Main case page ( Talk) — Evidence ( Talk) — Workshop ( Talk) — Proposed decision ( Talk) Case clerk: KnightLago ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Coren ( Talk) & Newyorkbrad ( Talk) |
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![]() | Important — please note
The Committee, in passing the motion to open this case, provided explicit direction to all editors participating in this case:
The Clerk for this case is KnightLago ( talk · contribs) who will be assisted by non-recused members of the Clerk team in enforcing the above rules. The Clerks will, wherever it deems necessary, refactor and remove statements where they violate the above directions, or where they violate the general standards of decorum and Wikipedia policies. The Clerks will, where required for particular egregious or repetitive violations, ban participants from the case pages for an appropriate period of time. Both the refactoring of statements, and case page bans, that are implemented by the Clerks, can be appealed to the Committee. If any user requires assistance in submitting private evidence to the Arbitrators in the method requested by Committee (see the second bullet point, above), please contact a member of the Clerks or, alternatively, an Arbitrator directly. — User:KnightLago ( talk) 02:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC) |
I find interactions like
this to be very suggestive of tag team editing. But then again, the same names frequently occur on both sides of the debate. I would also appreciate if the anti-Russian non-Russian side presented similar "tag-team" evidence from the other side so that they can be compared.
Cool Hand
Luke
03:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I did not want to present such evidence as not to fuel the wikidrama, but since Cool Hand asked to provide it, this should be possibly done. Biophys ( talk) 05:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Martintg, being shocked by your accusations, I very unequivocally demand from you to present clear evidence that I have been involved in on-wiki or off-wiki communication, discussing coordinated editing WP articles, and breaking the WP policy, with any of users you named (Offliner, Russavia, PasswordUsername, HistoricWarrior007, Igny, Shotlandiya, and Vlad fedorov). Unless you are able to present any such evidence, I expect from you an apologise for these accusations - to me, and other users you named as a members of this "team". FeelSunny ( talk) 11:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I think this should be talked about, since I'm pretty sure that it's going to. This is potentially the largest scandal since the Essjay thing. Jtrainor ( talk) 00:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
If it hits the media, and the media refers to it as a web brigade, well look at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#January_incident. I wouldn't rush to add it to the article, because its a piece of junk anyway, but the irony would be something indeed. -- Russavia Dialogue 17:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Essjay story was newsworthy (an arbitrator lying to the community). Is this? That would be a positive surprise, media discussing Eastern Europe and articles like tsarist autocracy and the aforementioned German-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk :> -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
We are the media. Our visibility is greater than many of those who cover us. Jehochman Talk 17:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
To all concerned parties: Clerk Daniel is on real-life vacation and hence has withdrawn from clerking this case. Clerk KnightLago is his replacement, assisted by trainee clerk Manning. Manning ( talk) 02:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- KnightLago ( talk) 03:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
A certain meme has already started to spread with regards to this case, stating that the mailing list archive was hacked, then falsified, before being leaked. This meme is catching on through sheer force of repetition, and has already made a sucker out of at least one outside participant above.
At this point in time, the only supporting evidence for this claim is the following line of reasoning: "Certainly nobody from this list would leak its contents with an outsider! The list has been leaked to an outsider, therefore it was leaked by somebody who was not a member of the list! Therefore it was hacked!".
Unfortunately, the premise here (that nobody on the list would share its archive with a non-participant) is completely unverified. Whistle-blowing is hardly a new phenomenon - no matter how gung-ho all members of a group may feel on day one, there's always the chance that eventually, one member will feel disillusioned.
It is my sincere hope that ArbCom not be taken by this smokescreen until substantial, valid evidence is offered to back these claims of hacking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and up to this point there has been no proof of these extraordinary claims of hacking and forgery - no extraordinary proof, no proof at all.
Every single remedy and FoF in Piotrus 2 case is outdated and many of them now look not only ridiculous, but positively cruel. The entire case should be declared void. If not, then at the very least victims like Irpen, Lokyz, and perhaps Boodlesthecat, should have their punitive remedies lifted. Ghirlandajo should be praised for his former contributions, and a remedy should be passed urging him that his return to content-editing would be welcomed. And lastly, I, Thatcher, and the few others who now appear in all the ArbitrationEnforcement threads to have credibility should be praised for the effort we've put in and the stress we have endured. The Digwuren case, the plaything of this email list, should similarly be put to the sword and the bad book burned. An all-encompassing new case with a new set of remedies in light of ArbCom's lucky new wisdom should be enacted.
What's more, ArbCom needs to reform itself in certain regards. Beyond the miscarriages of justice, the biggest frustration was the reason these miscarriages happened: the arbs didn't read the evidence, or if they did there was no on-wiki evidence they did, and there was no opportunity to challenge the arbs before they acted. Besides the fact it was obvious to me they didn't from their remedies, there was no participation in any of the workshops, despite the fact the designers knew this was necessary and signaled their intention for this by having separate (in practice almost always empty) arbitrator sections. This is beijg changed anyway if I remember correctly, and if so this is good. That's not the only reason it went wrong though. Just like I said they would, the users in question filled the evidence section with slander and misleading diffs, increasing the workload to overwhelm the arbs ... forcing them to rely more on weak heuristic techniques, such as punishing both sides equally from a sense of "natural justice". At worst, two handfuls of active arbs merely read Kirill's remedies and voted with only cursory glances, trusting Kirill. At best, all of them read the evidence, and few of them understood it, most miraculously coming to the same conclusions as Kirill. All the arbs are intelligent hard working people, but they need to give themselves a chance to avoid normal human frailties which, although safe elsewhere, can be damaging with this kind of power.
Then there's the issue of off-wiki co-ordination. It's not likely that this is the only group, though it is probably the most disreputable and most skilled, and we are very lucky here to have uncovered it. I suggested a while ago on that Arbitration reform thread that admins be allowed to classify the edits of multiple users as one at their discretion (following ArbCom remedies of course, not generally). It wasn't much heeded at the time, being apparently over the top. But with this evidence now, is it really?
I've been involved in Eastern European topics for years here, took part in many contentious disputes, edit wars etc. and never heard of any mailing list so far. My bias is Polish. -- Lysy talk 02:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm remarking here only because I notice User:Biruitorul, whom I've always considered a first-rate and evenhanded contributor, is on the list. Checking the evidence above, the only allegation against him is that he said a user ought not to be blocked for his earlier edits to an article from which he had withdrawn, which sounds reasonable to me in almost any circumstances. Surely it is not a reason for a ban from editing on Eastern European topics, the proposed "remedy".
In fact, I'm not sure what exactly is supposed to be the problem here. What is the basis for saying that this particular list of users are involved in a conspiracy? - Jmabel | Talk 06:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Some of the nationalist users above have provided supposed evidence on how the mail-list users have disrupted articles with tag teaming, other users have attempted to show how this wasn’t always the case and how it was mostly the nationalist camps that had been tag-teaming. I’m not going to go through the effort of debunking all of their evidence, but I just want to clarify some points:
1) Russian nationalist users have been tag-teaming and/or backing each other a lot more extensive than any of the mail-list users.
2) Some of the articles provided by the nationalist users as evidence quite obviously experienced tag-teaming not from the critical users’ side but from the nationalist users’ side. These include articles where these users would start editing the articles much later than the others. I ask the clerks to review their evidence very critically.
3) Many of the nationalist users above have attempted to provide evidence on how disruptive user User:Biophys supposedly had been. It’s important to know that most of this evidence had nothing to do with the mail-list. From the brief look I took in the archives of this list Biophys never really broke any of the rules other than signing up for the list (if that’s a violation of policy). These users are now using this arbcom case to try to get rid of a user who they don’t like. Biophys has in the past been the subject of much harassment / stalking himself. I’m using his case as an example because most of the evidence provided by users does not correspond to the evidence which is the mailing list itself, and only that evidence, I think, should be judged by clerks.
So how exactly did the archives leak out to non-admin users? Whoever it was quite obviously acted in the interest of the pro-Putin camps. It should also be considered that User:Alex Bakharev acted unfairly when he sent the mailing list to several administrators, instead of just to Arbcom, and thereby increased the chance that the archives would leak.
All the users who accepted an invitation to the mailing list now have all their private details circling around. Should we just ignore that because the person responsible can’t be caught? At least one of the mail-list users is not going to use his account anymore and question is if he ever wants to edit on wiki again, all because of that.
I ask the clerks to certainly take into account how the mail-list users have already been punished quite severely by this, when deciding on possible sanctions.
Please note that if many of the mail-list users are going to get severe sanctions it could severely undermine the wiki project. Russian-related articles are going to remain unreliable for a long time. New critical users won’t stand a chance against nationalist tag-team users who would have a free hand on the projects. This is something several administrators have pointed out and it should definitely be taken into account.
That doesn’t mean I believe sanctions shouldn’t be handed out to some. I just think that it should be confirmed / taken into account that the mail-list users have been editing under a very difficult climate and that Russian projects are going to need a lot of arbitration in the future.
What is the deadline for submitting evidence? I think it should be indicated at the top of the page. Colchicum ( talk) 23:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
In practice, however, by the time voting on the decision starts it's less likely that new evidence will be seen by the arbitrators unless it is both compelling and pointed out to the committee; more as a factor of where attention is than because of its specific value. — Coren (talk) 20:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Because of the nature of this case, there is now a lot of evidence about the evidence (meta-evidence) and I'm curious if this is acceptable for inclusion on the evidence page in the form of diffs. Viriditas ( talk) 08:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Can I submit a motion about removal of all references to off-wiki evidence from the public display? I do not mean personal information, but any reference to the potentially stolen private archive in Evidence section. I would tell the following:
Clerk response: The best approach would be to lodge it as a request for a motion at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Workshop. I recommend you draft it in the language of a formal motion (see examples at the Workshop page) and then request an arbitrator to consider putting it forward for a vote. I have no opinion as to whether an arbitrator will agree to do so, however. Manning ( talk) 15:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
It seems strange to me that one would attempt to remove all references to what this case is actually about. I say don't do it-- keeping them from actually being quoted in full on the wiki is sufficient. This strikes me as being in the same bad taste as all the other proposals and attempts to attempt to exclude the emails as evidence. I'd say concerns about outing at this point are pretty much moot-- the chicken's flown the coop and the emails are publically available in multiple locations on the internet at this point. As long as people arn't obnoxious about it on-wiki, I don't see the need to change how they're being displayed now. Jtrainor ( talk) 11:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Additionally, I was unblocked by User:Xavexgoem at an earlier stage which was why I was editing again before User:Jehochman said something onwiki. The Arbcom can contact Xavexgoem for further information, as he has complete logs of our discussion.
Huh? Is this recorded anywhere or was this some kind of "secret" unblock? And if you were unblocked, why where you ... asking to be unblocked? radek ( talk) 06:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
This is not even worth a response in the regular evidence section.
Dojarca: There are numerous instances when the mailing list members - uhh, Dojarca, Termer ain't on no list. I realize that you're using this as an opportunity to smear and attack everyone you disagree with but at least don't be so blatant about it.
Dojarca: Radeksz: you can add any reliable source, but not Dyukov - of course I said no such thing. And Dyukov is not a reliable source. Ugh - just click the diff he provides to see what I actually said [11]. radek ( talk) 16:57, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Note - this comment was removed from the evidence page. Manning ( talk) 01:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I was not a member of the EE mailing list and I am not a part in this case. I therefore request that the "evidence" presented against me by Dojarca, which has nothing to do with anything, is removed from this page. If he thinks I have caused oh-so-terrible disruption on some page because I have reverted back from "German" to "Nazi" he can report me on the ANI board or wherever is that appropriate. (But frankly it's not even clear to me why the word "Nazi" troubles him so much, I have a million books about WW2 and i can provide million examples that the word "Nazi" is used very often especially for the German officers who, as everybody knows, even saluted with the right arm extended and the famous Nazi greeting: "Heil, Hitler!"). Loosmark ( talk) 00:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Is the information who suscribed, protected information or not?
And:
Is the information who was discussed, protected information or not?
I am not interested in the real-life names of these people. Neither do I want to know where they live, (I did find it funny that they accused me of being a Western intellectual who did not know what he was talking about, considering the majority of the participants in this debate on both sides obviously does not live in the country they are defending) or what their job is.
I think I would like to know whether I was discussed. The problem with this arbitration is that one side cannot possibly give evidence in a good way, because they do not know who to give evidence against.
Perhaps giving evidence is silly, because it shows you care, and therefore are not uninvolved. I know some people who have been involved in sideways related discussions with people who are (or seem to be) subscribers and who probably have no idea that this sort of thing was going on. Communist terrorism and pages connected with the Orthodox religion ( Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) is what I still remember.-- Paul Pieniezny ( talk) 12:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
As of today, my email accounts that I used to connect to wikipedia have been disabled (I stored my wiki password there).-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 12:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
M.K. wrote this on the evidence page: Soon his associates user:Jacurek, user:Loosmark chimed in with "complains". Admin Sandstein noting that Polish opponent made unfortunate comment, rebuked Polish cabal members:Jacurek, Loosmark and Radeksz, you contribute to the battleground atmosphere by loudly taking offence at trivia of this sort instead of assuming good faith and carrying on with the substantial discussion. By this conduct, all of you are causing that discussion to generate more heat than light.
What happened is that I found Matthead's comment outrageous and when I went to Sandstein's talk page to bring that to his attention but Radeksz already made a comment there. There was absolutely no "coordination", just several people independently finding the remarks about Nazis really bad taste. And personally I think admin Sandstein made a mistake back then, trying to make the Nazis look better, even if indirectly, should not be tolerated in any shape or form. (Also looking at it now it's not even clear to me what Sandstein meant with assuming good faith comment as Mathead's statement was ludicrous regardless of any assumptions.) Loosmark ( talk) 17:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I would ask that Anti-Nationalist's recent activity per my introduced evidence be examined. These proceedings are still under way and I can only take this sort of (my perception) affront as (my perception) a premature declaration of open hunting season on individuals of Baltic heritage. VЄСRUМВА [TALK] 17:47, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Could somebody explain what the fact that I used to edit Encyclopedia Dramatica has to do with anything? I used to edit there as an IP a while ago. Is this more bad-faith of some sort? Anti-Nationalist ( talk) 19:43, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) To anti-Nationalist's/PasswordUsername's (increasingly far) above, perhaps a finding of "no guilt by association" on either side of the conflict would be a good start at engendering an assumption of good faith. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 01:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I’m wondering whether anybody here is planning on entering ED into evidence, and whether ArbCom is willing to accept that? The similarities in terms of what is, and is not acceptable as evidence drawn from external sources are striking. Both links: one to EEML download, and the other to ED relevant page ought to be excluded in these proceedings due to Wikipedia’s own sense of moral responsibility. Meanwhile, some of our colleagues with whom we interact here on daily basis have gone on a terrible rampage similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on-and-off wiki. They are taking a despicable revenge on their own EEML opponents. – We cannot assume the NIMBY attitude here and pretend not to notice the pathological nature of their actions and the real scope of damages they inflict. Likewise, we cannot carry a discussion here about diffs as if nothing happened.
The main contributor to ED cesspool of expletives is User:Long_term_abuse ("throw these Jews in the oven", adding telephone numbers) followed by Party_shaker exposing real names and addresses of list members, User:Wikistalin posting their headshots and places of residences, User:Bantustan who adds how we sign our emails exactly (there's only one way to know that) and provides daily updates, User:Doctor Da (explaining why personal info matters: "So They Can Be Killed"), and so on. Please try to wake up people! -- Poeticbent talk 19:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Regarding hacking, I did note that the mailing list was broken for some period of time right after the last message which appears in the archive (the only time I ever received a notice of same).
Regardless, Biophys' point is:
So, given that:
let's just stick to the evidence of edits done on-Wiki and declare who is being disruptive. Period. Trashing individuals based on interpretations based on a priori assumptions of bad faith is what is immoral. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 20:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - I've erased a completely unnecessary discussion between vlad_fedorov and Vecrumba. I've also decided to case ban Fedorov for a week and formally warn Vecrumba as a result. Vlad is being banned for a whole series of inflammatory statements, which inevitably lead to conflict. Vecrumba is warned for participating in this unecessary exchange, despite knowing better. Please note that any comments or criticism concerning a banned user are strictly forbidden until the ban is concluded and the user can return to defend themselves. (Affected editors may alert me via my talk page). Manning ( talk) 03:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
The fact that ED is involved is irrelevant, chummers. Fuck, I even have a page there. But do I bitch out every person who ever edited that page and accuse them of outing me? No. ED is a nonissue. Grow thicker skin and get used to it. - Jeremy ( v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!) 06:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - Jeremy: you seem to be a newcomer to the discussion pages for this case, so you may be unaware of what an *extremely* tight leash I run in terms of civility and appropriate conduct. I do not tolerate even remotely inflammatory language.
I have no issue with the content of your comments above, but to maintain decorum in this highly emotive case I have had to clamp down even on seemingly trivial things such as overly sarcastic comments. I won't make you refactor any of the above, but consider yourself advised as for future conduct. Manning ( talk) 23:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
There are certain people who don't want busted tactics exposed. My proposal is this: the Cabal E-mails show a myriad of clever tactics. Why don't we allow the publication of these tactics? No names; no mention of how the tactics were used. But just the tactics themselves, like for instance the 3RR rule.
Tactic: pick an editor; revert his edit without any reason. He comes back and reverts you. Then have another person revert it, and provide a B/S reason. He comes back and reverts it. After this another editors posts on his talkpage, to avoid breaking the 3RR rule. Then have yet another person revert it, and provide a semi-silly reason. If that editor doesn't revert, he feels like shit in RL. If the editor reverts, he gets nailed with the 3RR rule, and look, he ignored the warning too.
Why not expose all of these tactics? Or am I getting a 2 month topic ban for exposing that tactic too? HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 22:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Mailing_list_still_active_as_of_December_09 Skapperod has introduced into evidence a post which Radeksz made in mainspace which included a view of his gmail account. Skapperod, in regards to Durova being invited, I believe that this is a misinterpretation, because it is in Gmail, what was likely shown was that Radeksz had invited Durova to "Google Chat", rather than the EEML cabal mailing list. You may want to strike that part of evidence which states that Durova was invited to the group. -- Russavia I'm chanting as we speak 23:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
What?!? How in the world do you get that? radek ( talk) 00:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Russavia is correct. About 26 hours ago I received an apology from Radeksz for the accidental cut and paste from his gmail screen. I promptly contacted the Arbitration Committee because that little molehill ran the chance of getting mistaken for a mountain. Of course it would be ridiculous for the EE mailing list to be inviting new members now, or for anyone to accept if they did. Durova 371 01:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
"* Starting from 16 November, the team members are discussing Arbitrators and recursals. On 18 November, FloNight says that Piotrus has launched a back-channel attempt to eliminate an arbitrator from voting. [16]. Was this assault coordinated on the secret list? If Piotrus launched his attack after 16 November, this may be evidence that they did."
Introducing comments already made at the proceedings by someone else as evidence couched in speculation is a bit much. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 03:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Main case page ( Talk) — Evidence ( Talk) — Workshop ( Talk) — Proposed decision ( Talk) Case clerk: KnightLago ( Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Coren ( Talk) & Newyorkbrad ( Talk) |
Wikipedia Arbitration |
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Track related changes |
![]() | Important — please note
The Committee, in passing the motion to open this case, provided explicit direction to all editors participating in this case:
The Clerk for this case is KnightLago ( talk · contribs) who will be assisted by non-recused members of the Clerk team in enforcing the above rules. The Clerks will, wherever it deems necessary, refactor and remove statements where they violate the above directions, or where they violate the general standards of decorum and Wikipedia policies. The Clerks will, where required for particular egregious or repetitive violations, ban participants from the case pages for an appropriate period of time. Both the refactoring of statements, and case page bans, that are implemented by the Clerks, can be appealed to the Committee. If any user requires assistance in submitting private evidence to the Arbitrators in the method requested by Committee (see the second bullet point, above), please contact a member of the Clerks or, alternatively, an Arbitrator directly. — User:KnightLago ( talk) 02:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC) |
I find interactions like
this to be very suggestive of tag team editing. But then again, the same names frequently occur on both sides of the debate. I would also appreciate if the anti-Russian non-Russian side presented similar "tag-team" evidence from the other side so that they can be compared.
Cool Hand
Luke
03:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I did not want to present such evidence as not to fuel the wikidrama, but since Cool Hand asked to provide it, this should be possibly done. Biophys ( talk) 05:09, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Martintg, being shocked by your accusations, I very unequivocally demand from you to present clear evidence that I have been involved in on-wiki or off-wiki communication, discussing coordinated editing WP articles, and breaking the WP policy, with any of users you named (Offliner, Russavia, PasswordUsername, HistoricWarrior007, Igny, Shotlandiya, and Vlad fedorov). Unless you are able to present any such evidence, I expect from you an apologise for these accusations - to me, and other users you named as a members of this "team". FeelSunny ( talk) 11:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
I think this should be talked about, since I'm pretty sure that it's going to. This is potentially the largest scandal since the Essjay thing. Jtrainor ( talk) 00:38, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
If it hits the media, and the media refers to it as a web brigade, well look at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#January_incident. I wouldn't rush to add it to the article, because its a piece of junk anyway, but the irony would be something indeed. -- Russavia Dialogue 17:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Essjay story was newsworthy (an arbitrator lying to the community). Is this? That would be a positive surprise, media discussing Eastern Europe and articles like tsarist autocracy and the aforementioned German-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk :> -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 19:29, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
We are the media. Our visibility is greater than many of those who cover us. Jehochman Talk 17:12, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
To all concerned parties: Clerk Daniel is on real-life vacation and hence has withdrawn from clerking this case. Clerk KnightLago is his replacement, assisted by trainee clerk Manning. Manning ( talk) 02:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
- KnightLago ( talk) 03:45, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
A certain meme has already started to spread with regards to this case, stating that the mailing list archive was hacked, then falsified, before being leaked. This meme is catching on through sheer force of repetition, and has already made a sucker out of at least one outside participant above.
At this point in time, the only supporting evidence for this claim is the following line of reasoning: "Certainly nobody from this list would leak its contents with an outsider! The list has been leaked to an outsider, therefore it was leaked by somebody who was not a member of the list! Therefore it was hacked!".
Unfortunately, the premise here (that nobody on the list would share its archive with a non-participant) is completely unverified. Whistle-blowing is hardly a new phenomenon - no matter how gung-ho all members of a group may feel on day one, there's always the chance that eventually, one member will feel disillusioned.
It is my sincere hope that ArbCom not be taken by this smokescreen until substantial, valid evidence is offered to back these claims of hacking. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and up to this point there has been no proof of these extraordinary claims of hacking and forgery - no extraordinary proof, no proof at all.
Every single remedy and FoF in Piotrus 2 case is outdated and many of them now look not only ridiculous, but positively cruel. The entire case should be declared void. If not, then at the very least victims like Irpen, Lokyz, and perhaps Boodlesthecat, should have their punitive remedies lifted. Ghirlandajo should be praised for his former contributions, and a remedy should be passed urging him that his return to content-editing would be welcomed. And lastly, I, Thatcher, and the few others who now appear in all the ArbitrationEnforcement threads to have credibility should be praised for the effort we've put in and the stress we have endured. The Digwuren case, the plaything of this email list, should similarly be put to the sword and the bad book burned. An all-encompassing new case with a new set of remedies in light of ArbCom's lucky new wisdom should be enacted.
What's more, ArbCom needs to reform itself in certain regards. Beyond the miscarriages of justice, the biggest frustration was the reason these miscarriages happened: the arbs didn't read the evidence, or if they did there was no on-wiki evidence they did, and there was no opportunity to challenge the arbs before they acted. Besides the fact it was obvious to me they didn't from their remedies, there was no participation in any of the workshops, despite the fact the designers knew this was necessary and signaled their intention for this by having separate (in practice almost always empty) arbitrator sections. This is beijg changed anyway if I remember correctly, and if so this is good. That's not the only reason it went wrong though. Just like I said they would, the users in question filled the evidence section with slander and misleading diffs, increasing the workload to overwhelm the arbs ... forcing them to rely more on weak heuristic techniques, such as punishing both sides equally from a sense of "natural justice". At worst, two handfuls of active arbs merely read Kirill's remedies and voted with only cursory glances, trusting Kirill. At best, all of them read the evidence, and few of them understood it, most miraculously coming to the same conclusions as Kirill. All the arbs are intelligent hard working people, but they need to give themselves a chance to avoid normal human frailties which, although safe elsewhere, can be damaging with this kind of power.
Then there's the issue of off-wiki co-ordination. It's not likely that this is the only group, though it is probably the most disreputable and most skilled, and we are very lucky here to have uncovered it. I suggested a while ago on that Arbitration reform thread that admins be allowed to classify the edits of multiple users as one at their discretion (following ArbCom remedies of course, not generally). It wasn't much heeded at the time, being apparently over the top. But with this evidence now, is it really?
I've been involved in Eastern European topics for years here, took part in many contentious disputes, edit wars etc. and never heard of any mailing list so far. My bias is Polish. -- Lysy talk 02:40, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm remarking here only because I notice User:Biruitorul, whom I've always considered a first-rate and evenhanded contributor, is on the list. Checking the evidence above, the only allegation against him is that he said a user ought not to be blocked for his earlier edits to an article from which he had withdrawn, which sounds reasonable to me in almost any circumstances. Surely it is not a reason for a ban from editing on Eastern European topics, the proposed "remedy".
In fact, I'm not sure what exactly is supposed to be the problem here. What is the basis for saying that this particular list of users are involved in a conspiracy? - Jmabel | Talk 06:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Some of the nationalist users above have provided supposed evidence on how the mail-list users have disrupted articles with tag teaming, other users have attempted to show how this wasn’t always the case and how it was mostly the nationalist camps that had been tag-teaming. I’m not going to go through the effort of debunking all of their evidence, but I just want to clarify some points:
1) Russian nationalist users have been tag-teaming and/or backing each other a lot more extensive than any of the mail-list users.
2) Some of the articles provided by the nationalist users as evidence quite obviously experienced tag-teaming not from the critical users’ side but from the nationalist users’ side. These include articles where these users would start editing the articles much later than the others. I ask the clerks to review their evidence very critically.
3) Many of the nationalist users above have attempted to provide evidence on how disruptive user User:Biophys supposedly had been. It’s important to know that most of this evidence had nothing to do with the mail-list. From the brief look I took in the archives of this list Biophys never really broke any of the rules other than signing up for the list (if that’s a violation of policy). These users are now using this arbcom case to try to get rid of a user who they don’t like. Biophys has in the past been the subject of much harassment / stalking himself. I’m using his case as an example because most of the evidence provided by users does not correspond to the evidence which is the mailing list itself, and only that evidence, I think, should be judged by clerks.
So how exactly did the archives leak out to non-admin users? Whoever it was quite obviously acted in the interest of the pro-Putin camps. It should also be considered that User:Alex Bakharev acted unfairly when he sent the mailing list to several administrators, instead of just to Arbcom, and thereby increased the chance that the archives would leak.
All the users who accepted an invitation to the mailing list now have all their private details circling around. Should we just ignore that because the person responsible can’t be caught? At least one of the mail-list users is not going to use his account anymore and question is if he ever wants to edit on wiki again, all because of that.
I ask the clerks to certainly take into account how the mail-list users have already been punished quite severely by this, when deciding on possible sanctions.
Please note that if many of the mail-list users are going to get severe sanctions it could severely undermine the wiki project. Russian-related articles are going to remain unreliable for a long time. New critical users won’t stand a chance against nationalist tag-team users who would have a free hand on the projects. This is something several administrators have pointed out and it should definitely be taken into account.
That doesn’t mean I believe sanctions shouldn’t be handed out to some. I just think that it should be confirmed / taken into account that the mail-list users have been editing under a very difficult climate and that Russian projects are going to need a lot of arbitration in the future.
What is the deadline for submitting evidence? I think it should be indicated at the top of the page. Colchicum ( talk) 23:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
In practice, however, by the time voting on the decision starts it's less likely that new evidence will be seen by the arbitrators unless it is both compelling and pointed out to the committee; more as a factor of where attention is than because of its specific value. — Coren (talk) 20:56, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Because of the nature of this case, there is now a lot of evidence about the evidence (meta-evidence) and I'm curious if this is acceptable for inclusion on the evidence page in the form of diffs. Viriditas ( talk) 08:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
Can I submit a motion about removal of all references to off-wiki evidence from the public display? I do not mean personal information, but any reference to the potentially stolen private archive in Evidence section. I would tell the following:
Clerk response: The best approach would be to lodge it as a request for a motion at Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Workshop. I recommend you draft it in the language of a formal motion (see examples at the Workshop page) and then request an arbitrator to consider putting it forward for a vote. I have no opinion as to whether an arbitrator will agree to do so, however. Manning ( talk) 15:37, 6 October 2009 (UTC)
It seems strange to me that one would attempt to remove all references to what this case is actually about. I say don't do it-- keeping them from actually being quoted in full on the wiki is sufficient. This strikes me as being in the same bad taste as all the other proposals and attempts to attempt to exclude the emails as evidence. I'd say concerns about outing at this point are pretty much moot-- the chicken's flown the coop and the emails are publically available in multiple locations on the internet at this point. As long as people arn't obnoxious about it on-wiki, I don't see the need to change how they're being displayed now. Jtrainor ( talk) 11:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
Additionally, I was unblocked by User:Xavexgoem at an earlier stage which was why I was editing again before User:Jehochman said something onwiki. The Arbcom can contact Xavexgoem for further information, as he has complete logs of our discussion.
Huh? Is this recorded anywhere or was this some kind of "secret" unblock? And if you were unblocked, why where you ... asking to be unblocked? radek ( talk) 06:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
This is not even worth a response in the regular evidence section.
Dojarca: There are numerous instances when the mailing list members - uhh, Dojarca, Termer ain't on no list. I realize that you're using this as an opportunity to smear and attack everyone you disagree with but at least don't be so blatant about it.
Dojarca: Radeksz: you can add any reliable source, but not Dyukov - of course I said no such thing. And Dyukov is not a reliable source. Ugh - just click the diff he provides to see what I actually said [11]. radek ( talk) 16:57, 10 October 2009 (UTC)
Note - this comment was removed from the evidence page. Manning ( talk) 01:09, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
I was not a member of the EE mailing list and I am not a part in this case. I therefore request that the "evidence" presented against me by Dojarca, which has nothing to do with anything, is removed from this page. If he thinks I have caused oh-so-terrible disruption on some page because I have reverted back from "German" to "Nazi" he can report me on the ANI board or wherever is that appropriate. (But frankly it's not even clear to me why the word "Nazi" troubles him so much, I have a million books about WW2 and i can provide million examples that the word "Nazi" is used very often especially for the German officers who, as everybody knows, even saluted with the right arm extended and the famous Nazi greeting: "Heil, Hitler!"). Loosmark ( talk) 00:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
Is the information who suscribed, protected information or not?
And:
Is the information who was discussed, protected information or not?
I am not interested in the real-life names of these people. Neither do I want to know where they live, (I did find it funny that they accused me of being a Western intellectual who did not know what he was talking about, considering the majority of the participants in this debate on both sides obviously does not live in the country they are defending) or what their job is.
I think I would like to know whether I was discussed. The problem with this arbitration is that one side cannot possibly give evidence in a good way, because they do not know who to give evidence against.
Perhaps giving evidence is silly, because it shows you care, and therefore are not uninvolved. I know some people who have been involved in sideways related discussions with people who are (or seem to be) subscribers and who probably have no idea that this sort of thing was going on. Communist terrorism and pages connected with the Orthodox religion ( Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) is what I still remember.-- Paul Pieniezny ( talk) 12:46, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
As of today, my email accounts that I used to connect to wikipedia have been disabled (I stored my wiki password there).-- MyMoloboaccount ( talk) 12:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
M.K. wrote this on the evidence page: Soon his associates user:Jacurek, user:Loosmark chimed in with "complains". Admin Sandstein noting that Polish opponent made unfortunate comment, rebuked Polish cabal members:Jacurek, Loosmark and Radeksz, you contribute to the battleground atmosphere by loudly taking offence at trivia of this sort instead of assuming good faith and carrying on with the substantial discussion. By this conduct, all of you are causing that discussion to generate more heat than light.
What happened is that I found Matthead's comment outrageous and when I went to Sandstein's talk page to bring that to his attention but Radeksz already made a comment there. There was absolutely no "coordination", just several people independently finding the remarks about Nazis really bad taste. And personally I think admin Sandstein made a mistake back then, trying to make the Nazis look better, even if indirectly, should not be tolerated in any shape or form. (Also looking at it now it's not even clear to me what Sandstein meant with assuming good faith comment as Mathead's statement was ludicrous regardless of any assumptions.) Loosmark ( talk) 17:04, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
I would ask that Anti-Nationalist's recent activity per my introduced evidence be examined. These proceedings are still under way and I can only take this sort of (my perception) affront as (my perception) a premature declaration of open hunting season on individuals of Baltic heritage. VЄСRUМВА [TALK] 17:47, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Could somebody explain what the fact that I used to edit Encyclopedia Dramatica has to do with anything? I used to edit there as an IP a while ago. Is this more bad-faith of some sort? Anti-Nationalist ( talk) 19:43, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) To anti-Nationalist's/PasswordUsername's (increasingly far) above, perhaps a finding of "no guilt by association" on either side of the conflict would be a good start at engendering an assumption of good faith. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 01:53, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
I’m wondering whether anybody here is planning on entering ED into evidence, and whether ArbCom is willing to accept that? The similarities in terms of what is, and is not acceptable as evidence drawn from external sources are striking. Both links: one to EEML download, and the other to ED relevant page ought to be excluded in these proceedings due to Wikipedia’s own sense of moral responsibility. Meanwhile, some of our colleagues with whom we interact here on daily basis have gone on a terrible rampage similar to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on-and-off wiki. They are taking a despicable revenge on their own EEML opponents. – We cannot assume the NIMBY attitude here and pretend not to notice the pathological nature of their actions and the real scope of damages they inflict. Likewise, we cannot carry a discussion here about diffs as if nothing happened.
The main contributor to ED cesspool of expletives is User:Long_term_abuse ("throw these Jews in the oven", adding telephone numbers) followed by Party_shaker exposing real names and addresses of list members, User:Wikistalin posting their headshots and places of residences, User:Bantustan who adds how we sign our emails exactly (there's only one way to know that) and provides daily updates, User:Doctor Da (explaining why personal info matters: "So They Can Be Killed"), and so on. Please try to wake up people! -- Poeticbent talk 19:43, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Regarding hacking, I did note that the mailing list was broken for some period of time right after the last message which appears in the archive (the only time I ever received a notice of same).
Regardless, Biophys' point is:
So, given that:
let's just stick to the evidence of edits done on-Wiki and declare who is being disruptive. Period. Trashing individuals based on interpretations based on a priori assumptions of bad faith is what is immoral. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 20:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - I've erased a completely unnecessary discussion between vlad_fedorov and Vecrumba. I've also decided to case ban Fedorov for a week and formally warn Vecrumba as a result. Vlad is being banned for a whole series of inflammatory statements, which inevitably lead to conflict. Vecrumba is warned for participating in this unecessary exchange, despite knowing better. Please note that any comments or criticism concerning a banned user are strictly forbidden until the ban is concluded and the user can return to defend themselves. (Affected editors may alert me via my talk page). Manning ( talk) 03:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
The fact that ED is involved is irrelevant, chummers. Fuck, I even have a page there. But do I bitch out every person who ever edited that page and accuse them of outing me? No. ED is a nonissue. Grow thicker skin and get used to it. - Jeremy ( v^_^v Stop... at a WHAMMY!!) 06:20, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - Jeremy: you seem to be a newcomer to the discussion pages for this case, so you may be unaware of what an *extremely* tight leash I run in terms of civility and appropriate conduct. I do not tolerate even remotely inflammatory language.
I have no issue with the content of your comments above, but to maintain decorum in this highly emotive case I have had to clamp down even on seemingly trivial things such as overly sarcastic comments. I won't make you refactor any of the above, but consider yourself advised as for future conduct. Manning ( talk) 23:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
There are certain people who don't want busted tactics exposed. My proposal is this: the Cabal E-mails show a myriad of clever tactics. Why don't we allow the publication of these tactics? No names; no mention of how the tactics were used. But just the tactics themselves, like for instance the 3RR rule.
Tactic: pick an editor; revert his edit without any reason. He comes back and reverts you. Then have another person revert it, and provide a B/S reason. He comes back and reverts it. After this another editors posts on his talkpage, to avoid breaking the 3RR rule. Then have yet another person revert it, and provide a semi-silly reason. If that editor doesn't revert, he feels like shit in RL. If the editor reverts, he gets nailed with the 3RR rule, and look, he ignored the warning too.
Why not expose all of these tactics? Or am I getting a 2 month topic ban for exposing that tactic too? HistoricWarrior007 ( talk) 22:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Mailing_list_still_active_as_of_December_09 Skapperod has introduced into evidence a post which Radeksz made in mainspace which included a view of his gmail account. Skapperod, in regards to Durova being invited, I believe that this is a misinterpretation, because it is in Gmail, what was likely shown was that Radeksz had invited Durova to "Google Chat", rather than the EEML cabal mailing list. You may want to strike that part of evidence which states that Durova was invited to the group. -- Russavia I'm chanting as we speak 23:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
What?!? How in the world do you get that? radek ( talk) 00:07, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
Russavia is correct. About 26 hours ago I received an apology from Radeksz for the accidental cut and paste from his gmail screen. I promptly contacted the Arbitration Committee because that little molehill ran the chance of getting mistaken for a mountain. Of course it would be ridiculous for the EE mailing list to be inviting new members now, or for anyone to accept if they did. Durova 371 01:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
"* Starting from 16 November, the team members are discussing Arbitrators and recursals. On 18 November, FloNight says that Piotrus has launched a back-channel attempt to eliminate an arbitrator from voting. [16]. Was this assault coordinated on the secret list? If Piotrus launched his attack after 16 November, this may be evidence that they did."
Introducing comments already made at the proceedings by someone else as evidence couched in speculation is a bit much. PЄTЄRS VЄСRUМВА ► talk 03:44, 4 December 2009 (UTC)