Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case

Arbitration Committee proceedings

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Case requests

Request name	Motions	Initiated	Votes
Racepacket		10 April 2011	{{{votes}}}

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Open cases

Currently, no arbitration cases are open.

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Recently closed cases (Past cases)

Case name	Closed
Venezuelan politics	25 May 2024

Clarification and Amendment requests

Request name	Motions	Case	Posted
Amendment request: Article titles and capitalisation	none	(orig. case)	13 May 2024
Clarification request: Extended confirmed restriction	none	none	29 May 2024
Clarification request: mentioning the name of off-wiki threads	none	none	4 June 2024

Arbitrator motions

No arbitrator motions are currently open.

Requests for arbitration

Racepacket

Initiated by Rschen7754 at 04:04, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Involved parties

• Rschen7754 (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA), filing party
• Racepacket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• John Vandenberg (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• Imzadi1979 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Dough4872 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• TwinsMetsFan (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• admrboltz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)
• DanTheMan474 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• viridiscalculus (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Eustress (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA)

Confirmation that all parties are aware of the request

• Racepacket [1]
• John Vandenberg [2]
• Imzadi1979 [3]
• Dough4872 [4]
• TwinsMetsFan [5]
• admrboltz [6]
• DanTheMan474 [7]
• viridiscalculus [8]
• Eustress [9]

Confirmation that other steps in dispute resolution have been tried

• Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Racepacket 2

Statement by Rschen7754

The locus of the dispute stems from Racepacket's controversial GAN reviews. Many of his reviews are good and get the job done. However, a significant minority of his reviews have been unpleasant, and further problems have stemmed from them.

There are two subject areas of dispute: U.S. roads and netball.

U.S. Roads

The RFC also covers whether Racepacket should have passed articles or not; we wish to leave that out of this since this is out of Arbcom's remit.

• The U.S. Roads WikiProject has nominated 78 articles to GAN in 2011. Of those, Racepacket reviewed 18.
• What makes this more remarkable is that Racepacket was blocked from 2/4 to 2/26 and from 3/27 to 4/2. 29 USRD GANs passed during this time.
• Of the 29 reviews that Racepacket has done for USRD total, 14 were unsatisfactory.

(Statistics from April 5th).

Racepacket has reviewed USRD GAN after USRD GAN, and a significant minority of these reviews have been unsatisfactory and have resulted in Racepacket performing actions that have violated Wikipedia behavioral guidelines. The full list of is at the RFCU; here is a brief summary of the policy violations:

• U.S. Route 223 - After Imzadi1979 withdrew the GAN, Racepacket forced it open again. [10] Accusation of vandalism. [11]
• [12] forum shopping, ABF
• [13] - ABF
• [14] - inappropriate remark
• [15] - personal attack

These are minor, but summed together, with several other flawed reviews that the project is not happy with, and with no end in sight (due to Racepacket's persistence in reviewing the majority of USRD GANs to prevent "inbred reviewing" [16]), this is a significant dispute that was brought to RFCU. However, further issues have come to light at the RFCU, and Racepacket's failure to address these issues has resulted in this filing. In addition to this, Racepacket has canvassed at his RFCU.

Netball

I'll let someone else describe what went on here.

Why Arbcom?

Even though he has faced criticism in his reviews of road articles, he persists in reviewing them. He persists even after a 7 day block from Ironholds [17] Attempts to resolve the situation result in attempts to distract the situation and refusals to admit wrongdoing. (WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT) Our proposal is that he disengage from reviewing USRD GANs, apologize to LauraHale, and stay away from the netball articles, but he refuses to do so. John Vandenberg sums the problem up: [18]

There is a RFCU open, which degenerated into Racepacket trying to distract the issue and stall for time while he continues the disputed behavior (reviewing GANs, including USRD GANs) that the RFC involves. [19][20][21] He continues to make accusations that he cannot back up [22] as well as misquotations from the second Highways arbitration case. Racepacket continues to game the RFCU system as well, with canvassing for support from several users where he has had well-received GAN reviews. [23][24][25][26][27]

Today Racepacket proposed a counteroffer [28] [29] showing very little understanding of the concerns of the community. While there is the chance that we don’t need Arbcom, it’s not likely. The RFC talk page has hit 182 KB. Outside editors have come in to reason with him and have failed. [30] [31] Therefore, to "break the back of the dispute" I am filing for arbitration.

Update

We have reached a tentative agreement regarding the roads portion of the dispute. [32] The netball issues still remain however (which John Vandenberg would be presenting). Please advise us as how you wish to proceed. --Rschen7754 15:59, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

If the Netball issues could be acknowledged by the ArbCom, that would be much appreciated. I feel that the issues are getting lost on the page. --Rschen7754 21:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Dough4872

As a USRD editor, I have been heavily involved with the recent behavior of Racepacket and feel the hardship he is causing to the project is wrong. First, I feel it is unfair that Racepacket is constantly reviewing USRD articles at GAN. Furthermore, I feel that several of these reviews have caused serious problems. Prominent examples include U.S. Route 223, where Racepacket got into a heated conflict with Imzadi1979 that resulted in Imzadi1979 closing the review and renominating it again, only for Racepacket to come back into the review and continue the conflict, eventually leading to a posting at ANI. I also found a comment Racepacket made at Talk:Ohio State Route 369/GA1 to be disparaging, where Racepacket questioned DanTheMan474 for nominating short road articles at GAN. This comment was totally wrong as DanTheMan474, or any editor, has the choice to take any article, regardless of importance, to GAN. This is a matter of quality versus importance. In addition, I feel that it is wrong for Racepacket to totally disregard project standards. While project standards are not the law of the land, they heavily influence the quality criteria. In Interstate 376, a GAN that Racepacket reviewed, there is no toll section, which is a section required in USRD articles on toll roads. This lacking in turn fails criteria 3 of the GA criteria, which calls for a GA to be broad in its coverage. I am dismayed with how Racepacket threw the project standards out the window in both the I-376 GA review along with Maryland Route 200 and its subarticles. Regarding I-376, Racepacket went to the point of telling the nominator to totally disregard the USRD standards and that the article would only be judged by GA criteria. With MD 200, Racepacket feels that the USRD standards do not apply when it comes to the presence of the History of Maryland Route 200 article. However, that article is poorly written with excessive quoting and can easily be covered within the MD 200 article, as are the article histories of most roads. The issues with this article extend beyond the USRD standards to Wikipedia standards, and Racepacket has failed to comply with either standards.

From what I have seen in recent months, it appears that Racepacket has some sort of grudge with USRD. I was hoping the RFC/U would resolve this conflict, and I feel that Imzadi1979 came up with a great proposal solution in order to mend the wounds. However, Racepacket has failed to cooperate at the RFC/U. He has shot down Imzadi1979s proposal with an unreasonable counter-proposal that puts review sanctions on me, Rschen7754, and Imzadi1979. In addition, he continues to review USRD articles at GAN, totally disregarding the fact that those reviews led to the opening of the RFC/U. As a result, I feel that ArbCom is the route we have to take in order to put an end to all of this.

Statement by Imzadi1979

Along with others, I have had a series of minor "annoyances" with Racepacket since the end of September. He has reviewed six of my nominations at WP:GAN, and of them, four have had minor issues. Were each review in isolation, each one would have been like a bug bite; scratch the itch and move one. Instead in combination, the net effect was worse. The last review was the worse of the series. As Rschen7754 details above in brief, I had nominated U.S. Route 223 (US 223). During the course of the review, Racepacket took the position that the article lacked sufficient coverage related to Interstate 73 (I-73) and how it might impact US 223. While true that the legislation that defines I-73 does state that it will run through the states of Ohio and Michigan, without specifying exactly where or how, the departments of transportation in both states have long cancelled any study that might result in the freeway's construction. Racepacket relied on statements from the current U.S. Secretary of Transportation from speeches given in states where I-73 is being built and an advocacy group whose current membership lists a former Michigan state senator to "prove" that that the state of Michigan has current plans to build the road. He dug in his heels on this matter to the point that I felt that my only option was renominate the article for another editor to review.

Rschen's statement already contains the diffs for Racepacket forcing the review back open and accusing my withdrawal as vandalism. (GA bot was down at the time, so I edited WP:GAN myself to affect the withdrawal and renomination.) Afterwards, he WP:CANVASSed an opinion related to an WP:ANI discussion that was related to US 223 situation. [33] He also failed to assume good faith by accusing me of attempting to pick my nomination's reviewer. [34]

Since that time, and the discussion on WT:GAN that resolved the situation, he disengaged from reviewing any of my subsequent nominations. There have been other issues surrounding his behavior. After a comparison of the histories of both Maryland Route 200 and M-6 (Michigan highway), Racepacket tagged M-6 as "[lacking] a conmprehensive discussion of the controversy surrounding its construction". [35] He restored that tagging when I removed it. [36] (As a background, M-6's article was promoted as a featured article on January 31, 2011, and no other editors have questioned the comprehensiveness of the article at WP:PR or WP:FAC.)

There are other cases detailed on the RfC/U, and others can discuss them better. We have tried, and failed so far, to negotiate a plan to disengage the two sides of this dispute. I have made two essentially identical proposals. He has indicated [37] that in order to accept a plan designed to separate the two sides of the dispute, we would also have to stop editing our main (only) areas of interest on Wikipedia. I hope that the arbitrators can quickly end this dispute so all parties can return to full-time editing.

Statement by Eraserhead1

My interaction with Racepacket has been fairly limited, I have been impressed by Racepacket's behaviour at least towards myself. I hope this dispute can be solved reasonably for all parties. I think Racepacket sometimes needs to be a little better at dropping the stick, if someone wants to withdraw a review that shouldn't be a problem, if they re-nominate it isn't likely that they want to "pick their reviewer" unless they do so several times or something. Not everyone gets on with everyone and its reasonable to allow this to happen :). It is also clear that Racepacket sometimes has rather poor judgement sometimes. Although the review itself was well conducted it wasn't appropriate given the RFC.

I would like to add that I don't think requiring Racepacket to apologise is useful, I don't believe any value is added by forcing someone to apologise, as I don't think it is would come across as genuine. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

@Racepacket, other external editors other than yourself can edit US road related articles so that it doesn't become something which only a small number of editors are reviewing. There are plenty of other GA articles to review. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Racepacket

I have been editing road articles since on June 23, 2007 and have also edited articles involving other transportation. I have also been active in a number of WikiProjects, but not USRD. My interests range from running, the Olympics, Illinois, Virginia, law and higher education.

I believe that the Good Article (GA) process should be welcoming to both nominators and reviewers, and it provides an important opportunity for editors to work with others outside their normal subject areas. Ideally, chemists should review history articles and visa versa. This assures that articles can be understood by readers lacking a deep background in a topic. The GA criteria are set by WP:WikiProject Good articles (WPGA) at a low level that all non-stub articles should meet. I have reviewed 81 articles since March 2010.

Three editors (Rschen7754, Dough4872, and Imzadi1979) have been hounding me for some time. When I nominated Virginia State Route 27 each summarily quick-failed the article for different grounds. One demanded milepost readings for each exit on a 2-mile long highway that has no such milepost markers. They also misread MOS:RJL.diff While another (Imzadi) demanded that I include traffic density data. Later, when I asked about traffic density data in other GA reviews, Rschen repeatedly intervened claiming that it was not a GA criteria and not a “major aspect” of a highway article. Another time, I was reviewing Talk:Grand Valley State University/GA1, which made reference to M-45, and I suggested that it be rephrased for readers who do not understand that M-45 was a Michigan state road. The nominator complied, and Imzadi ordered, "Change it back." I believe the resulting back and forth reflected poorly on the GA process. Finally, in Talk:Interstate 376/GA2, another USRD editor claimed, “The USRD guidelines require an exit table BEFORE an article is nominated for GA,” and Imzadi also made comments in the review invoking “the USRD standards.” I don't read USRD/STDS that way, but I cannot demand compliance if the issues are outside the GA Criteria.

Although GA nominators are willing to give careful consideration to implementing reviewers’ comments based on the GA Criteria, the injection of additional criteria into the GA review causes confusion and frustration. I currently focus on only the GA Criteria, because that is what the instructions specify, but if the GA Criteria is amended to incorporate USRD criteria, I am willing to comply with that decision as well.

The complaints raise the issue of when a reviewer should do multiple reviews of the same article. For example, in Talk:Rutherford B. Hayes/GA2 and Talk:Rutherford B. Hayes/GA3 it was very efficient for me to do both reviews because I was already familiar with the sources and the subject matter. We took that article from a high school term paper to an FAC. In Talk:U.S. Route 223/GA1, Imzadi wrote that plans to upgrade the route to become part of a new interstate highway were abandoned. However, I offered press reports that the US Secretary of Transportation was calling upon Michigan Congressmen and others to include funding for the interstate in the next highway legislation. Instead of resolving the content dispute, Imzadi withdrew the nomination. He then renominated it and I volunteered as reviewer since I was familiar with the one remaining issue. We sought outside opinions and resolved the issue, rather than having a new reviewer start the process from scratch. We agreed to not review each other’s articles, and we have both honored that agreement.

I take the review process seriously, particularly checking sources and testing for close paraphrasing. Of my 81 GA reviews, two had serious paraphrasing problems. In each case, I discretely consulted with Wikipedia’s copyright experts and was careful to not accuse anyone of “plagiarism.”

Throughout my career, I have edited and reviewed the work of coworkers and subordinates. Sometimes, the review process can bruise sensitive egos, but it is an important quality control step, and I try to be sensitive to the feelings of the authors. I try to minimize wikidrama and to encourage our volunteer editors. I doubt that an arbitration is needed, because I have made a comprehensive proposal for the four of us to avoid reviewing each other’s articles and to reduce the number of road reviews by each party between now and July.[38] I believe such a practical solution is practical and effective. However, I have opposed the idea of my withdrawing from USRD completely, because such a restriction would establish the “walled garden” of in-bred GA reviewing that is destructive to WPGA and to the quality of the encyclopedia. The underlying issue of whether USRD criteria should be applied in the GA review process should be left to a community-wide determination hosted by WPGA rather than decided by the Arbitration Committee or in an RFC/U. Racepacket (talk) 16:03, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to NewYorkBrad

I believe we have reached an agreement between the parties at the RFC/U which consists of:

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.

I believe that this brings the subject of the RFC/U to a conclusion. However, it is true that an editor left and then withdrew an "Outside view" about an unrelated dispute a few days into the RFC/U. Because this editor did not respond to questions, offer diffs to support claims, or participate in the RFC/U discussions, it would be unfair to believe that the RFC/U provided a meaningful forum for discussion or resolving those issues. While I appreciate that User:Fluffernutter has offered some views on this unrelated matter, I respectfully submit that there are errors in his timeline regarding how I came to be appointed as the substitute reviewer and how I handled requests for second opinions on key issues. Because the key parties to that dispute have not been named as parties to this arbitration, it would be unfair to discuss this here or to view this proceeding as being expanded in the manner suggested by Fluffernutter. Accordingly, I suggest that good cause exists to rely upon the RFC/U agreement to decline to take up this arbitration. Racepacket (talk) 01:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to Statement by Geometry Guy

It appears that the parties have an agreement for resolving the RFC/U. So any resulting RFC regarding criteria would not be imposed by the arbitrators. I believe that wide-spread discussion among GA reviewers is needed because there is a lot of confusion among potential nominators and reviewers on the question of the relationship of individual WikiProject standards to the GA criteria. I am willing to apply whatever result the RFC produces - either to apply standards as being incorporated by reference in the GA criteria or to apply just the GA criteria. I also believe that User:WhatamIdoing can do a fair job of framing the issue. I copied and pasted the six points above from here, and read it at the time as a consensus solution. In any event, as I understand the rules, any editor has the right to advertise an RFC on WT:WikiProject Good articles at any time, so I view point #1 as a positive sign that people will shift to focusing on the GA process rather than on individual conduct. Enough questions have been raised to make the RFC worth the time. I look forward to finalizing the RFC/U settlement with Geometry Guy and the other parties. Thanks, Racepacket (talk) 03:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to Statement by Zero1328

I agree with Zero1328 that we obviously have an editor who was dealing with stress "in the weeks leading up to Racepacket's RFC[/U]" that began on March 21. There were difficulties and disappointments prior to my volunteering on March 13 and prior to my attempting to organize the review on March 20. The obvious stress and behavioral indicators have led me to be very reluctant to draw the editor into participating in the RFC/U and allowed her to withdraw her views. I can't image why Zero1328 could view as beneficial skipping other forms of mediation or mentorship to make a relatively new user a party to an Arbitration Committee case, with the inevitable level of stress that it may entail. I think that the RFC/U is reaching an end point, and there are sufficient reasons to decline to take this case. Racepacket (talk) 07:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Response to Statement by Ncmvocalist

I have never read the RFC/U as dealing with Netball. An editor left an "outside view" and later withdrew it and did not participate in the discussions at the RFC/U. Nor has that editor been named as a party to this arbitration request. I think that converting this proceeding into a netball-related proceeding would skip important intermediate dispute resolution steps. I view the suggestion made to expand either the RFC/U or this Arbitration request to cover netball would be to open a Pandora's Box at the time that we have successfully brought the RFC/U to a conclusion. If a dispute arises over netball, the involved parties should come forward and seek dispute resolution. There have been over 1,400 different editors who have edited Netball and if they did not want to come forward, it would be a mistake to ignite a dispute on their behalf that would drag them into a time consuming matter. So, I disagree with Ncmvocalist's suggestion. Racepacket (talk) 22:10, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Eustress

I have stated my argument previously that I believe Racepacket is a detriment to the encyclopedia (see recent AN thread) and should be banned from the site, to which the U.S. roads and netball situations are just further evidence. However, I don't consider myself a party in this matter, as I have had no involvement with either of the situations under scrutiny. I think the arbitrators would be wise to take Racepacket's entire history into account when evaluating this matter. Regards —Eustress ^talk 20:18, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Viridiscalculus

I have personally not been an injured party at the hands of Racepacket. Racepacket has reviewed seven of my Good Article Nominations. All but one of the reviews has been in the last 2 1/2 months. We have had our differences and I have found some of his comments to be patronizing, needless, and reflect a less educated understanding of how the USRD project works. However, our relationship has never gotten nasty or contentious enough that I wanted to figuratively rip his head off. I appreciate that he has taken on the task of promptly reviewing so many of my articles.

There were three situations in which I have commented on other Racepacket "incidents." During the Virginia Route 27 set of GANs, I made some suggestions on how he could improve the article to better follow USRD standards. During the U.S. Route 223 series of GANs, I offered my opinion on the inclusion of Interstate 73 information; this opinion mostly agreed with that of Imzadi1979. I urged him to drop the ridiculously-beaten issue, close out the review, and avoid reviewing Imzadi1979's articles for six months. During a series of discussions on the Maryland Route 200 articles, I suggested no one nominate any of the Maryland Route 200 articles at GAN again until next year.

Outside of those incidents, I have avoided or tried to avoid getting involved in the Racepacket issues. I avoided the Request for Comment proceedings completely. Much of that is because I do not think I have much worthwhile to say, others can and have said better, and I do not wish to condone certain behavior by supporting their arguments. I have also been disappointed in this series of conflicts and disappointed in the actions of both sides in the conflict. No one has clean hands here. I am disgusted that these conflicts have resulted in an Arbcom case in which I feel compelled to offer my testimony. I wish all of the involved parties would just step back and take a short break instead of continually sniping at each other, trying to prove each other wrong. The best resolution here is for the aggrieved parties to avoid each other until wounds can heal. I disagree with the idea of a project ban for Racepacket because that would go against this project member's wishes, which are that he be welcome to continue to review my articles, despite having conflicts with other members of the project.  VC  23:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by uninvolved Fluffernutter

This situation first came to my attention when the Netball GA went south; since then I've been following the RFC, which has descended into madness. Let me attempt to summarize what I see as having happened. I'm going to focus on the LauraHale conflict as opposed to the roads conflict, as I see that as being more of a problem. I've done a massive timeline, with diffs, of exactly how things played out regarding LauraHale and the first Netball GA, if it's of any use for anyone; however, the executive summary is as follows:

1. Netball GA opens. Initial reviewer and LauraHale cannot quite figure out what they both want; Laura asks for a new reviewer.
2. Racepacket steps in to review. Begins making suggestions on such topics of what measurement units to use, what constitutes New Zealand English, and whether the article uses close paraphrasing.
3. LauraHale takes offense at RP's nitpicks in general, and his paraphrasing insinuations specifically. States that she doesn't believe he is reviewing according to the GA criteria.
4. Rather than back down, Racepacket suggests that LauraHale provide him with copies of her sources so he can do a thorough check of them
5. LauraHale refuses, they go back and forth, and, fed-up, LauraHale withdraws the GAN.
6. Racepacket refuses to let it die, repeatedly re-opening the GAN despite first Laura, and then others, closing it and telling him to stop.
7. Racepacket goes on to GA review other articles of LauraHale's, which he invariably fails or urges others to fail.
8. Racepacket goes to Meta, asking for LauraHale to be "spoken to" (under the mistaken belief that she is a WMF fellow) about her behavior and her reaction to (what may or may not have been) his plagiarism accusations.
9. Racepacket is asked on to disengage from the Netball issue on the RfC; engages in continual IDIDNTHEARTHAT behavior, refusing to accept that disengaging is necessary.

I see Number 9 here as the really important point. Both Racepacket and LauraHale were prickly on the Netball GA and blew a small issue up into a large one, but Racepacket's refusal to back away from a very clearly contentious situation, no matter how many people told him he needed to do it, is what turned this into a disaster. This came to RFAr because of his refusal to agree to any sort of interaction ban or restraints regarding his (among other topics) Netball GA reviewing habits. If he is now willing to accept that one or both of those is necessary with regard to LauraHale, then great and a case need not be opened. If he is not, however, able to acknowledge that his interactions with LauraHale and the Netball articles have become problematic, and agree to a solution that limits their crossing paths, then arbitration may be the only way to force disengagement. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 00:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Geometry guy

I had hoped it would not be necessary for me to comment upon this case, but the first point of the proposed resolution, namely

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

would set a rather alarming precedent in which Arbitration places requirements to act on an uninvolved WikiProject and a large number of uninvolved editors. This point is also unnecessary in that the parties concerned agree that the criteria for listing good articles are the Good article criteria. It is also ill-defined: if such an RfC is mandated here, how should the wording of the RfC be determined, for example?

In this dispute, I have noted considerable agreement among involved editors that Good articles should be precisely those that meet the Good article criteria. This concurs with the policy and mission of the GA process, and my own understanding, which I implement on a daily basis. I have also noted agreement that WikiProject standards may inform or persuade (but do not dictate) the interpretation of these criteria. If there is to be a usefully worded RfC which could bridge the apparent gap in understanding between the editors involved here, I do not know what it is.

I have read the US Roads Article Standards and am willing to mediate regarding their interpretation at the GA level. Geometry guy 02:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Add. I support the principle that an agreement between editors should not place requirements on third parties without their approval. On the other hand, any editor can, in principle, open a request for comment about any issue at any time.

There are several ways to respond to this. For instance, since an RfC can happen anyway, it does not need to be part of an agreement to resolve the dispute, so wouldn't it be simpler not to mention it? Alternatively, since an RfC can happen anyway, aren't my concerns above invalid?

Well no. Since any editor can start an RfC, it matters quite a lot whether the request is viewed as legitimate, necessary, or helpful. An RfC can only reflect the views of those editors interested enough to comment, and its interpretation depends upon all these factors.

A resolution by arbitrators affects all of these issues. In my view, the general RfC as proposed is not necessary and would not be helpful in resolving the issues of application that are disputed. I also think it would be unhelpful for arbitration here to prescribe any format for further discussions. Geometry guy 20:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Statement by Zero1328

This was brought to my attention when User:LauraHale started giving indications of a high level of stress, in the weeks leading up to Racepacket's RFC. I should note that I've been quite inactive lately; I have little desire in getting deeply involved, but wanted to do a quick investigation of the problem.

It is important to stress that this RFAR also includes Netball, and is not just about the U.S. Roads Wikiproject. Fluffernutter has summed up most of the events on that end. The reason why there is little representation of Netball by Laura on both the RFC and this RFAR is because of stress. She withdrew her statement on the RFC not because of a lack of relevance, but of increasing stress. [39] This withdrawal occurred shortly after Racepacket attempted to contact who he thought were Laura's superiors. [40] She's had very little involvement with Racepacket since then - Two weeks later, she reverted Racepacket's recent edits to the long-closed Netball GAN,[41] and proceeded to propose a solution on the RFC, which seems to have been forgotten among the conversations. [42]

The real issue here is Racepacket's behaviour. A lot of people here are focusing on the Roads projects side of it, but that's because of under-representation. Both the issues with the Roads and Netball seem to have started in almost identical ways. My own statement on the RFC pointed out that the RFC discussion partly focuses on Racepacket's behaviour. I have observed that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT and the related points had occurred a ridiculous number of times in regards to Racepacket, over both the Roads and Netball areas, and his RFC discussion. There is also a continuous overzealousness and lack of clarity in Racepacket's communication to fellow editors. Racepacket's first RFC also exactly matches these observations. - Zero1328 _Talk? 04:50, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment from Ncmvocalist

I've started closing the RfC/U with the roads agreement. Due to the nature of RfC/U, whether or not this voluntary something needs to be written up by AC is something for AC to consider before this Rfarb is archived. I haven't added a signature to the RfC/U closure yet as I am waiting on some update with what's happening with the netball part of this.

Obviously, in light of Newyorkbrad's comment (12:42, 14 April), if Racepacket agrees to add "or netball" after each mention of "roads" in the agreement, I won't run into any issues updating, signing and closing the RfC/U. But if there's a fuss about adding the netball bit to the agreement, I'd probably be left to close the RfC/U as it is currently written and AC would need to consider whether or not it wishes to write up an involuntary something. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:02, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Clerk notes

This area is used for notes by the clerks (including clerk recusals).

Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/3/3)

• Recuse; I'm a party. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Accept Normally I would wait for more statements, but I'm aware of the RFC and AN issues, and think that it's going to end up here anyway. SirFozzie (talk) 05:19, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Switching to decline provided the settlement above is enacted. SirFozzie (talk) 17:04, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
• Accept Jclemens (talk) 07:03, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
  • ... but NYB's proposed way forward is preferable, if accepted. Jclemens (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Decline provided ratification is forthcoming for the settlement Racepacket describes above. Jclemens (talk) 02:06, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Geometry Guy makes a good point--it's counterintuitive that an agreement between two parties can mandate an action be taken by a third party. Jclemens (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
• Accept suspect we'll need to get involved. hold pending outcome of voluntary agreement outlined below (and at RfC) Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:07, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: I have carefully read the RfC (including Racepacket's long and thoughtful response there) in addition to the comments on this RfAr. In lieu of opening an arbitration case that will take weeks and may be stressful for everyone, I propose to resolve this request by Racepacket's agreeing not to participate in the GAN process with respect to roads and road-related articles for a period of one year. This would be based not on our finding wrongdoing on anyone's part, but simply as a recognition that sometimes people who aren't getting along should be separated. While I understand that other allegations have been made against Racepacket, I think this would address the most urgent one, and I would then urge him to carefully take the other comments that have been made into account going forward, which could help resolve the others. A new case could be filed later if disagreements persisted, but I hope that they wouldn't. I ask Racepacket to advise whether this will be acceptable to him within 48 hours. Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:13, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Can we get an update on the status here. Also, in addition to staying away from Roads GA reviews, I think Racepacket ought to agree (without a lot of fuss or negotiation—just do it) to stay away from Netball related ones as well. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:42, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Recuse I have too much past involvement with the roads projects to be considered neutral. – iridescent 14:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Recuse. Kirill ^{[talk] [prof]} 17:36, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
• Comment: Brad's proposal seems a good way forward here, either as a voluntary binding restriction or perhaps by motion.  Roger Davies ^talk 04:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
• Decline - I doubt a full case is required here. Racepacket's response to Brad is encouraging and hopefully, the parties can finalize the details. PhilKnight (talk) 15:08, 14 April 2011 (UTC)