Wikipedia:State route naming conventions poll/Account

This is an account of the tragedy of WP:SRNC.

Purpose

It is hoped that through this experience, the road editors have realized why cooperativity and compromise is important in the editng of roads articles. Also, this will serve to inform newcomers of what happened.

Before February 2006

During the months before SRNC, the main users at WP:USRD, the U.S. Roads WikiProject, were Rschen7754, SPUI, PHenry, JohnnyBGood, Atanamir, Freakofnurture, Northenglish, Gateman1997, Engleman, and Locke Cole. USRD was the project that Rschen7754 founded to connect the state highway WikiProjects that existed.

In late 2005, SPUI moved many articles in Florida from the convention "Florida State Road xx" to "State Road xx (Florida)". He did this in a few other states on the East Coast as well. However, nobody objected to these "mass moves."

February 2006

In early February, SPUI began WP:NC/NH, presenting his proposal to use parentheses for disambiguation in the names of state highway articles. Consensus was mixed in regards to this proposal. A poll during the first couple days of March, just as SRNC began occurring, revealed that the highway editors were split as to their opinion regarding the matter.

During the final days of February, a debate erupted at Talk:I-95 exit list between SPUI and a few others, including Rschen7754 and MPD01605. The debate was regarding SPUI's redirecting of the article to prevent content forking.

February 28, 2006 marked the beginning of the SRNC war. SPUI made two major changes to California State Route 15. He removed {{routeboxca}}, claiming that it was redundant. In addition to this, he moved this article to State Route 15 (California). Rschen7754 reverted this, citing that there was no consensus for such a move. Thus, SRNC began.

March 2006

On March 1, SPUI moved California State Route 15 back to State Route 15 (California). He also moved California State Highway 17 to State Route 17 (California). The latter was a special case, as a few months earlier, it had been moved to California State Highway 17 after a lengthy discussion with User:Nohat, who wanted to use common and inconsistent names for road articles. Due to there being no consensus, a compromise was enacted, and the article was moved to California State Highway 17.

This move was quickly reverted by Nohat. After SPUI reverted this move, a WP:RPP request was filed by Nohat, and a WP:RM request was filed by SPUI. On the same day, a WP:RM request was filed on California State Route 85 to move it to California Highway 85. This would fail six days later.

On March 2, SPUI reverted the edits and moves on California State Route 15. A talk page discussion began but soon fell apart. Seeing as Rschen7754 insisted on having {{routeboxca}} on the page, he proceeded to edit Template:Routeboxca2, restructuring the entire template. User:Zzyzx11 reverted this, and a revert war began. Seeing that this was failing, SPUI proceeded to WP:TFD it here. That same day, he created his own version of the infobox, {{Infobox CA Route}}. Still that same day, he introduced it on a few pages, including Interstate 605 and California State Route 1. He was reverted and reverted back several times.

On March 3, after more edit warring to begin the day, Rschen7754 started Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive81#User:SPUI. Some administrators defended SPUI. However, others, including User:Alai, tried to reason with him. Revert warring continued for the rest of the day.

On March 4, SPUI performed a few reverts on I-95 exit list. During March 5 and 6, discussions continued, along with some reverts.

On March 7, SRNC began to escalate. SPUI began infobox reverts on California State Route 15 and Interstate 605. also spreading the war to California State Route 283. User:JohnnyBGood reverted SPUI and was blocked for WP:3RR. A discussion ensued at WT:CASH regarding the infoboxes but soon came to a stalemate.

March 8 saw the massive move wars begin. SPUI began by moving the articles that he had move warred over before. However, he also moved about 10 more articles as well, mostly from California. However, he did move Washington State Route 99. He was reverted by many, including Rschen7754, but he reverted those reverts.

On March 9, the TFD for {{routeboxca}} closed as keep. Also, User:David Gerard made the accusation of JohnnyBGood and Gateman1997 being sockpuppets of each other. However, although evidence was later presented, this was circumstantial, and Rschen7754 unblocked both users. However, SPUI mass moved over 60 California road articles, and due to the sheer volume of the moves, they were not reverted.