Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Highways 2/Evidence

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your main evidence to a maximum 1000 words and 100 diffs and keep responses to other evidence as short as possible. A short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

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NE2 has refused to listen to consensus

 * NE2 has reverted mainspace many times
 * NE2 has revert warred in projectspace...
 * despite consensus
 * NE2 has said he is willing to ignore consensus and be a disruption
 * He has indicated that he fears that he would lose mediation, and thus refuses it
 * At this discussion...
 * editors gave in to NE2's opinion since they were tired of fighting
 * WP:RFAR/HWY section 7.2.3 - SPUI held a similar attitude during the last highway arbitration case, and this was frowned upon
 * NE2 removes the county abbreviations when there was no consensus for this
 * And he reverts again
 * Other diffs:

The "walled garden" has been brought to our attention

 * Krimpet coined the phrase "walled garden"

Attempts have been made to resolve the "walled garden issue"

 * Apologies were posted to individual USRD users by me
 * Since then, many, many discussions have taken place at WT:USRD
 * During recent weeks, the phrase "Consensus debates must take place on wiki" has been in the topic.

The core of the problem is NE2 refusing to listen to consensus

 * No walled garden tactics took place; this was discussed and NE2 did not listen to consensus
 * This continued here
 * Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/NE2 3: The concern that NE2 would not listen to consensus again was discussed, by a user that logged in to IRC once, months ago (User:Holderca1)

Anybody can join IRC

 * User:FloNight has joined the #wikipedia-en-roads channel at IRC.
 * The only users blocked from the roads channel are Shel2476 and SPUI. Shel2476 kept popping in and out of the room within the same minute without saying anything, and this was termed disruptive. SPUI began to interfere with the programming of route_bot and was subsequently banned.
 * WP:HWY/IRC exists
 * I said that nothing prevents NE2 from joining IRC
 * In response to the point made by Daniel below: Apparently I was not aware of this (I'm only finding about this now... apparently I was offline at the time). This decision was made by O, our former channel operator and owner. I condemn this kickban and regret having placed O as the channel owner and operator for this and many other reasons (which could be explained to ArbCom on request). Since then, we have moved to a different channel, O has been deposed as owner (currently the owner is Master_son as stated elsewhere), O cannot even be an op anymore as his access has been decreased to 8, and he cannot kickban anybody. I apologize for this, and to clarify, Daniel is welcome to join the #wikipedia-en-roads channel. --Rschen7754 (T C) 01:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Harassment has not taken place on IRC

 * Unfortunately there is a "no public logging" policy on IRC.
 * A few users have become upset with O because he has done a few actions against a few people in USRD that could be considered offensive - nothing that is punishable on Wikipedia, but could be considered unethical.
 * However, this was not harassment.
 * If debates and arguing can be considered harassment, then this will seriously limit the effectiveness of IRC.
 * O's accusations regarding harassment may have stemmed from being deposed as channel operator / owner, as discussed above. There were heated discussions that O lost.

My page protection was neutral

 * NE2 said so
 * Neither of the edit warriors' versions were the same as mine
 * User:Pomte supported me
 * If I had not protected, the edit war would have continued, and there may be 3RR violations.
 * This may not adhere to the letter of the protection policy but does adhere to the spirit of the protection policy.
 * NE2 says Will Beback may have been rules lawyering
 * I have been an administrator for over 2 3/4 years
 * - I stand by my record as an administrator for over 2 3/4 years

JohnnyAlbert10 struck his incivil comment

 * I don't know if it means anything...

Friendly competition can improve the encyclopedia

 * Contests

Friendly competition has improved U.S. Roads articles
Below is a list of articles that have been improved because of this (from California, that is; if you know of others, let me know).
 * California State Route 1
 * California State Route 2
 * California State Route 3
 * California State Route 4
 * Interstate 5 in California
 * California State Route 7
 * Interstate 8 in California
 * California State Route 9
 * Interstate 10 in California
 * California State Route 12
 * California State Route 13
 * California State Route 14
 * Interstate 15 in California
 * California State Route 15

NE2 has presented himself as right even when he was wrong

 * Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists) - Here, NE2 asserted that he was right in regards to whether countywide mileages should be omitted in California. After some facts came to light, NE2 changed his stance on the matter.

NE2 has acted without consensus before, causing disruption

 * NE2 moves Portal:U.S. Roads to Portal:North American Roads without discussion
 * Objections are raised
 * Consensus goes for leaving the portal as it was originally

By setting the bar of article quality way too high, and by incivil and illogical remarks, NE2 has made USRD an unhealthy environment by being needlessly provocative

 * Contrary to these standards...
 * NE2 demotes several articles to start class  and others
 * NE2 states that he does not have a position on a clarification of the matter (a bit needlessly provocative)
 * NE2 fails 3 USRD Good article nominees and gives a one sentence review  (breaking three guidelines at Reviewing good articles: editors from same WikiProject should not review their own articles, over minor issues, a hold is used, and review needs to be detailed)
 * NE2 then nominates five of his own articles
 * Another needlessly provocative message)
 * This speaks for itself
 * NE2 is chided at WP:GAR for his actions and here

Because of this environment, many users are considering leaving, have considered leaving, or are cutting back on Wikipedia editing

 * Holderca1 nearly left around September 1 2007
 * This was likely due to NE2
 * The disputes with NE2 have caused User:TwinsMetsFan to cut back his Wikipedia editing Special:Contributions/TwinsMetsFan
 * Master son indicates he is cutting back on work or leaving
 * JohnnyAlbert10 too
 * TwinsMetsFan, and JohhnyAlbert10 have left the case mostly untouched since it was opened, even though it would benefit them to comment

NE2 edited my userpage

 * 

NE2 follows the rules when it benefits him

 * Despite breaking the temporary injunction earlier...

The New York State Route 52 case
My evidence supports the New York State Route 52 article case back in June 2007. NE2 continuously added the purpose that bridges are a notable intersection on the exit lists and edit warred with others over the issue. There is following evidence with his actions.


 * Evidence #1: NE2 comments on a revertion of User:O stating "Who says crossings should not? They've been in others, like Interstate 895 (Maryland) and even Tilghman Street, for a while.)"
 * Evidence #2: Another reversion of O, this time stating that User:TwinsMetsFan doesn't own the article
 * Evidence #3: NE2 restoring a good faith removal of a chart and the NYSR cleanup tag on June 24
 * Evidence #4: JohnnyAlbert10 reverting soon after
 * Evidence #5: NE2 reverting JohnnyAlbert10 and fake "thanking" him for restoring the inaccuracies
 * Evidence #6: Johnny reverted 20 minutes later
 * Evidence #7: Starting here, NE2 began working on the article
 * Evidence #8: The final edit in the war

NE2 did not listen and continued to claim to do things his way. This evidence I've supplied is some of NE2's past history.Mitch32contribs 22:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Removing articles from USRD with NE2 added them back
Most recently, Michigan user Imzadi1979 removed 3 articles from the jurisdiction of Michigan Highways and US Roads as they did not fall under the criteria for it. The articles are Ecorse Road, Mound Road (Detroit area) and Outer Drive.


 * Evidence #9: NE2 returns the USRD banner on Ecourse Road after Imzadi removed it
 * Evidence #10: NE2 had reverted Scott5114 originally back when US Streets was created
 * Evidence #11: NE2 did the same on Mound Road
 * Evidence #12: NE2 did the same on Outer Drive

NE2 has done this before on New York City articles. Jerome Avenue is an example as shown below.


 * Evidence #13: NE2 readding USRD after I removed it -Note this was before US Streets was created]

Otherwise, this is just more of what NE2 has done in prior history. There was also help by Imzadi who mentioned this to us. Mitch32contribs 00:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

NE2 has indicated that he does not abide by consensus

 * "You don't need 'consensus' to improve articles" 2007-10-21 (part of a past debate)
 * "You don't need consensus to clarify articles." 2007-10-31 (part of a past debate)
 * "I'm always willing to ignore consensus" 2007-12-28
 * NE2 asserts that "you'll have to force me out" 2007-12-28
 * "I'll ignore that consensus, you'll start another ArbCom case, and we'll waste another two months." 2008-03-05

Incivility/personal attacks may have occurred on both sides

 * NE2: "Would you like an eyepatch? We're having a special: two for $2..." (implying another editor is blind) 2007-10-31
 * NE2: "Duh... we already discussed this, and nobody objected." 2007-12-27
 * JohnnyAlbert10: "All NE2 does is cause trouble." 2007-12-28 (This comment was later struck)

IRC is not used to forge a consensus

 * Most Wikipedia IRC channels do not permit public logging due to the Daniel Brandt affairs. #wikipedia-en-roads is one such channel. (#wikipedia also follows this rule: see IRC guidelines/wikipedia)
 * IRC is most often used to pitch early drafts of ideas to decide if they are good ideas or not before formally proposing them on-wiki.
 * All important debates are handled on-wiki.

NE2 has edit warred

 * U.S. Route 50 in California
 * AL2TB bolds some text in the lead of this article
 * NE2 reverts, citing WP:LEAD
 * AL2TB rearranges the text in the lead so that it includes the article's title, which he then bolds
 * NE2 reverts
 * An anonymous user reverts to AL2TB's last revision
 * NE2 reverts
 * AL2TB reverts
 * NE2 reverts
 * The page was protected for about a minute.
 * Neither NE2 nor AL2TB made an attempt to discuss the change on their or the article's talk pages.
 * User:Rschen7754
 * NE2 corrects an external link
 * The same anon from the above edit war reverts
 * NE2 reverts
 * Anon reverts
 * NE2 reverts
 * Rschen7754 previously requested that NE2 not edit within his userspace
 * M-185 (Michigan highway)
 * NE2 removes a referenced sentence on 17 January regarding a unique facet of the highway.
 * Information is reinstated
 * NE2 removes it again
 * Imzadi1979 reverts
 * NE2 tags the information as dubious the next day and does not edit the page again until 16 March. Page undergoes expansion over the next two months.
 * NE2 changes the page on 16 March to state that it is "one of" the only highways to not allow cars, citing a ferry in Washington with a state highway number as not allowing cars.
 * Imzadi1979 reverts and then clarifies the distinction.
 * NE2 reverts to the "one of" wording.
 * Bkonrad reverts
 * NE2 reverts to the "one of" wording.
 * Imzadi1979 reverts
 * NE2 changes the page again, to a different wording
 * Imazdi1979 introduces a new wording, including a citation from the agency that owns the road.

NE2 has breached others' userspace

 * As shown in the immediately preceding section, as well as evidence presented by others, NE2 has edited pages within other users' userspaces, often contentiously or against the editor's wishes. While there is no formal prohibition of this, per WP:USER, it is generally to be discouraged unless necessary.

If the only issue was NE2's behavior, this case would not have been accepted
See the acceptance comments, and the fact that the case was renamed from "NE2" to "Highways 2".

Everyone involved in this case does good article work
'''Please let me know if you have any specific things you want added here, or just better examples. Except for myself (obviously), I mostly went off what's listed on userpages, if anything.'''
 * Rschen7754:, could use better examples
 * TwinsMetsFan: needs examples
 * Scott5114: helped get Kansas Turnpike to FA and made Oklahoma State Highway 74 a GA
 * Son: helped get Pennsylvania Route 39 to GA status; a more recent example is Pennsylvania Route 894
 * JohnnyAlbert10: helped write several GAs including Pennsylvania Route 39 and Interstate 476
 * NE2: brought Ridge Route back to FA status and hopefully kept Pulaski Skyway there; wrote some GAs including Interstate 35E (Minnesota); recent articles written include California State Route 70 and California State Route 275
 * Lpangelrob: got Interstate 155 (Illinois) and Interstate 355 to GA status
 * O: helped get Borman Expressway and Interstate 476 to GA status, as well as helping with two non-road FAs: Erie, Pennsylvania and Boeing 747

The split between roads and streets can be confusing
(this is a pretty minor issue, but I figured I'd include it)

The split between state highways or numbered routes and other highways is more confusing

 * Each state does things differently. Many states have state highways (roads maintained by the state) that are unnumbered, while others have major highways that are not state highways, and others maintain even the smallest residential streets outside cities as state highways. There is no way to have a consistent standard that relies on state maintenance or numbering.
 * There is no agreement on where to draw the line for highways within a city. Going through, there are varying opinions, not just from NE2, on roads such as Lake Shore Drive.
 * Not having a well-defined scope making it impossible for anyone to tag articles for a project. Even having a well-defined scope, but one that is counterintuitive (here the state projects are tagged using the USRD template and "state=x", which implies roads in the state), can be very confusing for those tagging articles and having to check each state to see what its scope is.

Several editors enforce a project scope that is not clearly defined, and want to inconsistently remove articles they don't care about, and sometimes delete them

 * Ridge Route/Old Plank Road
 * Ridge Route was added to WP:CASH in March 2007 by TwinsMetsFan: Nobody complained.
 * Old Plank Road, an article about a very similar road (I can go into details if necessary), was added to WP:CASH in December 2007 by NE2: Rschen7754 disagreed:  and stood by his view, despite it being pointed out that it's similar to Ridge Route, claiming that "as I was here since nearly the conception of CASH, I would know":
 * the relevant section of WP:CASH has always stated that it includes state highways; this places both of these articles in the scope of the project.
 * Articles for deletion/East Fork Road: this was nominated for deletion by O. Even after NE2 and Will Beback, the latter not involved at all with road articles as far as I know, gave proof that it's notable, many USRD editors continued to state, incorrectly, that it's not notable.
 * Articles for deletion/Brockway Mountain Drive: nominated by Scott5114 because it's not part of a numbered route; not a great example
 * Articles for deletion/Howard Street (Baltimore): Scott5114 argues that, with few exceptions, only parts of numbered highways are notable

The purpose of a WikiProject is to help write the encyclopedia
From WikiProject Council/Guide: "A WikiProject...is not a place to write encyclopedia articles directly, but a resource to help coordinate and organize article writing."

Not everyone in a WikiProject is interested in the same things
Obvious? I'm interested in articles like Old Plank Road and James River Bridge, while others have stated they're only interested in a narrower definition of numbered routes.

NE2 was correct about "decommissioned" being a neologism, but incorrect about "deleted" being a good replacement
Decommissioned highway is not a common use of the term that can be found in a dictionary, and so, per Avoid neologisms, it needs reliable sources that define the term. None have been found.

However, NE2 was wrong to initially change it wholesale to "deleted"; a more nuanced approach was needed. (I think the title of Deleted state highways in California, which has been there since October 2005, helped me choose "deleted".)

NE2's "disputed" views are usually accepted after a while
[to be filled in]
 * NE2 removed places where routes cross without access from a junction list; a later discussion showed that NE2's edit was sound

Keilana distorts the issue
This arbitration is about the bigger picture, and would not have been accepted otherwise. The sole reason I turned down mediation was the refusal of others to accept that there is a bigger picture.

An article can be tagged as part of multiple related projects
From WikiProject Council/Guide: "Many articles will be tagged by more than one WikiProject."

NE2 is unwilling to accept compromise
Less than a week ago, I accepted a request for informal mediation on this case. I did my normal procedure, which included checking in with all the participants to see if they'd be willing to mediate. I then received a message on my talk page from NE2 stating that he would not participate in mediation "unless they're willing to look at the larger picture." I then tried to convince him that it's a better idea to go through informal mediation rather than a more formal process like Arbitration (Cabal Request) but he refused, as seen in the second diff. Even though a group of editors approached him reasonably and civilly, he still refused to even attempt a compromise, resulting in higher levels of dispute resolution. Keilana talk(recall) 23:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC) (This is the first time I've offered evidence in a case, please tell me if I've done something wrong and I'll fix it.)

NE2's flawed evidence
The statement in NE2's evidence "NE2 was correct about "decommissioned" being a neologism, but incorrect about "deleted" being a good replacement" is in my opinion flawed. Although the complete evidence in this section has not been written the statement is flawed. The decommissioned discussion was brought to an end during mediation from the Mediation Cabal. I was involved in this and helped negotiate this discussion and provided the summing up at the end which was as follows:
 * The word 'decommissioned' or any other single term is not appropriate in many different uses as this is confusing.
 * The word 'decommissioned' or any other single term can be replaced with multiple, more accurate and therefore less confusing terms. e.g. renumbered, redesignated
 * That a Highways Manual of Style needs to be written to assist in editors in using easy to understand and correct terminology.

No where was it agreed upon that decommissioned was a neologism. What was agreed was that there were better words that could be used. Something that NE2 agreed with himself. I feel it is wrong for NE2 to state that he was right or wrong in this discussion because no one was right or wrong because a middle ground was reached and a compromise was formed.

NE2 needs not to take himself so seriously
These edits aren't at all connected to the roads projects, much less content, but I did find them revealing:


 * 1) Another user (since banned) gives NE2 one of those WikiLove things
 * 2) NE2 reacts to this brusquely

He has a point, but I think he could make it the way I did when I got the same message ... ignoring it completely. I think that response is indicative of an attitude (not entirely confined to NE2) which may be at the core of this issue. Daniel Case (talk) 18:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

NE2 has disrupted a FAC
NE2 disrupted a Featured Article review on the article State Route 1002 (Lehigh County, Pennsylvania). (See talk page as discussion was moved to talk page)

The user did this by: Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways) had already decided on a name for quadrant routes in Pennsylvania two months before the FAC was started for this article. 
 * Moving the article during the FAC, creating article instability which would stall the review
 * Continuing to argue against the name of the article, even though the FAC was the wrong place to do so
 * Doing these things while it was against consensus

In this discussion, NE2 is blaming another user for why the user was driven away from editing that page. And then, in choosing to comment on the FAC, NE2 chose to have an argument on the FAC over the article name, something not relative to the FAC. Despite being shown several times that a consensus decision was already made, NE2 was willing to argue against it in the wrong place. While it is fair for NE2 to disagree with the article name, the user was holding it against the article itself. NE2 should have brought a discussion to the USSH talk page, instead of disrupting the FAC. NE2 was also told in that discussion to approach WP:USSH to change the name, yet the user chose never to do that.

Rebuttal to "Anybody can join IRC"
I must note that this is false. A while back, a member of the USRD with channel operator status, vishwin60, now O (who is also mentioned as acting questionably above), kickbanned at least one established user (an administrator and long-time member of the USRD WikiProject on the English Wikipedia) who protested the use of the channel by O to canvass on a totally-unrelated RfC which O had filed on certain usernames. I can, and will, send logs of the event to the Arbitration Committee of the incident if someone disputes this.  Daniel  01:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The relation between WP:USRD and the encyclopedia
I'm adding some evidence because: Regarding the first point, I would note that NE2 responded fairly positively at these GARs when his actions were questioned, and both disputes appear to have been settled. Regarding the second point, there has been a previous incident at GAR which may shed some further light on the way WP:USRD interacts with the good article process.
 * 1) two recent Good article reassessment's which I was involved in have been mentioned here&mdash;namely the "Interstate 70 in Utah" GAR and "Wisconsin Highway 29" GAR. These were both the result of this contribution by NE2, in which he rapidly failed 3 good article nominations and then added 5 of his own to the nominations list.
 * 2) of the initial view of the arbitrators that "there seems to be a real problem with USRD" and "perceived problems with USRD's interaction with the rest of the encyclopedia".

The "U.S. Route 40" GAR was opened by NE2, but O and JohnnyAlbert10 were also involved. One of the issues was reliability of an internet source. I thought the source was probably okay, and attempted to fix the image placement. This was reverted, leading to this talk page discussion.

On the surface, there is not much here, but I found these interactions rather odd. First, at the GAR, members of WP:USRD were eager to delist the article, rather than fix it: this was repeated at the U.S. Route 66 GAR, despite this being a flagship article. Although it is commendable that project members wanted to enforce quality standards in this way, such behaviour is very unusual for a WikiProject in my experience. Second, at the talk page discussion, it seemed that a WP:USRD guideline, which I could not find written down clearly anywhere, was more important to the WikiProject than encyclopedia-wide guidelines on image placement.

It may be difficult to draw conclusions from this. My own observations are that WP:USRD has developed its own criteria for article quality, and when these are not compatible with encyclopedia quality guidelines, the latter are ignored. Here, I've noticed some progress being made on a "B+-class" (here and here) which may help establish a better relation with GA. Also the project appears to be rather competetive, with editors sometimes working against each other on road articles, rather than in a collaborative spirit. But, I emphasise, this is just my opinion based on the evidence I have seen.

I hope at least this offers a useful outside perspective and that it provides some small help to the arbitrarors in clarifying what is going on with WP:USRD. I would be very interested to know myself. Geometry guy 23:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Multiple Edit Wars and resistance by editors
Here are three separate edit wars that took place just this day. —  master son T - C 04:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * - Rschen7754 wrote an essay about what he perceives as problems with Wikipedia - both AL2TB and NE2  sign under self-added "oppose" section.  Rschen7754 reverts them both times.  East718 warned NE2 to stop harassing him, but was met with a revert stating "He (Rschen7754) should stop harassing people too... can't we all just get along?"
 * A attempt to report a 3RR violation by NE2 is denied by WP:3RR because the policy doesn't apply to user pages
 * - An edit war over whether or not "Route" has to be prefixed onto I-XX in articles relating to Missouri routes (where I-XX is a common Interstate abbreviation in nearly all U.S. states) - a common practice done by Missouri's department of transportation) ensues. On the other hand - NE2 has made changes like, , and ,  so that they do conform with the respective DOT policies.  The Missouri dispute is supported by this discussion.
 * - NE2 repeatedly removed the   template from the page, but was reverted by separate editors which claimed "It violated WikiProject Interstate Highways 'policy.'"

Evidence presented by {your user name}
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