Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Doncram

Dudemanfellabra's outside perspective
I haven't kept up with these debates or arguments as much as the aforementioned parties have, but I have participated in them somewhat. I've seen some of the shaky agreements forged, and I've seen the uber-long discussions. Though I can't give specific examples at the moment, the basic underlying problem in this entire argument seems to be the ambiguity or the unknown involved with the content. Most of the NRHP articles about which these discussions have taken place do not have pdfs of the nomination forms available online for the general public. Because of that, there is no "official" source for boundaries of districts, and not much information specific to the historic districts (as opposed to the communities or cities in which they are located.

The problem arises from the treatment of the ambiguity. Doncram appears to have taken the hardline position that since we don't know and won't know until the documents are posted online, we should have separate articles for the district and the town or community, and then when further information is acquired, a possible merge may ensue. Doncram is fine with leaving a one sentence article that simply states the district is a district and that it is listed on the NRHP while the other two editors see the stub article as pointless. Polaron and Orlady have taken the position that even though the boundaries are not exactly known, it is clear that there is a high degree of overlap between the districts and the towns (like a downtown district or something) and there isn't much that can be put into the HD article that couldn't also be put in the town article. Because of this high degree of overlap, these two editors prefer the NRHP name be redirected into the community or town name and an explanation of differing boundaries (if they exist) can be added later when the documents are online.
 * Subsequent to the beginning of this dispute, most CT documents have been made available online. Lvklock (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Though I tend to agree with Polaron and Orlady, this RfC is not about my opinion on the matter; it is about how to solve the problem. I think the best way to solve the problem would be to refrain from creating a new NRHP article about a historic district until the NRHP nomination form is available online with boundaries and contributing properties. With this information in hand before creation, it is absolutely clear the area about which the NRHP listing is talking. If it differs sufficiently from the town or community, the district may warrant its own article. This would solve future problems and also prevent the infamous one-sentence stubs so common in the NRHP wikiproject because more information would be present at article creation.

As for the cases already created, I think what is needed is a non-ambiguous style guide (of which the project lacks) that clearly outlines what to do in this kind of situation. I think further that neither Doncram, Polaron, nor Orlady should be allowed to contribute to the style guide for obvious bias concerns; the rest of the wikiproject should come up with a system for handling this. There is already a small section (which admittedly I wrote) at WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Style guide that tries to lay down some rules, but it should be brought before the entire wikiproject (and possibly the entirety of Wikipedia) so that a wide consensus can be gathered. After the creation of this style guide, all involved editors should be required to follow it, and breaking the agreement should result in being blocked or somehow restricted.

While I agree that there have been several blatant personal shortcomings in these arguments, I don't think they can be addressed directly; Doncram will still edit the way he does, and Polaron and Orlady will edit the way they do. If this underlying style guide and new article creation rule are put in place, though, their editing styles won't matter; they will have to follow the style guide, even if they don't like it. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Lvklock's peripheral perspective
Upfront, I have been involved in some of these discussions, and my views do coincide much more closely with Doncram's than with Polaron's or Orlady's.

I have several problems with this RFC.

Statement of the dispute
"Doncram (talk · contribs) is involved in two different, yet intersecting, disputes." OK, then in this type of RfC I would expect to hear what exactly about his BEHAVIOR is objectionable.

Doncram and Polaron
"These disputes have involved a long amount of argument with various incivil behavior, as well as firmly entrenched ownership of articles and listing standards from Doncram and other editors in the dispute." ''Where are diffs of incivil behavior? Where are diffs of Ownership? And, if the other editors are also exhibiting these, then why didn't Elkman open RfC's in their names?''

"Polaron has been placing redirects from NRHP lists to town names when the town has substantially the same boundaries as the historic district." ''This is inaccurate. Polaron was placing redirects whether it was clear that the town had substantially similar boundaries or not, and the redirects were not always to towns, but sometimes to CDP stubs, and sometimes to articles with no mention of the historic district at all.''

"The problem is that the boundaries of historic districts aren't always available." ''This is rarely true...most NRHP nomination forms are quite clear about boundaries. These documents are readily available.'' "Talk:Poquetanuck is a perfect example of this dispute. The argument is many times longer than the article." ''So what? The discussion is about the bigger issue, not about just that article. ''

"Last October, I reported a three-revert rule edit war..." OK, finally, something concrete....oh, except that it happened four months ago!

"Following that, Acroterion (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · moves · rights) brokered an agreement between the parties at User talk:Acroterion/NRHP HD issues list, which has mostly stuck together." Hmmm, sounds like dispute resolution to me.

"Well, sort of. On February 2, Polaron created some redirects to Canaan (CDP), Connecticut. Doncram complained at User talk:Polaron#Canaan_edits_and_edit_restriction, and also asked Acroterion to block Polaron at User talk:Acroterion#request a block." OK, so he didn't edit war, instead he expressed his view that said agreement had been violated and asked an admin, who is also an invited mediator in the dispute, for help in handling it.

"EdJohnston (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · moves · rights) proposed an editing restriction at User talk:Acroterion#Another idea for admin action on NRHP, which has prompted a wall of text in reply." An editing restriction on POLARON.....not on Doncram, right?

Doncram and Orlady
"On February 3, 2010, Doncram reported Orlady for edit-warring at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring." ''Yes, to which her reply was not that she didn't do it, but that it didn't apply because his edits were VANDALISM! ''

"To summarize the conflict at Riverview Terrace Historic District (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs), Doncram initially created the article with the placeholder text, "The district has some significance..." Orlady commented out the placeholder text. Doncram took offense at Orlady's motivation and reinserted the placeholder text." ''Doncram "took offense"? Doncram had inserted a placeholder statement, true....he did so while in active development WITH ANOTHER EDITOR in an entirely different state than the CT dispute mentioned above. He did so in order to provide the other editor with an appropriately crafted reference to use in this collaboration.''

"After edit warring, the dispute continued at Orlady's talk page," After Orlady's edit warring....the reverts to Orlady's changes were done by the other editor, as well as by Doncram....clearly indicating a lack of consensus that this placeholder statement was inappropriate in this case.

"where Doncram told Orlady to stop following him around." Yes, after she followed him to another state and interrupted productive editing with another editor previously uninvolved in any of this, he asked her to refrain from wikihounding.

"The argument at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Orlady_reported_by_doncram_.28talk.29_.28Result:_.29 has continued with no sign of stopping." ''Really? It was closed as stale on Feb. 4.''

"To complicate matters, Orlady used administrative rollback for at least one of the reverts. Orlady has asserted that inserting placeholder text, such as, "The district has some significance" is vandalism and not subject to WP:3RR. I voiced the opinion that it isn't vandalism, but it is sloppy article writing." And what does any of this have to do with Doncram's beahvior?

"Orlady asserts that the dispute began at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of National Historic Landmarks in New York/archive1 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) when Doncram reacted badly to some of her feedback." ''He reacted badly? Because he disagreed? Diffs of his acting badly? Otherwise this is totally unrelated to the current dispute.''

"They've also disputed the actions of banned user Jvolkblum (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log · rfcu) and a number of sockpuppets in regard to articles concerning New Rochelle, New York." Again, totally unrelated.

Desired outcome
"First and foremost, the goal of writing articles about historic places should be to create good-quality articles that provide enough context to identify a district, to give an overview of what buildings and structures are included in the district, and to explain why it's important." ''I don't think there's disagreement on this point. People just differ on what they believe furthers this process.''

"Second, the personal attacks and continued sniping need to stop." Diffs?

"Doncram's viewpoint appears to be that in each of these cases, a narrowly-structured agreement is necessary, and that any time the agreement is breached, he wants the editor(s) in question to be blocked. This attitude -- among many -- is causing continued problems." ''I do not believe that there have been an over-abundance of block requests. I think that he IS asking for help in dealing with other editor's behavior. Isn't that what is supposed to happen?''

"To the extent that Orlady is saying anything personal about Doncram or making conjectures that are inapplicable, that needs to stop. I'm not exactly sure how to rate what she's said, so I'd like other editors' perspectives on the topic." Fine, then perhaps the RfC should have been in her name.

"On the other hand, a sub-stub article on the topic would provide no meaningful information to the reader." My personal belief is that they do provide some info, and they foster contributions from editors.

Evidence of trying to resolve the dispute
"1.Doncram and Polaron have reached some sort of agreement on the issue of Connecticut historic districts at User talk:Acroterion/NRHP HD issues list. Orlady has been involved with this as well." HAVE REACHED

"2.Talk:Poquetanuck#a_specific_proposal reached some sort of agreement." REACHED

"4.User talk:Acroterion#3RR thread is copied here from Elkman's talk and User talk:Acroterion#Update of the 3RR case. Need a volunteer to explain Poquetanuck -- these discussions were subsequent to this very long 3RR report and followup, in October 2009" In October 2009.

"5.Prior to the first item listed above, the various parties engaged in discussion of the issues at various places, including Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Connecticut, where most of the discussions are now found in Archive 1, Archive 2, and Archive 3. Discussion also occurred at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Vermont, Talk:Hartford (village), Vermont, Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Rhode Island, Talk:Peace Dale, Rhode Island, Talk:Wyoming, Rhode Island, Talk:Apponaug, Rhode Island, Talk:Wauregan, and Talk:Norris, Tennessee. Some of these discussions led to agreements (for example, the original dispute at Talk:Norris, Tennessee/Archive 1 was found to be due to a factor-of-10 error in the acreage data on a website that participants were using as a resource)."  Yes, lots of discussion where Doncram tried to reach some consensus on the issues......

Evidence of failing to resolve the dispute
1.Where Doncram goes to Polaron's page to try to engage in productive discourse and is ignored.

2.Where Doncram asks for a block in order to allow discussion.

3.Where Doncram explained his viewpoint about what was happening between he and Orlady, politley.

4.Which is Acroterion's response about something at Doncram's talk page, but the particular dispute is not clear enough to comment on.

5. Again, back in October.

Users certifying the basis for this dispute
Users who tried and failed to resolve the dispute.

"2.Although I am identified as a party to this case, I have tried valiantly over approximately the last two years to engage productively with Doncram. The cumulative volume of talk-page discussion between the two of us (including discussion between us and others) is now surely in the multi-megabyte range. Orlady (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)" '':This is absolutely laughable. I would be interested in seeing diffs where she tried to "engage productively".''

I can point to many diffs, but the tone of the request leads me to conclude that nothing I say will change your mind, and anything I say might lead to an unproductive rehashing of history.... --Orlady (talk) 05:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Sigh... For starters, please note that the entire near-book-length discussion at Talk:Poquetanuck (and associated editing of Poquetanuck and Poquetanuck Village Historic District) was conducted for the sole purpose of trying to resolve longstanding disputes. I don't believe that any of the participants had any particular interest in Poquetanuck. Rather, Doncram suggested New London County historic districts, and somehow we ended up focusing on Poquetanuck. I would not have gotten involved there if I had not hoped for a positive outcome.

General comment and statement of my motivation
If I didn't consider Doncram to be a highly capable contributor with the "right" sort of motivation, I suppose I would have stopped engaging with him a long time ago (and would have simply hoped for him to lose interest and disappear). The reality, however, is that Doncram is a smart, highly motivated, and productive contributor, and he and I are fated to continually run into each other because our interests frequently overlap.

Although our interests frequently overlap, I believe that we have very different reasons for our involvement with National Register of Historic Places topics. I don't consider the National Register of Historic Places per se to be a particularly fascinating subject. Rather, I am interested in places and their stories, and I consider the National Register to be a great source of interesting material on places, their local idiosyncrasies (including architecture), and their pasts. I don't actually know what interests Doncram about the NRHP (and he has told me more than once to cease and desist from making inferences about him), but I have formed the impression that many NRHP members (possibly including Doncram) are primarily interested in National Register properties as discrete stand-alone topics, with particular focus on physical attributes and architecture. Also, while many Wikiproject members place a lot of emphasis on infoboxes, I am not a particular fan of infoboxes (I'm one of those old-fashioned readers who focuses on text and often fails to notice the infobox -- unless I find that the article text is missing a key piece of information that I think might be in the infobox).

Desired outcome
My perspective on the NRHP (described above) often causes me to feel like an outsider in the NRHP wikiproject. I perceive a sense of what might be called "NRHP exceptionalism" in that Wikiproject. That is, there seems to be a widespread belief that the Wikiproject is a standalone component of Wikipedia that makes its own guidelines and need not follow EN.Wikipedia-wide guidelines.

With respect to Doncram, the outcome I would like to see is an appreciation of the larger context within which NRHP properties and articles exist and acceptance of Wikipedia-wide content standards (including, but not limited to, Ownership of articles, Content forking, and No original research). I state this in broad terms because I have high hopes for Doncram -- and also because I think that framing objectives and agreements in narrow, prescriptive terms is apt to lead to nitpicky gaminess. This mess has been characterized by a lot of gaming, including the many months of low-frequency revert-warring that has occurred in Connecticut villages and historic districts, and the unmeaningful pseudo-objectivity that I perceive in the so-called "Poquetanuck agreement" (which I once compared to determining the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin). Obviously, there are some specifics attached to my big-picture desired outcome, but I'm not discussing the details now because I don't want to invite petty arguments. --Orlady (talk) 05:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

User talk:Doncram provides one current example (unrelated to this RfC) of the "NRHP exceptionalism" that I have observed. --Orlady (talk) 22:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)