Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Racepacket 2

Withdrawing nominations

I don't know where to add this sort of discussion, so I'm starting it here. I want to make a comparison here between a situation on-wiki and in real life. George W. Bush nominated Harriet Myers for a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), which as president was his right and obligation. Editors on Wikipedia nominate articles for Good Article Status, which is also their right. Presidential appointees must be confirmed by the US Senate; GANs must be listed by uninvolved editors. If you liken the review stage of a GAN to the hearings in the Senate, I think we have a decent parallel. When Bush withdrew his nomination of Ms. Myers, the US Senate did not continue to consider the nomination. Rather the nomination process was over. So too when an editor who has nominated an article at GAN and then withdraws it, that review process should cease.

Racepacket has doggedly pursued a conclusion to reviews of articles on his terms, but he does not unilaterally control the review process. Back in January, I withdrew the nomination of U.S. Route 223 from GAN, and resubmitted it for review, as the GAN FAQs explicitly allow. He pursued the nomination further against my wishes. Had he dropped the article at that time, that would have been the end of the debate and we could have moved on. His determination, and even comments to "do the edits myself" to the article contrary to what the pertinent sources show demonstrated a lack of good faith on his part, and ownership of the review. (Additionally, I had withdrawn the second review completely when he signed up do the second review, and I had states at WT:GAN at that time that I no longer had any interest in pursuing a nomination of the article at that time.)

LauraHale has withdrawn Netball from further consideration, not once, but twice. Earlier, he pronounced the article "failed", which is a bit presumptuous of a pronouncement to make. The article had been withdrawn for a third time by that point. Racepacket has yet to understand that the GA system is binary: articles are either "listed" or "not listed" (i.e. passed or failed). If an article's nomination is withdrawn before a reviewer takes the review, then there's no record on the article's talk page, only in the history of the page. If it is withdrawn after a review has started, then it's "not listed". The reviewer should not seek to impose his will on the article in place of the nominator and assert some "right" to continue reviewing the article in that context. The reviewer should be free to offer constructive feedback, like any article anywhere, but the GAN process has been terminated.

In short, my goal is to see Racepacket learn that there comes a point when he needs to just walk away, no matter how many hours he's invested on an article and its review. That he's willing to do reviews is great, but in the case of an impasse, just move on. If the article truly meets the lightweight criteria for a GA, another editor can decide that. If there are articles passed that are not worthy of passage, they can and will be reassessed and delisted. Any editor that pursues a review in the manner he has alienates his fellow volunteers on this project. Imzadi 1979 → 06:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that Racepacket has included the GA review of Netball] among his accomplishments in an entry for the WikiCup competition. I think, given the issues under discussion here, this is not an appropriate inclusion. I don't know whether or not the effort to build a strong entry for that competition relates to Racepacket's insistence that he be the "closer" of the discussion, rather than permitting Laura to withdraw. But, I think it would be appropriate if he chose to remove that from his entry. I think it would be a good way to indicate acknowledgment and authentic engagement with the concerns raised in this RfC. -Pete (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

He has also quick failed Talk:Netball_at_the_Olympics/GA1 (another article Laura is working on) and added it to the WikiCup list. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 19:21, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that one too..but I suspect there is precedent for putting a "quick fail" in the list. Of the two, that one seems much more defensible to me. -Pete (talk) 20:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Discounting others' opinions

Shortly before this RfC/U was filed, the article on Interstate 376 was nominated at GAN.The article was reviewed by Dough4872 and failed. A minimal amount of work was done to the article, but one of the key points of that review (reliable source vs. self-published sources) was left unaddressed. The article was renominated, and several editors expressed concerns over the condition of the article. Some of us even expressed these concerns on the GAN review page itself, relating how these concerns relate to both WP:USRD project standards and the Good Article Criteria. Additional editors are welcome to weigh in with comments on any article, its review, or both, at any time. However, these comments should not be disregarded out of hand completely when they are offered in good faith and directly relevant to the article meeting the criteria., even to the point of telling the nominator to ignore them in disparaging terms. When these project standards, which are only guidelines not absolutes, have been refined over the course of many successful Featured Article candidacies or Good Article nominations, then they should be regarded as persuasive and not discounted wholesale as has been done. Imzadi 1979 → 07:04, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

On a break in my working through the diffs, I noticed this talk page and the above comment. This is exactly the problem we have with User:LauraHale who did three quick nominations of Netball in the Cook Islands, so I have seen both sides. As for Talk:Interstate 376/GA2, I saw the nomination, glanced at the article and did my review without looking at the talk page in detail or anywhere else, so the review was not a slight toward Doug. I will go back and read his review, which is not transcluded to the talk page. (Perhaps there should be a rule that transclusions stay for at least a month or until the next review is completed?) As I have said before, I do not mind other editors sharing their opinions and offering suggested improvements. But let's not chase away reviewers nominators as we did in Talk:Grand Valley State University/GA1. People will do far more work if they feel a part of a happy team, than if they are in the middle of contradictory expectations. Racepacket (talk) 21:48, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know why you mentioned GVSU, since you were the reviewer and neither of us chased you away, and even if you ran into my biggest subject-matter pet peeve [non-Michiganders insisting they know better about how to (mis-)name our highways even though the names have been in place for 90+ years], the review was completed by you. Imzadi 1979 → 00:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

In regards to the clarification previously made, is there any allegation that Pdcook (talk · contribs) was chased away? I see that he's still working on the Grand Valley article, and there's not really conflicting expectations when someone comments to explain that the reviewer is requesting an inaccuracy be added to an article. Seriously, all I did was point out that in the case of Michigan's highways, the "M" is not an abbreviation for anything, and it is an integral part of the highway's number. The rest of the review was your work, not mine, and I had nothing to do with it. Imzadi 1979 → 19:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I was not chased away from the Grand Valley GA review, nor was the interaction between Racepacket and Imzadi particularly distressing or discouraging to me. I did find the lengthy review comments of a 4th party to be a little over-the-top. However, my lack of persistence with the GVSU article has more to do with off-wiki writing tasks that have been draining my desire to comb through references and write encyclopedic paragraphs. P. D. Cook ^{Talk to me!} 16:45, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Although I removed the transclusions of the Good Article Reviews of Netball in the Cook Islands, they are still linked on the talk page, and were there until after the last review was concluded. The idea of keeping them transcluded for a period of time afterward seems impractical unless it could be done by a bot. Who would do it? Who would remind them that it needs to be done after a month or more has passed? Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved from the main page: LauraHale section

• Note Laura has closed it for the second time and once again Racepacket reopened it stating that, everyone should have a say, it's not upto her. When all others said it's a shame but accepted it as she is the nominator. So I closed it again.

Here's the links: withdrawn for the second time reinstated by Racepacket again withdrawn by me KnowIG (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Here we go, still only thinks that the reviewer can fail it and then went round canvassing other users to get them to finish it as he didn't like the fact the I and Laura had closed the review. Even when an outsider said go to ANI if he keeps opening the article after you the nominator closed it. KnowIG (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

• WP:3RR Applies here. Any further attempt by racepacket will result in an block. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:23, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
• Comment I have followed this review (and the previous one) on and off for the duration. (For disclosure, I've had some side-discussion with Laura, who is the only participant I know.) Though I think there is plenty of opportunity for multiple parties to reexamine the approaches they took, this issue really stands out to me. I feel strongly that a GA nominator who becomes dissatisfied with the process should be able to withdraw the nomination with a minimum of drama. Racepacket's repeated reversion of that attempt is disturbing, and does carry the flavor of harassment in my opinion. No fact in an article, no process is so important that it should prevent us from treating each other in a respectful manner. -Pete (talk) 03:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Moved from the main page: Bill william compton section

She doesn't have to answer to you as this is about racepacket and not her. Plus and no offense when I say this. It's really hard to understand what you mean, cause what you wrote is really poor English. Perhaps you would like to rewrite your first comment. KnowIG (talk) 08:52, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I wish to respond to extension of "Outside view by LauraHale" above. It is a positive sign that LauraHale is starting to take some responsibility for these difficulties with her reviewers, and I am pleased that she is finally including "diff links" to document her latest claims. However, she should go back and add "diff links" to her earlier accusations. She cannot provide "diff links", because her accusations are false. Her latest story is that her difficulties were caused by Racepacket's unfamiliarity with New Zealand English and with Netball. The answer is that LauraHale's User page says she grew up in the United States, so "New Zealand language" was not the problem between them. Racepacket and I both had difficulties dealing with her bullying, even with our different backgrounds. Hence, her proposal to block him from future GA reviewing of articles written in British English makes no sense and misses the problem. LauralHale also forgets that Racepacket offered to do research at the US Library of Congress, so her proposal to impose a mentor to help him access reference books is just being vindictive. Bill william compton^Talk 09:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Canvassing

Just a note to say that Racepacket has been directing people to this page. Many have declined. But I suspect that his targeting people who have something positive to say about him. Is canvassing in this was allowed? KnowIG (talk) 11:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Surprise surprise it's working. Canvassing and then the user appears with a positive comment. People should come here on their own free will like most of us have done. KnowIG (talk) 13:27, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

comment from Off2riorob Racepacket also left me a note, personally I don't see anything wrong with a few notes, mine was possible connected as he asked me to comment as a British person for an addition opinion in the GA netball review. It seems there has been a clash of personalities here and when I commented I did think the GA review would perhaps have been better off closed and reopened with fresh eyes. As for me experiences with Racepacket, in regard to edit style, no one is perfect and I have at least managed to come to compromises and consensus through discussions with him on the couple of times I have bumped into him, in regard to is GA reviewing I have only interacted on one or perhaps two, one was Margaret Thatcher recently and I was very grateful to him for his good work there. As I said, we all fall out sometimes but Racepacket is in my experience of him, a large net gain as an editor and as a GA reviewer. Off2riorob (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Outside view by North8000

We asked for a very thorough GA review of SS Edmund Fitzgerald by Racepacket and were thankful for receiving that. (it's going back up for FAC in 1-2 weeks. ) We have also received substantial expert help and advice on it from Imzadi 1979. These folks appear to be on opposite sides in this discussion here. I hope that this can be resolved amicably. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:54, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There is a behavioral problem by Racepacket at play here, which is the original focus of the RfC/U, netball-related issues notwithstanding. His actions have not permitted editors to withdraw their nominations in the face of unreasonable demands. (U.S. Route 223's review issues centered around details and information best left to the Interstate 73 article as undue weight in the US 223 article as well as issues surrounding future predictions not based in present-day certainty.) He has been unreasonable in disregarding the applicable project standards which do exist as a guideline on the structure and content of highway articles; they are not a "non-existent rule". Logical deviations from the standards are appropriate, but the standards have been created and refined based on nearly three dozen US highway FACs and over 500 GANs. The second behavioral issue that most concerns me is when he questioned the choices by DanTheMan474 (talk · contribs) over which articles were being nominated at GAN. No reviewer should ever tell a nominator anything along the lines of: "One must seriously question why you are nominating two short spur road for GA consideration, when the main OH 4 road, that this route connects, does not even have a route description. Wouldn't it make more sense to work on the major roads first, and leave the short (less than 2 miles) roads until the after the major roads are completed?" Nominators must be free to nominate the articles they want based on their own comfort or interest levels with the subjects.

The rest of the RfC/U, outside of the additional issues that have been added about the netball articles, deals more with Racepacket's behavior relating to his treatment of an entire WikiProject. He has almost single-handedly reviewed all of the highway GANs that've been nominated recently from anyone else except myself. Most of the project has actually stopped nominating articles for Good Article status now because of his level of bullying and his attitudes in the reviews. We have two editors on wikibreaks that we haven't seen online at all in weeks, one that's moved over to railroad article editing and others that have just stopped nominating at GAN for fear that Racepacket will snag the reviews. The goal of the RfC/U is to amicably raise the issues with Racepacket's behavior that others are finding offensive and work out the solution. That he has made a few good reviews does not excuse harassment and other bad behavior. Imzadi 1979 → 17:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean to give any impression of knowing or commenting on the overall situation. I was just providing a little info on my positive experiences with Racepacket and you, and on my first read of the "complaint" and links. When I said "non-existent rule", I meant that there is no wikipolicy that says that project recommendations must be folowed, and so failure to follow them is not a wiki-offense. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that your statement is only touching on a few of the issues that form the original basis for the RfC. The netball stuff is side drama that is sidetracking the core issues here. A few good GA interactions by Racepacket does not excuse his behavior on other issues. He has had an article nominated at GAN failed (VA-27). He did not address the substantive matters of the review and renominated it. It was failed again by a different reviewer with more detailed commentary on why the article did not meet the criteria. It was renominated 12 hours later without substantial work and failed a third time with additional detailed commentary on why the article did not meet the criteria for listing as a GA. Now, the first review was not the greatest. I can't completely fault him for renominating it for a different reviewer. However, when he was trying to impose additions to US 223 that violated policy and weren't supported by reliable sources, I withdrew the article. He should not have attempted to continue the review when I renominated it, but he did. If one editor makes comments in a review, we should be free to disagree with them. (Those points of disagreement though need a reason, not "I don't like that".) If two editors are making the same comments, there's probably some substance to them. If three editors are saying the same thing, then there is something to be addressed. VA-27 had three reviewers raising substantially the same concerns. He was the only one of almost a half-dozen editors pushing his POV on US 223, and policies and sources were not on his side in that discussion. That's WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT at its core.

He's questioned an editor's choice of nominations at GAN. He's repeatedly tagged articles for improvements, even articles that have recently passed through FAC that appropriately address the content he's disputing (M-6's past controversies). He's attacked other editors in his comments about them. (WP:NPA) He's basically taken positions to oppose a group of editors for the sake of opposing that group of editors. (WP:POINT) We're supposed to discuss the merits and content of the articles when at WP:AFD, WP:GAN, WP:FAC, or on the talk pages of the articles, not the merits or character of the editors involved; that's saved for the dispute resolution forums like this RfC. These behaviors are the "wiki-offenses". WP:IAR provides a reason to allow logical deviations from project standards, where it improves the article. His requested/suggested deviations aren't necessarily improvements to the article though. The disputed behavior, if left unchecked, will be a detriment to the community in the long run. Imzadi 1979 → 20:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Perhaps, but going against a well-established consensus, even after being pointed towards a guideline of that consensus by many editors, is an offence. That is WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, which has been used as grounds for an array of blocks. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Imzadi1979, again, I just gave my two cents and info on a couple of items, I was not commenting on the overall situation, nor am I in a position to. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:32, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

"Yes but when you stated: "I don't see specific "charges" of wp:substance in this whole thing." you have commented on the overall situation. That's my concern. Imzadi 1979 → 21:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I did not intend that. I intended to be taken literally, e.g. just making comments on IMHO what was not on that page. Sorry if I was not clearer. North8000 (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket blocked for a week

It appears that Racepacket was blocked yesterday for disruptive editing. It is customary (but not absolutely required) that RFC/Us are informally suspended during such blocks, since the ultimate goal is agreement between all parties, and if one of the parties is unable to participate, then it's hard to make progress towards the goal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Of course it bears noting that Racepacket also had several days to reply to this RfC/U before his block, and he basically ignored it even though he was aware of the discussion. The initial complaint was drafted in less than 24 hours in between other editing activities by the certifying parties, so five days' time to make some sort of initial reply seems like it was plenty for him to at least make a comment. Imzadi 1979 → 21:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you still stick to your assertion that Racepacket "basically ignored" this RFC? This is a good example of the assumption of bad faith which led to this whole mess. —Bill Price (nyb) 17:40, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

He did for the better part of two weeks. I assume good faith, but one can only gather that he crafted his response during his block. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) He did before the block. It is not bad faith to assert a fact borne out by the evidence. He acknowledged the filing of the RfC/U on March 24, 2011 yet was not blocked until March 27, 2011. From the time the RfC/U was created in user namespace until it was moved to Wikipedia namespace was was about eight hours (20:32, March 21, 2011 to 04:48, March 22, 2011). Those are the facts. Imzadi 1979 → 17:54, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Possible block evasion by racepacket

I suspect this edit here was made by Racepacket in order to avoid the block. Wikipedia:DUCK may apply. Reasons for suspecting that this duck is Racepacket :

1. IP address originates in Virginia, where Racepacket lives.
2. Edit tone extremely similar to User:Racepacket
3. Edit content extremely similar to User:Racepacket
4. Only one person supported the position of Olympic's recognising federations, not sports
5. User:Racepacket was blocked for actions directly pertaining to this page
6. Timing of edit in relation to dispute
7. No other IP address edits have been made to the article
8. General topic is primarily of interest to people in Commonwealth countries
9. Article has very few page views, limiting the potential number of contributors
10. February edits coincide with previous block of contributor
11. User:Racepacket has gotten into other disputes about what constitutes a sport
12. Has a history of sockpuppeting: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Racepacket and Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Racepacket (2nd)
13. User:158.59.127.249 contributed to Article for deletion request that Racepacket was involved with.

--LauraHale (talk) 04:38, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Please contact the blocking admin with this information. (I can't do anything with this, unfortunately). Racepacket has socked before during his extended blocks. --Rschen7754 04:42, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Done. User_talk:Ironholds#suspected_sockpuppeting. This led to Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Racepacket‎. --LauraHale (talk) 06:17, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

For the reasons stated on my talk page, LauraHale's argument does not make sense. It is just another example of her leaping to conclusions without a sufficient factual predicate. I was cleared and Ironholds withdrew his evasion block. Racepacket (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

After having a look through the pages myself the block was withdrawn through lack of evidence and other users have stated that the evidence was fairly WP:DUCKy - so I don't think its fair to accuse LauraHale of jumping to conclusions. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Questions for LauraHale

1) Am I correct that you are dropping your insistence on netball being described as an "Olympic sport"? 2) Going forward, are you willing to drop your efforts to recruit or line up your reviewer for GA reviews and just use the queue like everyone else? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:18, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

On the second question: Not everyone "just use[s] the queue". I've received requests from nominators, and I've advertised other people's nominations to both individuals and groups that I thought might be both interested and capable. There is no prohibition against this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I expressed my views on picking your own reviewer in my response. We have a "Walled Garden" potential problem. We need more people reviewing highway articles who are not "highway buffs," and we need a wide variety of people reviewing the netball-related articles who have no connection to the nominator(s). I currently have a proposal that an article be at least 60 days old before it is eligible for a GA nomination. That might help solve some of the problems. More people would be able to edit and/or comment on the talk page before it reaches a review. Here, the nominator creates the first partial draft of an article, nominates it before it meets the GA criteria, has a co-editor "start" a review, and the two jointly develop the article for another week, and then the review is closed with minimal on-the-record comments between them. Since the stream of edits were not in response to comments made on the review page, how did the articles pass the stability criteria? Racepacket (talk) 07:19, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure that everyone agrees that logrolling is undesirable, but it does not follow from there that either encouraging an individual to consider conducting the review or leaving a note about the nomination at a relevant WikiProject is forbidden. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Withdrawing from participation with this RFCU

Over the last week and a half, this Requests for comment/User conduct has been going on with continuous arguing and point and once again, another trip to WP:ANI. As an original supporter of this RFC/UC, I have now seen the error in that decision, a major error in that decision. I no longer feel, especially after reading Racepacket's response (thanks for finally posting one), that this RFC/UC has any merit. It has been obvious to me since it began that the form of this that we did nothing wrong as a project and all of this was on him. I've known and have participated in behavior that would prove otherwise. Do I apologize for my actions on Talk:Ohio State Route 369, and the ANI for U.S. Route 223? Definitely. However, I did it in a defense of two editors who I know in real life, and as a friend, I want to back him up. However, with the Maryland Route 200 drama, which I stayed out of and the other situations with different GANs, I no longer think that Racepacket is 100% at fault for everything, if even a majority percentage.

Watching the way this requests for comment has turned out, with all the trouble with User:LauraHale and Netball, the nitpicking over the movement of comments, the plausible effect that no one can agree over his work. I hate to have to be the Washington DC Whistle-blower, however, I do feel the obsession this project has taken over Racepacket is absolutely disgusting. I know actions on Internet Relay Chat are not very permissible anywhere else, but just watching the room and talking to other members of the roads project in private over email, I've grown damn tired of the topic being all about Racepacket. I mean users went to the trouble of using our bot for insulting him, something I went ahead and removed because it makes us look just as bad. Profanity has been used about him, something I definitely don't like happening. Also, if most of my project remembers, we got into some problems with that in our last Arbitration Committee case. I think the US Roads project, which I will always remain a member of, has taken this situation too far, including considering a third ArbCom ironically three years to the week of our last one. Now, I feel that if this has no merit, going to the Arbitration Committee will do less benefit than this has had.

Can my fellow projects members call me a hypocrite? If they feel that way, Sure. It doesn't change the fact that I am entitled to my rather upset opinion over this entire situation. I think honestly, User:Kumioko put it best of anyone on there, both sides have acted in the wrong, and I think as we keep going on the latter, us, have been doing more wrong than good. At this point, I probably will dump the moratorium on nominating articles at WP:GAN that I've been doing and I have been in the process of attempting to work things out. If I am to see any gains in this RFC/UC anymore, is that sanctions are needed on both sides, and personally, I'm just hoping we can put the experience aside and I can at least attempt to help improve your (Racepacket) articles quite a bit, since its obvious you can do the research, just needs some help. From this point, people can comment on my opinion, but I no longer wish to be part of this hunt and peck contest. The merit is gone. If my project dislikes my decision, then it's their opinion. Mine is that I just don't want to see this go on at this point.Mitch32^{(20 Years of Life: Wikipedia 5:33)} 16:36, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I take Mitch's comments in the spirit that they were offered. In response, if I have said anything in my interaction with Mitch that caused offense, I apologize for that. I appreciated the help given on VA Route 27, but I will continue to hold off on nominating numbered road articles for GA, and put my efforts on other articles. Racepacket (talk) 17:31, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This comment doesn't quite get it right. However, the only way to defend ourselves would be to post channel logs online, which is not allowed on any English Wikipedia channel (not just the roads one). So, this puts us in between a rock and a hard place here. The expectation on a Wikipedia channel is privacy and confidentiality, and this has been broken, which is quite disappointing.

I think there's a fine distinction between "bashing" a user, and complaining about their actions and figuring out how to combat them. The vast majority of comments (that I've seen anyway) were of the latter. --Rschen7754 19:53, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Mitchazenia's most specific allegation is that of a channel member "using [the IRC bot] for insulting [Racepacket]"; if true, that would be uncivil and unconstructive regardless of circumstances. I will grant, though, that this all amounts to hearsay, so I am reluctant to draw too many conclusions from it. —Bill Price (nyb) 22:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

An understanding

Apparently, although I did get my point across that the RFC needs to end, it seems things have massively spiraled out of control. My intention was to call out one situation, not the entire actions of the project. Since members of the project agree that taking a stand was right, I apparently went too far into arguing the fact that IRC behavior was involved. Re-reading and considering my post, I probably could've kept some of it quiet, but there comes a point where you've had it with the problems, and I'm not intentionally trying to censor the IRC room, but in the process, I've driven a fellow editor off the IRC room, something I definitely didn't see. I mean, I expected they'd be a bit annoyed, which I enlightened, not that I expected to spiral out the way it has. I would hope some here understand the channel isn't meant to do harm, I just felt there was some problems going on that needed to see the light of day.

Racepacket, not that I don't distrust your reviews, don't put me on your list, I think it just gets a bit too grating. It was the New Jersey Route 26 GAN that really got me annoyed, since I really haven't done much there since. Don't worry too much about it. Mitch32^{(20 Years of Life: Wikipedia 5:33)} 03:41, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Just to cut through a double-negative (or even a triple-negative!), without commenting on the reason, I am offering to not review GA nominations from Mitch as well as the other three. I have confidence that all four can write GA quality articles and have them reviewed in the normal queue without my involvement, and my offer is not a commentary on any of them. Racepacket (talk) 07:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Request for disengagement

There are several solutions to this problem, but perhaps the easiest one is as follows: disengagement. To be specific, that means:

• That Racepacket would not review road articles at GAN
• That Racepacket would disengage from doing any controversial actions with road articles such as tagging.
• In regards to the Netball situation, this would mean Racepacket would not review any more Netball articles, and stay away from LauraHale
• That Racepacket would allow the nominator to withdraw from a GAN that they are not pleased with, as has just been discussed at WT:GAN and per the GA rules.
• That the involved parties would refrain from pursuing further sanctions unless the above were broken.

If all the parties agreed to this, this would be the most peaceable solution. Is this something people would get behind? --Rschen7754 19:38, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I find it strange that this proposed resolution reaches further than the originally stated desired outcome. To quote: "Preferably, that Racepacket would get along amicably with the rest of the project. However, if this is not possible, then that Racepacket would minimize disruptive interaction with the rest of the project." During this RFCU, a number of users have offered outside views expressing gratitude for Racepacket's efforts at GAN; some have made statements unambiguously supporting his efforts, especially in cases like this one (Savidan: "I think Racepacket does a good job at what is generally a thankless task…If a reviewer's conduct is going to be called into question in a forum like this every time they insist on changes that they believe, in good faith, will improve the article, then, in the end, it's the project that will suffer."), and of the users who originally complained, two have withdrawn their complaints, with Mitchazenia explicitly stating that "I no longer feel…that this RFC/UC has any merit." I can't reasonably support a resolution which assumes Racepacket to be guilty of all he was accused of, requires him to withdraw from areas in which he has been a prolific and productive editor, and which only makes reference to the original aggrieved party by promising them another chance at "pursuing further sanctions" if Racepacket doesn't do what they want him to do. —Bill Price (nyb) 23:04, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I have already agreed to stay away from reviewing articles nominated by Imzadi1979. I would be willing to stay away from articles nominated by Dough4872 and Rschen7754. I would also promise not to renominate VA 27 for GA. (If Mitchazenia believes that I would not be fair to him, I am willing to throw his GA nominations into the list as well.) To make a crude analogy, GA review is like going to a dentist. Although everyone tries to brush their own teeth, everyone needs a different person to do a cleaning for them. The dentist may make some patients feel uncomfortable while working on their teeth, but it is for the greater good. It helps if the dentist can put all patients at ease, and dentist should work on a charming chair-side manner. Just as a dentist wants all of his patients to have healthy teeth, I want all of my GA reviews to result in a "pass." I have learned that I will never earn the trust of Imzadi1979, Dough4872 and Rschen7754, and they are willing to sit in the queue longer due to absence of my services. I will work on my "chair-side manner" in all future GA reviews. It seems that is the best way to resolve the RFC/U for all involved. Racepacket (talk) 03:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like the concerns are bigger than merely the name of the official nominator. Are you willing to let noms for roads and netball sit in the queue, possibly for months and months? Are you willing to avoid LauraHale? (Is Laura willing to avoid you?)

If so, then perhaps the other participants would consider whether a reasonably generous time limit might be appropriate. I'm sure we'd all think it silly to have such an agreement last for decades. Would one or two years' breathing room be enough? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'd be willing to give him another chance in a year or two. It depends on what his reviews are like then. The thing is, at least for roads, there is no shortage of (good) reviewers. --Rschen7754 04:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Laura has stated at User_talk:John_Vandenberg#help_please? that she is willing to avoid Racepacket. --John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:46, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing her comments. The LauraHale misunderstanding is very unfortunate. Since both LauraHale and I want the same things - namely that netball articles get promoted to GA and FA, I don't understand the basis for any difficulty. Could we appoint an experienced third party to go through the netball articles and fix any close paraphrasing, improper terminology, or NPOV concerns? It would speed their journey toward GA/FA and would eliminate any need for my further involvement in netball-related articles. Racepacket (talk) 06:30, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Another competent editor will catch any of those issues you mention. You're not the only editor capable of doing such. --Rschen7754 06:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

That is why it should not be a problem to find one and agree upon this solution. The problem is miscommunication and tasks falling through the cracks. Once the task is given to an experienced editor, it will be straightforward. Racepacket (talk) 07:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The way WP:FAC works is that several very experienced editors go through the article. Something like the stuff you mention would be caught. Following this, the FAC director or delegate goes through the article and makes sure the article is good as well. You've got several eyes checking over the article (from within and outside the WikiProject or subject area) to make sure the article fully meets all applicable standards. --Rschen7754 07:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is you turning up all over the place, with baggage, blinkers and a bee in your bonnet. Not a good combo. Even in your post above you clearly indicate that you believe there are problems with these articles. You need to let go, and slowing down might be a good idea too. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 07:42, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

And meanwhile, this morning, Racepacket reviewed Talk:K-30 (Kansas highway)/GA1. Quite disappointing. --Rschen7754 16:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Bonjour à tous, Hello Everybody, I saw the conversation you were having. This is very sad, sad and sad. If I may interrupt please, this debate is a considerable cost: Wikipedia has a serious deficit of female readers and female editors, and that is a problem, and this sort of thing doesn't help (references Wikipedia: This is a man's world, Where Are the Women in Wikipedia?. It is necessary to preserve a better climat with women editors. Thanks for your support and Best regards, merci de votre support et bonne chance --Geneviève (talk) 10:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely. Women's role in sport is an interesting area to develop in that regard. That is why I was not only active in Title IX implmentation in the 1970s, but also have been working to assure accuracy at Wikipedia:

• Title IX
• University of Miami gender equity statistics and diff
• Amateur Sports Act of 1978
• GA review sought fair and accurate treatment of decision to drop Baseball team

The list can go on at length. The great thing about Wikipedia is that editors don't have to reveal their ages genders or educational backgrounds, and everyone can be treated without regard to any underlying prejudices. However, Wikipedia owes a duty to its readers and must maintain its credibility. So, it is important that we all work toward a common set of standards, such as no point of view, verifiability and no orginial research. To do that, every editor should be made to feel welcome to edit in every corner of Wikipedia, without any "walled gardens." Some areas, such as US roads, are exclusively male. This is perhaps cultural because while young US girls play with dolls, young boys are playing with toy bulldozers in the local sandbox. Later, road construction professions, such as civil engineering, attract a disproportionate number of men. While there are many women historians, women sociologists, and women political scientists, I question whether they would be welcomed to write about road issues on Wikipedia. I propose a test for Genevieve2: pick any US highway article and try to add some well-sourced history discussion to it or try to perform a GA review on a nominated road article. Racepacket (talk) 14:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

This is quite ridiculous to speculate upon, and is an accusation of sexism. --Rschen7754 16:01, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

As a roads editor, I would welcome women who wanted to write about roads, but I don't think there are any who want to. Please prove me wrong! –Fredddie™ 22:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket ,I thank you for your proposition of a test on highway US article but I shall not answer it because my intervention was on the human climate of the present discussion. This climate saddens me. Your requirements to the article of Laura seems to me very unpleasant. It has for result that myself, it is the total barn-owl dismay( en langue française nous parlions de la peur totale qui fige et qui immobilise. La peur de voir son travail constamment critiqué - sorry for my poor english) and dissuades me from presenting new articles for Wikipedia. The multiple debates inhibit the work of some women editors. To frighten them, or to discourage them from write. I support Laura with human compassion--Geneviève (talk) 15:47, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I hope that editors of all genders and backgrounds will feel welcome to contribute to all areas of Wikipedia. Racepacket (talk) 18:15, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, you have failed to answer my question. Are you willing to stop reviewing articles about roads and netball for the next year or two? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Genevieve, your comment makes very little sense to me. You say: "Your requirements to the article of Laura seems to me very unpleasant…The multiple debates inhibit the work of some women editors. To frighten them, or to discourage them from write. I support Laura with human compassion". What does this mean? That women are incapable of collaborative debate? That women's work ought not be peer reviewed or checked over? That women should not be asked to do "unpleasant" tasks like revision? Look, I don't want to be a jerk, but we're here on Wikipedia to build a communal encyclopedia- one with no "ownership" of articles- and asserting that anyone's contribution is too precious or unimpeachable to be critically evaluated is inconsistent with the fundamental purpose of this project. —Bill Price (nyb) 18:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

You may not want to be but you are. The arguments that you are putting forward are sexist and have been historically used to slap down women, as you are doing now. Please try harder. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:45, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

What arguments am I putting forward, and how am I "[slapping] down women"? Genevieve is the one who brought up gender in a very heavy-handed fashion and who stated that women require a "better climat" [sic] than Wikipedia and that "debates inhibit the work" of women. When I wrote my comment earlier, it was out of stunned astonishment. I am in an academic field in which women outnumber men, and the women I'm surrounded with certainly don't shrink from peer review and debate. Her comments looked (and still look) regressive to me, stating that women need special accommodation and treatment in order to contribute to this project. —Bill Price (nyb) 01:55, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

What you are saying is sexist. She asked for nothing more than a degree of civility that you are in fact required to show in any case. And your response was that people should put up with harassment and the general aura of unpleasantness that prevents many people from wanting to take part. You see being asked to be civil as trampling on the precious right to be a jerk. That sort of environment should not be tolerated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I reject your interpretation. Again, I was not the one who brought up gender, and my comments have been from a stance of incredulity at this notion that women "can't take the heat", as the idiom goes, since most of my own colleagues are women and aren't the frail caricatures Genevieve seemed to be sketching. I can see you wish to stick to your own reading and conclusion, though, so further discussion would be fruitless. —Bill Price (nyb) 04:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Genevieve says she is sad that Racepacket did not show kindness in his interactions with Laura. Evaluations can be friendly, collegial, pleasant, polite and hold a high academic standard. Rude comments are not automatically better, and rude comments may disproportionately discourage women editors, who (on average) are less likely to accept fighting as a type of conflict resolution.

For more information, you might like to see the article Tend and befriend. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Everyone agrees that collegial and polite interactions are desirable regardless of the gender of the people communicating. That is beyond debate here. The question is whether we can find a way to address certain problems without an editor taking offense by misinterpreting the motives as some form of personal attack? If we can come up with a detached way of examining the netball-related text without personalizing it, the entire problem will be solved, and I doubt that netball editors will ever hear from me again. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

To put this in perspective...

During the month of March alone, Racepacket reviewed and completed 11 road GANs. A twelfth is still on hold. Keep in mind that Racepacket was blocked during the last week of the month, so that decreases the amount of time he had to review. --Rschen7754 05:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, all eleven reviews were well received by the nominators. Each review included detailed scrutiny to ensure compliance with the GA criteria. And all of this during a period when (if you believe the comments above) there was some kind of boycott of GA nominations organized over the IRC. Overall, March marked the backlog elimination campaign which dropped the queue of unreviewed nominations from 291 to 100. The queue of transport articles was brought down to 5. So the backlog elimination drive was a big success and a higher than usual number of road articles were reviewed by non-USRD members. Racepacket (talk) 05:58, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Next set of statistics: Since September 27, 2010, Racepacket has reviewed 75 articles for GA. 29 of those are U.S. road articles. An additional 4 are Netball articles.

Since January 1, 2011, Racepacket has reviewed 52 articles for GA. 18 of those are U.S. road articles. --Rschen7754 06:50, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The U.S. Roads WikiProject has nominated 78 articles to GAN in 2011. Of those, Racepacket reviewed 18. (Not counting the still incomplete second review of I-376). Note: Racepacket was blocked from February 4th to February 26th, and March 27th to April 2nd. --Rschen7754 07:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

29 USRD GANs passed while Racepacket was blocked. Subtracting those from the statistic above, we find that USRD nominated 49 articles to GAN in 2011 while Racepacket was unblocked. He reviewed 18 of them. This is roughly 40%. --Rschen7754 08:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The final statistic I'm going to present is the following: Of the 29 reviews Racepacket has done, 14 were not received well. This is nearly half. (Since I suppose I'm going to be challenged on this assertion, the list is as follows: NY 414, I-81 MD, I-70 WV, I-705, M-152, M-6, M-66, MD 18, MD 24, NJ 26, NY 31F, OH 369, OH 372, US 223. Anyone is free to question me on my talk page about why I believe any review listed above was not well received). --Rschen7754 08:30, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Why would a simple agreement for Racepacket to not review mine, or Dough4872, or Imazadi1979's articles not suffice? Because over half of the reviews that Racepacket has done for USRD have been unsatisfactory and unpleasant. Several other nominators are represented above, including TwinsMetsFan, Dantheman474, Mitchazenia, viridiscalculus, and admrboltz. --Rschen7754 08:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that I have a working relationship with the editors other than the four listed in my offer. Is the problem that you really want to "control" the GA review process? The GA review process was never intended to be run from a secret USRD IRC chat room. GA Reviews by people from outside a WikiProject is beneficial. I admit that I (like any other GA reviewer) have made factual mistakes and misread a source on occassion, but I accept correction quickly and move on to finish the review. Again, GA reviews are intended to be a conversation between two peers, not a battle of egos. If someone has a problem with my review, they are free to say it to me directly or to ask for a second opinion. That is a much better course than to try to gripe off-wiki on IRC. I don't take personal offense at any feedback. By the way, although it may be outside the scope of the WikiProject, there have been other Transport articles about bridges, tunnels and bike paths that I have reviewed as well. For sake of transparency, a full list of my GA reviews is posted on my user page. Racepacket (talk) 10:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No, I've talked to many of those editors, and they were quite annoyed with your review. As far as trying to control the GA process, you're just making baseless speculations. --Rschen7754 17:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Points raised by John Vandenberg

The following comment was left on the project page, and I am moving it here so that it can be discussed.

It was very unfortunate to see that Racepacket decided to do another GA review of Laura's articles, and quick fail it, given that she was so unhappy with the last one. poor John Vandenberg ^(chat) 19:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC) It just gets worse and worse. During a GAN of Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement, when the page was being renamed, Racepacket created a new GAN page to quick fail it. One edit; create GAN page and fail it: Special:Undelete/Talk:Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement/GA2. I'm sure that isnt in the rule book. There already was a active GAN and Racepacket had already contributed to it. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:18, 27 March 2011 (UTC) He added that review to his collection.[1] And went out of his way to provide a peer review of another Netball article, using it as an opportunity to take a swipe at the GA pass it received earlier. [2]

The review Special:Undelete/Talk:Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement/GA2 was a result of the bots maintaining the various templates and lists showing that article as seeking a reviewer. I did not know that the prior review of Netball at the Olympics was not closed out. The reason why I list my reviews on my user page is for transparency, so that people will have some idea of what other articles I have reviewed. Since I have undertaken such a list, it would be odd if I excluded a review that I made in good faith.

I left the comment in the peer review of Netball in the Cook Islands based on the discussions here and at the WT:WikiProject Good articles suggesting that it was an appropriate way to follow up with remaining, concrete concerns. I believe that there are many subjective judgments involved in editing articles, and providing multiple points of view is helpful to editors creating and refining content. I certainly did not mean any offense, and waited an appropriate interval of time to allow things to cool off before responding to her request for peer comments on the article. I have stated several times that I am troubled by Talk:Netball in the Cook Islands/GA3 where no serious effort was made to address the deficiencies noted in the first two reviews or to document or discuss any critique of the article. Based on the edit summary, I misjudged the amount of cooling off time required. Perhaps the best way to resolve this is to appoint an experienced editor to review the netball articles to fix any close paraphrasing, improper terminology, or NPOV concerns. I would prefer to let someone else take that role, but I would not want any previous miscommunications between LauraHale and I to result in identified problems slipping through the quality control net. Any such review could focus on just improving the articles and stay away from who made what edit. There is no need to personalize the resolution of the situation. Everyone has the same goal here — we all want netball articles that are meet the GA and FA criteria. Racepacket (talk) 18:15, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

You have caused offense the entire time that you have been jumping in and reviewing Laura's articles. You have been causing mis-communications all along; and intentionally and repeatedly stirring up trouble, like your posts on meta. I cant understand why you would do that, given that there was an open RFC about you. It does seem that you cant take the hints given to you. And again now, in your post to this section, you are again making veiled accusations of close paraphrasing, POV issues, and even the legality of the word 'Olympics' (do you think the page 'WikiProject Olympics' is illegal??).

I dont care for your excuse that the bots are to blame. You failed GA1 (Talk:Netball and the Olympic Movement/GA1). That was your hand. You created the second GA page in order to fail it also (Special:Undelete/Talk:Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement/GA2). Did you not even look at GA1 when you picked up GA2? Come off it ...

This RFC is about you. Don't worry about Laura's articles and who might review them. That isn't important for us here, excepting that you appear unable to let it go. With regards to wanting the same goals, I'm not convinced by your actions. It seems obvious to me that the WikiCup is your primary objective. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 19:06, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, and I will address each of your points in turn: 1) Regarding the use of "Olympics", please read: User_talk:Racepacket#Background on "Olympic." 2) Please read Special:Undelete/Talk:Netball_and_the_Olympic_Movement/GA2, which politely failed the nomination on the grounds that the problems noted in Talk:Netball at the Olympics/GA1 were not addressed and I had suggested "waiting at least a month to see how these discussions settle down before renominating." Policy allows multiple reviews of an article by the same reviewer, but the bots did not know that Talk:Netball at the Olympics/GA2 was still open. 3) I believe that LauraHale wanted to drop out of this RFC/U and withdrew her proposed resolution. I agree that dropping the LauraHale/netball aspect is best, but I wanted to respond to your observations left on the project page. 4) As for questioning my motives, I have been an active editor since 2006 and am here to build a reliable encyclopedia. This is the first year that I have been in the WikiCup and I only entered it sometime in January 2011 on a spur of the moment decision. If my "primary objective" was the WikiCup, I would have quick failed the netball articles instead of working with the editors toward improving the articles. I have done GA reviews long before the WikiCup, and there are many other activities that provide more Cup points per time spent that doing GA reviews. So, I don't see how you can reach the conclusion that my volunteering to mentor is WikiCup related. Racepacket (talk) 19:56, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Road articles tend to be much shorter than other GANs. You've been reviewing road GAN after road GAN for the last few months, and it seems to me that this has been related to the Cup. --Rschen7754 20:26, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

1) Ohhh, so you did know about GA1? And the dastardly bots arn't to blame for you accidentally performing GA2? Thanks for clearing that up.

2) While policy may permit multiple reviews by the same reviewer, common sense says otherwise if the first experience was unfavourable.

John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:31, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see above. I did the review of Talk:Netball at the Olympics/GA1 where I said that a day and a half old article was too unstable to be GA and recommended that the editors wait a month. At that point there were few edits to the page including six by Hawkeye7. Hawkeye7 then started a review called Talk:Netball at the Olympics/GA2. The article was then moved twice, 45 minutes apart, by Hawkeye7 and Andrwsc, with no discussion on the article talk page. Later the bots said that the article Netball and the Olympic Movement was nominated and looking for a reviewer and I started to review that. After I did a quick fail review, Hawkeye7 deleted my review, and moved his review from Talk:Netball and the Olympics/GA2 on top of my reivew, but did not merge in any of the comments that I had left there. Twenty-three minutes, you left comments on the moved review. About three days later, he finally left substantive comments on the review page. He was not the editor who had moved the underlying article to Netball and the Olympic Movement. Looking back on it, Andrwsc, the editor who moved the article, probably did not know that it was the subject of an ongoing GA review. Had I had known that the article was the subject of an open GA review, I would not have started a new one. I hope this clarifies what actually happened.

Some progress has been made. LauraHale now agrees that netball is not an "Olympic sport"; she no longer insists that the rules of grammar do not apply to her when writing in a New Zealand dialect; and she is starting to accept feedback from other editors and reviewers. She has dropped her outside views on the project page, and I believe that everyone can move on because we all want the same thing — for the netball articles to reach GA and FA. In turn, I am developing a Wikipedia article that explains the odd legal status of word "Olympic" in the United States and will share a link with you later. Racepacket (talk) 10:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No progress has been made. You have continued your relentless POV pushing, advancing your POV that the world's most popular team game for women is an unimportant sport. I tried to engage you in discussion of the "Olympic sport" issue but you refused to entertain any discussion. Coming at it cold as someone whose expertise lies outside sports (unlike LauraHale who is an expert) it seemed to me that the issue should be discussed calmly and rationally, and a reasonable solutions arrived at. An editor coming at it without prejudice should be able to list four good reasons why netball should be called an Olympic sport and another four why it should not. It became apparent that no such outcome was likely. You just could not overcome or even acknowledge your preconceptions. Like other editors I had interaction with you before, when you also GA reviewed my article on Interim Committee, and I had no problems. You are welcome to review my articles. But in my mind you are now pigeon-holed as a copy editor. And I've reverted your latest edit to netball not because I disagree with you, but because you should not be touching the netball articles. Leave Laura alone. Stop stalking here. It's creepy. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

(Chronology warning: Racepacket's outdented comment below was posted before this comment.) Hawkeye, I've brought up your tone before, but calling a user "creepy" and accusing them of "stalking" with no reasonable basis is over the line for an administrator. It's uncivil coming from a user, but downright unacceptable coming from an administrator. To quote from an ArbCom decision regarding a former administrator, "Administrators are expected to maintain an appropriate level of decorum. In particular, they are expected to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others, and to avoid acting in a way that brings the project into disrepute." [3] —Bill Price (nyb) 16:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that Hawkeye7 is adopting a WP:OWN view toward the Netball articles. The entire community "owns" and has responsibility for the accuracy and NPOV of all articles, not any one person. Netball was created on August 31, 2001, long before LauraHale came on the scene in Feburary 2011. It has had 1,401 different editors. So it can never be "LauraHale's article" because she is just one of many editors and has been working along side other active editors since her first edit to the article on February 26. The article had POV problems before she started editing it, and POV problems remain. A number of times,[4][5] concerns were raised thatt the article has be improperly included in Category:Olympic sports. These were disputes with Hawkeye7's edits, not LauraHale. Correcting that error is not "stalking" or being "creepy" -- rather it is cleaning up a category. There is a pattern here that has been thoroughly documented. First User:Canadian Paul finds serious problems and quick fails the GA1 review of Netball in the Cook Islands. Then I try to work with a group of editors including LauraHale, Hawkeye7 and KnowIG in the GA2 review where again we discussed the definition of Olympic sport and I get this response from LauraHale:

The usage is correct based on the article. It is understood in context. The use of Olympic sport fits with New Zealand English. These three things are why the change you're suggesting does not make sense. It again smacks of American bias. (The sport is not American. The article is not about an American colony. They don't speak American English. Stop treating it like that. This inability to recognise these three things is getting annoying. If you're not familiar with New Zealand English, ask for a second reviewer who is.)

I then honored her wishes and brought in a British editor who confirms that the Wikipedia article Olympic sport is not just an American understanding of the term.[6] I gave the editors one last chance to fix the article, and when they refused, I reluctantly failed it. Hawkeye7 (who has been actively editing the article and participating in the GA review almost as if a co-nominator) quickly picked up GA3 and passed it even though the article still had all of the problems noted by Candian Paul and me. Again Hawkeye7 picked up the review on March 20, before the close paraphrase issue developed on Talk:Netball/GA1. Anyone who reads the interactions with the reviewers will see bullying, and getting the sense that article proponents were testing the envelope to see how much advantage they could take. For example, Bill would make a suggested improvement and it would be dismissed as too vague. Later, I would make more specific suggestions and you or LauraHale would say "fixed" on the review page, but I would check the article and see that the item was not fixed. Turning to the netball article, where LauraHale says that she shared all of the sources, including those that are not otherwise available, with you. You began the Talk:Netball/GA2 review after I failed the first one on the grounds that the nominator withdrew and you and the other active editors did not wish to continue it. Did you check the article for copyright and close paraphrasing concerns? The version you approved as GA incorrectly includes it in Category:Olympic sports and has the same problematic sentence that was discussed in the earlier reviews, "[[Netball]] is an [[Olympic sports#Recognized sports|Olympic recognised sport]]." Up to that point, I assumed good faith, but when groundless allegations emerged that I had an "anti-netball bias", was putting her "on the recieving end of American cultural imperialism", and had accused LauraHale of plagiarism, I began to suspect that it was a bad faith effort to distract people from an odd attempt to subvert the quality control system in order to gain an FA in record time. Fortunately, when the Netball article became an FAC the day after Hawkeye7 completed his GA review, the problems raised by other reviewers were taken at face value and not dismissed as ethnocentrism. LauraHale and I have since resolved our differences. KnowIG has been blocked for his ethic slurs directed at Bill,[7][8] but you are the remaining member of the editing team still making edits that you question yourself and you now declare me "now pigeon-holed as a copy editor." So please tell us (in order that we can all put this behind us) why? Why did you tell Ironholds that I "falsely accused her of plagiarism knowing that this was a serious charge to level at a PhD student." in order to get him to uphold your WP:INVOLVED block? You admitted to Ironholds that you gamed the system and became the GA reviewer "solely in order to prevent him from taking" the article for review. But why not allow some disinterested person to do the review? I suggest that we agree to have some third party do a GAR of your three articles, so that they have an impartial and thorough review. This is needed because it calls the entire GA rating system into question. I would imagine that it would also benefit LauraHale and all other netball-related editors by removing a cloud from the articles. The irony of this RFC/U is that I seem to be in the middle with USRD claiming that I am to lenient in failing to enforce the WikiProject stylebook and standards. Meanwhile, Hawkeye7 claims that I have been too strict (to the point of being "creepy") in seeking to enforce the general GA criteria of NPOV, accuracy and no close paraphrasing. Well at least Hawkeye7 didn't have a problem with our one-on-one GA reviews of Talk:J. Robert Oppenheimer/GA1 and Talk:Interim Committee/GA1. My GA reviews are properly in the middle of the spectrum. Racepacket (talk) 06:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Separating policy issues

I will repeat what I said in my response. I am trying to follow Wikipedia policy. If the policy is to apply only the GA criteria, that is what I will do. If the policy is to apply USRD standards, I am willing to do that as well. Could we organize an effort to get consensus on the policy, which will remove much of the differences between the RFC/U proponents and me? Thanks., Racepacket (talk) 13:20, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The "policy" is to apply only the GA criteria. *However*, in the 557 USRD Good Articles, precedent has shown what the GA criteria looks like applied to U.S. road articles. That is the basis of WP:USRD/STDS and WP:RJL. So, the USRD standards are structured off the GA criteria and common sense says to apply them as well, since there's 557 other GAs that follow those standards. --Rschen7754 17:32, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As a point of fact, compliance with USRD/STDS or RJL is not required for GA. If they were actually required, then they would be mentioned by name in the GA criteria. If those guidelines are well-written, then there will be no conflict between the actual requirements and the project guidelines, but GA reviewers are not required to consider such guidelines, or even know that they exist, and GA reviewers are not permitted to fail articles over non-compliance with non-required advice pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

And where they do not conflict, and even enhance each other, then they can and should be taken in concert. As an example, the project standards require a section on tolling for toll roads. Such a thing would be a "major aspect" of the subject, the absence of which would be a failure to meet the GA criteria. Imzadi 1979 → 18:02, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. A well-written WikiProject advice page is often the simplest method of determining completeness, particularly if you're not extremely familiar with the subject matter. It would officially be the non-compliance with the GA criteria that causes an incomplete article to fail, even if the reviewer discovered the fact that it was incomplete through reading USRD/STDS rather than through his or her own knowledge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As another example, an article Racepacket reviewed did not have the miles in the junction table. This is required by RJL (which is in the MOS, it is not just a project advice page. But, this causes the article to fail the comprehensive criterion for GA. --Rschen7754 18:28, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it's in the MOS; compliance is only required for the five MOS pages specifically named in the GA criteria, and RJL isn't one of them. It would fail FA over this, but not GA, unless the reviewer believed that this statistic was a "main aspect" of the subject. GAs are not required to be comprehensive. The GA requirement of "main aspects" is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required of featured articles; it allows articles that do not cover every major fact or detail. Imzadi's example probably does count as a "main aspect"; the absence of a single number in a table probably doesn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:11, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

It explains how far apart the jcts are. But we are getting off topic. Our examples might be the same article in fact, I cant remember. --Rschen7754 19:23, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Some observations and a proposed solution

Main page: User:Imzadi1979/Observations

I wrote out some observations in an essay in my user space. It's too long to post here, and much of it is stuff that's already been covered ad nauseum in the RfC/U, its talk page and other locations. Some of it is more for my personal peace of mind by getting it all in one place and "on paper" so that I can move on from here.

I've outlined 7 specific outcomes of the RfC/U that I personally have. There are seven of them, and if he can agree to 1 and 7, and take 2–6 as advice, then I'm willing to have this RfC/U closed. In short, he needs to apologize to LauraHale in a manner that addresses the issues raised here, and he should do his best to avoid the editors and subject matters that have been the areas of conflict. As he is avoiding them, those editors will avoid him. In a year or so, the raw feelings and dramas will be historical fact and not constant reminders, and the parties could possibly work together again. I initially enjoyed external feedback on my nominations from him, but several minor annoyances in those reviews built up over a relatively short period of time. That culminated in a very contentious review of one article that was both not my finest hour, but at the same time, precipitated by the reviewer's insistence to include information that was misleading, inaccurate and unnecessary in the specific article. My attempt to disengage from the review and move on was met by stubbornness and Racepacket's refusal to likewise disengage. When something similar happened with another editor, LauraHale, I was truly saddened, especially to the lengths of Racepacket's actions after her attempts to disengage were repeatedly refused. I'm hoping that my proposed solution will benefit all parts and the greater community. Imzadi 1979 → 17:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

As this RfC/U unfolds, I'm seeing three patterns being repeated over-and-over. Can I get confirmation that I understand what the issue has evolved into? Can I get a correction if I do not understand the situation properly?

1. RacePacket can give a very thorough and proper review when things are going well, and many people have had good experiences with him as a reviewer.
2. When things go bad with a RacePacket review, things go bad fast. Racepacket's actions after an unfavorable or unfortunate incident give the appearance that he goes on a rampage to the point of borderline wikistalking. This rampage can include tagging and reviewing articles, where the motivation appears to be revenge more than an attempt to improve wikipedia.
3. Racepacket has responded to these criticisms of his behavior by citing policy and denigrating USRD's standards.

If I do understand this correctly, I would say that Racepacket does need to disengage. It is not appropriate to hide behind portions of wikipedia policy to justify aggressive behavior, especially when a whole host of other wikipedia policies are conveniently ignored in the process. Both wikipedia policy and project standards are intended to facilitate collaboration, not justify the lack of it. If a wikiproject standards standards are used to circumvent wikipedia policy, then a wet trout should be applied to the project standard pushers, and while that may need to be done, that is a tangent issue to the main point, IMO.Dave (talk) 18:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. The amount of good reviews doesn't matter if a few of them are hell for the nominator. --Rschen7754 18:35, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that LauraHale removed her issue when she withdrew her comment. I have offered to not review GA nomination by the indicated editors above. I would like to hear a response to my proposal. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Her redaction was taken after you went to the Wikimedia Foundation in an attempt to have her face real-world consequences. I don't care how you try to spin it, at the time you acted, you thought she was either employed by, or directly benefited from a relationship with, the foundation. That you attempted to seek the imposition of some form of consequences based on a personal dispute over a review of a Wikipedia article is disgusting and shocking. That you continue the dispute over the netball articles is equally galling. I think your proposal has been rejected by most of the parties here. My current proposal is to have you issue a personal, sincere apology to her that acknowledges your understanding of what you did and why it is wrong. The second half of the proposal is to have you agree to avoid reviewing and participating on articles based on subject matter (US roads and netball currently). Please respond to that proposal. Imzadi 1979 → 21:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket: The answer to your proposal, as I have explained above, is no. --Rschen7754 22:41, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see the following:

1. Racepacket needs to personally apologize to LauraHale. This apology needs to acknowledge that he has made accusations, overtly or not, that implied that she committed "academic dishonestly", "plagiarism" to "too close paraphrasing" that he could not support. The apology also needs to acknowledge the harm he caused by taking the matter over to meta, whether or not she is employed by or directly benefits from the Wikimedia Foundation. The net effect was still the same.
2. Racepacket should understand that while the majority of his reviews are good, and appreciated, that a disturbing minority of them are not. In the future, he should learn to walk away when interactions in a review get too heated. This could be as simple as stating, "Look, this discussion isn't getting either of us anywhere. How about we table this for a few days and come back with clear heads and re-evaluate it?" or even "Look, I'm going to withdraw here. Feel free to renominate this for another reviewer."
3. Racepacket should understand that nominators have the option to withdraw their nomination. After that point, he can continue to offer feedback, but the formal review process has ended. His participation is no longer required. He should respect the desire of the nominator to end the review.
4. Racepacket should acknowledge that if an article is renominated, even under a different title, it may not be beneficial to the community to pursue issues from the previous reviews he's given.
5. Racepacket should know that editors will work on the articles that interest them. Some articles may be perceived as "more important" and left alone, but ultimately, it is not his decision what articles editors edit or nominate.
6. Racepacket should understand that there is a fine balance between the standards a wikiproject sets and the review criteria the community as a whole has set. Wikiprojects deal in the specifics, and their opinions and standards should be reasonably accommodated where they don't explicitly conflict with review criteria. There will always be exceptions, which is why we have WP:IAR, or even just plain common sense. Where the two ideas don't conflict and can be shown to enhance each other, both should be followed on a reasonable basis.
7. Finally, Racepacket should voluntarily abstain from working on articles in subject areas that have been the source of past conflicts. The other parties are willing to avoid him if he is willing to do the same. I suggest that this agreement from both sides be honored for one year. Additional subject matters beyond US highways and Netball may be added should contentious review occur in the future. (Racepacket can voluntarily expand the first area to all highway and roadway articles if he wishes, however no similar articles outside of the US were the subject of the RfC/U although a WP:CRWP member has participated in the discussions.)

This is copied from the referenced essay above. Imzadi 1979 → 23:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Apparently there is a desire for participants to reach consensus as to what happens next. My preference would be to not be involved. I redacted my comments because I didn't wish to be involved (as it appears my involvement led to an attempt by the subject of the request for comment to contact my employer regarding my on wiki acticities). As it appears that I am not being left alone and there is a desire to move on... I nominally support the proposal as put forward. tl;dr version of that support with my own desires:

1. Acknowledgement that it was inappropiate to attempt to contact my employer regarding my on wiki acticities, an acknowledgement that my research was misrepresented on meta and elsewhere regarding my research, an acknowledgement that there was a misrepresentation of my intentions regarding contributing to Wikipedia. I don't require an apology. I just require an acknowledgement that these were misrepresented.
2. Per Wikipedia:Plagiarism, close paraphrasing is considered a form of plagiarism. I would like an acknowledgement that the accusation of close paraphrasing was in fact an accusation of plagiarism per Wikipedia:Plagiarism. I would also like an acknowledgement that I was not guilty of plagiarism. If User:racepacket has evidence that I did closely paraphrase/plagiarize, I would like it to be clearly demonstrated. (If it is proven, I will leave Wikipedia. I have made every effort to avoid this and I understand the severity of this accusation. I understand the consequences for it and I will accept and not challenge any block if that is proven.) If Racepacket believes that I closely paraphrased but cannot prove it, I have asked User:jayvdb to independently verify the source wording. Racepacket would need to prove the quotations from the articles in question and the references that he belives I closely paraphrased from. If user:jayvdb subsequently finds no close paraphrasing, I would like a retraction. If Racepacket no longer stands behind his allegation, I would like a retraction of the accusation and an acknowledgement that it was inappropiate to make this accusation without evidence.
3. Racepacket to stop editing any articles related to netball or women's sport that I may be involved with as an editor, for Racepacket to recuse himself from reviewing any articles I may nominate (or am a major contributor for that are nominated) for GA, FAC, FL, FP, Peer review, Guild of Copyeditors requests, for Racepacket to recuse himself from any involvement in the Women's Sport Project and related articles except as it pertains to American universities or athletics. (These are areas where I have no intention of being a major contributor to. He has been involved in these before.) I'd also like to request dis-engagement on the Olympic Project specifically as it pertains to areas that I am involved with. Lastly, I'd like him to not comment on my user talk page.
4. For Talk:Netball/GA1 and other GA reviews that I nominated and which Racepacket reviewed to be locked. He continues to edit these reviews despite their closure.

As this issue is clearly gotten personal between the two of us, I'm willing to make the following concessions:

1. I will avoid the roads articles, American university articles, American university athletics articles in general.
2. I will not GA review, FAC review, FL review, FP review, peer review, guild of copy editor review any articles that Racepacket submits or any articles where Racepacket has been a major contributor.
3. I will not involve myself in future RfCs or ANIs or Arbcom cases related to Racepacket unless he violates the above requests. (Translation: I will make sure to avoid any appearance of behaving in a vindictive manner regarding Racepacket in the future. I just want this to go away.)
4. I will make available to User:jayvdb materials that are not available online to help User:racepacket in his allegation of inappropiate paraphrasing related to Talk:Netball/GA1 so that these can allegations can be proven/disproven to his satisfaction.
5. I will not comment on his user talk page.
6. If I should write up any experience related to the GA process in an academic paper, I will not name racepacket.
7. I will make sure that I (or others) have addressed all the points brought up in the peer review for Netball in the Cook Islands, Netball and the Olympic Movement and Netball before seeking to elevate them to FAC. I am willing to be assigned a mentor to approve my nominating of these articles before/if I do so to make sure they have a decent chance of getting approved. --LauraHale (talk) 20:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Laura, I'm a graduate student myself. Please reconsider the facts for a moment. I can understand why you felt attacked, but I feel the root of the issue is a clash between the culture of academia and the culture of Wikipedia. In short, in academia, we are always pushed to be original; while on Wikipedia, we are admonished to never be original. I understand that academics like you and I are particularly sensitive to even the slightest whiff of "plagiarism" because it can be a career-ending accusation, but you should keep in mind where you are. This is not an academic journal; it is a communally-written tertiary source. Philosophically, it's virtually impossible to actually plagiarize on Wikipedia, because our policies prevent us from publishing original research or syntheses. In their capacity as tertiary sources, Wikipedia articles are not meant to communicate original thoughts. Racepacket said the following: "Need to assure that there are no close paraphrase problems, particularly in the position descriptions" [9]. He has pointed out that the article in question has existed for several years and seen contributions by hundreds of editors, so he was not making any assumption or accusation that any purported close paraphrasing had come from your own contributions. Again, your immediate reaction was understandable and reasonable, given your life in academia, but this misunderstanding really should be cleared up. Racepacket was looking out for the legal health of the project (see Moonriddengirl's comments about copyright and close paraphrasing). He was not trying to "sniff out a plagiarist." —Bill Price (nyb) 00:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Bill, your premise is wrong. You most certainly can plagiarize on Wikipedia, and people do it every day. What you can't do is plagiarize on Wikipedia while complying with Wikipedia's content policies. If it were somehow impossible to plagiarize on Wikipedia, then Moonriddengirl and the other copyright and plagiarism specialists would have a lot more free time on their hands. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:30, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

As Geometry guy has already pointed out, the moral issues surrounding plagiarism are minor on Wikipedia due to the No Original Research policy. In other words, in plagiarism, the "crime" is passing off another's work as one's own for one's own benefit—somewhich which does not occur on Wikipedia. I would assert that the concept of "plagiarism" is meaningless in an environment in which there is no original research or "ownership" of contributions. I cannot imagine any purported act of plagiarism on Wikipedia which would not first fall under the copyright policies and/or the verifiability policies, making "plagiarism" a redundant and ill-fitting concept in our context. —Bill Price (nyb) 01:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Sidebar comment on project standards undercurrent here

As before, I am NOT NOT commenting on the main questions, but do take issue with an undercurrent of several of the discussions which is that project guidelines are "rules" which should generally be considered to be rules and followed. While I would generally consider them to be good and valued input and guidance to be taken into consideration to help improve the article, IMHO that's about it. Maybe I'm jaded because the one case where I really got involved with one of them I think that they were ham-handed and worked to the detriment of the article. North8000 (talk) 18:01, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

In the specific situation (Interstate 376), the article doesn't live up to the guidelines set forth in the project standards. It also does not live up to the GA criteria, in part, because it does not include information suggested in the standards, leaving a coverage gap in the information. Part of I-376 is a toll road, but the article on it doesn't have a section on how the tolls are collected or assessed. Surely, tolls on a toll road is a "major aspect" of the subject, and something a reader would expect to find in a Good Article about that toll road? Imzadi 1979 → 18:06, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No argument that an article must meet GA criteria to become a GA. Actually, I read your entire excellent excellent user page summary. and had only one a minor quibble with one sentence in it, which is where you implied that one must invoke wp:iar in order to not follow a project guideline. North8000 (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

The WP:IAR reference isn't to project guidelines. There are always going to be exceptions to rules, which is why we have that "rule" and common sense to negotiate how to deal with the exceptions. Imzadi 1979 → 23:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that the problem with I-376 was the way that the other editors express their views which came across as very confrontational to both the nominator and the reviewer. As a factual matter, the reviewer did not find that the article currently met the GA criteria. That is why the article was placed "on hold." But threatening to go to GAR before the review process really got very far just leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth. The review asked for more of a treatment of the toll aspect. The basic point is that even a chemist has enough common sense to figure that out and that no expertise is required. If there are points that require WikiProject-specific expertise, they can be addressed at the A-Class stage. Of course, any editor is free to add material to any article at any time (either before or after the GA review.) But we need to end the impression that one must cow-tow to specific USRD deities in order to get a GA. GA review is a community-wide process implemented by a single pool of volunteer reviewers, and there is a benefit for subject-matter experts to have to explain their articles to complete strangers who bring a fresh pair of eyes. Racepacket (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, you've indicated repeatedly that you only understand confrontation on this subject matter. Those of us that commented on I-376 did so in a friendly manner on the article's talk page before a GAN review was started in hopes that the nominator would withdraw the nomination until the issues were rectified. Why? Because the article fails to meet the GA criteria. Your actions by dominating the reviewer pool of USRD articles has set yourself up as the gatekeeper for GA status on roads articles. In one 2-month period, I had 8 articles nominated at GAN, of which you did 4 reviews. You've been asked to disengage, yet you refuse. Your inability to disengage is a major reason this RfC/U was opened. Imzadi 1979 → 22:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Proposals for resolution

• Imzadi and Rschen (and others?) have proposed that Racepacket stop reviewing articles about US roads or Netball for the next year. Racepacket has refused to directly accept or reject this proposal so far.
• Racepacket has proposed that he stop reviewing articles nominated by Imzadi1979, Dough4872, Rschen7754, and Mitchazenia. No one has directly accepted or rejected this proposal.

I assume that Racepacket's proposal is intended in the spirit of a counteroffer. Whether or not it is, I think it would be helpful if somebody would directly respond to the offer that has been made to him or her. If everyone keeps ignoring the offers that were made to them, while demanding that the other guy respond to theirs, we're never going to get anywhere. If you can live with what you've been offered, then we could be done already. If it's not good enough, then we actually need to know that.

As there are more people on the "WikiProject's side", perhaps one or more of you would do us all the favor of giving a plain answer, either way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I've rejected Racepacket's proposal twice now, I guess I'll reject it again. There are too many road editors who have had problems with Racepacket's reviews. It's easier to cordon off the whole project instead of a list of 8 editors. --Rschen7754 22:57, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I've already made a detailed, 7-point proposal above to resolve this. I'm waiting on an answer. I have already rejected the "counterproposal" as there are other issues left unaddressed by it. Imzadi 1979 → 22:59, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, Racepacket, you've got a pretty clear answer here: They can't live with your proposal. Can you live with theirs? If you can, then we could all get back to doing useful work soon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to have to post here again, but I said you can review mine as you wish twice.Mitch32^{(20 Years of Life: Wikipedia 5:33)} 02:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I am sorry that I misread your response. Including you in the package or excluding you is up to you. I also offered not to renominate VA 27 for GA as a part of my package. Racepacket (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: [10] is your answer. --Rschen7754 04:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, Rschen7754, what possible issue could you have with the way that the review in Talk:Maryland Route 16/GA1 is being conducted? If I have made a mistake in the review, let me know, because I am open to correction. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is not the 50% of USRD reviews you did well, it's the 50% that were unpleasant. But even at that, how is Maryland Route 16 "far from GA standards"? You've only brought up a few minor issues. --Rschen7754 05:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

@Racepacket: Honestly, if you fixed VA 27 up per the reviews that we gave you and nominated it for GA, we wouldn't care. Of course, that's only if you want to. The sticking issue is your insisting on reviewing USRD articles as the "crusader" who will save GA from the "monster" of "inbred reviewing". --Rschen7754 04:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is more than just who conduct the GA reviews, the problem extends to the idea that a WikiProject can impose a prerequesite to nominating an article for GA,[11] [12] that a Wikiproject could adopt a policy against WP:SPLITing off a history daughter article,[13] [14] and that every highway that has a number must be per se notable,[15] and alleged "overquoting.'[16] What are you offering on those fronts? Perhaps we can put together a package.

You're distracting the issue. The question is, are you willing to stop reviewing GANs related to U.S. roads and netball? Why do you refuse to disengage? --Rschen7754 05:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I understand the "climate inhibiting GA nominations" argument, but folks active in WikiProject Virginia have stopped nominating road articles for GA, and the climate has not been welcoming. From what I have seen with VA 27, I understand their viewpoint. I woiuld like to see the three proponents of the RFC/U put together a comprehensive package. (If this page is too formal, maybe we should follow Barack Obama solution and hold a "beer summit.") Racepacket (talk) 05:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Where's your proof to back this up? The only Virginia article to be submitted to GAN before yours was back in 2007. It passed with flying colors. I didn't start interacting with Imzadi1979 until early 2008. Heck, I was busy with a whole different set of RFCs and arbitration then. PCB didn't start editing until December 2007. We had a whole different crop of editors back then.

To be honest, I think you're just grasping at straws and trying to come up with anything that sounds plausible.

Here's the problems with your set of "proposals". In order for you to stop reviewing all U.S. road and netball articles, you want the "main aspects" criterion removed from the GA criteria, the 6 years of precedent regarding state highway notability to be reversed, and for the Wikipedia guidelines on overquoting to be reversed. --Rschen7754 05:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

There's a 7-point plan on the table already above. As for your most recent charges:

1. There was no "prerequisite" for the GA nomination. There was, however, friendly suggestions that certain issues be fixed before the nomination went forward, as failure to fix them was a failure to meet the basic GA Criteria.
2. There is no "policy" against splitting articles, just a clarification that the preference of the WikiProject is not to do so. That doesn't mean it can't happen, but that it is not a preferred outcome when there are other options.
3. Overquoting is an issue in any article. That's not a USRD issue, but a matter of good writing style.

The "package on the table: includes:

1. A sincere, personal apology to LauraHale that demonstrates knowledge of why you were wrong to attempt to seek real-world, personal consequences against her with the group you thought employed her in some fashion.
2. That you make note of 5 principles for future reference.
3. That you disengage from two subject areas.

That is the package currently on the table awaiting an answer. Imzadi 1979 → 08:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I frankly think forcing someone to apologise is pointless, forcing someone to apologise automatically makes it non-genuine and thus it doesn't achieve anything. I think Racepacket understanding that sticks really do need to be dropped sometimes and an interaction ban would go a hell of a long way to solving this dispute. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:28, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

One might question the sincerity of such an apology, but there are other considerations: It shows, for example, that the people pushing for the apology take the matter seriously, and that the community does notice poor behavior and is capable of punishing transgressions.

It also gives the person an opportunity to express the truth. I believe, for example, that Racepacket is not proud of having screwed up so badly as to misidentify Laura's employer. I suspect that he is not proud of posting a public message rather than a private one. I suspect that he could write a quite genuine expression of regret for publicly embarrassing himself and Laura this way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

If that is the case then RacePacket will do it on his own, but he should be allowed to do so in his own time. Apologising to someone when you've really screwed up is really difficult. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I fully endorse Imzadi1979's proposal. --Rschen7754 18:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with Imzadi1979's solution proposal. Racepacket needs to stay away from roads and Netball articles at the GAN venue as his conduct on some, but not all, of those reviews has been disruptive. He has reviewed three of my articles and while those reviews went along fine, others such as US 223 have caused major problems. In addition, I strongly agree with the point that editors can nominate articles about less important parts of the topic and should not be questioned for their choice in article work. I also agree with the point that project standards, while not as official as Wikipedia standards, are influential in articles. Taking I-376 as an example, not having a section discussing the tolls fails criteria 3 of the GA criteria as a toll road article that is broad in its coverage should discuss the tolls that are collected on the road. Dough4872 19:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

What specifically did you find wanting from my handling of the tolls in my review of Interstate 376? As I understand it, I'm saying that a GA review would check that article for NPOV, stability, sources, prose and addressing the "main aspects" of the topic. It means that I cannot fail an article for not having an infobox or not having mileposts in the junction list. I am just following the instructions that have been set by WikiProject Good Articles. If they change the criteria, I will gladly follow the new criteria. But until there is a community-wide consensus to do something different, I think that my comments on I-376 followed the policy accurately. Please tell me if I misapplied the current criteria in that review. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 00:03, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

You're getting off topic. What is your response to our proposal? --Rschen7754 00:21, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Close paraphrasing, plagiarism, copyright problems & the best interests of the project

I am not speaking to most of this, but I feel I need to say something about the close paraphrasing/plagiarism issue. Not whether it has occurred, but simply the larger issue of the way we handle these concerns. This may not be the best place for a "meta" discussion of this nature, but it has been raised often enough in conjunction with this RfC that I think it's worth bringing up.

Background to this case; optional, since it's really the meta issue

It seems that the core of the issue as related to this RfC comes in with this comment, where Racepacket says, "Need to assure that there are no close paraphrase problems, particularly in the position descriptions." The conversation already seems very tense at that point, but it seems to be that which inspired this response: "Imposing on editors to insure no plagiarism is taking place. That's the job of the reviewer to verify this." This inspired some conversation about how verification should occur ([17], [18]) and then some challenge over whether Racepacket should be the onbe looking for the issue at all ([19], [20]). It was also evidently perceived as "unsubstantiated allegations of plagiarism" (perhaps in conjunction with his fear that content was too closely paraphrased here). Racepacket asked here if copyright review had already been completed by another reviewer and received affirmative reply, and this was followed here with this: Beyond that, if Racepacket wants to accuse me of plagiarism or even ellude to the fact that he thinks I've plagiarised in the article, he needs to cite the text that he alleges that is plagiarised and cite the reference that he belives is plagiarised. That is an incredibly serious accusation to make. Beyond that, if there are accusations of plagiarism and copyright violations where I am found guilty of having done this, it needs to be addressed and appropiate action taken against me for that. In either case, I've verified that I have done this. I consider a demand for me to provide sources an operation of bad faith. The job of the Good ARticle Reviewer is not to engage in this type of nitpicking. What's he doing is more for a featured article. I'd like a retraction from Racepacket regarding any alleged possibility of plagiarism UNLESS HE CAN PROVE IT.

I spend most of my time on Wikipedia analyzing copyright complaints. Sometimes I agree that they are substantial; sometimes I do not. But I think what's important to remember is that our focus here is on what's best for Wikipedia. We need to make sure that articles are free of copyright concerns, whether that is direct duplication or close paraphrasing. In a recent situation where a highly respected and highly regarded Wikipedian left the project after close paraphrasing and duplication of content was discovered in multiple articles (including at least one GA), fingers were pointed at reviewers of his articles who did not flag the problem. At that point, there was a wide call for reviewers to pay closer attention to these issues. If we are to address the widespread problem of copyright concerns on Wikipedia, we need to be able to discuss issues maturely and rationally. The focus must be on the shared goal of producing free content. To aid in that, it's helpful to recognize some of the challenges in conversation.

First among them are points of confusion between "copyright" and "plagiarism", as well as the moral dimensions of both. "Copyright infringement" is a legal term; for that reason, it has a firm definition. "Plagiarism" does not. Our guideline used to specifically note this ([21]), but for various reasons it was removed. In some areas, plagiarism is always a moral issue because inadvertent plagiarism is by definition not possible; people who are used to this community standard are understandably distressed if they feel their good faith work is being improperly described. But such challenges are not automatically a challenge to that good faith (WP:AGFC).

Beyond that, "close paraphrasing" is not always a plagiarism concern; sometimes it is simply a concern under copyright policies. Content can be fully and perfectly attributed, but still follow too closely on the source to meet our mandate to write content from scratch (except for brief excerpts). Fair use is not established by attribution.([22]) The distinction is important particularly given the moral dimension some (but not all) ascribe to plagiarism.

In terms of determining whether content is problematic or not, good faith disagreements will inevitably arise over whether content constitutes a problem, but they should not disrupt our progress towards the goal of producing a free content encyclopedia as long as people maintain their focus on that goal. When questions are raised, it's best to evaluate them calmly and resolve them. If the questioner is wrong, an explanation of why may help improve their future focus on issues (and properly done will not leave them too scared to raise issues that actually do exist). If the questioner is right, an explanation may help prevent future problems from the person who placed the content. Either way, as long as done in good faith and conducted in the same manner, the inquiry has value.

I feel some responsibility for the state this particular conversation research reached. Racepacket came to my talk page at the start of this here to ask my assistance in review, but I did not wish to review it myself and dropped the ball in finding somebody to help out. I also evidently overlooked his last note to me. (I trust that those who know my work won't regard his note to me on this matter as canvassing. I have reviewed issues raised by Racepacket and about Racepacket; I am neutrally focused on maintaining copyright standards.) I don't know if there are significant close paraphrasing concerns in any of this content, but perhaps at least I might have helped settle some of the heat around the issue and keep the inquiry focused on the goal. If so, I apologize to both parties that I failed to come through. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 14:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The pendulum has swung too far in both directions. True, we have had articles that make it to the front page that were plagiarized, despite the best efforts of multiple reviewers to prevent it. However, the opposite is also true. There are a subset of editors that throw plagiarism accusations wildly, with no or dubious proof. Given that for those who work in certain fields, even the accusation of plagiarism can be a career death sentence, both practices need to stop. In many ways the accusation of plagiarism has become to wikipedia's RfA, GAC, RFC/U, ANI and FAC processes what abuse accusations have become to divorce proceedings. In both cases it's an accusation that may or may not be true, difficult to prove guilt, impossible to prove innocence, sometimes true sometimes not, but always an effective weapon to gain sympathy with a jury. Dave (talk) 16:03, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

This may be true, and certainly the term "plagiarism" is often used inappropriately when meant to refer to problems under copyright policy, but a general difference between concerns of this sort and concerns of abuse in a domestic case is that evidence is easily obtainable, if problems do exist. Juries in domestic trials are often limited to who makes the best witness, while the production of the source text will usually settle such concerns one way or another. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:35, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Plagiarism and copyright violations are serious; that is not in doubt. I agree with Dave though: tossing around the terms "wildly" is just as damaging as the actual "crime". If Racepacket had concerns over the possibility, they could have been expressed an order of magnitude more politely. Finetooth's comment:

Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

on the U.S. Route 113 peer review page is an example of what I consider acceptable. No direct accusation is made, just a polite request to check the writing with a note that it is an issue currently on Wikipedia's radar screen. The bigger issue, for me, is when Racepacket pursued the issue with the Wikimedia Foundation. He thought at the time he started that discussion there that LauraHale had a Foundation fellowship. The fact that she doesn't, in my opinion, is no defense for the attempt to "get her in trouble with her employer". Part of that initial report was based on the issues surrounding "close paraphrasing" and part on writing/grammar. The attempt to invite real-world consequences only compounded the tensions and drama on what could have been a simple, "I have concerns here, can we clear them up?" query. Imzadi 1979 → 16:42, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that that's a bigger issue. You and I seem to be in line on the meta issue, though. :) In terms of the situation at hand, it does seem that it started politely enough (as documented in my collapsed section) with a neutrally worded "Need to assure that there are no close paraphrase problems, particularly in the position descriptions." From there, perhaps because the situation was already tense, matters seem to have escalated quite rapidly. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Moonriddengirl for your comments. Once again let me remind everyone, that I have never "accused LauraHale of plagiarism" and have never tried to tie the close paraphrasing that I found in the article to any one particular editor. The secondary problem arose because Hawkeye7 told me that she was a WMF fellow and that she told me that "her supervisor" was giving advice that I knew to be incorrect. It is logical to trace back that bad advice to the person within WMF responsible for it. When she later clarified that the advice came from someone outside Wikipedia and that it was not intended to address the unique Wikipedia standards, I dropped the matter. Again, Wikipedia wants content that is freely reusable. One way to avoid copyright infringement is to break text into small parts and rearrange the order of the parts. However, Wikipedia wants content that anyone can safely reuse and recombine. So our content has to be written in a way that if the person who reuses will not be infringing any copyright even if they break it apart and recombine it. That is a much higher standard than US copyright law, and the advice from the unnamed "supervisor" about permissible copying of the game rules was incorrect. Despite all of that, we have kept the controversy within the Wikimedia family. Racepacket (talk) 19:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

So long as you define "within the Wikimedia family" as "anybody with access to a web search engine", then that last sentence might be true. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I never said that she was a WMF fellow. That was a misunderstanding on your part. And taking it to WMF was unacceptable behaviour. Why would anyone want to contribute to Wikipedia if it invites real world consequences? Furthermore, you had absolutely no valid concerns whatsoever. (The sources telling you things you do not want to hear does not count as valid concerns.) And your interpretation of the copyright infringement rules as requiring a higher standard than copyright is utter crap. There is no such requirement. And certainly no requirement to take the matter up with someone's academic supervisor. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:28, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Hawkeye, your tone here is inappropriate, especially for an administrator. Please control your emotions. —Bill Price (nyb) 22:01, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that our copyright rules require a higher standard than copyright laws is long encoded in our policies. For instance, we require quotation marks or other formal denotation when copying content from non-free sources, and, in accordance with WP:C, we respect the copyright of nations with which the US (which governs us) has no formal copyright arrangement. With respect to images, WP:NFC explicitly says, "The use of non-free images on Wikipedia must fall within purposely stricter standards than defined by copyright law as defined by our non-free content criteria as described below." When infringement requires a court determination, we tend not to push boundaries. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 20:59, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

You are quite right. I meant this peculiar interpretation, especially the requirement to inform academic supervisors of alleged transgressions of Wikipedia's rules. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:43, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Thank you for your comments Hawkeye7. I was referring to the comment that you said she "was commissioned to write about the Wikipedia and decided to create a featured article as part of the exercise." She created the misimpression that her "supervisor" had said that it met Wikipedia policies. At the point that I posted my message, I believe that it was a fair summary of the problem. Again, our foundation has an open door policy and all its volunteers and financial donors are encouraged to resolve misunderstandings or track down the source of misinformation if it appears to be coming from Foundation staff. I was quickly corrected that LauraHale is neither a WMF fellow nor a WMF grant recipient and that no WMF staff had advised her that it was close paraphrasing was acceptable. I dropped it at that point and did not attempt to contact her real "academic supervisor", her employer (i.e., the Australia National Chapter), or the dispute resolution mechanisms of her university. I understand that you have been misinformed as to what had happened. Let us stick to the actual facts, and not stir up the controversy all over again. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Moonriddengirl, here and above. I would also add that there is no original research on Wikipedia, so no editor can possibly be trying to pass off the ideas of others as their own, as that is contrary to what we do. Consequently, the moral issues surrounding plagiarism are considerably less pertinent on Wikipedia than they are in academia, say. Ideally, we should be able to discuss issues related to plagiarism calmly, without pointing fingers and without getting upset: the focus should be on improving articles, ensuring our content is freely reusable (no copyvios etc.) and thus improving Wikipedia. This much tends to support Racepacket's position.

We do not live in an ideal world, however, and so contentious issues need to be discussed with sensitivity. That isn't always easy, and everyone will get it wrong sometimes. The core of this RfC and related discussion is that Racepacket gets it wrong quite a lot. He got it very seriously wrong in contacting WMF about Laura Hale, even though (I believe) his intentions were not malicious.

Because we are human and we all get it wrong sometimes, some tolerance is essential on Wikipedia. Consequently, in my view, where Racepacket has failed most substantially is not in his mistakes, but in his failure to fix them, make amends, and learn from them. He has proven articulate in drawing attention to the shortcomings of others, of Wikipedia processes and rules, but seems unable or unwilling to look in the mirror. I gave him the opportunity on my talk page, but his response was as disappointing as his response above that he was trying to get Laura Hale's supposed RL supervisor to give better advice to her: such harassment should be retracted. Geometry guy 21:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket at AN

Someone has proposed a community ban (entire English Wikipedia) for Racepacket at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Site_ban_proposed_for_User:Racepacket. People interested in this RFC/U may be interested in that discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Apparently, the AN discussion was closed. Racepacket (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Nature of GA reviews

One point on which I would appreciate feedback is my understanding of the GA review process and whether I am misunderstanding it. I sent out my thoughts in my "Response" on the project page. It seems that I have hit a sore nerve on at least two occassions.

1) Talk:M-6 (Michigan highway)/GA1 involved a highway that travels through the largest and most complicated interchange in western Michigan. A problem with reviewing road articles is that they reach the border of Original Research. The route descriptions are written by reading from maps, the history sections are based on a comparison between different old maps, and the color codes on the junction tables are based on conclusions on whether cars from each direction can leave an interchange in every other direction. For M-6, the table coded the complicated interchange as "incomplete" and the map looked like a spaghetti bowl with dozens of bridges and ramps. After trying to trace traffic from each direction, I concluded that the interchange was "complete" and questioned the color code assignment. User:Fredddie explained why I had misread the map and I crossed out my remark. However, I deeply offended the nominator Imzadi1979. If there was a cited source that literally said "this interchange is incomplete" these verification problems would be simple.

2) Talk:Netball/GA1 I asked for help from the active editors in accessing materials that were not otherwise available to me. In this case, there were references to New Zealand medical journals. The nominator responded, "Go to your library or bookstore and get the books cited." What is the proper protocol when one or more sources are so obscure that they are very difficult to access?

Another issue is the degree of specificity in reviews. I thought that if a reviewer found "words to watch" problems, they should point out one or two examples, and leave it to the nominators to fix them all. Is the reviewer supposed to list every instance of a problem or just give constructive examples?

Your feedback on this issue would be very valuable to me. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 16:34, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Issue 1 is a common problem. The simple fact is, even sources that would be reliable for most issues are not usable for road articles, or are usable only in specific contexts. For example, how many times has a respected newspaper, such as the LA Times or New York Times, written an entire article about U.S. Route 101, where the entire article incorrectly referred to the route as Interstate 101 or California Route 101 (which don't exist) or "The 101" (which there are hundreds of highways that could be legitimately called "The 101"). Also, there are entire websites dedicated to the most ridiculous errors in Google Maps, and similar. Those are cliche examples, but they get the point across. For certain details about road articles, the only trustworthy sources are government logs. (the National Bridge Inventory, various state codes, AASHTO logs, and DOT publications come to mind) All of these have one thing in common, they are cryptic logs and maps that must be interpreted by the reader. The US Roads project has faced this challenge at many venues, however this RFC/U and my RfA are the only two venues I'm aware of where it got "ugly". I don't have an easy answer, because this situation isn't going away, but usually when members of the USRD project have explained why we resort to using the cryptic NBI logs, or similar, the issue goes away, until the next FAC is nominated. =-) Dave (talk) 16:51, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I was not "offended" in that review. I was merely "annoyed", and it was only one of a series of reviews where such "annoyances" happened. As I've tried to explain before but I will again using a different metaphor, a single annoyance is like a single bug bite. You scratch it and move on. When you get a series of bug bites though, you start wondering if there is an issue with the environment and deal with the situation. Had M-6's review been in relative isolation, we wouldn't be here right now. But add to it annoyances from M-152, M-66, M-20 and US 223, and there's a serial situation. That is all. Imzadi 1979 → 17:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts:

1. Sometimes we have to work with less than ideal sources, but maps aren't necessarily in that category. Information is no less verifiable for being presented visually rather than in words.
2. If you need help getting at sources, then you can ask for help—and not just from the editors at the article. You can ask at the WP:LIBRARY, at any relevant WikiProject, or by directly contacting people who self-identify themselves as being in or from a relevant country, speaking a certain language, or having better than average access to sources.
   Another option is to see whether you can verify the information rather than the contents of the named source. For example, if someone has cited J. Obscuris for a basic fact, then see whether that basic fact is verifiable to some reliable source, rather than the particular reliable source named in the article. This will tell you whether it is verifiable (at all). If it is, then I think it safe enough to rely on the editors' assertion that the named source also contains the material (assuming that they say they have access to the source; occasionally, no one does—in which case, I suggest replacing it with your newly found reliable source).
3. On WTW and similar issues: My approach is to fix small things myself, naming any relevant points in the edit summary or occasionally on the talk page. My two reasons for this are (a) that it is faster to change "alleged" to "said" than to type "In the section ==Foo==, you shouldn't be using the word 'alleged' because of the concerns explained at WP:Words to watch" on the talk page and (b) it shows a collaborative and helpful approach, rather than limiting me to fault-finding. If the problems are extensive enough to make it faster to explain than to fix, then I usually explain. If there are problems beyond the specific example I name, then I tell editors directly that there are more problems: "This is just one example of several similar problems; you'll want to read all of WP:WTW." People will be upset if you blame them for problems you failed to inform them about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

1) I agree, and put in the time to verify the statements with the maps. 2) Your response is helpful. 3) Your response is helpful, but assumes that the reviewer can edit article space. 4) Which you did not address is the belief out there that if a nominator makes each of the changes noted in the prior GA review, he/she is entitled to an automatic pass on the renominated GA review. For example, a high school student wrote a very bad biography, and the first reviewer wrote a short review failing it. The student made the specific changes discussed and renominated it, even though it was still a terrible article. Two more very long GA reviews were needed to get the article into good shape. As one nominator recently wrote, "Your primary task is to review Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles and come up with a workable list of suggestions that comply with the guidelines on reviewing a good article." Unfortunately, there is a difference between a constructive critique and an exhaustive list of items needing to be fixed. Racepacket (talk) 22:08, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Idea from the peanut gallery

OK, I still don't know/understand this situation very well, but I read the initial presentation and went to most of the diffs in it. Although in general the diffs seem to be milder than the characterization of them in the initial "complaint", I'm guessing that sometimes Racepacket wasn't nice enough to people, and "sometimes" is too often. Don't know if that was a 2 way street or a one way street. Also don't know if there is/was a turf war regarding the project asserting control over articles. I think that there should a "finding", that it is not per se misconduct for someone to not enforce or not follow a project guideline. Take them as good, helpful guidance, and, if another criteria says the same thing (e.g. a GA criteria for GA status) then that IS in force.

But sometimes despite my dumbness I still come up with good ideas. Here's my try:

• Instead of working out some type of a detailed cease fire, let's fundamentally transform the situation were everybody starts having fun with and enjoy working with instead of pain working with their fellow editors. Life's too short to do otherwise.

• Unless it involves something really friendly to say, for a few weeks everybody disengage from everybody that they have recently clashed with. Racepacket start being nice to everybody all of the time, even if/when disagreeing with them. If you've been mean to someone, even if accidental, go apologize to them. And if the not-niceness went in the reverse direction somewhere, that other person should do the same. I've apologized in WP many times, usually when I said said something that got sincerely misinterpreted the wrong way, which I usually ascribe to me not writing it well enough or writing it too fast. And I've viewed everyone that I butted heads with as a future friendship/ future friend, even if they don't know it yet, and even if I continue to disagree with them. Take a few week breather from road articles, and after then ramp up by just doing a few and start by asking the person(s) if they would like you to review their road article.

• Freeze (rather than close) this RFC to see how this all goes.

Well, there's my idea from the peanut gallery

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:39, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see how any of that will solve the situation. Imzadi 1979 → 23:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

This really seems like a "everyone go home and be happy!!!!!!!!" comment. While the sentiment is much appreciated, the issue is quite more complex. --Rschen 7754 23:24, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It's more like "everybody who hasn't been treating other people well, start doing so." I'm no simpleton/Polyanna; I'm quite capable of all of that other stuff.  :-) North8000 (talk) 00:19, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I am willing to give North8000's suggestion a try. If the purpose of starting an RFC/U is to help each side see the views of the other side, I think that we have done that. Racepacket (talk) 23:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of starting a RFC/U is to resolve the problem, too. Speaking of which, you have our proposal to respond to. --Rschen7754 23:48, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

If it works, it's solved, if it doesn't, it isn't.  :-) North8000 (talk) 00:19, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Outside view by Sable232

While I often work on articles within the USRD scope I am not very active as far as wide-ranging discussions on standards or the like are concerned. I don't recall any prior encounters with Racepacket (although I have seen him around) and I have never nominated an article for GA.

That said, looking through the dispute it seems pretty clear to me from the POINT-y edits that Racepacket is harboring some sort of grudge against USRD and/or a few of its editors and from what I can see it stems (at least partially) from USRD having set standards for article format and Racepacket disagreeing with those standards. I am not prepared to comment on the merits of them, however, it seems pretty clear that at minimum, Racepacket should voluntarily disengage from USRD and refrain from reviewing articles related to such, and perhaps even refrain from editing articles under its scope for a time.

However, that being said, I do take exception to some of the evidence presented. Under #Questioning the choice of articles nominated for GAN, three diffs are said to be "attacks" when I see nothing of the sort in those three instances. (There are a couple others elsewhere that could be attacks, I am not discounting those.) As for his advice to an editor to work on more significant roads rather than very short ones, I don't feel the suggestion itself was out of line; however, the GA review itself is not the proper place for that in my opinion. --Sable232 (talk) 20:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. Please let me reassure you that I do not "Harbor a grudge against USRD", I think that Wikipedia should cover roads and that at some point (perhaps the A-Class assessment) USRD can insist upon having highway markers in the junction table and so on. I think that the GA review process is community-wide and should be limited to just the GA criteria. I have nominated a number of articles for GA review, such as History of Maryland Route 200 which are not strictly "road articles" but have drawn harsh reviews as well. Finally, looking back at it, I should have left the note to Dan about working on very short roads on his talk page without leaving the message on the GA review page. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 23:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

USRD standards v. GA criteria

I feel like there has been some misunderstanding among the more vocal people on this RFC, so I'll come right out and ask. Racepacket, do you feel like we WP:USRD editors feel our standards usurp or should usurp the GA criteria?

A significant number of our articles follow this formula:

1. Describe the route (scenery, what streets it takes through towns, etc.)
2. Talk about how the route has changed over the years (reroutings, shifted termini, etc.)
3. List all the junctions with other routes
4. Add some photos (not required, rightly noted by Rschen7754)
5. Make sure the whole thing is properly cited

If you follow that formula, you would get what we would call a B-class article. At that point, if you scrutinize it against the GA criteria, odds are it will pass with only minor fixes required. It's not a guarantee that it will always meet the GA criteria, but most of the time it will.

Now, I do think some of us have forgotten that USRD standards did not come down from upon high; they don't override the GA criteria and never have. But I also think that no USRD editor should ever take an article to GAN if it wasn't up to the project standards. –Fredddie™ 03:51, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Noting that images are not a criteria for GA, and USRD articles are rarely failed on this basis. If they are, that error is quickly pointed out to the reviewer. --Rschen7754 08:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Fredddie asked me to respond to his question here. I don't think that "usurp" is a good word for the situation. I think that the GA criteria are different that the USRD/STD standards and serve a different purpose. Both have a different function just like notability and the GA criteria are different and have a different function. To be specific, the GA criteria do not require an infobox. I think that many infoboxes have been developed and infoboxes promote uniformity and help the users, but I am not allowed to tell a GA nominee that he must have an infobox to pass GA. Every article must meet the notability test, but that is not something to raise during a GA review. (Both of these examples, have been discussed at WikiProject Good Articles and are not my personal belief, but I follow them.) Now, I understand that USRD/STD wants milepost readings in the junction table. I do not feel that I am allowed to require that in a GA review, and I can't fail an article if the milepost readings are missing. I will do whatever the GA criteria set by WikiProject Good Articles tell me to do, but until there is a different community-wide consensus, I think that those USRD/STD requirements should be applied at the A-Class assessments. If an editor finds a road article that has passed GA review with missing milepost readings, he should leave the article assessment template alone and either 1) add the missing milepost readings himself or 2) wait for the A-Class nomination and ask the nominator to fix it.

The GA criteria requires "main aspects" to be included in the article. Rschen believes that this excludes traffic density data, while Imzadi required it of me in VA 27. I believe that traffic density data is optional. I believe that future plans and other newsworthy events ("Governor convicted of bribing the contractor who built State Route 12") are main aspects. I believe that stability and checking for copyright or close paraphrasing is part of the GA criteria checklist. So, I think that what is required is the mental discipline to check the article against the GA criteria rather than one's personal beliefs as to what would be a "good" article.

I have found that most nominators come to GA with the good faith belief that the article meets the GA criteria. The review process has to be an open-minded testing of that belief. The nominator may be the subject matter "expert" on the topic and knows more facts than the reviewer. But the reviewer has to explore and question whether the nominator was reasonable in spotting the "main aspects." Because no two people will think exactly the same way, the "main aspects" test is very subjective. I don't read USRD/STD or the GA Criteria as being mutually exclusive, and both give enough leeway so that they are compatible. (Look at the quotes I included in my reply on the project page.)

Ultimately, it is a sense of "control." The GA process is controlled by WikiProject Good Articles and USRD/STD is controlled by WikiProject USRD. If both groups act in good faith there is no need for conflict. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 23:00, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

{ec) As I commented in a section that's been split from this one, the project standards have been tested by the community through three dozen FACs. Where the standards have been lacking, they've been updated. As an example, after one FAC, the {{infobox road}} was updated to allow for a caption under the map. Other similar changes have been made over the years in response to the greater community. The standards don't override other guidelines, rules or policies; they do however provide insight, best practices. The persuade where they don't control. Imzadi 1979 → 23:04, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Right.... But GA articles also don't require scrutinizing the footnotes, nor requesting that an editor provide their offline citations; that is a featured article criteria (and only the first half, at that). So on one hand, you are going far beyond any standard to scrutinize sourcing, yet trying to argue against a wikiproject (which includes FAR more members than those involved here) that is stating to you "This is what we, as a group, have decided constitutes a "broad coverage" of the subject."

The WP:WIAGA rules are written to be applied to any article on the encyclopedia. They obviously don't include a line about mileposts being included when available. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 23:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Assume for a moment that there was no U.S. Road project or any coordination among editors who write about roads. Just by going off the GA criteria, what would a Good Article about a road look like? –Fredddie™ 23:20, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree with all of your comments above, but not the conclusion. I am assuming the nominator is acting in good faith. I read USRD/STDS and GA Criteria as being completely consistent. First, WP:USRD/STDS says "the Wikipedia Manual of Style applies to USRD articles, and its provisions should be followed in any cases that conflict with these standards" and "These standards are not set in stone, however, and can be ignored if warranted for a particular highway article." So, under the current GA rules, I am to just apply the GA criteria, and not the WP:USRD/STDS, because if the nominators/editors chose not to follow WP:USRD/STDS for some reason, it is not up to me to question or second-guess their reasons. To answer Fredddie, without a WikiProject, half the road articles would have the history first and half would have it last. But the "main aspects" would be in each article. If someone wanted to go through the encyclopedia and make all road articles consistent, that is fine, but I can't blackmail people into changing the order of paragraphs by withholding a "GA" rating if they refuse to rearrange the paragraphs. The GA criteria do not require anything more than a bunch of encyclopedia-wide rules. Again, if the criteria are changed to say that I should apply USRD/STDS, I will do so cheerfully. If you don't like the GA criteria, change them, but don't blame the reviewer. Because this involves far more people than are involved here, you have to change them at WikiProject Good Articles, and not in a RFC/U or a FAC or a AfD. Racepacket (talk) 00:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

This is a very poor example; nowhere do we mandate that a "Route description" must come before a "History". We even have a FA that has a "History" before a "Route description". True, most of the articles have the RD before the history, but there's quite a few that don't. --Rschen7754 00:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Good to see there is some common ground here. I am not advocating a change to the GA criteria, so I'm not sure where that came from. –Fredddie™ 00:24, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

No Racepacket. This involves a lone criterion of WIAGA, one which is based on the subject matter of the article at hand. Broad in coverage. You are essentially saying "I don't give a crap what the consensus on what constitutes broad coverage of this subject is, I'm going to apply my own and carry on." - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 00:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

USRD standards v. GNG

Splitting out because this section isn't about GA criteria –Fredddie™

As I read it, the premise of 5 of the complaints (examples) against Racepacket in this RFC is that USRD overrides wp:notability/wp:gng, and further that it was an "offense" by Racepacket to assert that wp:gng criteria still apply when USRD notability criteria have been met. North8000 (talk) 09:46, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

North, respectfully, you are mistaken on my opinions and viewpoint. There are six years of precedents that state that numbered state highways are generally kept. (WP:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Roads, WP:USRD/P). That isn't to say that consensus can't change, but I feel that it is unlikely to do so on this issue. As Fredddie details above, A vast majority of USRD articles follow a basic structural formula once they get out of the stub stage. That formula has been tested repeatedly (three dozen FAs, over 500 GAs) and it still holds up. The "offense" is not in disagreeing with the standards or the precedents: it is in launching a one-man attack by repeatedly tagging articles that meet the appropriate Wikipedia policies and guidelines and the WikiProject standards to prove a WP:POINT in opposition to consensus. It is also an "offense" to disregard appropriate and direct comments on how an article does fail to meet criteria simply because of the source of the commentary and the supporting evidence used to back the opinion. Imzadi 1979 → 13:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

My comments were much narrower than that, sorry if I did not make that clear enough. They were merely logical analysis of the complaints themselves (with respect to the subject of this section), not implying any comment on the overall behavior. "#1" under Maryland Route 200 alleges that a "Keep" vote giving a wp:gng rationale is misconduct because such runs against project standards. Logically, that is an assertion that the project standards override wp:gng. Similarly, #1 - #4 under "Dis-regard of project standards" assert that placing tags which are a challenge to produce a wp:gng rationale on articles which met the project standards is per se misconduct; again, my point is that such an assertion is in essence a claim that the project standards override wp:gng. I was just taking those literally, I am not knowledable on any other nuances. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

WP:GNG is only one way to test for a presumption of notability. Six years of precedents also say that being a numbered highway that is a part of a state's highway system is another presumption of notability. In fact, in reading the detailed break down of GNG, most of that is satisfied by the publication of maps showing the various components of a state's highway system. Remember that while USRD project members may have a personal preference for DOT maps (I have almost 90 years' worth of them scanned from the Library of Michigan) there are multitudes of other map makers that have produced essentially similar/identical projects. Rand McNally, Universal Map, H.M. Gousha are just a few samples of cartography companies over the last century.

All GNG asks for is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". It further defines:

• "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content.
• "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media, and in any language. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability
• "Sources", for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally expected. Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability.
• "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc.

Any number of road maps, on paper or online, "address the subject directly in detail", and "no original research is needed" to translate the visual expression of a road into text form. Unless someone is going to challenge the general editorial integrity of a DOT publishing a map of its roads for use by the driving public, or other companies who do the same, a road article sourced to only DOT maps meets the reliability part. A map is a "secondary source"; the primary source would be the raw GIS data or aerial photography used by a cartographer to produce the map. In fact, producing a map involves significant editorial judgement to determine which non-state-highway roads to show, what rivers and streams to show or not show, which lakes and ponds to include, etc. The only place where an article on a road fails to meet GNG is the "independence" factor if only DOT maps are used, but it would be trivial to change an article over to all Rand McNally maps. There, full and complete justification on why the precedents are supported by GNG. Imzadi 1979 → 18:37, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

So I think that what you are saying is that for the 4 of 5 "complaints" which I noted, (the 4 where Racepacket was questioning notability) that wp:gng was clearly met. I think that this would imply that Racepacket's challenge on those was just "being difficult" or harassing the article/it's people rather than a sincere questioning of wp:notability? This is different than what arises from reviewing the complaints literally. North8000 (talk) 22:10, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Taken in totality it is my experience and opinion that where we have had legitimate disagreements, and Racepacket has been on the side not borne out by consensus, he has struck out along other avenues. When I made the analogy that MD-200 and M-6 have similar back stories and other attributes, he tagged the M-6 article as having insufficient discussion of the controversies. That article has passed through FAC, and it was vetted with full and appropriate coverage of the controversy along the various review forums. Imzadi 1979 → 22:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

My views are consistent with with WP:USRD/NT, which states,

"The fact that the road has been adopted into a major network of highways is the result of a road's notability, not the cause. Well before the article is nominated for Good Article the article should explain what makes this road notable. Specifically, the article should answer the question, 'why was this road built in the first place?', and 'why are the taxpayers asked to keep spending money to keep the road maintained?' If the article does not answer the question of why does this road exist, that is grounds for deletion of the article."

It also suggests, "Highways that have very little to say about them (i.e. those that are extremely short and have no historical significance) are better suited to a list." I did a Google search and could not come up with sources and hence, my GNG concern. Imzadi1979's injection of MD-200 and M-6 into this discussion is not on point, because I my position is that MD 200, History of Maryland Route 200 and M-6 are all notable. (Imzadi1979 thought that History of MD 200 should be deleted.) Imzadi1979 and I also have different views regarding M-6 and Interstate 81 controversy in Syracuse, New York — I want to encourage and expand coverage of the environmental and socio-economic impacts of roads. An undergraduate is creating the I-81 article as his Public Policy Initiative class project. I want him to have some latitude to learn the ropes (just like Hawkeye7 and I want LauraHale to have some latitude to learn the ropes.) Imzadi1979 wants to merge the article into Interstate 81 in New York where most of the material will be deleted as giving undue weight to Syracuse. The important point is that although Imzadi1979 and I are two among many people who disagree on these points, we do so without acrimony and live with whatever result the AfDs decide. Racepacket (talk) 00:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket continue to conduct USRD GAN reviews

[23]. Under the circumstances when Racepacket is being asked to a) stop all GAN reviews for the duration of this RFC and b) stop USRD and netball reviews indefinitely, this is highly inappropriate. --Rschen7754 05:26, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I've got to agree there I'm afraid. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:56, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Common sense says that when one side has repeatedly expressed concerns over an editor refusing to disengage from a topic, and goes to the lengths of filing a RfC partially on that basis, that continuing to engage in that topic is contentious. Racepacket stated "I am being falsely accused of being prejudiced against articles covering very short highways and of somehow refusing to review them. What better way to demonstrate that the accusation is false that [sic to pleasantly review articles about very short highways without fuss or complaint about their length?"] Sorry, but he was never "accused" of refusing to review them or being prejudiced against them. He was shown questioning the choice of articles on which editors work. It's a minor difference, but given the other circumstances, he should not be continuing to review any US highway articles during the course of this RfC. Imzadi 1979 → 17:05, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

The time for endless discussion is over

There is a specific, detailed proposal on the table at the moment. It has the following seven points:

1. Racepacket needs to personally apologize to LauraHale. This apology needs to acknowledge that he has made accusations, overtly or not, that implied that she committed "academic dishonestly", "plagiarism" to "too close paraphrasing" that he could not support. The apology also needs to acknowledge the harm he caused by taking the matter over to meta, whether or not she is employed by or directly benefits from the Wikimedia Foundation. The net effect was still the same.
2. Racepacket should understand that while the majority of his reviews are good, and appreciated, that a disturbing minority of them are not. In the future, he should learn to walk away when interactions in a review get too heated. This could be as simple as stating, "Look, this discussion isn't getting either of us anywhere. How about we table this for a few days and come back with clear heads and re-evaluate it?" or even "Look, I'm going to withdraw here. Feel free to renominate this for another reviewer."
3. Racepacket should understand that nominators have the option to withdraw their nomination. After that point, he can continue to offer feedback, but the formal review process has ended. His participation is no longer required. He should respect the desire of the nominator to end the review.
4. Racepacket should acknowledge that if an article is renominated, even under a different title, it may not be beneficial to the community to pursue issues from the previous reviews he's given.
5. Racepacket should know that editors will work on the articles that interest them. Some articles may be perceived as "more important" and left alone, but ultimately, it is not his decision what articles editors edit or nominate.
6. Racepacket should understand that there is a fine balance between the standards a wikiproject sets and the review criteria the community as a whole has set. Wikiprojects deal in the specifics, and their opinions and standards should be reasonably accommodated where they don't explicitly conflict with review criteria. There will always be exceptions to various rules of all kinds, which is why we have WP:IAR, or even just plain common sense, to deal with those exceptions. Where the two ideas don't conflict and can be shown to enhance each other, both should be followed on a reasonable basis.
7. Finally, Racepacket should voluntarily abstain from working on articles in subject areas that have been the source of past conflicts. The other parties are willing to avoid him if he is willing to do the same. I suggest that this agreement from both sides be honored for one year. Additional subject matters beyond US highways and Netball/women's sports may be added should contentious review occur in the future. (Racepacket can voluntarily expand the first area to all highway and roadway articles if he wishes, however no similar articles outside of the US were the subject of the RfC/U although a WP:CRWP member has participated in the discussions.)

Racepacket has been repeatedly asked to either accept or reject it. He requested that the other filing parties to this RfC/U make a joint proposal. They have, by endorsing mine:

• I fully endorse Imzadi1979's proposal. --Rschen7754 18:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
• I also agree with Imzadi1979's solution proposal. Dough4872 19:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

LauraHale has indicated some of her desired outcomes. My proposed solution encompasses her desires by requesting the apology and acknowledgement that certain actions on Racepacket's part had undesirable impacts and by enforcing mutual disengagement. A few clarifications (indicated in bold above) have been added to my original proposal to accommodate Laura's plan and to clarify my original intent on one point (both IAR and common sense can be used to deal with exceptions to any kind of rule).

So I'm going to ask, point-blank: Racepacket, do you accept or reject this proposal? An answer would be appreciated. Imzadi 1979 → 14:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket has been asked to comment here. Imzadi 1979 → 14:08, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I still agree with Imzadi1979's proposal. Racepacket needs to stay away from subject areas where there has been major controversy. In addition, I agree that project standards are influential in the quality of articles and they should be considered when an article is at GAN. Dough4872 16:41, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Which isn't to say that project standards control the outcome of a reviewed nomination. Rather, they influence or persuade while they inform the specifics details of the review. Imzadi 1979 → 16:52, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Counter-offer

I have read all of the above comments and particularly appreciate the thoughtful response that I received to my request for feedback on my approach toward GA reviews. My take on all of the above is that there is a personality conflict between Rschen, Dough, and Imzadi1979 on the one hand and myself on the other. I am mindful that I have intimated that some editors have made the GA review process of road articles "too inbred", and in fairness Rschen has also argued that I have been GA reviewing more than a fair share of road articles. I also fully appreciate that Wikipedia is a volunteer organization and that peaceful operation has a value in such organizations. Wikidrama should be minimized and avoided if possible. I have my views on "who threw the first punch" or who is the aggressor and other people may have the opposite views, but it isn't worth the time to shift through all of the diffs to get to the start of any particular dispute. Therefore, rather than try to assess blame, we should focus on a workable plan to disengage. Such a plan should be symetrical to be fair to all the parties, and it should allow for a rebuilding of trust and respect between the parties. It should also recognize the Arbitration Committee's prior instruction about USRD citing to consensus:

All members of WikiProject U.S. Roads are advised that when asserting the existence of a prior consensus, it is necessary to refer to prior discussions or debates on Wikipedia where that consensus has been established.

Therefore, I would suggest the following elements, using the phrase "the parties" to refer to Racepacket, Rschen, Dough and Imzadi1979):

1) That until a different community-wide consensus is established by WikiProject Good Articles, all of the parties will apply only the GA Criteria when reviewing or commenting in GA reviews or reassessments.

2) That Racepacket will not perform or comment in GA reviews on articles nominated by Rschen, Dough, or Imzadi1979; and Rschen, Dough, and Imzadi1979 will not perform or comment in GA reviews on articles nominated by Racepacket.

3) Rschen, Dough, or Imzadi1979 will not comment in GA reviews being conducted by Racepacket, and Racepacket will not comment in GA reviews being conducted by Rschen, Dough, or Imzadi1979.

4) The Parties will not start any further GA reviews for the month of April, but may finish the ones that they have started.

5) The Parties may each review a maximum of four (4) road articles in the month of May.

6) The Parties may each review a maximum of eight (8) road articles in the month of June.

7) The Parties may each review a maximum of ten (10) road articles in the month of July.

8) The Parties shall be free to review as many road articles as they wish after July.

9) The Parties shall undertake to treat each other with consideration and mutual respect.

I think that this plan is workable, will diffuse the current tensions and will allow everyone to get back to the task of taking pride and pleasure in building a better encyclopedia. It will give us all a bit of breathing room and reduce any inadvertent "annoyance" experienced by any of the parties. I welcome comments from eveyone on the proposal. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

• Replying only for myself, I have to reject this proposal. It does not address any of the other issues that formed the basis of the RfC/U. Nor does this proposal address the desire to have total disengagement based on subject matter. Imzadi 1979 → 21:56, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
• This proposal is horribly flawed. #4-7 is way too legalistic. Furthermore, this does not address the concerns of the RFC, which specifically relate to Racepacket's behavior. --Rschen7754 21:58, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Precision of language avoids disagreements later about the agreement. Racepacket (talk) 22:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Another serious omission: what about the netball half of the dispute? --Rschen7754 22:09, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

LauraHale withdrew her Outside Views and no longer advocating anything here. Racepacket (talk) 22:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, after you tried to contact her employer and scared her away! --Rschen7754 22:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, it appears that to resolve this dispute, you are going to have to address the unfortunate problems you had with Laura, even if Laura isn't interested in talking to you about it any longer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

• Whether Laura Hale remains involved in this RfC or not, an outcome which does not include an apology to her is clearly unacceptable to the community. Geometry guy 22:41, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

If you can come up with a symetrical way to address this point, I am open minded. Racepacket (talk) 23:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

This is not arbitration. The best you can hope for is her agreeing that your intentions were not malicious. To achieve that *you* have to make the first move. Geometry guy 00:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not one of the parties (and am only affected insofar as the continued dispute impinges on GA pages). However, proposal #1 is flawed on its face; it says that none of the disputants here may "apply" site-wide advice like WP:BRD or comment on any issues not directly mentioned by the GA criteria, such as WP:External links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
  • It also disallows the reference to any form of essay, guideline or standard as advice that certain content in an article may be missing. It could also be read that asking for disambiguation link or external link repair, or any other useful cleanup that isn't directly required by the GA criteria, is not allowed in a GAN review while working through the article. While reviewing an article, issues that don't directly impact GA listing may be found, and it would be desirable to to comment on them at once, even if they are noted as not impacting the final decision. Imzadi 1979 → 22:48, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Item #1 is addressing the "mission creep" problem that several people have expressed here regarding "GA should not become FA." Any of the Parties can offer optional advice, e.g., "Although not required by GA criteria, please consider these MOS violations..." I assume that because the GA review page has built in the disamb. tool, we were supposed to check for disamb. links. I am willing to approach Item #1 on a symetrical basis with the other parties. Please read Talk:Interstate 376/GA1 and Talk:Interstate 376/GA2 to see what we want to avoid with Point #1. Racepacket (talk) 23:13, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I can guess what you meant; however, that's not what it actually says. What is says matters, because that's what people could refer back to in the future, when memories are fuzzier. If you expect people to agree to this (which it looks like they're not going to, but...), then you need the words to precisely reflect your meaning. These words do not appear to achieve that goal.

If I thought that this were the primary issue, I'd suggest re-drafting the item to say what you mean. However, I'm not sure that it would be worth it, because it appears that even if it were perfectly expressed, the "other side" would refuse to agree to this. If you are unwilling to accept their proposal, then perhaps you would consider the reactions to this one, and try writing another counteroffer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Hint: not symmetrical, because then it doesn't address the issues with Racepacket's behavior. --Rschen7754 23:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

To WhatamIdoing, I should not negotiate "against myself." I have made a good faith proposal, and it is now the turn of the RFC/U proponents to come forward with something. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 00:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Our offer remains the same. You haven't given us feedback. --Rschen7754 00:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, the issue isn't "negotiating against yourself"; it's "negotiating at all".

Your proposal has already been rejected. Imagine that it was on paper, and Rschen and Imzadi tore the paper up and threw it away. Your options are (a) to respond directly to their seven-point proposal or (b) to propose something else yourself. Pretending that your proposal here is somehow viable after it's been flatly and directly rejected isn't negotiating. It might be a stalling tactic or evidence of psychological denial, but it's not negotiating. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I have to reject this counter offer. I do not think certain USRD editors (i.e. me, Rschen, and Imzadi) should be excluded from commenting in GA reviews from Racepacket when all we are doing is to provide constructive criticism. In addition, I do not think we need quotas on reviewing GAs, with the exception of restricting Racepacket from reviewing GAs in areas where he has caused controversy. Dough4872 04:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, with all due respect, I think that you have the chronology a bit reversed. We have been alternating offers to try to reach agreement. "Tearing up the paper and throwing it away" may be a valid response, but it is not a complete response without a counteroffer to accompany it. Racepacket (talk) 17:41, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Netball/GA1

Racepacket has found it necessary to start a revert war over this page; the page has since been protected by an admin. --Rschen7754 23:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed. GA reviews are about the article, not the editors. I commend both Zero1328 and Courcelles for stepping in to prevent further escalation. Let us leave it there. Geometry guy 00:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I did not start a revert war. Again, please look carefully at the edit history. See also WP:TPNO. I took it to User talk:Zero1328#Review and left it there without looking back, so I would not know if it has been protected or not. Racepacket (talk) 00:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I am very familiar with the edit history Mr. Racepacket, and only one editor twice reverted to his preferred version of the review in recent days. GA reviews are not, primarily talk pages, but record why an article did or did not meet the GA criteria.

If you are concerned about reviews providing a "complete understanding" without the need to check the edit history, then in future, please do not make edits like this, which utterly confuse nominator and reviewer comments. Geometry guy 01:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, nobody can tell who said what with Talk:Virginia State Route 27/GA2. --Rschen7754 01:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Geometry guy raises an important exchange where I responded to LauraHale. To review what happened, I went through all of the talk page and review page comments and compiled a list of possibly open issues as well as suggested changes to the article. This was necessary because I was the third person to take a reviewing roll in Netball/GA1. I posted it under the heading "Worklist as of March 20" (In some cases, I posted my take on the issues, such as the fact that GA criteria do not require fixing all red links.) In response, LauraHale posted a section entitled "Worklist as of March 22 for Racepacket" - which was a list of questions or challenges posed to me. In effect, a demand for an explanation of why ten points were a part of the review process. I inserted an explanation of how I was responding and then typed a dash after each point, and then added a response like "criteria 1(b), 2(a) and 2(b)" So, I tied each concern back to the GA review. I then also left a fuller explanation of issue below the list. Again, if the nominator had put half the energy spent on attacking the reviewers into addressing the concerns about the article, the GA review would have been concluded well before March 22. However, I appreciate your criticism and in the future, I will make a two column table showing each concern and response to be clearer than the dash notation. Racepacket (talk) 17:55, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Rschen: in Talk:Virginia State Route 27/GA2, the comment before the dash is the reviewer, the response after the dash is the nominator. Racepacket (talk) 17:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Counter-counter proposal

1. Racepacket needs to personally apologize to LauraHale. This apology needs to acknowledge that he has made accusations, overtly or not, that implied that she committed "academic dishonestly", "plagiarism" to "too close paraphrasing" that he could not support. The apology also needs to acknowledge the harm he caused by taking the matter over to meta, whether or not she is employed by or directly benefits from the Wikimedia Foundation. The net effect was still the same.
2. Racepacket should understand that while the majority of his reviews are good, and appreciated, that a disturbing minority of them are not. In the future, he should learn to walk away when interactions in a review get too heated. This could be as simple as stating, "Look, this discussion isn't getting either of us anywhere. How about we table this for a few days and come back with clear heads and re-evaluate it?" or even "Look, I'm going to withdraw here. Feel free to renominate this for another reviewer."
3. Racepacket should understand that nominators have the option to withdraw their nomination. After that point, he can continue to offer feedback, but the formal review process has ended. His participation is no longer required. He should respect the desire of the nominator to end the review.
4. Racepacket should acknowledge that if an article is renominated, even under a different title, it may not be beneficial to the community to pursue issues from the previous reviews he's given.
5. Racepacket should know that editors will work on the articles that interest them. Some articles may be perceived as "more important" and left alone, but ultimately, it is not his decision what articles editors edit or nominate.
6. Racepacket should understand that there is a fine balance between the standards a wikiproject sets and the review criteria the community as a whole has set. Wikiprojects deal in the specifics, and their opinions and standards should be reasonably accommodated where they don't explicitly conflict with review criteria. There will always be exceptions to various rules of all kinds, which is why we have WP:IAR, or even just plain common sense, to deal with those exceptions. Where the two ideas don't conflict and can be shown to enhance each other, both should be followed on a reasonable basis.
7. Finally, Racepacket should voluntarily abstain from working on articles in subject areas that have been the source of past conflicts. The other parties are willing to avoid him if he is willing to do the same. I suggest that this agreement from both sides be honored for six months. Additional subject matters beyond US highways and Netball/women's sports may be added should contentious review occur in the future. (Racepacket can voluntarily expand the first area to all highway and roadway articles if he wishes, however no similar articles outside of the US were the subject of the RfC/U although a WP:CRWP member has participated in the discussions.)

This is the same as before, but the review moratorium has been shortened to six months. Various participants have indicated that the apology to LauraHale has not been negotiable. The rest of us have indicated that a moratorium on reviews by subject area is preferred over a limitation based on a specific list of editors. The other fives do not require explicit action, and they address the remaining reasons for the original filing of the RfC/U. Imzadi 1979 → 00:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I would add to the last statement the opportunity to extend this if the same problems crop up again. --Rschen7754 00:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The exact wording is negotiable if the basic principles are acceptable. Imzadi 1979 → 01:53, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Does this include Rschen, Dough and Imzadi1979 not reviewing road articles for six months as well? If so, we are very close. Racepacket (talk) 02:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

No, it does not. Why is that important? Our reviews are not contentious. Additionally, the original preference was for a full year, yet we have not even received a comment on that time frame. Imzadi 1979 → 03:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It is clear that there have been issues with RSchen, Imzadi and Dough as well. Rather that aggrevate people further as to how much each person is at fault, I think that a symmetrical solution is better. If the three of you all believe that a complete ban on working on road articles is a better approach that just limiting it to the four individual's reviews, I am willing to do it. But it must be reciprocal and symmetrical. Please don't propose something that you don't feel would be fair to be applied to you as well. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 03:15, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The proposal does state that we would avoid your articles, nominations, etc. It does not prohibit us from continuing our editing in the areas we have traditionally edited. Racepacket, you have not edited road articles before the last several months, and you have many areas of expertise and interest you would continue editing. The three of us edit in a more limited area, and the principle is not to ban you from editing road articles, per se, but rather to segregate the two side of the dispute. Imzadi 1979 → 03:25, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

If I can't edit road articles, I quit. --Rschen7754 03:27, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

My first logged-in road edit was on June 23, 2007. I had made earlier edits before I got acquired a signon. I could go either with a subject-wide exclusion of all road articles or a exclusion involving just the four of us. Whichever you pick, it has to be symmetrical and apply equally to both sides in recognition of "it takes two to tango." Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 03:35, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Likewise, I have an FAC for U.S. Route 131 currently open and four GANs on the list, with a fifth to get the 83rd and last unique state highway GA assigned to a county in Michigan, completing a 2.5-year goal. I have an article at WP:PR awaiting review. Just as one of the issues in the RfC/U filing was that Racepacket was questioning the specific articles an editor chose to work on, such a reciprocal demand would effectively ban three editors from working on any part of Wikipedia because it would deny them their chosen subject matter, and leave the other party all of the subject matters he edited before the contentious situation started. Sorry, that's not reciprocal, and there's no deal. Imzadi 1979 → 03:42, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Your feelings about an area exclusion are understandable. So let's focus on something based on just the four of us. I have proposed an indefinite terms on the person-specific exclusion, but if you want something shorter, I could agree to that as well. Similarly, I proposed 0, 4, 8, and 10 reviews per month as the ramp up, but you are free to pick a different set of numbers. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 04:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason why me, Rschen, or Imzadi should be restricted on reviewing articles. None of us have caused any controversy in our reviews, and it is not fair for restrictions to be placed on us. On the other hand, a few of your reviews on road and Netball articles have caused problems that escalated into this. As a result, it is in the best interest for Wikipedia to restrict your reviewing in these areas. Dough4872 04:14, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I believe that all three of you have strayed from the GA Criteria and have put nominators (including me) in a very frustrating situation. Racepacket (talk) 10:47, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, you are hardly a "roads" editor. In reviewing your contribution history you've made the following road-article related edits from before the period covered by events in this RfC/U:

Month	Count
2007-06	01
2007-07	02
2008-06	01
2008-09	01
2008-11	02
2009-09	01
2009-11	61
2009-12	31
2010-01	83
2010-08	06

This is out of over now 15,000 edits to the English Wikipedia using the Racepacket account. That's 190 edits before September 2010 when you started the active reviewing of highway GANs that forms the basis for this RfC/U. Since you haven't opted in to the edit counter, I can't get by-month breakdowns of your total edits. Contrast that with my 33,000+ edits that are probably in the neighborhood of 32,000+ road-article-related edits.

Now then, the proposal is to segregate the three sets of parties by subject matter. Racepacket has to avoid highways (either just the US ones or all of them) to be segregated from myself, Rschen and Dough, plus the other project members. He also has to avoid netball and women's sports to be segregated from LauraHale. In return, the various parties are avoiding all of the various areas where Rackepacket is known to normally edit. Further, all sides are agreeing to steer clear of any nominations by another side to the dispute. Imzadi 1979 → 04:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I belive that the best solution is the proposal that focuses on the four of us -- I will not review or comment on reviews involving the three of you and the three of you will not review or comment on reviews involving me. Otherwise, your proposal establishes the "walled garden" that GA was intended to avoid. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 10:52, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Its actually essentially what you just said, you two will avoid reviewing each others articles. The only difference is the apology, really, which you should have made almost a month ago. Other than that, they are only asking that you avoid reviewing other USRD GAN's (not that those GANs only be reviewed by them), in hopes of staving off the potential for future conflict and because the restrictions would mean they couldn't comment on a Road GAN that you've taken. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 14:26, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

One of the arbitrators, Newyorkbrad, has called for the same basic solution for the original one-year period, sans the apology component. Accepting such a solution would end the dispute. This RfC/U would close, the RfAr wouldn't go forward to a full Arbitration Case (currently we are only a few votes away from a case opening) and both sides would be able to move one with their editing. Racepacket, the goal is to separate use to prevent future disputes, not to punish one side. Forcing three prolific roads editors to abandon their editing is an effective ban while allowing you all of the political, governmental, university and athletics editing you've always done. Please take this offer so we can end this. Imzadi 1979 → 14:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

As a note, four other USRD members are parties to the RfAr: TwinsMetsFan, Admrboltz, DanTheMan474 and Viridiscalculus. Even if we were to concede to a strict by-editor separation (which we aren't), that's eight editors, and add in Pzoxicuvybtnrm and Floydian to the mix as other editors that have commented on the RfC from WP:HWY/WP:USRD/WP:CRWP, and you have basically a topic ban in place. Imzadi 1979 → 15:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I really don't see why these three editors should be banned from reviewing USRD articles at GAN. Their generous contributions in this area help to let articles through this process. If they are to be banned from USRD perhaps the WikiProject should be dissolved. And considering the current organization of the project, I don't believe that is reasonable. — PCB 15:28, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not follow how you view TwinsMetsFan, Admrboltz, DanTheMan474 and Viridiscalculus in the same category. They have not violated WP:HOUND. I believe that I have interactive successfully with all four of them, and I do not see how their continued performing of GA reviews would raise the same problems and/or tensions. Racepacket (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

From personal conversations with TMF and Adm, I know that they have pretty much gone on a wikibreak for the time being to avoid you. Dan has stopped nominating articles at GAN to avoid you and your reviews. They have all had highway articles reviewed by you, so they are parties to the Arbitration request. Further, I'm sorry if you feel like you've been hounded, but that is not my intent and we feel the same way. By separating the groups of editors, yes, erecting a wall between us, order will be restored allowing prolific editors to continue editing articles. It is not supposed to be punishment for either side, but a method to clearly enforce disengagement between two (three) groups of editors and allow passions and emotions time to cool and heal. In six months or a year, we can sit down (virtually) and reengage discussions if desired, but for the interim, I personally want nothing to do with you, and I don't want to bump into you around my usual editing corners. Imzadi 1979 → 17:49, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone know the status of User:Jgera5? He has not been responding to messages on his talk page Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 18:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

In response to Imzadi, the symmetry only applies to Dough, Rschen and Imzadi on the one hand and me on the other. I have never advocated extending it to the other editors, who would be free to conduct or comment in reviews. The resulting break would be healthy for all four of us. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 18:15, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

We've said no; repeating the proposal over and over doesn't help. --Rschen7754 18:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) No, we're asking you to disengage from a topic area so that the two sides are separated. Several of us don't confine our editing under the USRD umbrella to defined geographic areas, making a plain "restraining order" type concept fail to achieve the desired result. I don't want this to go through Arbitration if it doesn't have to. You can avoid the subject matter for a period of time (six months? a year?) and we will avoid all of your other subject matters for that time frame. There would be no future opportunities for personality conflicts during that time under those terms. The symmetry here is that if you avoid roads, I'll avoid athletics, running and the other areas where you edit. Imzadi 1979 → 19:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

We should all avoid WP:OWNership issues. I don't own any subject area and neither do Rschen, Imazadi or Dough. I want us to come up with a reciprocal, symmetrical solution. How about none of the four of us review GAN articles about roads for six months, and that we are all free to nominate articles during that period? Racepacket (talk) 19:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

No; our reviews aren't the problem here. --Rschen7754 19:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It is reciprocal and symmetrical. In some ways, it's asymmetrical in your favor. We're asking you to avoid a subject matter where we almost exclusively edit. We're stating that we'll avoid you at the same time. You're getting the great big wide totality of Wikipedia as your sandbox, minus one topic. We're staying in that one topic to avoid you. We actually lose out on more than you do in order to stop the potential for immediate future conflicts. In either six months or a year, that agreement ends and we start over. Imzadi 1979 → 19:45, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, if not a complete ban how about a ramp up? Or tie the timing to the completion of a RFC on the "USRD/STDS relationship to GA criteria" question? Racepacket (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The relationship between the two is not in dispute. I believe that we both agree that the former complements and persuades the implementation of the latter. Let me blunt: I want nothing to do with you in the near future. Nothing. I want you to leave me alone, but I can't have that if you continue to insist on editing and reviewing articles in the one area of the entire encyclopedia I edit. I can't leave you alone in return if you keep butting into that area as well. Imzadi 1979 → 19:58, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, I feel it would be in the best interest for you as well as the whole USRD project if you keep away from us. This separation will prevent any more conflicts from arising. You can continue to edit other areas of the encyclopedia and in turn we will not bother you there. Also, I do not get why you are so fixated on me, Rschen, and Imzadi to be restricted from editing road articles. All three of us heavily enjoy editing in this area and have several quality articles to our name. I do not think it is fair for review and editing sanctions to be placed on us as we have not caused any controversy through our actions. Also, we do not own articles, we just try to make sure they stay in decent shape. Dough4872 21:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Additional discussion/negotiation

I am throwing in an arbitrary section break just to keep things compact.

The last couple of remarks suggest bad interpersonal chemistry as the cause of the problem. Earlier comments suggested that the cause was a difference over the proper criteria to apply when reviewing a road article: using the GA criteria or using USRD/STDS. If this policy issue is not resolved, the problem will arise again with other nominators and reviewers. So here is a new proposal to test out:

1. WikiProject Good Articles conducts a RFC to determine the proper criteria to be used. I will argue just the current GA criteria, and others are free to argue expanding the GA criteria with a statement that it incorporates by reference the USRD/STDS. We all live with the outcome of that RFC.
2. I will not review any more road articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for six months.
3. Imzadi, Rschen and Dough will not GA review articles that I nominate for six months.
4. Otherwise, we try to treat each other with respect and to tone-down our rhetoric.

How does that work? Racepacket (talk) 22:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I do agree with the idea that you do not review any of our articles and that we do not review any of yours. However, I'm not sold on the fact that project standards do not matter when it comes to reviewing a GA. As an aside, whenever I review a GAN I always look over the GA criteria and check to see the prose is good, the article is well-referenced, and that it is broad in its coverage. Regarding the third point, I use the USRD standards to evaluate whether a road article is broad in its coverage. While the standards are not directly determining whether the article meets the GA criteria, they indirectly do through criteria 3 which calls for broad coverage. Dough4872 22:29, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I think that you need to withdraw from the roads subject area entirely; and I disagree with #1. This is closer to something that would be acceptable, however. --Rschen7754 22:30, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Replying to your four points:

1. This is not an issue under dispute. We have already agreed that the GA criteria control a GAN/GAR review, but that other pages are persuasive in interpreting those broad criteria.
2. The proposal was not just related to road article GANs, but also other forums related to road and netball articles, i.e. a total disengagement. If this is expanded, that this is accepted.
3. We've offered to steer clear of not just your nominations, but also any articles you're editing so long as you abide by the request to disengage from roads and netball.
4. This point is unneeded as we would be avoiding each other completely. Should we find ourselves for whatever reasons in "neutral" areas, this application of Wikipedia policy should be applied.
5. The apology to LauraHale for pursuing matters with the Wikimedia Foundation is still desired by a large portion of the community of commenters to the RfC/U.

If you can abide by these, and take note of the other items from my original proposal, we have a deal. Imzadi 1979 → 22:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Given Rschen & Imzadi1979 responses, we need to talk about Point #1 some more to find a way forward. It cannot be true that we have an understanding and we have a big disagreement on Point #1 at the same time. If someone nominates an article without mileposts in the junction table, does it pass or fail? If someone nominates an article without an infobox, does it pass or fail? What is the downside to having a community-wide discussion to decide these questions? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 22:46, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

The downside is that it's unnecessary. Also, if we're not reviewing each other's nominations, what does it matter to you? --Rschen7754 22:48, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

It is up the to the reviewer to determine if the mileposts/distances, which are readily obtainable, are a "main aspect" of the article. It should be self-evident though that failure to include a section on tolls in a toll road is a failure to include a "main aspect" of the subject, whether the standards page is cited as a justification for the the breach of GA criterion 3a or or another justification is used. I would not fail an article purely for the lack of complete mileposting, but I would ask that the nominator include them the same as they'd be asked to fix disambiguation links. Imzadi 1979 → 23:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Because I think that is the cause of all of the misunderstandings that have occurred and I don't want anyone else to go through this. When the six month are up, I and everyone else will need to know how to prepare articles for GA review. Also, if I am preparing a university article for GA review, do I just look at the GA criteria, or do I assume that their guidelines will be incorporated as much as you say the USRD standards are? There is a big gaping hole in our shared understanding of WikiProject GA policies, and it could be easily fixed.

• WP:GAN says "Read the whole article, and decide whether it should pass or fail based on the Good article criteria."
• "Enthusiasm in wanting an article to be the best it can be is admirable, but take care not to impose conditions for passing the article, perhaps based on your own stylistic preferences, that exceed the criteria. In particular, the GA criteria do not require compliance with several major guidelines, including Wikipedia:Notability and the main Wikipedia:Manual of Style page." Wikipedia:Reviewing good articles#Imposing your personal criteria (emphasis added)

There is something wrong if four experienced editors can't agree on what this means. How can we get everyone on the same page? Racepacket (talk) 23:08, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Responding to Imzadi's last post: you do realize that I concluded in my review that tolls should be included as a main aspect of Interstate 376 without regard to the USRD/STDS. But what about a hypothetical infobox? Racepacket (talk) 23:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

If it would result in this dispute being resolved, then I suspect that WPGA would be willing to hold the RFC suggested in #1. IMO it is unnecessary, as the conclusion is tolerably obvious (WP:GACR controls the decision, but other advice pages [e.g., WP:MEDMOS#Sections ] might help you figure out whether an article is missing major areas), but we can hold the RFC anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I think too. I just don't see the point of it. --Rschen7754 23:33, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, so the proposal is restated as: 1) WikiProject Good Articles conducts a RFC to determine the proper criteria to be used. I will argue just the current GA criteria, and others are free to argue expanding the GA criteria with a statement that it incorporates by reference the USRD/STDS. The RFC will attempt to develop further guidance on the question. We all live with the outcome of that RFC. 2) Racepacket will not review any more road articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for six months. 3) Imzadi, Rschen and Dough will not GA review articles that Racepacket nominates for six months.4) Otherwise, Racepacket, Imzazdi, Rschen and Dough try to treat each other with respect and to tone-down their rhetoric.

Do we have an understanding? Racepacket (talk) 00:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

No, you need to steer clear of the roads articles as well. As far as the RfC I'm okay with it but as I see it as pointless I may not participate. --Rschen7754 00:38, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I do not see why we need an RFC to determine whether GAs should follow project criteria. There are several roads that are GAs and FAs all following the same basic structure. This structure should be used as precedent for a quality road article. As already mentioned, the project standards influence criteria 3 of the GA criteria as the standards anchor how broad the coverage of a road article is. Dough4872 01:08, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

There are two fundamental ideas behind the GA program — it is kept simple so that anyone can volunteer to review and because the GA review is the product of just one individual, it can be easily overturned by GAR. So we cannot assume that GA reviewers will be analyzing "precedent." I think that consistency is helpful, but if a reviewer cannot withhold a "pass" for lack of an infobox, it can not do so for inconsistency. Racepacket (talk) 01:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Other than #1, do we agree on the other points? Racepacket (talk) 02:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I think keeping me, Rschen7754, and Imzadi1979 away from you for a time is needed, along with the fact we each need to treat each other with respect. However, I think your ban on being involved with roads articles needs to be indefinite as that is the source of all these problems. Dough4872 03:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about indefinite. But you need to disengage from the entire U.S. roads project for at least 6 months. Maybe longer if the same behavior continues after the six months. --Rschen7754 03:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Please either state a case for a GAN failing for lack of an infobox or drop the argument, because I don't know of any party here that's arguing that an infobox is required for a GA. (They aren't even required for a FA let alone any article. Personally, an editor would need to have a very good reason to not place one on a standard roads article, but I don't discount that such a reason could exist. Either way, it's not an issue that's pertinent to this dispute.)

Now then, Racepacket's first proposed point is irrelevant to this dispute: WikiProject Good Articles is not a direct party to this dispute, and the proposed RfC would result in confirming an existing consensus that is not in dispute here. I'm going on record as once again rejecting your proposal as it doesn't touch on other issues in the dispute, and it does not solve the issues that are under dispute. In short, when this RfC or the ArbCom case concludes, I want to be able to have nothing to do with Racepacket again, and so long as he edits in the same subject matter areas as I edit that is not possible. Imzadi 1979 → 05:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

As a side note, if project standards were a part of GA criteria, then only someone knowledgeable on the applicable project standards could do a GA review. North8000 (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Well noted - and this is one of several reasons why they are not. Geometry guy 20:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It is widely known that the wikipedia article ratings system has some flaws, with 2 rankings assigned by a wikipedia community at large (GA and FA) and several others (Stub, Start, C,B & A) that are assigned by a project based on their own criteria. It is theoretically possible for an article to be ranked FA by the community, A class by another wikiproject and stub by another wikiproject. (and while this is an extreme example, it is not uncommon at all to see an article tagged as in scope for multiple wiki-projects with different rankings from each project) An article about a bridge could meet all of USRD's requirements for a roads type article, but miss details expected from WP:Bridges, this is not new. And a GA reviewer may or may pass that article as GA ranked based on the wikipedia wide GAC criteria. This is a tangent issue to the issue under discussion. IMO it has already been too much of a distraction and this needs to be brought back to the wider issue of who had the right to terminate a GA nomination and what are the limits of acceptable behavior when a GAC nomination goes bad. Dave (talk) 21:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A stronger statement is true: it is widely misunderstood that there is a Wikipedia-wide article ratings system. Instead there are WikiProject ratings (SSCBA) and community assessments (GA and FA). The existence of a common scale is an idea that has been promoted without consensus discussion (e.g., by the personal preferences gadget that shows the current status of an article and by the imposed link between GA and GA-Class). Fortunately, most of the time such historical mistakes are harmless: GA and FA guidelines are unambiguously independent from WikiProject ratings, and most editors respect that. Geometry guy 22:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Rschen7754's proposal

Most of it is stolen from above proposals, please forgive me.

1. WikiProject Good Articles conducts a RFC to determine the proper criteria to be used in relation to WikiProject standards.
2. Racepacket will not review any more road articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for six months.
3. Imzadi, Rschen and Dough will not GA review articles that Racepacket nominates for six months.
4. Racepacket stays away from the roads projects for six months.
5. The normal dispute resolution processes may be followed if issues arise after the six months are up.
6. All parties are civil to each other just like other Wikipedia editors are required to be.

This only addresses the roads portion of the dispute. Racepacket, please respond. Is this something that you can abide by? We are willing to withdraw the roads part of the dispute from the arbitration if you agree to these terms. (Now I can't speak for the netball people and/or ArbCom if they want to pursue the arbitration in regards to the stuff that happened there. That's beyond our control). --Rschen7754 06:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I can agree to that if we are done here. I assume that you would also withdraw your request for arbitration. I do not see anything in the RFC/U that goes beyond the "the road portion." If people want to raise other concerns, they really should come forward with facts backed by diffs and answer questions. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 09:44, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm continuing to add the apology to Laura into this. There is absolutely no disagreement that this is a must. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 11:11, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This solution is agreeable, however I still don't see the need for point 1 since the core element of that is not in dispute. As for the non-"road portion", you still need to deal with the editors from the dispute over the netball articles, and apologize to Laura for your actions on meta. Please negotiate with those editors, but I think if you apply a similar solution (disengagment) based on points 2-6 above, that they'll readily agree to it, provided you make the desired apology. Imzadi 1979 → 14:31, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that they come and go. LauraHale withdrew her "outside view" I asked her questions here, and she never responded. She dropped by to leave one more brief remark. Hawkeye7 came and I responded to him, and he disengaged. I view Floydian as a "road editor" who has not been active in netball. I don't see netball editors taking an active role in this discussion. Perhaps we should open a separate RFC about how to solve all of Wikipedia's netball-related problems, but I don't see much energy left for that. There are also communication problems. One netball editor is a native French speaker and lapses into French and LauraHale uses abbreviations that I have asked her to explain -- what I thought was a software package name, she revealled two weeks later was really a shorten form for a Wikipedia user's name. So, given all of these factors, I don't see netball as being in this RFC/U. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 15:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

That may be, and it doesn't concern me, but several non-roads, non-netball editors have commented and supported the apology. Think of it this way, you might be right, you might be wrong, but offering that apology will go a long way to rebuilding trust and smoothing the waters for future discussions. Laura withdrew in the face of your actions on meta, so I would view it as a coerced withdrawal. Just make the apology and move on. Otherwise it looks like we have a deal on the roads issues, and you still have discussions/negotiations on netball, unless you're just walking away from them and washing your hands of the issue for now. Imzadi 1979 → 15:35, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Just adding a footnote that while Imzadi1979's advice (the 5 points) is not part of this proposal, it is good advice for you to heed to avoid problems in the future. --Rschen7754 15:56, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I have left a note at the ArbCom page [24] asking how they wish to proceed. --Rschen7754 16:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Imzadi, as much as you or I or anybody else may think that an apology is warranted, this has dragged on for long enough that even if an apology were issued people would doubt the sincerity. These scenarios give me the visual of a mother chastising her son with, "now say your sorry", while holding dinner hostage. The mother may get the apology, but did any good really come out of it? At 4 years old maybe, at 15 years old, definitely no. We all want an apology when we feel wronged, but at some point you have to accept that no apology will come and move on. Dave (talk) 16:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC) (PS I'm guilty of demanding apologies myself, I'm not claiming to be better than anybody with this post).

I agree. I was the one who was falsely accused and I did not ask for an apology, I just asked that the accusation stop. Racepacket (talk) 17:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this proposal is sensible. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:44, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Either way, that is from the netball half of the disputes, and does not directly affect me. Imzadi 1979 → 21:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The big difference is the attempted outing by racepacket; there should be an apology and retractment of statements so that if Laura is ever questioned on the matter, there is closure provided. None of the accusations against Racepacket have consequences outside of wikipedia. In any other situation this would have resulted in an immediate block. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 01:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not defending Racepacket's actions. Quite the contrary, I am disturbed at the apparent vengeance shown in some of the actions that are behind this RfC. I am only stating that my personal belief that nothing good comes out of pressuring someone into giving an apology when they do not want to apologize.Dave (talk) 21:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Several comments have questioned the need for the RFC at GA. Here's why we need it: Having it might help us resolve this dispute.

That's it: it is a means to an end. Having Racepacket agree to stop reviewing roads articles might help us resolve this dispute. Having Racepacket formally acknowledge that trying to contact people's employers is a bad idea might help resolve this dispute. Having the other disputants agree to stop reviewing Racepacket's nominations might help us resolve this dispute.

That's why we're here: We want to resolve this dispute. Any step that moves us materially closer to resolving the dispute is a Good Thing and Something We Need. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

I question having the RFC specifically on the USRD standards because that seems like a really obscure case. Moving it to discussing the role and relationship of WikiProject standards to the GA criteria is a more useful RFC. --Rschen7754 18:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It is my expectation that the outcome will be the same whether the initial question is phrased narrowly or broadly. If resolving this dispute means jumping through that hoop, then let's quit talking about whether to jump or what color the hoop should be, and start jumping. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

It should be construed more broadly if such a RfC is held. (Remember, I am in agreement with Racepacket's basic position on the issue, just not in how he expressed it. Either way, we both agree that the GA criteria control whether or not an article merits listing if nominated, but other advice from other sources helps a reviewer determine if the criteria are met.) Imzadi 1979 → 21:30, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is my take on Rschen's proposal. I agree that me, Rschen, and Imzadi need separation from Racepacket and that Racepacket needs a period of separation from roads articles, even if it is not indefinite. However, if problems crop up again when Racepacket is allowed to edit road articles again, we may need to consider banning him indefinitely from editing roads articles. I also agree that all four of us need to be civil. Personally, I do not see the benefit of a RFC determining if project standards are to be considered at GA as I feel criteria 3 already calls for this. Dough4872 02:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Dough4872, do you (or anyone else) actually object to having an RFC on this subject? Because if no one actually objects to it happening, and everything else is acceptable, then we could claim agreement and be done with this. If this isn't going to work (e.g., if you think six months too short, or if you think that the Netball issues must be addressed, or if you think holding the proposed RFC would be evil [rather than a waste of time]), then we need to know what you object to. Otherwise, we need everyone to take some steps towards radical acts of compromise and agreement, so we can finally tag this one {{Resolved}}.

(If there are no objections, then I'll start the RFC a day or two after things are officially agreed here.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:46, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I can agree to the provisions outlined in Rschen's proposal. As for the RFC, I think it may be useful to have a discussion concerning whether project standards need to be considered at GAN. Personally, I feel that they influence criteria 3 but if others beg to differ, it may help to gain a wider opinion. Dough4872 02:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Remove the RfC from the solution, and we have a done deal. Why do I ask for it to be removed? Geometry guy's recent statement at the RfAr. Such a RfC is a waste of time and effort to both us and editors not involved here. I consider the issue resolved as far as the issues surrounding WP:USRD go if the rest of the agreement is implemented. As for the issues surrounding netball, Racepacket and others need to discuss them. Imzadi 1979 → 03:07, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, are you willing to give up the RFC? I'm willing to start one if it's truly necessary to get this dispute resolved, but as we already know the answer (the status of WikiProject advice pages is already formally documented in various essays and guidelines), I believe it a pointless exercise.

If you absolutely can't live with this compromise unless this RFC is held, then please let us know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be very beneficial. I know that USRD collects precedents on their project subpage, but I believe that the entire community should have a chance to discuss and agree on what we are going to do. The affects both people preparing articles for nomination as well as reviewers. I don't see it as an imposition on the RFC/U proponents. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:10, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

In my view, the issue here is that there is agreement in principle on the relationship between WikiProject standards and the GA criteria (namely, WikiProject standards are not part of the GA criteria, but can be helpful to inform reviewer judgment on issues such as broadness). The disagreement is the extent, here specifically concerning WP:USRD/STDS, to which a failure to meet project standards inplies a failure to meet the GA criteria. An RfC on the general concept may be too abstract to address the specific issues of application that are disputed. I suggest that it may be more helpful to seek outside comments specifically on the application of WP:USRD/STDS in GA reviews, and which points of this style essay are helpful or a hindrance to reviewing roads articles. Geometry guy 19:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, you have utterly failed to answer my question. The question is not "Can you please explain to me why you think the RFC would be valuable?" The question at hand is:

Do you choose:

1. To absolutely insist on the RFC, and to allow your fellow disputants to use your insistence to force ArbCom into settling this, or
2. To not absolutely insist on the RFC (whatever its merits might be), in return for resolving the dispute and closing the impending ArbCom case?

The choice is yours, but you've got to actually make a choice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why the RFC cannot be a separate thing... -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Because we need everyone to agree. If person #1 says the RFC absolutely must happen, and person #2 says the RFC absolutely must not happen, then we don't have an agreement.

If everyone says either "yes" or "don't care", then we're set: we'll have an RFC and an agreement. If everyone says either "no" or "don't care", then we're equally set: we'll skip the RFC and have an agreement. But if we have just one person saying "yes" and just one person saying "no", then we have no agreement: We can't both "have" and "not have" the RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I don't support the notion of the RFC, but I could care less if it happens. --Rschen7754 21:30, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand, Rschen's position, but he made an offer that included it, and I have accepted that offer and I think that it is something we can all use to move forward. Everyone is free to argue in response to WhatamIdoing that it is an question with an obvious answer. The point is that there has been a lot of confusion on the subject and we can easily end the confusion. I understand Geometry guy's point, which can be solved by offering examples to be discussed. E.g., can a reviewer deny a GA because the article does not have an infobox? Can the reviewer deny a GA because the junction table does not have milepost markers? Can a reviewer deny a GA because the map is larger than an thumbnail? Let's wrap this up. Racepacket (talk) 21:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, for the record, images are not a requirement for GA, so "because the map is larger than an thumbnail" is moot. --Rschen7754 21:49, 12 April 2011 (UTC) Never mind, misread the question. --Rschen7754 21:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, please answer WhatamIdoing's question. Apparently, some editors strongly object to the RFC taking place. --Rschen7754 21:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

As a practical matter, so long as both Racepacket, Rschen and WhatamIdoing agree to participate, I do not want to make anyone else feel compelled to do so. How about rephrasing #1 as "WhatamIdoing shall post an RFC (seeking comments from everyone) at WikiProject Good Articles to determine the proper criteria to be used in relation to WikiProject standards, with at least Racepacket and Rschen7754 agreeing to participate in good faith."? Racepacket (talk) 22:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Whoa, wait a second! I never said that I agreed to participate. I only said that I don't mind the RFC taking place. Please don't twist my statements. --Rschen7754 22:19, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I am willing to start the RFC if and only if doing so is necessary to resolve this dispute. If starting that RFC does not result in a definite end to this dispute, then I have no interest in doing so. Furthermore, since I consider it largely a pro forma exercise that's more likely to waste time than anything else, if it's not necessary, then I'd rather skip it. IMO the RFC is likely to waste less time than continuing this dispute. That's the only reason I think the RFC worth doing: I could waste an hour on the RFC, three more hours on this RFC/U, ten hours on an ArbCom case, or twenty hours fielding complaints about Racepacket's GA reviews during the next year. My choice is always the fewest number of hours lost to this dispute. The best-case scenario is that Racepacket decides that it's unnecessary, and everybody else decides that the remaining points are sufficient. Then we're done and we can get back to doing useful things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I consider the dispute ended as is by agreeing to the rest of the settlement, but another RfC will prolong it. I want this over, and since we have basic agreement on the issues, we should just accept the rest of the agreement and implement it. Imzadi 1979 → 01:18, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

An RfC can be started by any editor. Whether it has support as legitimate or is a helpful request is another matter. I've made a proposal above as to what might be most helpful, and I now suggest WT:USRD/STDS#Placeholder... as a possible venue. If anyone wishes to take this up, they can. Geometry guy 22:41, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I continue to state on the record that such an exercise is one of futility. The core issue is not under dispute, and Racepacket is continuing to manufacture a dispute to drag out discussions here for whatever reason he has. No one, to my knowledge, has failed an article nominated at GAN from USRD for a lack of an infobox. No one has ever failed an article for missing milepost numbers, nor over the status of a map. In fact, once upon a time, Michigan articles did not have distances listed for all junctions in all articles. Once a different source from MDOT was found though, they do now. (The previous RS, the Control Section Atlas, does not always have control section termini that align with other highway junctions, which left missing data without resorting to Google Maps.)

The closest I've seen to the situation Racepacket describes was on the review of Saginaw Trail. That article was initially failed and USRD standards were cited. When I pointed out to the reviewer (Dough4872) that those standards did not apply, the review was reopened and completed successfully. Saginaw Trail is different than most articles written and tagged by USRD members, and that it won't have some of the same qualities as other articles is only a consequence of its uniqueness. That review as over a year ago, and so it's been settled, over a year ago, that the GA criteria control and the STDS pages informs. So yes, I object to this continued insistence on a pointless RfC that will only confirm an existing settled fact, that the parties to this dispute hold in agreement. Racepacket keeps posting hypothetical questions that the other side doesn't seem to dispute. Imzadi 1979 → 22:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

In response to Geometry guy, I believe we discussed a RFP at WT:WikiProject Good Articles. Let's wrap this up. Racepacket (talk) 02:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, let's wrap this up. Imzadi 1979 → 02:33, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The agreement has been enacted (except for #1 as there is no agreement on this point and there are a number of other concerns with it - although this does not prevent anyone from requesting the GA WikiProject to conduct an RfC). Ncmvocalist (talk) 06:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Arbitration

You are involved in a recently-filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Racepacket and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

• Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests#Requests for Arbitration;
• Wikipedia:Arbitration guide.

Thanks, Rschen7754 04:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Amended proposal

Per Newyorkbrad's comment and SirFozzie's comment, I'm proposing that the proposal be amended as follows:

1. WikiProject Good Articles conducts a RFC to determine the proper criteria to be used in relation to WikiProject standards.

1. Racepacket will not review any more road [or netball] articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for six months [a year].
2. Imzadi1979, Rschen7754, and Dough4872, [LauraHale, and Hawkeye7] will not GA review articles that Racepacket nominates for six months [a year].
3. Racepacket stays away from the roads projects [and netball] for six months [a year].
4. The normal dispute resolution processes may be followed if issues arise after the six months [a year] are up.
5. All parties are civil to each other just like other Wikipedia editors are required to be.

Deleted text from the last proposal has been struck through and additions are in brackets. I've struck the former point 1 for two reasons. First, the issue there is not under dispute. Second, Geometry guy's comments are right that any RfC need not be added to this proposal, and it sets up a dangerous precedent that one group of editors (WikiProject Good Articles) is compelled to do anything (in this case a RfC discussion) by another group of editors (WikiProject U.S. Roads, Racepacket, et al.) when the second group is not directly connected to the first nor a party in the original dispute. Newyorkbrad's "suggestion" that netball be added is important, or the netball-related issues will end up spilling into a separate ArbCom case at some point.

I'm also proposing that the time period be changed back to the ArbCom-standard one-year timeframe. Every day that implementation of any proposal is delayed by insisting on the RfC over a point that is not in dispute has taken a day off the time period the settlement is supposed to run. WhatamIdoing added a termination date for the settlement to expire to the main RfC page, but we haven't agreed that any settlement has been put into place yet. Additionally, one year is the standard timeframe for any ArbCom remedies.

This should not be controversial, it should just be put into place. Imzadi 1979 → 16:15, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

No that is not acceptable. We agreed to 6 months. This RFC/U has nothing to do with the ArbCom, it has to do with four individuals, who agreed to 6 months. Thank you. Racepacket (talk) 00:42, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Imzadi, Could you please explain what you mean by "has taken a day off the time period the settlement is supposed to run." Are you suggesting that I should feel free to conduct more road-related GA reviews while you reopen the RFC/U? Racepacket (talk) 00:54, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The RfC/U is still open. It hasn't been closed. The RfAr is still open as well. In other words, the clock hasn't started on any agreed timeframe from any agreement because there is not yet an agreement, yet a termination date for an agreement has been posted. Let me put is succinctly, I'll give on the 6 months versus a year, but I have not agreed to any other part of the proposed agreement. You have an arbitrator calling for the expansion of the agreement to include an addition subject matter you refuse to address. Even if LauraHale "withdrew" her comments, other members of the community desire that the subject still get addressed. You have other members of the community opposing the inclusion of an RfC on a subject not in dispute as a part of any negotiated settlement. These two points must be settled before there is a settlement, and we have to have agreement before a clock can start running as to when that agreement terminates. Imzadi 1979 → 01:14, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree with Imzadi1979's amended proposal in that netball needs to be added to the banned areas and the RFC needs to be dropped. Regarding the length of the topic ban and the separation of reviewers, while I think a year would be a good length for separation, I would be willing to compromise between Imzadi1979's proposal for a year and Racepacket's proposal for 6 months with a 9 month ban. Dough4872 01:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, if two of the four people are withdrawing the agreement, I guess they have been negotiating in bad faith, and our settlement discussions are over and Imzadi and Dough want to restart the dispute resolution. Racepacket (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I have not been negotiating in bad faith. I'm still waiting on an explicit rejection or acceptance of my original or second proposal. Rschen7754 was the one that made a proposal that you appear to have accepted. I can live with that proposal, if and only if, the request for an RfC is removed and the proposal is expanded to include netball. I would prefer a longer term for the agreement, since I had originally proposed a year. I can live with six months, but I want longer. That's why I posted a modified version of Rschen's proposal for discussion. Imzadi 1979 → 18:13, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I can go with the proposal that calls for six months and calls for the RFC just to end everything. However, I would prefer that the ban lasts slightly longer and that the RFC gets dropped. Dough4872 18:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I misjudged the "bad faith" of the situation. I am still willing to agree to the Rschen proposal and posted that to the arbitration case page — Six months and the RFC on the relationship between GA criteria and WikiProject standards. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 18:32, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Drop the RfC, since we don't disagree on that issue, and add in netball, and you get a deal from my end. Imzadi 1979 → 19:09, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't see netball people active in this RFC/U. I respectfully question whether Imzadi is authorized to negotiate on their behalf or prepared to answer questions about netball. Racepacket (talk) 19:36, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not a question of having legal standing or being authorized as someone's advocate. If Imzadi tells you that to get Imzadi's agreement, you have to stand on your head during a full moon and apologize to werewolves, then those are Imzadi's terms. Your job is not to decide whether Imzadi's terms are rational; your job is to decide whether you want to resolve the dispute with Imzadi enough to agree to Imzadi's conditions. "Avoid netball articles and resolve the dispute with Imzadi" is an option available to you. "Keep working on netball articles and do not resolve the dispute with Imzadi" is an option available to you. "Try to talk Imzadi out of Imzadi's conditions" is not an option available to you.

The calculation is pretty straightforward: Is the cost of continuing the dispute greater or less than the cost of agreeing to Imzadi's conditions? Determine your answer and then directly accept or reject Imzadi's proposal on that basis. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

It comes down to good faith vs. bad faith. I am still willing to agree to Rschen's proposal. I am also willing to participate in a dispute resolution process regarding netball, but we have not done that here, and there is no reason to prolong the roads RFC/U on account of netball. I suspect that Imzadi may have been misinformed, but there is no reason to discuss that here. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 03:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I am not misinformed. Should you prefer, this can go to the Arbitration Committee for resolution, where one of the arbitrators has asked you to refrain from reviewing and editing roads and netball articles for a year. We can agree to end this here and now by agreeing to a six-month term for both subject areas, or we can prolong this with further RfCs and the RfAr. It's your choice. Imzadi 1979 → 03:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

While I have largely been silent (because some one attempted to contact my employer), I will not that my proposal was never addressed by racepacket and if netball AND WOMEN'S SPORT OUTSIDE OF AMERICAN COLLEGIATE SPORT AND RUNNING are not put off limits to Racepacket like roads are, I may directly involve myself in the arbcom proposal, expanding upon fluffernut's notes to include the repeated failure, the disruptive editing, the block for that disruptive editing, the likely sock puppeting to get around a block, the peer review despite the active RfC mentioning netball, the involvement in a proposal that I was a major contributor to, the inappropiate comments made during the FAC, the insinuations that I was getting paid to contribute to Wikipedia, the failure to allow me to withdraw my GA review, the counting of a single edit fail GA for an article of mine to get points related to the good article clearance goal, etc. While time has passed, the fact that my issues are not being addressed and there is hesitancy to just accept netball as matter of course are a huge concern to me. Racepacket tried to CONTACT MY EMPLOYER. If he doesn't want to include netball AND WOMEN'S SPORT OUTSIDE OF AMERICAN COLLEGIATE SPORT AND RUNNING in this RfC, I'll start adding details to the arbcom situation and/or open a new RfC. I want to make sure that some one who tried to contact my employer stays away from my editing space. I want this for a year 18 months, the period when I will end my dissertation in this area and when I should finish other activities I am doing trying to increase female sport organization participation on Wikipedia as related to my doctoral research. --LauraHale (talk) 04:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, I don't actually care how you evaluate it. It can come down to good faith or bad faith or smelly green faith, if that's how you want to think about it. I care about whether you resolve the dispute, preferably sometime last month, if you happen to have access to a functional time machine, but as soon as reasonably possible otherwise.

NB, please, a key sentence in Rschen's proposal: "This only addresses the roads portion of the dispute." You seem to have overlooked the importance of this sentence. Rschen's proposal clearly states that it does not and is not intended to resolve the entire dispute, but only one portion of the dispute.

If you want to resolve more than "the roads portion of the dispute"—that is, if you want to resolve the rest of the dispute with Imzadi, then you will have to agree to more than Rschen's proposal; Imzadi has indicated that a six-month netball ban is necessary to resolve more than "the roads portion of the dispute" with Imzadi. If you want to resolve the rest of the dispute with Laura, then Laura indicates here that you need to agree to an 18-month ban on netball and women's sport outside of American collegiate sport and running.

You have choices:

1. you can voluntarily agree to these non-"roads portion of the dispute" proposals, or
2. you can propose your own non-"roads portion of the dispute" solutions, or
3. you can let ArbCom impose a solution of their design.

Muttering about what kind of faith is a stalling tactic, not a choice. Rschen's proposal, if accepted, settles one substantial fraction of the dispute, but not resolve the entire dispute. Imzadi and Laura are telling you here what is necessary to resolve the rest of the dispute with them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

My recommendation is that we resolve the "roads portion" as we previously agreed. I agree that the best procedural course is to open a new, separate RFC/U with diffs to back up any claims, because the statements made in LauraHale's above paragraph (although sincerely felt) do not have a basis in fact. This RFC/U has gone on too long, and it is unfair for someone to stay out of the discussions and then jump in at the end making factual statements without any diffs to back them up. Racepacket (talk) 10:23, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It would also be very helpful in addition to the diffs to identify any off-wiki communications. The applicable policy discusses communication "in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation." LauraHale seems to imply that there have been communications "in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation" which would be understandably upsetting. If there have been such communications, what makes LauraHale believe that they have come from me? Of course, because any communications made in forums controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation (such as this page) can be read by the general public, everyone should write in a manner that assumes that employers can read them. That is why we have rules against posting false accusations against other users. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 11:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Racepacket, this is your best opportunity for dispute resolution. It happens here and now, or it happens at ArbCom. The point is to resolve the dispute, full stop. Resolving pieces of the dispute helps us towards that goal, but splitting it up into multiple "lawsuits" and trying to delay resolution on those points does not. The result here needs to be everybody agreeing that they're satisfied with the outcome—or we proceed to ArbCom.

Wikipedia doesn't work like a civil court. We don't get to wikilawyer over the exact meaning of "forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation". There are exceptions to (nearly) every rule. We don't split up an RFC/U based on the subject matter of the articles given as examples of your problematic behavior; this is about your behavior, not the articles. You don't get to have a controlled phase of presenting evidence or to demand that evidence be presented in a particular fashion. It's not about due process: It's about getting everyone—including you, as well as Imzadi and Laura and the entire English Wikipedia community—to agree that we have a workable, livable deal that will stop the drama and hot air and complaints about your behavior, so that we can spend at least the next 6–12–18 months working on the encyclopedia instead of talking about your behavior.

Basically any action that gets us to that point is okay, and any action that retards our ability to reach that point is not okay.

I agree that this RFC/U has gone on long enough. You can end it today, simply by either agreeing to the conditions laid out here, or directly and absolutely rejecting them, so that we can close this as failed and move on to ArbCom without any worries of wasting their time with a case that was capable of being resolved voluntarily. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Break

Let me toss out this idea, and see if it holds any water. There are essentially two sides here: there's Racepacket's side and there's a group of editors comprised of "roads" editors and LauraHale. Laura is the nominal spokeswoman for a group of editors based on a disputed review of several netball-related articles, but if the situation with her is resolved, it gets resolved with the others. Now, we all seem to agree that the best course of action is to separate the two sides for a period of time to allow passions to cool and tensions to ease. So far, we seem to be in complete agreement as far as the "roads" editors are involved, but that was not the only subject matter area where there were disputed behaviors by either side. We all would like to resolve this and get back to work.

Let me propose this: Laura wants 18 months. Racepacket latched on to six months form some of the various previous proposals. Let's meet in the middle and call it one year. Laura doesn't get all of the time she wants, and Racepacket doesn't get the shorter term he wants. (Note, I originally proposed a year, but never got any comments on it, and only proposed a shorter term to elicit some sort of reply, which I still didn't get. Racepacket countered with a proposal that would end after only 3 months in total, but complete disengagement wasn't included in that offer.) So, we start at a year, fair enough?

Now, as for disengagement, referencing my proposal above, insert "women's sport(s)" to the subject areas of netball and roads. Drop Hawkeye7's name, so that Racepacket has to avoid Dough4872, LauraHale, Rschen7754 and myself for the time period in terms of reviews, and those four will avoid Racepacket in terms of reviews. To condense it:

1. Racepacket will not review any more road, netball or women's sport(s)^† articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for a year.
2. Imzadi1979, Rschen7754, Dough4872, and LauraHale will not GA review articles that Racepacket nominates for a year.
3. Racepacket stays away from the roads projects, netball and women's sport(s) for a year.
4. The normal dispute resolution processes may be followed if issues arise after the year is up.
5. All parties are civil to each other just like other Wikipedia editors are required to be.

^†Articles that pertain to American collegiate sport(s) and running are exempted from the rest of women's sport(s).

Any RfC on the subject matter of how the GA Criteria interact with various kinds of advice pages/guidelines/essays/etc. is not a part of this agreement because these parties cannot bind an uninvolved set of parties to hold/host/conduct an RfC, especially when the core issue is not actually in dispute.

I think that if we can agree to this, and sign our names to this plan today, that WhatamIdoing can post it as resolved and implemented. Then we'd be done, this RfC would be closed and we'd all go on with our work in peace. Imzadi 1979 → 18:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Per this comment to my talk page (now moved to Racepacket's talk page to keep the discussion together), I am willing to amend the above to specify that LauraHale won't edit or review roads articles and that Dough4872, Rschen7754 and myself won't edit or review netball/women's sport(s) articles, but I can't forsee that either group would cross over to the other area in the near future. However, there's no disputes between the "roads" editors and the netball/women's sport(s) editors, so an additional barrier between those groups is not needed to resolve anything. Imzadi 1979 → 20:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Supporting the proposal immediately above

1. Imzadi 1979 → 18:27, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
2. If people want to have their GA RFC, then they're free to start it on their own. I don't think we need to mandate that here. --Rschen7754 18:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
3. A GA RfC can happen, but parties here can only commit to their own willingness to contribute to that, not to the willingness of others to act. I urge Racepacket to accept this proposal, as the situation is rapidly deteriorating, and not in his favor. Geometry guy 22:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
4. Dough4872 00:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

April 20 proposal

I believe that we are on the verge of finalizing an agreement, so I think it would be better to build on what we have rather than going off in a new direction:

1. WikiProject Good Articles conducts a RFC to determine the proper criteria to be used in relation to WikiProject standards.
2. Racepacket will not review any more road articles for GA or comment in their GA reviews for six months.
3. Imzadi, Rschen and Dough will not GA review articles that Racepacket nominates for six months.
4. Racepacket stays away from the roads projects for six months.
5. The normal dispute resolution processes may be followed if issues arise after the six months are up.
6. All parties are civil to each other just like other Wikipedia editors are required to be.
7. Anyone is free to file a new RFC/U on non-roads issues, but such a RFC/U must include diffs or other documentation to substantiate any claims made. The parties dispute whether this RFC/U dealt with road or with other matters, but it is being resolved on the assumption that it was related to road issues.

I believe the above is what we agreed, and I think it would be a waste of time to reopen a month-long RFC/U now based on undocumented allegations by an "outside" editor who did not participate. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but point #1 can't be enforced here, as that's binding on a group that's not a party to this dispute. If you want to hold such an RfC on your own volition, fine, but you need to drop it from any agreement. Point #7 has been addressed here and commented on. That the "outside view" was collapsed is irrelevant: it is still a part of the these proceedings and it addresses the core of the behavioral issues at work behind this RfC/U. It must be addressed. Before starting a new counter proposal, please accept or reject the last proposal made by myself that addressed these issues. I await your reply above. Imzadi 1979 → 19:51, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. I have always advocated that the netball/sports-related issues needed to be addressed. They were in my original proposal dated 14:06, 9 April 2011 (UTC). Imzadi 1979 → 19:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Do you reject our latest proposal then? Do we need to return to ArbCom? --Rschen7754 20:01, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Somewhere in this proposal today, it was suggested that in order for it to pass, I would have to agree to not review roads articles. Some stated that as I was not involved roads articles, this shouldn't be a problem. It is. If a requirement of this RfC that in order to conclude that I will face sanctions involving what I am and am not allowed to review, I won't agree to it except under the following conditions:

1. An RfC is created to review my actions as it pertains to my reviewing of roads related articles that finds that my actions necessitate a disengagement of reviewing roads related good articles.
2. Racepacket agrees to being assigned a mentor before he participates in any good article reviews, good article reassessments, FACs, FARs and peer reviews.

These are MY conditions for accepting any sanctions regarding limits that may be placed on me as it pertains to what I am being asked to disengage from. I've already agreed to disengage from articles where Racepacket is a major contributor, from American collegiate sports and running related articles as a contributor and as a reviewer. I've already agreed to not review articles (GARs, GANs, Peer Review, FARs, FACs) where Racepacket is a major contributor of the nominator. If additional disengagement is required, IE me not editing or being asked to disengage from roads, then an RfC about me with that goal in mind needs to be started. --LauraHale (talk) 00:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

And since LauraHale has never edited, reviewed or commented on roads articles, it would be hard to sustain such an RfC. As for the reverse direction, I have given exactly one review of a netball or women's sport(s) article in my 5 years here, and it was when netball was at FAC. In other words, additional barriers to editing or other forms of sanctions are not needed here, not even under the guise of "equitability". Imzadi 1979 → 00:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This is very helpful, Laura. I think that we can come up with a list of reciprocal measures that are written with complete fairness to address the underlying problem but without pointing fingers at any one person. How about:

1. All parties will re-read WP:NPOV and promise to redouble their efforts to remove POV from Wikipedia articles that they edit.
2. All parties will re-read WP:TPNO and promise to redouble their efforts to refrain from removing materials (such as merger notice templates) from articles, article talk pages and peer review talk pages.
3. All parties will re-read WP:ENGVAR and promise to redouble their efforts to avoid "cultural clashes over vocabulary, spelling, and grammar" on article pages (but all editors are free to write in their local dialect on talk pages.) Per MOS:FOREIGN foreign words such as "laelae" should not be used when English equivalents are available.
4. All parties will re-read WP:WTW and promise to redouble their efforts to refrain from using phrases such as "gender subverting" or "on a global stage."
5. All parties will re-read Wikipedia:Photographs#Pertinence_and_encyclopedic_nature and promise to refrain from using photos that are not "relevant to the article that they appear in [or are not] significantly and directly related to the article's topic."
6. All parties agree to defer to the International Olympic Committee's guidance on Olympic terminology and trademark issues.
7. All parties agree to not solicit editors to conduct GA reviews of their articles.
8. LauraHale and Racepacket will have all text contributions reviewed by a third party for inadvertent close paraphrasing before posting into article space.
9. NewYorkBradSandyGeorge shall assign LauraHale and Racepacket each a mentor to consult when they have questions or concerns about the GA Peer Review or FAC process. These mentors shall be people who are unrelated to the affinity groups that either has been associating.

I think that the above items would be a fair resolution of the netball piece. Of course, I am also willing to split the netball portion off for a separate, complete dispute resolution because there are a lot of concerns that we have not had a quiet opportuity to discuss. Again, I have frame the proposal in a balanced, reciprocal manner without asking for any deference due to my 35-year-long record in the field of gender equity in athletics or my work seeking balanced treatment of women's sports on Wikipedia or my 88 good article reviews. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 01:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

1) Newyorkbrad is an arbitrator and cannot be required to do something like this; 2) this amounts to forcing LauraHale to admit that she has plagiarized. --Rschen7754 01:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

And most of these are issues that are outside of the GAN reviews that form the core of the dispute. Sorry, this sounds like more stalling tactics, in my opinion, on the part of Racepacket to push off the completion of any settlement to another day. Imzadi 1979 → 01:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, we are not asking for any admission of past misconduct on anyone's part on any of these points. We just want to improve everyone's effectiveness and to prevent future inadvertent close paraphrasing. If not NewYorkBrad, how about SandyGeorgia? Again, this is to settle the netball piece without starting a separate dispute resolution. Racepacket (talk) 01:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec) You have 24 hours from this post to come to a tentative settlement regarding the netball portion of the dispute that is agreeable to all parties. (In other words, not a "reciprocal" settlement that punishes all parties involved). The whole point of this RFC is to address Racepacket's conduct, not just random disputes that nobody cares about. If you do not do so, another ArbCom request will be filed, and I suspect that the case will be accepted. --Rschen7754 01:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Again, I still envision two separate agreements. One between the four roads people on the terms at the top of this section. The second between LauralHale and I (or others if necessary) which are the numbered items closest to this paragraph. I am not asking LauralHale to agree to abide by road related items and I am not asking Imzadi to refrain from writing about his "gender subverting" highways in Michigan that lead to "the global stage" illustrated by photos of native dancing girls or a random, posed group of people with the unsourced caption "Michigan Highway team." I can't see why LauralHale would object to the highway piece or the roads people woiuld object to the netball piece. Let's get it done. Racepacket (talk) 01:27, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

You are asking LauraHale to admit to wrongdoing by imposing sanctions on her. I cannot stand for this. --Rschen7754 01:30, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

(ec)No, there should be one agreement that settles the disputes that center around your behavior. This isn't WP:Requests for comment/Imzadii1979 or WP:Requests for comment/LauraHale, it is the second RfC/U about Racepacket. You're not Wikipedia's policeman, and if LauraHale or I are truly doing things that are out of sorts, someone else can file a RfC/U at the appropriate time about our conduct, but for now, it is the opinion of several people here that you need to disengage for once and for all, subject to a specific timeframe. Imzadi 1979 → 01:34, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No settlement in an RfC/U can bind an non-party to do anything without their consent. Since you have not contacted either Newyorkbrad nor SandyGeorgia and asked them to serve such a role, even mentioning them as you have is improper. The former would likely decline because of his role as an arbitrator; the latter would like decline because of her role as a delegate at the FAC process. Since you've yet to offer any evidence that there has been close paraphrasing in LauraHale's work, and given that you're still under mentorship as a part of the agreement that lifted your indefinite block for copyright violations and/or close paraphrasing, you're not the poster child to take up that banner against others, in the hypothetical or not.

Now, based on the comments above in this section, if you accept the proposal in the section immediately above this one, without further additions or stalling, we can have this whole dispute wrapped up. If you can't, are you willing to drag this out for another month while the ArbCom process works? Are you willing to endure weekly writeups in the Signpost, especially if its called the "Racepacket case" because the core of the dispute is about your behavior at GAN reviews and other forums? The choice is still yours, but it is my opinion that the community grows weary of your stalling. Imzadi 1979 → 01:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not reading Racepacket as he causes me distress: He went to meta to try to get the organisation he thought was my employer involved with my wiki editing. This is extremely inappropiate and has not been addressed as far as I can tell. Based on reading other people's responses to Racepacket and hearing another person report what he said to me, it appears that Racepacket is again implying inappropiate paraphrasing on my part. Racepacket has never proven this accusation. He has never provided the differences that show the inappropiate paraphrasing he alleged. He does not have access to the sources and he has not, in this RfC, listed the sources in connection with the differences that I allegedly inappropiately paraphrased/plagiarism. I have offered up two people to independently verify these sources as they should have access to them. It has been made clear to Racepacket the serious consequences that this accusation could potentially cause for me. He continues to make it and he continues to back it up. I have already offered to be INDEFINETELY BLOCKED if he could back up this claim and, should I get blocked because it was proven I inappropiately paraphrased/plagiarised, I said I would not contest. I will not take any sanctions regarding my editing. This isn't about me. This RfC is about Racepacket. If Racepacket has these serious concerns, he should take the appropiate steps that have been repeatedly offered to him. I want this to end. I want the veiled, damaging accusations to stop. I want them proven to be true or I want a retraction as they cannot be proven. If Racepacket will only go forward with this if I am being sanctioned, I will only tolerate sanctions if he opens an RfC against me. --LauraHale (talk) 05:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This is getting to be ridiculous

• The above proposal clearly shows the situation we're dealing with on an ongoing basis with this editor. Despite EVERY editor here claiming the terms expressed further above as unacceptable (save one editor, who would essentially "put up with it"), you have ignored every single request and restated the exact same proposal yet again, which has been refused a countless number of times in the past month. This wreaks of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. I suggest an all indefinite all-out topic ban for Racepacket from road and netball related articles, the the remaining terms of six months imposed on Rschen, Imzadi, Dough and LauraHale. This RFC is a waste of everybody's time, Racepacket is stalling, and we need to end this stalemate where several editors are weighted against one. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is getting to be ridiculous and indicates bad faith when we reached an agreement on the Rschen proposal a week ago, and then Imzadi backed out. I had agreed to the Rschen proposal a week ago and still will live with that decision. The problem is that until today, LauraHale has been hanging on the perimeter of this dispute resolution, unwilling to participate herself, but tossing in an occasional Molotov Cocktail, mostly via talk page comments or emails. We need people to address their concerns forthrightly and to work toward consensus in good faith. I will not agree to any topic bans unless they apply equally to all parties. I have proposed a counter proposal on the roads piece at 19:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC) and the netball piece at 01:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC). I would like to hear the reactions of all the parties to those proposals. Since Floydian decided to throw in a section break here, please leave the responses here, because any other sections above are now closed and the time sequence is too difficult to follow. Other than Floydian's proposal, which is a non-starter, I am not aware of any proposals other than the two-part one submitted on 19:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC) and 01:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC). Floydian, please explain how that proposal does not meet your concerns? Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 02:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I have made several proposals, and each time, I get a counterproposal of some sort without comment on the original. All of my proposals have addressed both roads and netball/sports. I did not accept Rschen's one proposal except as a starting point with the intent to resolve the netball issues as well. I continue to reject your proposals as I have all along. We don't need two separate proposals to address one editor's behavior. Please respond to my last proposal. I will not make any more, nor will I reply to counter proposals until mine gets a thumbs up or a thumbs down. It addresses both roads and netball/sports. I await your reply on it. Imzadi 1979 → 03:03, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The road problem and the netball problem are completely different. To oversimply, the roads are suffering from too strict standards while netball is suffering from too lax standards. The other difference in that most road articles are a one person or two person project, while Netball has been around for years and has had 1,400 different editors. So to improve the encyclopedia, different tasks are involved in each area. In roads, there is little danger of puffing or pushing POV regarding the importance of the road or how the roads of one state stand in comparison with those of other states. If anything, some people have suggested that USRD has "overprofessionalized" article reviews particularly at the GA level. In contrast, as Imzadi noted in his FAC Netball review, the netball articles need a lot of work. The solution should be to get more experienced editors to take a rigorous approach toward netball to bring it up to Wikipedia standards regarding sourcing, NPOV and images (among other things). I don't see how your solution helps Wikipedia, so spliting up the proposal into separate roads and netball parts makes more sense. Hence, it would be better to have two separate lists. We have been in agreement for a week on the roads part, now LauraHale and I need to find agreement on the netball part. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 05:48, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

No, they suffer from the same problem: a personality conflict between yourself and the editors who nominated the articles you were reviewing, especially refusing to allow an editor to withdraw a nomination. As a secondary issue, there is the question of your conduct after a contentious review where you pursue editors in other forums (taking Laura to meta, tagging USRD articles after a dispute on MD-200, tagging other short roadways for notability after the OH SR GANs, etc). You're operating from a faulty premise: RfC/Us are about behavior, not content. The Arbitration Committee could care less about the content of US 223 or Netball; they will care about how editors behaved. Your failure to drop the reviews after the nominations were withdrawn is a behavior issue that can be considered. My solution is addressing the core behavioral issue: the personality conflicts between yourself on one side, and the roads/netball editors on the other. That is the point to be solved. Imzadi 1979 → 05:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

This is all a red herring. You are wasting everybody's time grasping at straws. I am asking for everybody's opinion on a community imposed topic ban, not for more negotiations from you. Sanctions against the other editors are complete unnecessary, as they will gladly avoid you by choice. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 06:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

• Comment This RfC was closed by an independent review over a week ago, and the reopening was improper. As long as you keep moving the goalposts, there's no way there can be an agreement reached. Regardless of Racepacket's conduct, some of you people have stepped from dispute resolution into WP:HOUNDING territory. Two wrongs don't make one right. Stop the pile-on. MLauba ^(Talk) 12:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I don't see it being closed and then reopened. We had a proposal made by Rschen7754 (one of the certifying parties) and Racepacket accepted that. However, I am another one of the certifying parties, and I didn't fully accept the proposal, as it dropped a key point from a previous proposal I had made (that was never explicitly accepted or rejected). I never "moved the goalposts" as it should be clear that I have always wanted a single solution that provided the disengagement necessary to move forward on both the roads- and netball-related issues. Modifying Rschen's proposal to provide that Racepacket would disengage from pursuing LauraHale in the area she edits as well as disengage from pursing Rschen, Dough and myself in our area would provide that solution. Racepacket's answer has been to ignore my suggested solution, even when asked point blank if he could accept it or not. Had he accepted it, the matter would have been closed. I have left comments on his talk page, knowing that it would "light up the orange bar" on his screen with the hope that it would prompt him into a direct yes/no answer on my proposal since he seems intent on ignoring it. I think I deserved the courtesy of at least knowing if my proposed solution was acceptable. Imzadi 1979 → 16:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Improper use of IRC regarding US Roads articles

I would like Imzadi and Dough4872 to specifically address the points raised by Mitchazenia above regarding the misuse of the USRD IRC. It seems to me that both users are determined to bully editors by concerted action and by mis-reading and misapplying WP:USRD/STDS and straying from the GA criteria. We need to make all of Wikipedia a welcoming place for editors of all backgrounds, not have USRD a separate "walled garden." Racepacket (talk) 17:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Again, when I review a GAN, I always consider the GA criteria. It just happens that the USRD criteria has an influence on criteria 3 of the GA criteria, which calls for an article to be broad in its coverage. Regarding IRC, I do not "bash" users on there, rather I just state my opinion of matters affecting USRD. Dough4872 18:22, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Mitch's concerns were raised two weeks ago, commented upon the same day, and have sat dormant since that time. What value is there to resurrecting this sidebar topic now? For the record, I'm not very active on IRC. I was only on-line for an hour or two when RfC was being discussed. However, Let's just say I disagree with Mitch's comments above. Dave (talk) 19:05, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

They can't be addressed to anyone's satisfaction.

1. Logs of IRC conversations can't be made public on Wikipedia unless the participants in that discussion know in advance that the conversation is being logged. To do so is a violation of WP:PRIVACY; to post logs elsewhere would be a breach of trust.
2. Logs from IRC contain IP addresses or computer hostmask information that can be used to trace the physical location of uncloaked users. Releasing that would "out" editor's identities in violation of Wikipedia policy.
3. Many hours of conversation in the IRC channel are not about Wikipedia, HWY/CRWP/UKRD/USRD, or even specific editors. Topics of conversation include general "roadgeek" interests that aren't notable enough to cover in articles, professional or collegiate sports, politics, current events, editors' personal lives/family/friends/pets, shopping, travel, etc. Some of these conversations can also serve to identify editors' identities, especially since real first names are used in conversation.
4. "Decisions" and dicussions made on IRC are not binding in terms of consensus on Wikipedia. Hypothetically speaking, a conversation by HWY/USRD/CRWP regulars on IRC might conclude that a certain action is a good one (say demoting/redirecting an inactive USRD subproject) but that action still has to be proposed and ratified on Wikipedia to take effect. The IRC conversation might refine an initial idea into an actual proposal, ("Delete of them all" into "Redirect their pages to the main USRD page") but the idea still has to be posted at the appropriate discussion forum and discussed. Some proposed actions are never discussed on IRC first.
5. Any attempts to further regulate IRC conversations would also have to be applied to all forms of communication like Instant Messengers (Yahoo, AIM, MSN, etc), Facebook, personal e-mails and even private conversation at WikiMeetUps, WikiMania, etc. Even snail-mail could be used to communicate with another editor "off-wiki" if the two parties had shared their postal addresses. Any decision of that magnitude would have to be enacted by the wider community, and violations of it would be impossible to police.
6. IRC is open to all interested people. The instructions and guidelines are posted at WP:HWY/IRC. Editors don't even need a dedicated IRC client because there is a webhost gateway to access IRC channels. Please note, the tone and tenor of conversation there varies based on the presence or absence of known people. Some of us may or may not use our colleagues' first names in the channel if an unknown party is present. All users are welcome unless and until they become disruptive, just like all editors are welcome on Wikipedia unless and until they disrupt the functions of the community to produce the encyclopedia.
7. Finally, HWY is not the only project to have an IRC channel. There is #wikipedia-en-admins on the Freenode servers for Wikipedia administrators. That is just one of many channels available.

That's just the IRC side of the equation. To address the rest of your accusation. I have already stated a multitude of times my opinion on this matter. I'm at the point that I suspect that you have a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT about it, so let me be blunt and crystal clear: The GA criteria control the listing or not listing of a GA-nominated article. There are a multitude of ways to determine if an article has the "main aspects" of its subject required by GA criterion 3a, and WikiProject advice pages are just one method that can be used to inform a reviewer's opinion.

An article on a toll road that lacks the "tolls" section required by WP:USRD/STDS does not fail to be a GA because it doesn't have the section; it fails because it doesn't have the tolling information in the article, which is a breach of criterion 3a, "main/major aspects". (It could contain the information in the "route description" section, but before that article is nominated at FAC, the section should be split out to address FA criterion 2b, "appropriate structure", comments.) An article without a caption for the map in the infobox (not required by USRD/STDS) doesn't fail to get listed because it breaches criterion 6b, "appropriate captions", if the reviewer feels that the map needs a caption to help explain its content, even though at the moment, such a caption is not required by the project standards. An article whose "route description" is written as turn-by-turn directions, "A runs for B miles before it turns east where it runs for another C miles to a junction with D ," has bad prose (criterion 1a) that should be condensed in the form of a list, probably the junction list, and replaced with well written text.

That USRD/STDS exists is a good thing to provide new editors a framework to write a new highway article; it is not and has never been a substitute for the GA or FA criteria, but it has been updated to account for changes to those criteria or the application of them. (Note, USRD applies a less strict interpretation of the FA criteria for determining A-Class status; things that could be problematic at FAC are acceptable in an A-Class article if the nominator has no intentions of taking it to FAC so long as the article itself is of high quality.) Articles make reasonable deviations from the standards as needed, specifically things the like "Awards and recognition" section on Brockway Mountain Drive, an A-Class article. Editors use common sense or the spirit of WP:IAR to make these logical and reasonable deviations, but omitting a tolling section on a toll road is not logical nor reasonable in a good article or a Good Article. Imzadi 1979 → 19:07, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

The fact is that independent of any USRD policy, I asked for a sentence or two to be added to Interstate 376 about tolls. However, it is wrong to require mile posts or an infobox to be added to an article as a precondition to getting a GA. It is also wrong to require traffic density data to be added to an article as a precondition of getting a GA. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 19:39, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

You still continue to misunderstand that comment of mine. Let me clarify for the umpteenth time: really short highways, say under 10 miles, can use some "padding" like AADTs or NHS status in their articles, where the equivalent level of detail in highways hundreds of miles long might be overkill. As for the specific review, I said "Since you've cited a traffic volume report as a source, it might be nice to include a highlight of the traffic volumes on Route 27 in the article". I'm sorry if my writing skills are problematic, but when I say that "it might be nice" I don't mean "do this or I will never pass the article". Sorry for the confusion. Imzadi 1979 → 20:06, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

As for mileposts in VA-27, you'd have to ask Dough since he was the reviewer there. In my opinion, a junction list without them, when it is so easy to use Google Maps, or its kin, to get approximate values to the tenth of a mile, isn't very complete, and that section of the article is missing a valuable aspect. Depending on the length of the highway, you can have the mileposting added in very little time. The terminal milepost is also the length of the highway, including it adds a sourced value for the length of a roadway in the body of the article. The lead should not, via the infobox, have the only mention of the length, yet many road articles I've seen don't go out of their way to explicitly state the length of the road in the text, which is fine if the junction list contains the terminal mileage. backed by some source, whether a DOT map/log, GIS data, or an online mapping service. Including the remainder of the mileages, to me, is just common sense where there is a source to obtain them. Imzadi 1979 → 20:21, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I am sure you have thoughtful views on this, but those would be better addressed in the A-Class review rather than being implied in the GA criteria. Racepacket (talk) 10:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but what part of "it might be nice" implies that the omission or inclusion of traffic counts was required for the passage of the article? What part of, "it's just common sense that if missing data is easy to obtain, it should be added?" implies that the omission is being called grounds for failure? As I recall, the article had more issues than that when it was nominated and failed, so to assert that the nomination was failed on one issue is pure speculation when it was actually failed on a number of issues taken in the cumulative. Imzadi 1979 → 18:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Off-wiki conduct is not sanctionable. What we choose to talk about off Wikipedia is nobody else's business. --Rschen7754 21:15, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Any user is free to come sit in on and chat in our "walled garden". There is no special access to be granted, just rules of civility to abide by, much the same as there are here. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 02:29, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

I just happened to glance at this page because I was a bit surprised to find it still ongoing. I'm not suggesting any impropriety in these off-wiki conversations and haven't even read this whole section, but I do want to be sure that the record is straight on this: "Off-wiki conduct is not sanctionable. What we choose to talk about off Wikipedia is nobody else's business." Per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list, off-wiki conduct may be sanctionable, depending on its impact on Wikipedia. There are several other factors in the "principle" section of that arbitration case related to communications outside of Wikipedia. Again, though, this relates only to the principle and not at all to this situation. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 17:14, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Granted. I'm aware of people who have posted deleted material off wiki and have been sanctioned. IRL harassment done off wiki is sanctionable as well. However, these scenarios are the exception, not the norm. --Rschen7754 18:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Look guys I would generally follow what NewYorkBrad said about this, but I think Racepacket has a point about Netball - I think it should be dropped from the proposed solution because there are no public statements here really complaining about RacePacket's treatment there, possibly in exchange for dropping the RFC as well - which should be done separately - I'm happy to start one if I can figure out what it needs to be about. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

If you wish it dropped from this RfC, I can start a RfC 3 to specifically address it, take the case to ArbCom citing this RfC as cause for an attempt that failed to resolve the situation or take it to ANI. Which of these three methods available to me should I explore to make sure that future outing, on going harrassment and further unsubstantiated not good faith accusations about me cease? Do both you and Racepacket understand that had I not been a newbie, I would have known how to handle the outing situation better and that Racepacket would likely be indefinetely blocked again? What course of action do you propose? --LauraHale (talk) 08:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think *anybody* who is the target of outing / attempted IRL harassment is able to handle it calmly. I sure didn't (though mine barely reached IRL). I think that (barring any 11th hour deals) we'll be back at ArbCom shortly enough and we can deal with it then. --Rschen7754 08:10, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Not counting the statement that LauraHale redacted after she was harassed by Racepacket attempting to contact her employer? --Rschen7754 07:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. The reason there hasn't been responses from the primary netball editor, LauraHale, is that she was the victim of WP:HARASSMENT and WP:OUTING. Amazing how an editor can commit three bannable offences and get away without even so much as an apology, while making demands against other editors. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 07:22, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Fair point. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:26, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Closed

This RfC/U almost escalated into an arbitration request [case] involving issues from the roads and netball topic areas, but the arbitration request was archived on the basis that the parties would come to an agreement. Although there was some agreement on resolving the roads issues, in the week that you've had, the subject of this RfC/U has not agreed on including the netball issues (and this is still going in circles). This leads me to conclude that although this request for comment was filed to examine the conduct of Racepacket in particular, it appears that some issues remain in dispute and these may require further dispute resolution. Accordingly, I have noted this in the summary and closed this RfC/U.

For the sake of absolute clarity, although I began the process of closing this RfC/U some days ago, it was not to be considered closed until now. Ncmvocalist (talk) 14:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it did escalate into an arbitration request, just not a case (yet). The request was archived after ten days without being accepted, largely because the arbs hoped that this RFC/U would successfully resolve the dispute without their intervention. In terms of (temporarily?) resolving the roads-related dispute, I think it has been successful. As for the harassment claims, it appears that it has been entirely unsuccessful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, and Racepacket seems incapable of disengaging on his own accord. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 21:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I did mean a full case which stopped short as a request, and you're quite right about the 'yet' bit. Yes, I note the points about unsuccessful resolution too.

It would be unfortunate if unpleasant arrangements needed to be made on the account of some arbitrators not taking the warning signs seriously (when granted a specific opportunity to address the Community concerns). Ncmvocalist (talk) 09:50, 26 April 2011 (UTC)