporary injunction applies only to parties involved in the case. Unsuspecting Wikipedians are not affected by the injunction, and are technically free to move pages all they want, although it would be highly discouraged.  (They might find themselves quickly added to the case.)  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 05:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * And unpleasantly surprised as a result. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 13:15, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Whether they are a party to this case or not, they should seek consensus before making any page move. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 00:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Controversial moves and edits
2) Until the conclusion of this case, parties to this case shall not move any state highway page from one controversial name to another, nor shall parties edit any link or article text found on a state highway page from one controversial name to another.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * More specific variation of the injunction found above and on the proposed decision page, and strikingly similar to Controversial moves and edits. Designed to prevent the enforcement of non-consensus naming conventions, as well as potential edit wars. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 00:18, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Bloody ridiculous. You seek to deny obvious cleanup. --SPUI (T - C) 00:35, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Enforcement of a non-consensus naming convention is not "obvious cleanup". -- Northenglish (talk) -- 03:06, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not "enforcement of a non-consensus naming convention" - this is applying Wikipedia standards to what I thought we all agreed the name of the highway is. Are you now disputing WSDOT's claim that it is "State Route X"? --SPUI (T - C) 03:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * My claim had always been that "State Route X" is the official name, but that this is not the only name, and "Washington State Route X" is another name that we use on Wikipedia. I have since retracted this claim.  Regardless, these contentious edits should not be made in the middle of an Arbcom case. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 04:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * These edits have never been contentious until you decided to take issue with ordinary cleanup. --SPUI (T - C) 05:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * These edits have always been contentious. These edits are not ordinary cleanup.  My "decision" to take issue with these edits was not sudden; I posted the applicable finding of fact the moment I noticed they occurred. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 16:10, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

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=Proposed final decision=

The effect of an article title
1) An article title (minus parenthetical disambiguation) is usually what is bolded at the beginning of an article and what is linked to from other articles. Using the wrong title can result in stilted and redundant sentences like (hypothetical example) "Washington State Route 78 runs from Washington State Route 56 north past Washington State Route 327 to end at Washington State Route 45."


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * Nothing wrong with Washington State Route 78 runs from Route 56 north past Route 327 to end at Washington State Route 45 . Fred Bauder 01:23, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There is definitely something wrong with that. The use of Washington is only for disambiguation purposes; adding it when the context already makes it clear is bad writing. And we should always make the context crystal-clear in the first sentence of the article: State Route 78 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Washington. We would never say "State Route 78 (Washington) runs from State Route 56 (Washington)...". As the name of the route is State Route X, not Washington State Route X, we should not be using the "Washington" except where necessary to establish context. --SPUI (T - C) 06:33, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I just had a long-time "trusted" user look over my argument here and he said that "it seems to hold water". I'd appreciate knowing what exactly you disagree with. --SPUI (T - C) 15:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Setting aside any disambiguation conventions, we should avoid writing "Washington State Route X" in text when that is not the common or official name and the context is established ("is a state highway in the U.S. state of Washington"). I believe this to be the core problem - improper naming encourages sloppy text. --SPUI (T - C) 18:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This makes sense, if the proper name of the subject is "A", but "A" is non-unique, the title should be &#91;&#91;A (B)&#93;&#93;, and the article ought to start with something similar to "&#39;&#39;&#39;A&#39;&#39;&#39; is a [whatever] in &#91;&#91;B&#93;&#93;, located near &#91;&#91;A2 (B)&#124;A2&#93;&#93; and &#91;&#91;A3 (B)&#124;A3&#93;&#93;...". The identity of B, in this case a geographical entity, is already established for the context of this hypothetical article. — Jun. 2, '06 <tt> [00:12] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Per clarification by Jdforrester here, content matters such as this one are not in scope for this arbitration case, and the ArbCom is likely to ignore them. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 17:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If content isn't why we're here, then WHY are we here? <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 00:16, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am with Fred Bauer on this one. In my eyes, the hypothetical example should probably read:
 * Washington State Route 78 is a state highway from Renton to Tacoma, Washington, running from State Route 56 north past State Route 327 to end at State Route 45.
 * -- Northenglish 21:37, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * See - you did it too. You bolded the Washington, even though you realize that the name of the route is State Route 78. As for the other links, there's a reason we have the pipe trick. Articles should be at the name that is correct, easily recognized, and aids linking. If one has to type out Washington State Route X|State Route X every time one wants to link to an article, that does the opposite. People will - and do - simply link to Washington State Route X with no pipe, and we get sloppy writing. --SPUI (T - C) 22:27, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I did it too because I realize that State Route 78 is a name for the route, and another name for the route is Washington State Route 78. This more complete name is more appropriate in this case because we are disambiguating between two exceedingly similar items--two state roads--rather than a planet and a chemical element (as is the case for Mercury), where context is not necessary in the same way. -- Northenglish 23:26, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Look, how is this even something to argue about? Many, many articles have titles that aren't identical to what gets bolded in the first paragraph. Richard III of England begins "Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 1483 until his death and the last king from the House of York." Is anyone having a conniption over that? No. There's no problem whatsoever with an article titled "Washington State Route 78" beginning with the sentence "State Route 78 is a highway in the state of Washington." Stop being pedantic. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 01:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I suppose I can agree with that. However, there is a problem with SPUI claiming that the article title is so important for this reason, then leaving articles titled State Route 539 (Washington) starting with the sentence "Washington State Route 539 ... is a highway in the state of Washington, U.S.A." -- Northenglish 01:35, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Furthermore, the bolded introductory phrase sometimes lists important and commonly known alternative names for the item that the article title names. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 18:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * The effect of the difference between a page name and the bolded introductory phrase really doesn't matter in context. It will still be of the form "X is a..." followed by the definition of X. I'd drop this one. &mdash; Rob (  talk  ) 20:23, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Process is important
1) Process is important. Editors are not entitled to ignore the need to obtain consensus for a large-scale, potentially controversial change simply because they believe they are "right" and anyone who disagrees is therefore "wrong."


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I would hope that this is self-evident. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 06:56, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "Self-evident" is an interesting choice of words. Are you implying that if arbcom says "there shall be no further life, liberty, and persuit of happiness without due process", you'd still stick around? — Jun. 2, '06 <tt> [09:36] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * I'll count on you to keep me up to date on any such mind-blowingly unlikely happenings. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 17:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Editing guidelines
1) Be bold in updating pages, ignore all rules, and, above all, use common sense.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * This could benefit from expansion, please be bold and do so. — Jun. 2, '06 <tt> [09:29] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * The Be bold page explicitly cautions against obstinately bulling ahead with large-scale changes in the face of obvious controversy. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 17:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Wikipedia works by building consensus
1) All editors should seek change through polite discussion and negotiation, and assume good faith until given a reason to do otherwise. In the absence of a consensus that an existing convention (formal or informal) should be changed, all editors should respect the status quo until such a consensus is evident.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Boo-yah. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 01:01, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I hope this isn't your approach to spelling errors as well. — Jun. 8, '06 <tt> [02:16] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * This is not in any way, shape, or form a case where one proposal is correct and one is incorrect. Both "State Route X" (with parenthetical disambiguation if necessary) and "Statename State Route X" (which can be considered a form of disambiguation) can be considered equally correct.  The question is how do we apply existing naming and disambiguation conventions, such as--but certainly not limited to--common names and more complete names.  But to answer your question, correcting spelling errors tends to have consensus. -- Northenglish 02:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "Both "State Route X" (with parenthetical disambiguation if necessary) and "Statename State Route X" (which can be considered a form of disambiguation) can be considered equally correct." This is totally wrong, and your failure to realize that is the problem here. --SPUI (T - C) 14:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation and Naming conventions (common names) beg to differ with you. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 16:45, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. The "problem" here is your failure to realize two things.  (1) The more complete names convention at WP:D does exist.  (2) Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia, so we need to use the common name globally, not the name that's common within (for ex.) Washington state. -- Northenglish 18:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Freakofnurture admits that "California State Route X" is a valid, more complete name (note the end of his post) -- Northenglish 20:47, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Holy crap, you're avoiding the issue. --SPUI (T - C) 22:25, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I didn't say it was valid, or more complete, I said that putting the state name before the route name is useful as a redirect, and it can be used for clarification purposes in a paragraph of text in an article where the context of which state the highway is in has not already been established. Such a case is not the norm, however. The majority of references to state highway articles are from articles about other topics relating to the same state, rendering the practice of displaying the state name in the visible link text redundant, awkward, and wrong. — Jun. 9, '06 <tt> [01:44] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * I admit that you did not use the words "valid" or "more complete". However, you do admit that "explicitly specifying 'California State Route X' would be helpful" in certain articles.  Surely you are not proposing we include invalid information in those certain articles?
 * Such a case is very much the norm in Wikipedia, as the article title and the first mention of the road in the article text occur before any context has already been established. The name "California State Route X" is by definition more complete, and establishes the context for the reader.
 * As for SPUI, I am most certainly not avoiding the issue. You stated that the two naming conventions are not equally correct, I am showing how they are. -- Northenglish 20:52, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "Respecting the status quo" flies directly in the face of "be bold". This principle is incorrect. --SPUI (T - C) 22:37, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The Be bold page explicitly cautions against obstinately bulling ahead with large-scale changes in the face of obvious controversy. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 01:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "Respecting the status quo" does not fly directly in the face of "be bold", it is an oversimplification of the "Bold, revert, discuss cycle" essay. Editors are allowed and encouraged to be bold; however, they must also seek consensus.  You may make a page move once; if it is reverted, do not stubbornly move it again, instead seek consensus on the talk page.  If you fail to gain consensus, then unfortunately, you lose.
 * To oversimplify again, be bold, not stubborn. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 03:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess this is how Wikipedia avoids hooliganism. &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 18:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Voting is not necessarily evil
1) Voting can be used to reach a consensus. Voting is evil is not Wikipedia policy, it's not even a guideline; it's a simple essay, and holds the same bearing as Voting is not evil.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * SPUI is too stubborn for us to reach a unanimous consensus. However, there have been numerous polls on the issue, and he is usually outvoted.  SPUI rejects the results of the poll citing WP:VIE. -- Northenglish 00:03, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On the one vote with large turnout - Talk:State Route 2 (California) - there was no consensus. The other votes have been on backwater WikiProjects. --SPUI (T - C) 14:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm counting 8 Support vs. 8 Oppose on Talk:State Route 2 (California), which means you're right, there's no consensus in either direction. The other votes on so-called "backwater WikiProjects" indicate consensus in favor of "Statename State Route X". -- Northenglish (talk) -- 05:53, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Until someone can prove to me that 100% of an affected population would agree with the wills of a few, I'll hold that "voting is evil" and should be the last resort attempt. &mdash; Rob (  talk  ) 20:27, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Parenthetical disambiguation cannot be used without an accompanying disambiguation page
1) Parenthetical disambiguation in the form "A (B)" must not be used without creating a disambiguation page or redirect titled "A". This is because a user searching for a page titled "A (B)" is likely to type "A" into the search box (if WP:D guidelines are being applied correctly), and if no disambiguation/redirect page exists, the user will find a message stating "No page with this title exists", and assume that Wikipedia has no information on that topic.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * To use a specific example, at the time I made this post, the page State Route 539 did not exist, even though State Route 539 (Washington) did. This means that a user typing "State Route 539" into the search box would get a message stating that no page with title existed.
 * This problem is compounded by an apparent bug in the search engine that does not allow numbers as search terms. This means that the search results do not provide the backup that would normally solve the problem of a missing page.  (Even now that the missing State Route 539 disambiguation page exists, the top search result for "State Route 539" is California State Route 112, followed by a number of seemingly randomly selected state routes from across the country.) -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a reason to fix the software, not use improper titles.
 * It in fact makes no difference whether the article is at State Route 539 (Washington) or Washington State Route 539. If someone types in "State Route 539", the search results will be useless either way.
 * --SPUI (T - C) 00:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, a discussion regarding how best to handle these is currently awaiting some sort of response to preempt possible cries of unilateralism which might arise next week or so. Interestingly, PHenry has stated that these pages are likely to be listed at AfD. So on one hand, our progress is too slow, but on the other hand, it might ultimately prove to be wasted effort. — Jun. 14, '06 <tt> [21:38] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * I've made my comment on that page; I agree with SPUI's idea, as we've made it abundantly clear that the term "Route X" is not used nationwide. I also disagree with PHenry's statement regarding AfD, as these pages (whether they're straight disambiguation pages or lists) serve a very important purpose, whether or not we ultimately decide to use parenthetical disambiguation. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am not taking a position on whether or not they are, or would be, valuable. My point is that I've spent enough time on AfD to predict with a reasonable amount of certainty that if a page called "Route X" is moved to "List of highways numbered X," someone—no, not me—will eventually nominate it for deletion, because they will interpret it as listcruft rather than a disambiguation page. …anyway, why isn't SPUI moving these articles to "Route X (disambiguation)"? I thought parentheses were "the way we do disambiguation around here." —phh (t/c) 23:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Route 66 (disambiguation) does currently follow that convention, because it needs to. Route 128 (disambiguation) is probably a borderline case. The reason for moving these to "List of..." titles is that about half of the entries on any given page are never referred to as "Route X", making the naming convention unnecessarily arbitrary. The "list of..." titles would be a generic catch-all as a target for redirects from various naming constructs without an identifying statename, without implying a preference for any particular naming convention. If links to "Route X", "State Route X", "Highway X", "State Highway X", "State Road X", "State Highway Loop X", etc. are spotted, they can be disambiguated via the same page using popups, which follows redirects that point to disambig pages. This will take quite a long time if done by hand, but I feel it will be worth it in the end. — Jun. 15, '06 <tt> [00:46] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>


 * Just to clarify, a page title of the form Bloo blah (disambiguation) is only used when Bloo blah redirects to the most common usage of "Bloo blah", as is the case with Route 66 and Route 128. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 06:50, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:

When blocking may not be used
1) Use of blocks to gain an advantage in a content dispute is strictly prohibited. That is, sysops must not block editors with whom they are currently engaged in a content dispute. Generally, caution should be exercised before blocking users who may be acting in good faith.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Blocking_policy. — Jun. 14, '06 <tt> [20:57] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>


 * Comment by others:

Vandalism is in the eye of the beholder. Calling someone a vandal (non-persistently) is not against policy or uncivil.
1) According to Vandalism, vandalism comes down to whether or not an edit/move was done in good faith or bad faith, and whether the bad faith nature is explicit. The first part is a matter of opinion; whether or not the nature is explicit needs to determined by consensus.  However, one person stating that he/she believes the bad faith nature is explicit and thus they believe an edit is vandalism does not constitute a personal attack, a violation of Wikipedia policy, or incivility.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I wanted to put this here to try to determine exactly what other people think about this issue. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thumbs down. From the same page:
 * Some users cannot come to agreement with others who are willing to talk to them on an article's talk page, and repeatedly make changes opposed by everyone else. This is a matter of regret — you may wish to see our dispute resolution pages to get help. However, it is not vandalism.
 * — Jun. 14, '06 <tt> [22:40] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Fair enough, I admit error there. I do find that counterintuitive to the good faith/bad faith definition used in the introduction, though. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 23:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If not vandalism, then what is it? Because it's not constructive editing. Also as North points out it doesn't jive with the top of the page. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 22:19, 20 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Template
1) {text of proposed principle}


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:


 * Comment by others:

Highway nomenclature in the state of Washington
1) The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has confirmed that the proper name for roads maintained by that agency is in fact "State Route XX", not "Washington State Route XX"".


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * As confirmed by WSDOT's Kimberly Colburn mailto:hqcustomerservice@wsdot.wa.gov. — Jun. 2, '06 <tt> [01:51] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Honestly, a single email should not be taken as proof alone, as people are fallible. But there is a preponderance of evidence that WSDOT does in fact use State Route X. --SPUI (T - C) 02:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Per clarification by Jdforrester here, content matters such as this one are not in scope for this arbitration case, and the ArbCom is likely to ignore them. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 17:44, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You may ultimately be correct on this, but that opinion is not unanimously held by the arbitrators agreeing to accept this case. Fred Bauder's comment: "Accept for the purpose of binding arbitration regarding the style issue". I would like to keep this information easily accessible in preparation for the event that the committee does decide to go that route. If they explicitly state that "We, the arbitration committee, have decided not to deal with content issues in this case", closing the door on the relevance of this information, I will remove this item myself. I think it would be beneficial to all parties if that question is resolved early on. — Jun. 5, '06 <tt> [07:22] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>


 * Comment by others:

There is no consensus in this issue
1) Consensus links to Consensus, which defines consensus as "a general agreement among the members of a given group or community, each of which exercises some discretion in decision making and follow-up action". As there is no agreement among all involved editors, there is no consensus.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * There was consensus before SPUI dissented and made his page moves. There has never been consensus for SPUI's article titles. -- Northenglish 21:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California State Highways/Archive:
 * If you noticed, SPUI seems to be on a crusade to rename "California state highways" to "California State Routes". A few days ago, he renamed all of the articles that way. And he was the one who posted Category:California state highways on CFD to be renamed like that. So I might suggest that we should also rename this Wikiproject to Wikipedia:WikiProject California State Routes. Zzyzx11 | Talk 05:38, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe in another year everyone will vigorously defend State Route X (California). --SPUI (T - C) 11:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * And maybe in another year everyone will vigorously defend California State Highway X. What's your point? -- Northenglish (talk) -- 20:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

Efforts to reach consensus have become unworkably complex
1) Over the past four months, efforts have been made to formally address the Wikipedia highway naming convention at Naming conventions (numbered highways), WikiProject Highways/U.S. state highway naming conventions, Talk:California State Highway 2, WikiProject U.S. Roads, Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-03-12 U.S. Roads, State route naming conventions poll, and less formally at countless other pages. It is not reasonable to expect a typical editor to know which of these pages, if any, is the appropriate place for discussing and agreeing upon highway naming conventions.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Boo-yah. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 17:53, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * I'll voice my support of this. I think this is why I stopped caring where the articles end up back in March. There was no actual place to discuss the issue conclusively. Gateman1997 05:24, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

JohnnyBGood and PHenry persist in misrepresenting SPUI's moves as vandalism
JohnnyBGood and PHenry have maintained before and during the Arbitration case that his reversions of SPUI's moves are "reverting vandalism". Good-faith efforts to improve the encyclopedia, no matter how much one disagrees with them, are never vandalism. The fact that one does not agree with an edit, even if one believes it to be vandalism, does not excuse one to call it vandalism.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * SPUI is often correct in his decisions. He feel being correct justifies aggressiveness. My position is that it does not. He should defer, whether he is correct or not, to other opinions. As long as he runs wild, it will not end. Fred Bauder 12:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Requests for arbitration/Highways/Evidence --SPUI (T - C) 21:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Threaded discussion moved to talk.
 * Comment by others:
 * I've moved some conversations to talk that weren't moving towards a resolution. - brenneman  color="000000" title="Admin actions">{L} 02:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Where it says "have maintained before and during the Arbitration case" I'd like to see a list of diffs with a dated timeline, showing clearly where they say this. - brenneman  color="000000" title="Admin actions">{L} 02:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * JohnnyBGood 16:49, 13 June 2006
 * PHenry 20:44, 13 June 2006
 * more diffs on request
 * --SPUI (T - C) 02:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell/remember, I have called the page moves vandalism exactly twice. Once indirectly, once directly although carefully phrased to not be a personal attack.  This is far from "persistent", nor did I "maintain before and after the Arbitration case".  We are not all equally culpable here. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 07:53, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As far as I can remember—although I wouldn't swear to it—I've characterized SPUI's moves as vandalism exactly once, at the above referenced diff. Specifically, I said that "being provocative and showing people that he'll never quit until he gets what he wants … certainly qualifies as vandalism in my book." And in my book, it still does. Nonetheless, I've gone and read WP:VAND thoroughly, and that page specifically says that neither "bullying or stubbornness" nor "apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit" meet the Wikipedia definition of vandalism. So I'm willing to retract any claims I have made that they do, and will not make any more. (Although in this case I don't really see a practical difference between vandalism and SPUI's non-vandalism; both involve intentionally adding more heat than light to a discussion.) —phh (t/c) 16:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Valid point; however, couldn't one say that SPUI's statement I'm very leery of binding arbitration, as I know I'm correct and Freakofnurture's claim that he pwned us constitute make their bad faith nature inarguably explicit? As I said before, IMHO, the page moves were done in bad faith. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 17:41, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd like to see where anyone stating that they believe it to be vandalism after two to three months of continued reversion and scoffing at objections (on both sides, this isn't aimed at just SPUI) is against any policy or guideline. I've looked and can't find any myself. Also I'd like to know why SPUI is being ganged up and singled out on this Arbcom. Don't get me wrong, I was never fond of the guy when I was debating him and yes he's abrasive, but then so are many users, myself included. Why isn't the conduct of other users in this dispute coming into question or at least being taken seriously? SPUI is only one guy and as they say it does take two to tango. Gateman1997 05:00, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Maybe SPUI is being "ganged up" on because he is the sole bad actor here to any significant degree. If you or anyone else has any evidence of me engaging in behavior that's worthy of consideration by the ArbCom, now would be the time to provide it. —phh (t/c) 05:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * (recused, not clerk here): This is quite clear, so SPUI's statement is correct as far as it goes.  JohnnyBGood has very recently reaffirmed that he equates SPUI's good faith edits with vandalism. --Tony Sidaway 14:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No one's arguing that we have called SPUI's edits vandalism. However, this is not all SPUI's statement says.  He says, that we persist in calling his edits vandalism, and have "maintained" this "before and after the Arbitration case."  When asked to cite this, SPUI cited only one instance each of us calling it vandalism, which hardly constitutes persistence, and does nothing to confirm that we maintained it before and after that Arbitration case.  SPUI's statement is correct to a very short extent, not as far as it goes.  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 17:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * OK - so you don't believe my moves to be vandalism? If so, I'll remove you from this section. --SPUI (T - C) 17:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What is it you have against understanding what I say? I do believe that your page moves are disruption and thus border on vandalism.  (If you want me "be bold", then yes, I do, although I believe it's a matter of opinion.)  However, I have not "persisted in misrepresenting SPUI's moves as vandalism", nor have I "maintained before and during the Arbitration case that [JohnnyBGood's] reversions of SPUI's moves are 'reverting vandalism'."  The first sentence of this section is not only factually incorrect, but also grammatically incorrect, now that you have falsely included PHenry and I in this section. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 18:10, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What he said. With the following added. While I think they are borderline vandalism now I didn't always. It was after good faith was exhausted that I came to this conclusion. So I don't know if I'd call that "persisting" as well. I'd call it a sad conclusion after months of warring and the developed absense of good faith on SPUI's part. That's my opinion on the matter and I'm sticking to it. Now is it possible SPUI was acting in good faith, sure it's always possible, but after 2-3 months of thumbing his nose at everyone I'm inclinded to doubt it. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood   <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 18:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "I still stand my my assertion that reverting his moves was reverting vandalism." --SPUI (T - C) 19:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yep. After two months I view reverting your moves of these pages to be reverting bad faith edits (aka borderline vandalism). Restating it a dozen times doesn't change the fact that I have a right to view it as possible vandalism if the moves were done in anything but good faith, which I don't think were done with. You exhausted WP:AGF a long time ago on those moves. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 19:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As I said - you believe them to be vandalism. What more is there to say? --SPUI (T - C) 19:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Absolutely nothing. I'm just wondering why at this point it matters? Viewing your edits as vandalism as we established earlier isn't against the rules, I believe you termed it a "Bad Thing". Whatever that means. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 19:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

SPUI has attempted to intimidate User:Northenglish into leaving Wikipedia
1) SPUI has suggested three times, with escalating levels of hostility, that Northenglish leave Wikipedia if he is not willing to come around to SPUI's point of view. All three were in response to civil and inoffensive comments by Northenglish, as can be seen from the diffs provided:
 * 1) "Which is why this project would be better off without you. I know that the moves opposing me are all in good faith; they're just wrong."
 * 2) "I suggest you leave until you realize that.… I'm serious. You seem unwilling to grasp the way we do disambiguation here on Wikipedia. The door's waiting."
 * 3) "I say again - get out of here until you understand that."


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * My way or the highway. I am even more firmly convince that SPUI should be forced out of the fight, no matter how correct he is. Fred Bauder 12:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * In a previous arbitration case, the ArbCom found that two editors who suggested that a person involved in the case leave the project was harassment, and dealt with it here and here. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 00:22, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Given Northenglish's (and others') misunderstanding of the way Wikipedia works, with respect to vandalism and disambiguation, it might be best for him to take a break until he understands them better. My wording may not have been the best, but the meaning is something that should not be a probsem - hell, how many ArbCom decisions end with someone banned? Are we to charge the ArbCom with harassment for forcing people to take breaks (as Fred suggests above)? --SPUI (T - C) 19:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * ArbCom decisions end with someone being banned for flagrantly disobeying policy, not for misunderstanding disambiguation guidelines (which I contend I do not). From what I have read, most ArbCom cases do not end in someone being banned altogehter, rather they are restrained (put on probation), and temporarily blocked when they violate their probation.  Fred did not suggest you leave Wikipedia or be banned, merely that you leave this fight due to your incivility.  In this case, no one except you has suggested that anyone leave Wikipedia or be banned, once jokingly about yourself, and now about me. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * While he was very abrasive in those diffs, I doubt SPUI was serious. I would ask he tone it down, but I don't think this was at all sanctionable. Gateman1997 05:26, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Give me a break. He says "I'm serious," and you conclude from this that he's not serious? What does "I'm serious" mean, if not "I'm serious"? —phh (t/c) 06:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * User:Beirne may have been driven away as well (see his talk). It's not certain but it;s possible. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Block activity by Rschen7754
1) Roughly half of 's block activity is directly related to this case. In late March, he blocked and, with both of whom Rschen7754 was engaged in active editing disputes. Additionally, Rschen7754 unblocked  and , two other users actively engaging SPUI in editing disputes, who were suspected of mutual sockpuppetry. In April, when JohnnyBGood was blocked for continued personal attacks, Rschen7754 reduced JohnnyBGood's block to one hour.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I believe this demonstrates that Rschen7754's use of block/unblock stems primarily from frustration with the content dispute, rather than an objective sense of maintaining order. — Jun. 14, '06 <tt> [21:06] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * His blocks were justified in my opinion. His fustration as you call it was with disruptive page moves that persisted after a user was asked to slow down and explain and/or discuss it. Neither of which was done by SPUI which was more then enough justification for a block in my opinion. And as for the umpteenth retread of the sockpuppetry claims, those were disproven per David Gerard's own admission along with a large amount of other evidence and Rschen simply unblocked after that evidence was presented. Also as Rschen is on hiatus and unable to defend himself I'd ask that any discussions of his actions wait until he is able to provide a response and if needed defense. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 22:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I have five defenses:
 * a. It was of general administrator opinion that the mass page moves were deemed disruption and that continued moving of pages would be a blockable offense at Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive84 (I sure hope that's the right link). The only reason that I started moving pages a month later was because no administrator was doing anything about the moves and more and more pages were being moved. I was advised by another admin to go ahead and block too.
 * b. Locke Cole was unblocked after fifteen minutes (well more since I messed up unblocking).
 * c. I copy and paste my explanation for my unblocks of JohnnyBGood and Gateman1997 (that got posted on WP:ANI):
 * "As it seems that no administrators are interested in taking action regarding this matter and doing the right thing, I am forced to take action myself. The blocking administrator, David Gerard, has not provided much evidence to the accusation that the users Gateman1997 and JohnnyBGood are sockpuppets. A CheckUser regarding this matter has given negative results, as implied above by David Gerard and deducted by another user whose comment is above as well. It has been difficult for the blocked users to contact him since his "Email this user" link is not enabled (another user had to notify me of the fact that his email is listed on his user page). When the blocked users contacted him via email, they did not receive a prompt response; in fact, they had to wait hours for a response. There is evidence at WP:3RR to the fact that they are not sockpuppets. Also, these contributors were not properly notified of their block with the correct templates. However, the blocking admin subsequently made what can be deemed as "celebratory comments" to user SPUI User talk:SPUI. Another one of these comments may be found at the top of this section as well."


 * "Now, nearly forty-eight hours after these users were blocked, there has been no sufficient evidence presented to support these blocks. These users are blocked from contributing to Wikipedia and giving input to critical decisions involving nearly all of the hundreds of articles regarding the entire road system of the United States. Therefore, if noone objects to this proposed action by myself by bringing concrete technical evidence to my attention or the attention of those who read this page, I will be unblocking Gateman1997 and JohnnyBGood within sixteen to eighteen hours of this post. I believe that this proposed amount of time is sufficient for the blocking administrator and/or others to gather any evidence that may exist in regards to the supposed sockpuppetry of Gateman1997 and JohnnyBGood. Failure to rectify this unjustice will reflect poorly on Wikipedia and its administrators and will ostracize two extremely important, if not essential, highway contributors from Wikipedia."
 * d. SPUI doubts that Gateman1997 and JohnnyBGood are socks himself (Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive80, heading 23. Too many diffs to list).
 * e. The time I unblocked JohnnyBGood from "personal attacks" was when he called someone a WP:DICK. As he states, SPUI has called others dicks and not gotten blocked. I saw no reason why JohnnyBGood should be blocked. ,
 * --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm curious though about that second example. I understand that reverting SPUI's edits is probably satisfying to you, doubly so when rollback is used, but comparing the two versions, these do appear to be blind reversions. I don't see any advantages held by the one you were reverting to. — Jun. 21, '06 <tt> [15:06] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>


 * Comment by others:

Block activity by Freakofnurture
1) has been a participant in the road-related disputes since early March at the latest, and has unvaryingly taken SPUI's side in disagreements, regardless of their nature.    Despite this, he has inappropriately unblocked SPUI on four separate occasions, one two of which, on March 17 and April 24, somehow happened within 60 seconds of Curpsbot imposing the block in the first place.    Earlier on March 17, Freakofnurture had falsely accused JohnnyBGood of being a sock puppet and blocked him for participating in the same move war that he would subsequently unblock SPUI for.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Personally, I'd kind of like to know how he managed to unblock SPUI less than 60 seconds after he was blocked on two separate occasions . —phh (t/c) 19:13, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As Curps said, "User:SPUI has been blocked by a bot intended to block pagemove vandalism. Please check the move log for this user and unblock if this was an error. Please delete this message after the situation has been resolved. This message was generated by the bot." Since this is not a case of Willy on Wheels vandalism, the block was a false positive by a bot. At that time, it appeared JohnnyBGood was a role account created for the purpose of reverting SPUI. This was about two weeks before I became an involved party in the road naming dispute, (on or near April 2, according to my contributions list, which you've apparently taken the necessary hours or days to peruse). — Jun. 15, '06 <tt> [19:26] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * If so, that still leaves your unblock of April 24 when you were in the thick of things, doesn't it? Given your eagerness to lecture Rschen7754 for doing exactly the same thing, I would think that'd be something you'd want to watch out for. —phh (t/c) 19:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * He wasn't blocked for edit warring, or disruption, he was blocked because a bot mistook him for Willy on Wheels. Just thought I'd clear that up. — Jun. 15, '06 <tt> [19:45] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Still, wouldn't you want to "ensure that the 'conflict of interest' question never arises"? —phh (t/c) 20:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * If it was a block set by a human hand, I wouldn't have touched it. — Jun. 15, '06 <tt> [20:33] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>


 * Comment by others:

Editors other than SPUI have consistently tried to resolve this dispute through channels
1) The parties involved in this dispute are not all equally at fault. Most of the participants have made proactive and even extraordinary efforts to follow established procedures for dispute resolution, including the administrators' notice board, mediation, and RfC. Only in the face of overwhelming inaction and indifference on the part of administrators have most participants joined in the move wars, reluctantly, as a last resort.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * The evidence is too massive to include here. See the talk page. —phh (t/c) 18:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why not just move that to the evidence page? -- Northenglish (talk) -- 20:32, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

SPUI has vandalized pages as part of the highway move war
1) Regardless of one's interpretation of Vandalism, at least one page move of SPUI's is page move vandalism, defined as "Moving pages to offensive or nonsense names." On March 1, 2006, SPUI moved "California State Highway 17" to "Highway 17 as the local idiots call it".  His next edit of the article (after moving the page back off the offensive/nonsense name) contains the phrase "by idiots", admittedly protected within an HTML comment.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I very quickly undid that, realizing it was going too far. --SPUI (T - C) 09:35, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
 * ♫Three bottles of tequila, five sheeps and a duck...♪ — Jun. 21, '06 <tt> [14:56] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Undoing it does not change the fact that it was done in the first place. The "by idiots" HTML comment was reverted out, then put back in by SPUI a second time.  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 16:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:

SPUI and Freakofnurture continue to enforce their non-consensus naming convention
1) Even during this arbitration case, SPUI and Freakofnurture have continued to make controversial page edits regarding naming conventions. I do not have a problem with SPUI changing the first mention of the article text to match the article title, and have suggested that he do it.  However, this edit does the opposite, and also unnecessarily bypasses a redirect that already has a piped alternative.  Freakofnurture's edit here also served only to bypass two redirects that already had piped alternatives. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Northenglish (talk • contribs)


 * Comment by Arbitrators:
 * This is why my proposals come down so hard on SPUI. It will never end until he is reigned in. Fred Bauder 21:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by parties:
 * Could you explain how being an administrator has anything to do with this? Should I create a separate account for editing road-related articles just to avoid disturbing JohnnyBGood? I would think not. — Jun. 20, '06 <tt> [16:38] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Yup. SPUI has continued to edit war even after this arbcom started, specifically changing the intro name of many articles to his prefered naming convention even if the article title is different. However Freakofnurture appears to only have been removing un-needed redirects, a notion I support. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 18:50, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As stated below, I do not support "removing un-needed redirects", and neither does Redirect. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 20:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * My recent edits (to California and Washington) were only on pages that had the text "[state] State Route" in the text, and thus needed cleanup to remove redundancy (as you yourself suggested I do). Thus the disadvantages of also changing the piped links - some of which were redlinks in Washington - are not present, as I was making an edit anyway. --SPUI (T - C) 16:24, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I am positive that I never used the word "redundancy". I suggested that if you wanted to move pages to "State Route X ([state])", that you should then edit the article text to reflect the new title.  I certainly would never suggest that you edit the article text of Washington State Route 397 to read "State Route 397".  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 17:41, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Then you completely misunderstand my argument. These articles should not have Washington State Route X bolded, as that is not the name of the road. This is unrelated so far to the naming of the article, which is dependent on our method of disambiguation.
 * Now, given that the bolded title should not include Washington, and links should generally not include it, Washington State Route X is a bad page name, as it encourages bad writing like that. You just did a great job of showing that. --SPUI (T - C) 20:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I admit it is possible that I misunderstood what you meant by your "effect of an article title" proposal. With that out in the open, let us continue our civil discussion.
 * The fact that you use the word "should" several times in your comment shows that it is a matter of opinion. Your opinion is that these articles should not have Washington State Route X bolded, just as your opinion is that Washington State Route X should not be the naming convention.  My opinion is that these articles should have Washington State Route X bolded, just as the naming convention should be Washington State Route X.  It is not "given that the bolded title should not include Washington, and links should generally not include it."  It does not matter at all what the links are, as in either case they will be piped.  Changing  State Route 410  to  State Route 410  serves no purpose.  The two issues are very much related.
 * To me it's not an opinion - it's common sense. Bold the actual name, no matter how we disambiguate. Or are you trying to argue that the Washington is part of the name of the highway, despite what WSDOT says? --SPUI (T - C) 00:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * By the way, I'm curious as to how the sentence "State Route 26 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Washington" (which repeats the word "state" twice) is any less redundant than the original version "Washington State Route 26 is a highway in the state of Washington, U.S.A."  (which repeats the words "Washington" and "state" each once). -- Northenglish (talk) -- 23:46, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Because the name is State Route 26, not Route 26. --SPUI (T - C) 00:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * SPUI, you do not get to decide what should be done on Wikipedia, consensus does.
 * You do not get to decide what is common sense, consensus does. (Obviously if it does not have consensus, the "sense" can't be all that "common".)
 * You do not have consensus, nor do the other parties. You do not get to make these edits knowing that you do not have consensus, and in the face of vocal opposition.  The other parties do not get to add the word Washington to the 100 other articles in question, and as far as I know, they have not.
 * Wikipedia works by building consensus. That's really all there is to it. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 03:36, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There has always been consensus that the bolded text at the beginning should reflect the name of the topic, before any disambiguation is applied. For a simple example, see Albany, New York:
 * Albany is the capital of the U.S. state of New York.
 * Or are you disagreeing with WSDOT when they say the name of the highway is State Route 26? --SPUI (T - C) 03:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What about Governor of California?
 * The Governor of California is the highest executive authority in the state government...
 * You do not have consensus in this case. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 04:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a common natural-language phrase; Washington State Route 26 is not. --SPUI (T - C) 05:15, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 16:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't. Har har. --SPUI (T - C) 20:43, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd say it is. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 21:17, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, let's try a nice Google test...
 * governor california 56,000,000
 * "Governor of California" 887,000 = 1.584% of the governor california results
 * "State Route" California 1,180,000
 * "California State Route" 72,700 = 6.161% of the "State Route" California results
 * If anything, "California State Route" is more of a common natural-language phrase than "Governor of California". -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Looks like SPUI has continued to do so even after this was posted here. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood   <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 22:43, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like JohnnyBGood doesn't understand either. --SPUI (T - C) 23:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * To be fair, just because I've posted this here doesn't mean he has to stop. He's allowed to make his edits (except for the whole lack of consensus thing above), and I'm allowed to revert them (because he doesn't have consensus), although I've said I'd stop to avoid an edit war.  This is why I've proposed the temporary injunction above.  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 03:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where one draws the boundary into edit warring, but I have over the past two days been making reverts based on the above and Controversial moves and edits. I will now "let SPUI win" and stop doing so for the duration of this case as a self-imposed temporary injunction, as I do not wish to make this uglier than it needs to be. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 00:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment by others:
 * Ugh. Do we have to cite the number of Google documents to determine commonality? Impressive a search engine as it is, it is not the first place I would go to establish something when Google could just reflect "Oh, person X said this, so I'll say it too". Yes, even on a mass scale, and even on government websites. &mdash; Rob (  talk  ) 01:34, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree. I've long had a problem with Google tests, and have done my part to poke holes in them before.  However, SPUI has been content to use them frequently in the past, and I have a feeling that had this one supported his point of view, he would have posted it here himself.  Note: I moved your comment up a notch because I assumed this was where it belonged; feel free to move it back if you wish. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:04, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

But wait...
1) Immediately after criticizing other users for changing link syntax, JohnnyBGood (talk • contribs • [ page moves ] • block user • [ block log ]) proceeds to do exactly the same thing.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * Yawn. — Jun. 20, '06 <tt> [18:30] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * I was removing a redirect, not changing syntax... or did you not read the diff? Un-needed redirects are a waste of resources and time. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 18:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On second look it appears you were only doing the same thing, removing redirects. That I have no problem with. My apologies. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 18:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I do have a problem with this. WP:R has a whole section entitled Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken.  Both sides need to stop enforcing their naming convention, whether it be through page moves or links.  If I were involved with the California WikiProject and had noticed JohnnyBGood's edit, I would have included him in the header of this section.  I apologize for that.  -- Northenglish (talk) -- 19:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment by others:

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Proposed remedies
Note: All remedies that refer to a period of time, for example to a ban of X months or a revert parole of Y months, are to run concurrently unless otherwise stated.

Naming convention discussions shall be centralized
1) To avoid confusion and uncertainty, the ArbCom shall designate a single page where editors are to discuss and agree upon naming conventions for state highways. Involved parties shall prominently link to said page from any other pages where such discussion might reasonably be expected to take place, so that other editors will know how they can discuss and contribute to the naming convention decisions. Any votes, consensus, etc. taking place on any page other than the designated one shall not be considered authoritative.


 * Comment by Arbitrators:


 * Comment by parties:
 * I suppose that if each state is to have its own naming convention, which I would prefer not to see happen, then the authoritative discussions could be devolved to pages within the various state highway WikiProjects where the actual decisions would take place, and the single designated page referenced above could function as a "central clearinghouse" of links to these state pages. <span style="font-family:Verdana, sans-serif">—phh (t/c) 18:06, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Why shouldn't each state have its own convention? --SPUI (T - C) 00:41, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with SPUI here. As nice as it would be to try and wrap up 50 states or the whole world in one discussion it would probably be more accurate and constructive to take each state individually as they all have different traits both official and in local usage to take into account when deciding their names. <font color="Green">JohnnyBGood  <font color="Red">t  <font color="Red">c  VIVA! 23:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)


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Rschen7754 cautioned about blocking policy
1) is cautioned to avoid blocking users who are his opponents in an editing dispute, and to avoid unblocking users who are opponents of his opponents in an editing dispute.


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 * If for no other reason than to simply ensure that the "conflict of interest" question never arises. — Jun. 14, '06 <tt> [21:18] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Agreed. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:21, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


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Freakofnurture cautioned about blocking policy
1) is cautioned to avoid blocking users who are his opponents in an editing dispute, and to avoid unblocking users who are opponents of his opponents in an editing dispute.


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 * If for no other reason than to simply ensure that the "conflict of interest" question never arises. —phh (t/c) 19:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)


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Controversial moves and edits
6) Until a formal naming convention policy regarding state highways is reached, no page shall be moved from one controversial name to another, nor shall any link or article text be edited from one controversial name to another. It is understood that this will result in some inconsistency of names until a policy is reached, but, without a policy, inconsistency is the best option available.


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 * This is copy-and-pasted from the current proposal on the proposed decision page, with additions in italics. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 05:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Then you could have us banned for incomplete work. Either way, you win I suppose. — Jun. 21, '06 <tt> [14:49] < [ freak]|[ talk] ></tt>
 * Now who's guilty of putting words in whose mouth? (Actually, I suppose you're only guilty of parroting SPUI, and he's the one who put words in my mouth.)  SPUI is the only person in this case--party or arbitrator--who has suggested anyone be banned.  I have not.  This also has nothing to do with "incomplete work".  My "incomplete work" comment applied only to moving a page and failing to edit the article text to reflect it, and was made in direct response to SPUI's "effect of an article title".
 * Articles that are titled "State Route X (Washington)" should have text that starts with "State Route X..." Similarly, Washington State Route 26, Washington State Route 168, and Washington State Route 397 should be allowed to keep their article text as "Washington State Route X". -- Northenglish (talk) -- 17:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Huzzah! Now you have me putting words in my own mouth.  The phrase "incomplete work" wasn't even mine, that was also SPUI.   -- Northenglish (talk) -- 00:05, 22 June 2006 (UTC)


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