Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Highways/Evidence

Discussion of evidence presented by Northenglish

 * "The version of the page he cites uses "State Route 599 (Washington)" as the article title, yet starts with "Washington State Route 599" in the text. This inconsistency was not fixed until June 1, 2006, 19 days after it was moved to "State Route 599 (Washington)", and 41 days after it was originally moved there and reverted by PHenry."

This is exactly my point - stuff gets messed up when it starts out in the wrong place.
 * "The naming convention "Washington State Route X" has precedence, and IMHO, consensus. (I will provide evidence for this consensus claim at a later date.)"

Whether there was consensus - or groupthink - is immaterial. What matters is correctness. --SPUI (T - C) 00:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Good for you. Now see if you can read the rest of what I wrote.  If the title of the article and how it appears in bold at the beginning of the article text is so important to you, how do you explain letting these inconsistencies last for 19 to 185 days? -- Northenglish 02:13, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * We can't all change the world. I do my part, and then I decide to work on something else, hoping someone else will fix it. --SPUI (T - C) 02:29, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * IMHO, if you wanted to make a valid contribution to the encyclopedia through these page moves, your modus operandi should have been to make the page move, then immediately edit the text to reflect the page move.
 * I should point out that your comment can be interpreted to mean that you realize you made an error, but you don't care enough about it to fix it yourself, you just hope someone else will come by and clean up your mess for you. "I do my part... hoping someone else will fix it." These are not the comments a bonafide contributer should be making. -- Northenglish 02:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's see what the arbitrators have to say about that. --SPUI (T - C) 22:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Cute. The fact that you put it in Proposed decision (which only arbitrators may edit) instead of Workshop further proves that you have no respect for process on Wikipedia. -- Northenglish 00:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "After considering /Evidence and discussing proposals with other arbitrators, parties and others at /Workshop place proposals which are ready for voting here."
 * "After considering /Evidence and discussing proposals with other arbitrators,  parties  and others at /Workshop place proposals which are ready for voting here."
 * Hello? --SPUI (T - C) 01:44, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "Only Arbitrators may edit /Proposed decision." (last sentence of the introduction to Requests for arbitration/Highways/Evidence) Hello???
 * I admit the sentence you quoted above is slightly confusing, possibly because it's missing a comma. It's supposed to be read as: "After considerening Evidence and discussing proposals with other arbitrators, parties and others at Workshop, place proposals which are ready for voting here."  It's an imperative sentence telling arbitrators how to go about editing the proposed decision page. -- Northenglish 20:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I just cleaned up all of California - no state highway article in California has the phrase "California State Route" outside an infobox. --SPUI (T - C) 00:58, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Good for you. -- Northenglish 20:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * So now what we have is a hundred or so articles that are titled "California State Route X" but start out with "State Route X" in the article text, not to mention California State Highway 17. The "effect of an article title" is a fallacy! -- Northenglish 22:35, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * User:Nohat would be the one who moved that article to a title that, AFAIK, none of us agree with. The article was moved to State Route 17 (California), and the intro text was corrected, then Nohat kept moving it back. Why has he not yet been named as an involved party? — Jun. 11, '06  [14:02] < [ freak]|[ talk] >

Discussion of evidence presented by PHenry re: State route naming conventions poll
The piece of evidence claiming SPUI "attempted to end the process 6 days early" is invalid. PHenry's edit summary for his first revert of the reject tag says "is it 14 days after May 26? doesn't look that way." However, the proposal clearly states that there is to be 7 days of discussion, followed by 7 days of voting -- not 14 days of discussion. The discussion yielded 9 votes to oppose the proposal compared to 8 support votes; anyone actively involved with this case (including PHenry) opposed the proposal. SPUI applied the reject tag on the 8th day correctly, as we had voted not to vote. I have since put the reject tag back on the proposal. -- Northenglish 03:23, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Evidence I may or may not eventually use
I just thought I'd include it here for now until I can figure out how to work it into my actual evidence.--Northenglish 20:44, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Freakofnurture admits that "California State Route X" is a valid, more complete name


 * Northenglish puts words in my mouth. — Jun. 11, '06  [13:56] < [ freak]|[ talk] >


 * Northenglish defends himself even before being accused of putting words in Freakofnurture's mouth -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:22, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

So just because I suggest a possible compromise instead of stonewalling you guys, you discredit me and call me a hypocrite (above), and declare victory based on the assumption that I've conceded defeat. Holy shit. Remind me never to give an inch again. Here's what I've seen so far: — Jun. 12, '06  [03:40] < [ freak]|[ talk] >
 * Fact: Freakofnurture said "California State Route X" redirects may be useful to some readers.
 * Fact: "California State Route X" will always redirect to "State Route X (California)" or vice versa.
 * Fact: "&#91;&#91;California State Route X&#93;&#93;" is visibly a more verbose title than "&#91;&#91;State Route X (California)&#124;State Route X&#93;&#93;" and may be used in contexts where the geographical scope is not previously established.
 * Fact: The official name is, in fact, "State Route X"; "California" is merely the geographic location, and the state whose agencies are responsible for construction, maintenence, etc.
 * Assumption: Something somewhere in these facts suggests that "California State Route X" is the correct title. It isn't.


 * Fact: The phrase "valid, more complete name" that Northenglish used does not contain the word "correct". Valid and correct are close, but not the same.
 * Fact: Freakofnurture states that the phrase "California State Route X" can be useful in certain circumstances. This means either...
 * (a) California State Route X is a valid name for such a road, or
 * (b) Freakofnurture supports including invalid information in Wikipedia.
 * Fact: Freakofnurture states that "California State Route X" may be used in contexts where the geographical scope is not previously established.
 * Also fact: The article title and the first line in the article text are perfect examples of contexts where the geographical scope is not previously established.
 * -- Northenglish (talk) -- 22:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The title of an article, appearing at the top of the screen in large print, completely unpiped, will always establish the geographical scope. The title State Route 1 (California) at the top of the page tells the reader two things, that the topic is one of several highways named "State Route 1", and that the one he/she is reading about is the one located in California.

Northenglish is attacking my credibility again, and implying that the only way to save it would be to delete all of the redirects, because failure to do so equates to condoning invalid information. Tell that to Ashley Simpson, Barbara Streisand, and John Siegenthaler, Sr., or Dubya. From WP:RFD:
 * For example, redirecting Dubya to George W. Bush might be considered offensive, but the redirect aids accidental linking, makes the creation of duplicate articles less likely, and is useful to some people, so it should not be deleted.

But yet, I'm "supporting the inclusion of invalid information". Get real. — Jun. 15, '06  [18:25] < [ freak]|[ talk] >


 * I have never said to delete redirects. Regardless of which naming convention is ultimately chosen, the other should exist as a redirect, if only because it will take forever and a day to change all the links (which is made unnecessary if redirects continue to exist).
 * The comment regarding Ashley Simpson and the like is irrelevant because surely you are not proposing we use these misspellings in article text? If I see a link to Ashley Simpson, I will edit the article to correct the misspelling.  However, when I see links to either naming convention, I do not change them to the other convention, because I realize that they are both valid names.
 * My comment about "the inclusion of invalid information" was meant to apply only to the article text. Redirects for misspellings need to exist to aid people typing into the search box or making a mistake when editing.  (The latter case should be quickly corrected.)
 * Redirects between "California State Route X" and "State Route X (California)" need to exist for people who choose one naming convention when the article happens to be located at the other. This is the second time this case when you have falsely tried to draw an analogy between the naming convention difference and simple misspellings.
 * I support the inclusion of either "California State Route X" or "State Route X" (piped) in the article text because they are both valid names. I do not support the inclusion of "Ashley Simpson" in the article text because it is incorrect information, and must be corrected when it does appear.  If you feel the same way, then I would like to end this argument, but this means that you feel that "California State Route X" is a valid name.
 * If you feel that "California State Route X" is an invalid name, but is okay to include in article text, but "Ashley Simpson" is not, then I am curious as to why.
 * --Northenglish (talk) -- 20:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The problem with parenthetical disambiguation
I may also use this elsewhere if I get a chance.

If the correct name for the road from Bellingham to the Canadian border at Lynden is State Route 539, then why is that link turning up red? It should either redirect to State Route 539 (Washington) or should be a disambiguation page.

More incomplete work by SPUI and Freakofnurture... -- Northenglish 01:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Between the two of us we've probably created a couple hundred such disambiguation pages. I don't see you helping in that area. — Jun. 11, '06  [14:07] < [ freak]|[ talk] >


 * Ah, yes, another instance where I point out the error in your ways and you quickly cover your tracks. Way to make that red link disappear!
 * As for why I'm not helping in that area, it should be obvious above why I'm not cleaning up the mess made by you and SPUI and contributing to your frivolous page moves. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 21:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

The pipe trick rocks!
I used it for some of these headings. It rocks. (this comment is unsourced)

Re: User:SPUI takes his road warring global
While SPUI's edits to the infoboxes on German Autobahns are examples of behavior similar to that which led to this case, there are several things that need to be pointed out which makes these edits different and largely irrelevant to this case.

As a piece of evidence, the link JohnnyBGood provided is extremely weak. It's a link to the page version itself, not a diff, and does nothing to show what the dispute is about, or if it exists at all. More applicable evidence would be the history page of Bundesautobahn 1, as well as its talk page.

Unfortunately, this evidence does not support Johnny's claim.
 * SPUI created the article over a year ago.
 * SPUI finished his expansion (including a completed exit list using his format) approximately three weeks later. He was the only editor on the page during this time, except for one edit by a user putting a cleanup tag on the page.
 * The infobox version of the exit list makes its first appearance 5 months later added by Doco, the same user who first accused SPUI of inappropriate behavior on the issue.

The talk pages Doco cited (Wikipedia talk:Autobahn infobox template and Talk:Bundesautobahn 1) do not show the consensus that Doco says SPUI must "accept or shut up". Doco's position on the exit list in the infobox is, in fact, much further than having consensus than a naming convention of "Washington State Route X".

In this dispute, the roles are wholly reversed. Doco has enforced his non-consensus style, and in with lack of consensus, SPUI has the status quo that should be respected. -- Northenglish (talk) -- 19:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I transposed the link incorrectly. The correct link is up there now and is . JohnnyBGood    t   c  VIVA! 23:41, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

JohnnyBGood has pointed me to this place - please also take note of Wikipedia talk:Autobahn infobox template where a recent discussion with SPUI has surfaced. Despite the endorsement of other users, he seems to be violently opposed of the autobahn infobox idea, despite the fact that it is widely used and well documented at de:Wikipedia:Formatvorlage Autobahn and in other language wikipedias (nl, pl et cetera). He did an exit list move on _all_ BAB pages after a number of users spoke out in criticism of his solution. --doco ( ☏ ) 19:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
 * There does seem to be more support for Doco's position at this time. Also he's suggested a great alternative on that page which would allow the user to choose which of the two prevailing views were shown as they see fit. It's a great compromise that would be beneficial across all highway projects IMHO. JohnnyBGood    t   c  VIVA! 23:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)