Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-10-31 WikiProject Highways

Comment: it's not "which term is used" but whether a specific term is fine. --NE2 21:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Also it's not when a highway "stops being a highway"; it's when a designation is removed. The highway usually continues to exist, and is often still maintained by the same agency. For example, U.S. Route 230 became Pennsylvania Route 230 in the 1960s. The only things that changed were the shape of the signs and the inclusion of the highway in AASHTO's route log. The state maintained the road both before and after the change. --NE2 21:31, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Many times, decommissioned highways are transferred to a county or city government. (KDOT has a policy to decommission all highways entirely within city limits.) On rare occasions they are abandoned. —Scott5114↗ 22:04, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That's my point; the case reads "stops being a highway". A highway is simply a main road. --NE2 22:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I changed it to "a change of a highway's status" instead. vıdıoman  (talk • contribs) 22:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not even that; US 666 was "decommissioned" in 2003, when it was simply renumbered to US 491. --NE2 22:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * How about "There has been an inability to come to a consensus as to which term is used to describe anything ever happening to any highway ever, as no existing word in the English language appears appropriate to certain parties involved in the dispute. The debate has been going in circles for about a week and today degraded to personal insults, however it will likely never end due to the principle of the thing."? Does that suit you? Or should we just say "The topic was decommissioned and is now a circlejerk?" (definition three would apply.) vıdıoman  (talk • contribs) 23:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
 * It's pretty obvious from the above that this mediation request wasn't made in good faith. --NE2 02:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, this was a bad faith mediation request. +I want an non-affiliated party to help us settle this because I hate you!+


 * I made the request because I want to see this settled. The discussions elsewhere aren't doing very much to solve the situation. Every time a proposal has been brought forward, it isn't "appropriate". I don't understand this article, but I hardly expect a circular discussion to simplify it. If the context in which decommissioned is used isn't good enough, if any replacement words proposed by any party aren't good enough, and if actually explaining it in&mdash;GOD FORBID!&mdash;ten words or more isn't good enough, then what do we do?? None of us has the answer. I (obviously erroneously) thought someone out there might know the answer to that. I guess I'm wrong. vıdıoman  (talk • contribs) 03:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I apologize; I assumed your comment was directed at me rather than general exasperation. --NE2 09:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Accepted. vıdıoman  (talk • contribs) 01:04, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Outcome
In my opinion this subject has been dealt with and there is no need for the Mediation Cabal to assist us with this anymore. The final outcome seems to be 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.

If anything else needs to be added please do so below --Seddon69 (talk) 00:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)