![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I don't think a normal evidence page will work in this case. The question is not, are there factions that edit war with each other? This is abundantly clear from prior cases and enforcement requests. Rather, Arbcom needs to know is whether private messages resulted in on-wiki disruption. For example, if users Alfa, Bravo and Charlie were planning on taunting Delta to provoke Delta into making a blockable outburst or edit war, did this in fact happen? Or if Echo, Foxtrot and Golf coordinated a revert war against Hotel, did it work? But the mailing list messages will not be shared with the community, so how to present relevant evidence? I suggest dispensing with the normal evidence format. Instead, Arbcom will review the private messages and post a series of questions based on the messages, asking the community to verify whether the actions and plans described in the messages actually resulted in on-wiki edits, blocks, disruptive behavior, and so forth. Thatcher 01:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of transparency, as much of this case needs to take place in public as possible. —
Coren
(talk)
01:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
(Also note the different /Workshop format). —
Coren
(talk)
01:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I am still in the woods as for what evidence I can present, but I want to agree with Sandstein (in his evidence comment) - I don't see him is a party here. Too many people are going to get heavily wikistressed over this case, I'd ask ArbCom not to cause any unnecessary wikistress to people like Sandstein who have no involvement in this case (IMHO). A quick glance at the parties also makes me puzzled on the inclusion of Future Perfect at Sunrise, whom I'd also suggest to be removed. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I am not going to provide evidence against any other users whoever they are, including Russavia. And let's stay exactly on the subject: the email list and what is directly connected to it. No one needs new huge EE case. If there is any serious misconduct on my part in the intercepted email, could someone please direct me all my statements that allegedly violate WP policies (over the email), with a notice what exactly policy has been violated by me. This is needed because some of the messages may indeed be doctored as Piotrus suggested. I think so because some of the accusations by Alex who read the email are outright wrong. After verifying the messages (I do not keep the archive, but I remember my words), I would publicly comment in the Evidence section on the content of the messages, in connection with any events that took place right here. But I will be talking only about myself and about the alleged victim of my "abuse", with supporting diffs if needed. That is without disclosing any sensitive personal information. If someone has a better idea, this could be done differently. Biophys ( talk) 21:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I understand very well how the members of this closed trusted email group feel right now. They openly shared ideas and thoughts free of restraints and free of the thought police, and all of a sudden their private correspondence becomes a subject to public scrutiny. I find this development disturbing regardless of how this correspondence affected or allegedly affected Wikipedia.
That should go without saying that the private information should be taken care very discreetly, and I urge everyone who obtained this archive to delete it as soon as this case is closed. Once this case is closed I suggest to punish editors who threaten to use or use this private information to their advantage in the content disputes, I am pretty sure it would violate some policy, and if not then create such a policy.
At this moment I wish that there were strict rules over how to handle cases like that and I wish that there was an attorney to consult who would know the policies and is bound under attorney/client privilege, and who could represent the affected parties in the cases like this. I know I know, wishful thinking.
I understand that this was possibly a bust of a particular team conspiring to use team work to their advantage in various WP disputes. However you would be naive thinking that busting one team would solve the problem of other existing teams. I would think that the opponents of the said team are now collecting and submitting evidence of the team tagging/ conspiring for this particular team. And they are quite happy that now finally their circumstantial evidence is probably directly supported by the said email archive. Finally a bust! But they forget that this stick has two ends. It is possible to collect circumstantial evidence that the other teams exist as well, it would probably be never be supported by the unfortunate leaks of the off-wiki correspondence, but that does not mean that such off-wiki coordination does not exist in other teams.
That said, I could give my word that I myself never coordinated my efforts in various disputes with anyone off-wiki. But nonetheless it could be perceived or suspected that there is a team of me, Offliner, Russavia, and possibly others which cooperates off-wiki, and a circumstantial evidence is not that hard to find as our views more or less coincided in most of the debates. The perceived threat of our "pro-Russian/pro-Putin team" could in fact be the reason for our opponents to start coordinating their efforts off-wiki. In fact they could be all under impression that there are plenty of teams on Wikipedia conspiring against their common ideals and if they do not coordinate their efforts then all is lost, and Wikipedia is ruined, and these "evil" teams win.
The team tagging is one of the worst problem in Wikipedia in my opinion and I raised this issue several times before. I suspected that Biophys, Martin, Colchicum, Radek, Vecrumba coordinated their efforts against me but I could not prove it. But I am against team tagging in general not just this particular team (which admittedly annoyed me the most as they had various conflicts with me in many articles). I hope that this case will go beyond busting a particular team (if proven) and you would figure out a wider policy dealing with the other teams as well (unfortunately I do not have good suggestions about any such policies at the moment). A first step however would be to finally admit that the team tagging exists.
The busted team (if proven guilty) should not be topic banned. They did make various valuable contributions to the articles on Russia even if some of their contributions caused conflicts with other editors. 1revert/week could be sufficient, and their cooperation off-wiki should be prohibited and they should be warned not to do that again under a threat of further sanctions. The admins in the team (if proven guilty) should be dysoped for some time with the right to be reinstated later provided they will get the required vote of confidence from the community. However no topic bans should issued unless you have a good idea how to deal with other, luckier, undetected teams on the Wikipedia. All the sanctions against various editors which were affected by this team (if proven) should be lifted or significantly alleviated. ( Igny ( talk) 14:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC))
You are probably right that not all cabals are known, but it is worth noting that historically when arbcom has found evidence of extensive organized activities offwiki that sought to target others, it has responded with significantly harsher sanctions than if those individuals were merely found to be doing the activities without coordination (see Bogdanov Affair, Durova, CAMERA, R. fiend, Scientology, and West Bank). I think the message that people could take away from it is that Arbcom recognizes it cannot catch everyone and that by applying harsher sanctions in these cases, it deters other groups from acting in a similar manner. Basically it places the burden on the offwiki group to show that its activities are not in violation of policy and do not negatively interfere with the functioning of the wiki. I haven't seen the emails in this case, but I would imagine that the alleged 1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person are a prima facie violation of WP:WIKIHOUNDING. MBisanz talk 15:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Since Deacon keeps making (false) accusations that people engaged in sock puppetry I think a proposal for an all around check user is in order - basically everyone on the involved parties list and Deacon (given his statements now and in the past, and his clear breaking of the just passed motion on speculative musings, I fail to understand why he's not on the involved parties list anyway. Besides, I think it's a tradition.). I for one have nothing to hide and I've never used a sock. I would like to propose then that all involved parties + Deacon be taken to CU. Who knows, maybe some very interesting info will come out of that?
I was going to make some kind of proposal to this effect anyway, but I wanted to wait until Sandstein and Future Perfect are taken off the "involved parties" list (as they obviously should be - and for the life of me, this thing is growing tentacles so fast I can't find the proper place to make a statement to that effect) but Deacon's repeated flaming and speculations force me to bring it up now. I still think that they should be taken off, then it's CU time for editor and administrator alike. radek ( talk) 01:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I might as well add that at this point I personally got no problem with providing the committee with any kind of info on my current and past place of residence, my travels, and so on. radek ( talk) 01:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a specific (and easy) question directed at the Arbs, and my apologies if it was answered elsewhere as the discussions for this case are already all over the place. What is the approximate (or exact) date of the earliest e-mails to this list? I ask not out of curiosity but rather because it could have a bearing on folks who might want to present evidence. For example, I was involved in a discussion/dispute with some of the parties to this case (including several mailing list members) at the beginning of the year (I had no idea I was stepping into a much wider dispute at that point, and eventually it was resolved satisfactorily). If there was any list discussion of that particular dispute (and it's quite likely there wasn't) I would be willing to outline the on-wiki discussion for the Arbs in an evidence section if that would be helpful. Indeed as has been suggested there will probably be a lot of evidence like this—i.e. editors collecting on-wiki diffs that relate to list activity described very roughly by the Arbs.
Before some editors start gathering evidence in anticipation of correlating it to list activity, it would be useful to simply know the date of the first e-mails from the list in order to avoid possibly unnecessary evidence gathering. -- Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Could we
please uphold greater semblance of decorum?
Durova
319
22:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Could a clerk reformat the {{ tmbox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Notice and the {{ Ambox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence to use the more appropriate {{ mbox}} format? MBisanz talk 06:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Could you tell us who those two people are? If not, can you tell us that there is no doubt they are who they say they were, and not that their accounts have been hacked and false statements made (like in the recent case of Tymek's account)? Btw, as I said earlier, I agree with you that "the archive in general is authentic"; any forgeries would likely involve only a (very?) small number of emails (since despite allegations that 1,500 = ~50%? of the archive is about harassing Russavia, I am pretty sure most emails were "comments from the peanut gallery" on wikipolitics, real life politics and unproblematic content discussions). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Ok, now I get it - for a while there I too thought that MBisanz was saying that Piotrus sent the email to the 9 admins, and I had already began the implementation of the "repeatedly pinch oneself until awake" process. So I guess the other of the "two people" would be me. So sometime in June there was the whole "incident" with Thatcher (and I'd be happy to discuss frankly how I feel about that whole situation, but this isn't really the place). At the time I contacted several administrators both on Wiki and through their email asking for advice on how to appeal Thatcher's decisions and what they thought of it. I made no secret of this, and I believe that even in my emails to Thatcher I explicitly stated that I had contacted other admins to ask for advice. Piotrus also used IRC to also query admins, including MBisanz about the situation.
Anyway, without going into what admin said what at the time, I want to say that yes, at the time I also did ask for advice on the list and I think Piotrus, among others gave some. I remember that I wrote up a long draft of the proposal, which then I reposted at AE (ignoring some admin advice on that) almost verbatim. I'm guessing that these are the emails and IRCs MBisanz is referring to.
So yes, there is probably some kind of correlation between what MBisanz is saying really happened and stuff that's found in the emails in the supposed "archive" (which I have a copy off, obtained through Future Perfect, but which I have not looked at yet for reasons I'll explain elsewhere). But that doesn't mean anything.
There is a dangerous meme developing that just because something really happened on Wiki, and at the same time there appears to be SOME discussion of it in the "archives" then that must prove that the emails in the "archives" are genuine and unaltered (the "corroboration" argument). But it proves no such thing.
As I've said before, yes there was a mailing list, and yes, Wiki issues and happenings were discussed, - including the appeal and Thatcher - just like they always are on many internet forums. So if the contents of the "archive" are in any way based on genuine conversations - which still means they could be doctored or faked, just that this process was applied to real emails - there's going to be correlation between stuff in the "archives" and in past real Wiki going-ons. But this doesn't mean at all that the material in the "archive" is authentic or unaltered. radek ( talk) 02:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
I requested the archive from Daniel and was pointed to Arbcom (email). I emailed and was directed here. Please provide me access to the alleged evidence. As I have stated elsewhere, my recollection of my correspondence had little to do with commenting on the alleged "victims". Had my intent been nefarious I certainly would not use my publicly identifiable Email address. I've been working in data processing since 1974, so I ask my "opposition" to spare me the "caught you with your pants down" as, frankly, I would not be stupid enough to conduct anything nefarious using my public Email account knowing how easily addresses are spoofed and accounts hacked. That this archive allegedly has my public Email address speaks to my innocence, not guilt.
Not to mention as a child growing up with my mother and her sister writing each other under assumed names during the Soviet era.
Be this all as it may be, unless I can examine the entire archive and determine whether it matches my recollection of my correspondence, this is nothing more than a (potentially) planned, orchestrated,and executed witch hunt. Curious timing, isn't it? Just after Russavia's ban? And this being trumpeted as an "excuse" to lift Russavia's ban despite their choice of conduct being all their own?
Equally importantly, personal life circumstances currently severely limit my spare time. I will require an extension to respond, and I do not consider the clock to start until I have had at least a day to start reviewing the "evidence." I would hope to provide an informed--and informative--response. But no response is possible without the evidence which has been circulated.
Please inform me via my public Email as to instructions for retrieval.
VЄСRUМВА
♪
00:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I do not feel well and probably will not be able to participate in this case. I ask User:Colchicum with whom I never had any email communications to re-edit, revert, modify or remove any my statemets made during last week, as he feels fit. Biophys ( talk) 15:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I received a link to the web site containing the email list on Thursday and read some of them. Since then, various Wikipedians I trust have explicitly or implicitly stated they see no legal or ethical problems with discussing its contents.
If evidence from that link is acceptable, could the arbs please state how they would like to see it presented? Earlier, Deacon was asked to redact some evidence details, so I'd appreciate clarification.
You-all could demonstrate by presenting a detailed but completely hypothetical example. E.g.: "In an email timestamped Jan 2 2009 7:05 AM, editor Labrador asked members of the mailing list to make changes to the Rimadyl article to ensure its "correctness" and further its chances at DYK. Editor Golden, a member of the mailing list, responded in an email timestamped x that he had made reverts towards this end. The article's history (insert diffs here) does show that changes furthering the preferred version of the article were made by Golden without talk page discussion. Other blind reverts supporting that version were made by IPs 123.456.788 and 123.456.789 over the next two days, and a checkuser could confirm whether these were socks of mailing list members."
Is this format acceptable? If not, pls advise. Labrador could deny authorship, others could argue that the supporting details are strong. Novickas ( talk) 02:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
And care to tell us how you received this link? radek ( talk) 04:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Here are 5 edits by me on Monument of Lihula 14 June 2007. In over 2 years after that only 70 other edits were performed at that article. I followed them with interest through "My watchlist", b/c that article is not large, and in 2007 I took the time to go through everything there, including links, etc. Because of that I care(d) about changes in that article. In August 2007, when there were problems (=people reverting each other) with that article I was off wiki for a longer period of time. Next instance of problem with this article occured on 4 September 2009.
After I noticed this, I looked further and noticed Martintg reported PasswordUsername to Rjanang for 3RR violation. Rjanang said there was only 1 revert. According to my judgement, there were 2 reverts (the third one was immediately undone), and I told this to Rjanang [2]. As such, it was clearly unactionable, so basically my comment supported Rjanang and undermined Martintg's accusation. PasswordUsername is free to disagree with my characterization of his edits. But I would respectfully ask PasswordUsername to not accuse me now simply of providing then a characterization which he disagrees with. It was Rjanang's call, and I only gave him information what I consider was missing from that discussion. Should Rjanang have asked me to elaborate, I would have answered. I did not comment further to PasswordUsername because I did not want to inflame, since the whole issue was already settled by Rjanang.
PasswordUsername now (on the Evidence page) accuses me that that 1 edit of mine contained (I cite from PasswordUsername):
Answering to this will only inflame spirits without anything to be achieved. I want simply to bring to the attention of ArbCom that that 1 edit of mine did not contain such things. Thank you. Dc76\ talk 23:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
What exactly is the problem with using short quotes from the emails in the evidence, if they do not contain any privacy material and only discuss on-wiki events? I've been asked to paraphrase the quotes in my evidence, but this results in a problem since now the text doesn't correspond 100% to what was actually said. I think it would be nice if ArbCom could make it clear what exactly they want to see in the evidence section right now and what not. Offliner ( talk) 16:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. Since when, where, and by whom, were people given the permission to just post private emails all over this case? radek ( talk) 03:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
I have not had a lot of interaction with the people on this alleged cabal list but I wonder if their actions during the AfD of Communist genocide were coordinated. I have had interactions with one of the users in the past, User:Biophys, and was amazed how several times when he was losing an argument someone who had never edited the article before dropped in to "help out" in an edit war -- I'm particularly thinking of interactions over this article in the past, but I also wonder about this article as well as the Communist genocide article. Both of the latter two articles went to AfD, and both votes were close, with several of the people named in this arbitration jumping on board at roughly the same time and making arguments almost as a chorus. There were several times I wondered at the coincidences. I now wonder how much of this activity was orchestrated, and whether Biophys in particular or some of his compatriots on this list singled my account out for any particular harassment or other games. I have always felt Biophys was playing games, and have even called him out on his annoying habit of denying that he made edits that he has just made. I don't know whether this super secret email list coordinated such attacks as the burst of activity on the Communist terrorism AfD or the Communist genocide AfD or the sudden appearance of Piotrus on this discussion or Vecrumba's similar appearance on this discussion but I do think that anyone familiar with the evidence and the list archives should take a close look at these things.
Frankly, if even a portion of what is alleged to be in these archives is actually there, it is a substantial problem at least as worrisome as the CAMERA scandal, if not more so. csloat ( talk) 01:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Bigtimepeace, thank you very much for your analysis. Could you, please, also check how many of the 9 were previous editors of that article, have commented before on that article, or were involved in previous AfDs or re-namings (if any) for that article. Dc76\ talk 09:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and a philosophically about off-wiki communication. I guess one of the things that stimulates them is that WP discourages people to speak their mind. If I said something in an email and a week later I understand that I was partly wrong, I can re-state my new understanding, and that would be absolutely fine with the recipient of my email. But if I say (hypothetically) something on wiki and later change my mind, that old thing could (and would if I cross somebody) be used against me to portray me as a bad editor, even though I no longer believe it, and perhaps never actually believed it as such. Even if my old comment was "I might be wrong, but I think x makes sense. Please point where I might miss something.", almost nobody (who would want to cite me) would cite me like that; they would say instead "Dc76 thinks x. That's unacceptable!" My conclusion: we need more on-wiki communication about news and events in say EE topic area to stimulate AGF. I suggested elsewhere in this ArbCom case pages to start a wiki-project umbrella noticeboard. Dc76\ talk 09:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
What I find interesting in the above is the response from list members who participated in the AfD. Piotrus, for example, notes that his participation in the AfD was informed, which is a good thing IMHO (whether he was right or wrong). But this begs the question - did he or did he not receive or distribute an email canvassing for support on this AfD on the email list? And what of his participation in the discussion on the other articles I flagged above? As a member of the list, presumably he had access to this information; if he has evidence of wrongdoing occurring through the list it would be helpful if he was up front about it. I will go ahead and add my comments above to the evidence list now. csloat ( talk) 19:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking specifically of AfD's I think there's an issue here which hasn't been brought up and which I think counters most of Bigtimepeace's concerns. And that is that information about AfDs in particular should be spread around. This is because often some users will try to float AfDs on the radar - nominate it quickly, get a few of their friends to vote delete then close it quickly and delete an article they don't like. This is obviously done with extensive discussion and hence without broader Wiki consensus. These kinds of sneaky tactics are a far bigger problem than letting other editors know that an AfD is going on.
On Communist Genocide in particular, I just don't see how anyone could say that was not a legitimate vote. There was a ton of discussion, back and forth, lots of editors who are not involved in this case, people changing their minds under the weight of arguments - it wasn't always pretty but that's what consensus building and discussion looks like. radek ( talk) 01:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Quite simply PasswordUsername is saying things here which he knows to be false.
What's simply going on here is that PU is revert warring (3 reverts in one day) against consensus, without actually discussing the issue.
I'm just pointing out this one particular instance but this kind of falsification basically characterizes all of PU's evidence. He's making stuff up and hoping that no one will actually click the diffs to find out for themselves and take his word at it. Unfortunately, countering such false claims is quite time intensive. radek ( talk) 09:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Radek, although this sounds very much like Orwell's 1984 :), indeed perhaps you should rephrase "is lying" into "is untrue" or "is distorting the key sense". You could also change "PU is revert warring against consensus" into more moderate "PU is revert un-peaceful for non-consensus", but that is way too funny. :) Now seriously, even if he might be lying, just say he is distorting the sense. Dc76\ talk 09:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Radeksz, if you really, really want to call me a liar, go ahead: I give you my permission here. But what you wrote is false as hell. Let's see: Collaboration with the Axis Powers included material on Soviet-German WWII agreements (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, peacetime trade, etc.) irrelevant to the subject of World War II collaborationism, and your team (you, Jacurek, Vecrumba) participated in a long series of reverts to keep this material, while I made a pretty good case at talk (see Talk:Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II#Important_information_removed). The discussion was clearly concluded in my favor very quickly: the only arguments against me – incidentally, failing to address the point – were by members of your team, and not only Anonimu but also Jaan Pärn (Erikupoeg), a very good Estonian editor, agreed with me [8]. Your team, as anybody can see, not only failed to rebut what was said by any of us, but failed to present any substantial argument which – again – leads me to state that the discussion was quickly concluded in my favor, although you did charge me with having "important information removed." If merited as regards my description of this instance of editing or any other, you can always go ahead and call me a liar, then – but I think that you should think very hard and long about this, and make sure that your reading comprehension is up to snuff, before you ever even think of attempting doing so. Adieu, Anti-Nationalist ( talk) 14:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
There's been absolutely no proof provided of this whatosever. Saying that they are illegal/hacked is blatantly provocative as it implies that anyone who reads them or knows about them is a criminal. It also smacks of an attempt to surpress evidence. Jtrainor ( talk) 03:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Vlad I don't think your comments here are helpful at all since you should not even be looking at the mailing list e-mails, much less discussing them here. And Jtrainor's first point is absolutely right but applies both to discussions saying they e-mails were "hacked" and that they were "leaked by a whistleblower." As I pointed out somewhere else, arbitrator Coren already noted that "both claims of hacking or pronouncement that a whistleblower is culpable — without supporting evidence — should not take place." So everyone needs to hold to that, and perhaps the case clerk needs to start enforcing it if need be. -- Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been asked, at User talk:Sandstein#Please provide a copy of the email sent to you from Vecrumba, to make public an e-mail I received. I have no objection to doing so, but given the special circumstances of this case I would appreciate advice from a clerk or arbitrator as to whether, under the special rules governing this arbitration case, I may make the e-mail public if the sender does not give his consent (as I've asked him to). Sandstein 14:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed that Offliner has presented evidence at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Piotrus_has_abused_his_admin_status and I have begun to present evidence on the same issue at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#As_yet_unnamed_section. Given that Offliner's section is somewhat more complete, and is only missing a single piece of information from my evidence, would there be any objection from the Committee if such a section was merged into say Offliner's section? I should make it known that both myself and Offliner are independent editors, and are gathering evidence for our own sections independently, but where there is substantial overlap like this, it may make for better readability if such sections were able to merged into a single section with all pertinent information present in one spot. Is that ok? -- Russavia Dialogue 14:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I've had just about enough of your sanctimony. You say
Discussing content off-wiki is allowed. I've barely scratched the surface of this email archive, just given it a couple hours perusal this evening. I have found explicit coordination of edits for purposes of avoiding revert limits. I've found explicit discussion of how to create sock puppets to revert, and how to create sockpuppets to infiltrate the pro-Russian side. I've found an explicit comment by you on how to interfere with a report at
WP:AE and make sure nothing productive happens. I've found two private messages cross-posted to the list without the permission of the original sender. One user reports Offliner for Arbitration Enforcement. Igny shows up to point out that Offliner has been the target of systematic harassment, and another list member asks if he should ask Igny to withdraw the "baseless accusations"—this on a mailing list that mentions Offliner in 84 messages by title alone! I mean, the very brazenness of this is stunning. After Jehochman
warned you not to comment as an admin on Arb enforcement matters involving EE and Digwuren case issues, there was a 62 48-message long thread about how to get him punished! Biophys notes on your talk page that you are entitled to
issue sanctions to me or to any other editor (like Offliner) with whom he "is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic". What a wonderful world you live in where you can coordinate reverting against Offliner on June 6 (20090606-0618) and yet be "uninvolved" for purposes of placing sanctions because, while your conflict is undoubtedly current and personal, it is not direct since you are hiding in on a mailing list!
No more sanctimony, no more hypocrisy. If there is justice in the heart of Arbcom, your days are numbered. Thatcher 06:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
AGF:This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. M.K. ( talk) 11:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not surprised that Thatcher would dismiss 23 FAs and 300 DYKs with an insulting suggestion for a "plaque" seeing how Thatcher has ... let's see ... only 10% of his Wikipedia edits in actual Wikipedia articles [9], and as far as I can tell has created only 10 articles (not counting redirects [10]). It seems that Thatcher doesn't do much of the "write an encyclopedia" part of the, uh, "writing an encyclopedia". Rather he just struts around Wikipedia policy pages and people's talk pages (70% of the edits) giving forth pronouncements, usurping other administrator's work and making rulings without bothering to actually check out the evidence presented by both sides. And this is part of the underlying problem here - it has been ever since Thatcher tried to "make a name" for him/herself with the attempt to machine gun down every editor active in Eastern European topics. What you've got here is a bureaucratic administrator who appears to be allergic to any actual content creation, deeply offended that one (or more) of the article-writing drones had a nerve to question his/her ruling. And when the appeal started to look like it might work, Thatcher, you did throw a tantrum for apparently no reason - well, I guess a successful appeal wouldn't be much helpful in name-making for a Wiki career. And left with a bruised ego, the effects of which we are seeing now.
You know, it's way way way harder to write even a single Featured Article, then to ban even ten people (without bothering to actually do the work that should come required with the administrator's privileges). So @Thatcher, no more hypocrisy. radek ( talk) 18:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
And BTW, I have no idea why Piotrus suggested I email my appeal to Kirill. He suggested I email a lot of people; Newyorkbrad, MBisanz, Durova, ... yourself. And in the end I didn't write Kirill (IIRC) (basically because I had no idea who he was at the time) - just like I ignored a lot of other advice I got during the appeal. And YOU KNOW I emailed all these other people because I told you so explicitly in my emails to you, so I don't know why you are singling Kirill out. This seems to be some intra-admin spat that I know nothing about. radek ( talk) 18:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
1RR | This user prefers discussing changes on the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war. |
WP:DUCK comes to mind with regards to what Thatcher has said. I'll leave it at that. Jtrainor ( talk) 00:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I don't think a normal evidence page will work in this case. The question is not, are there factions that edit war with each other? This is abundantly clear from prior cases and enforcement requests. Rather, Arbcom needs to know is whether private messages resulted in on-wiki disruption. For example, if users Alfa, Bravo and Charlie were planning on taunting Delta to provoke Delta into making a blockable outburst or edit war, did this in fact happen? Or if Echo, Foxtrot and Golf coordinated a revert war against Hotel, did it work? But the mailing list messages will not be shared with the community, so how to present relevant evidence? I suggest dispensing with the normal evidence format. Instead, Arbcom will review the private messages and post a series of questions based on the messages, asking the community to verify whether the actions and plans described in the messages actually resulted in on-wiki edits, blocks, disruptive behavior, and so forth. Thatcher 01:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
In the interest of transparency, as much of this case needs to take place in public as possible. —
Coren
(talk)
01:34, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
(Also note the different /Workshop format). —
Coren
(talk)
01:35, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I am still in the woods as for what evidence I can present, but I want to agree with Sandstein (in his evidence comment) - I don't see him is a party here. Too many people are going to get heavily wikistressed over this case, I'd ask ArbCom not to cause any unnecessary wikistress to people like Sandstein who have no involvement in this case (IMHO). A quick glance at the parties also makes me puzzled on the inclusion of Future Perfect at Sunrise, whom I'd also suggest to be removed. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:39, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I am not going to provide evidence against any other users whoever they are, including Russavia. And let's stay exactly on the subject: the email list and what is directly connected to it. No one needs new huge EE case. If there is any serious misconduct on my part in the intercepted email, could someone please direct me all my statements that allegedly violate WP policies (over the email), with a notice what exactly policy has been violated by me. This is needed because some of the messages may indeed be doctored as Piotrus suggested. I think so because some of the accusations by Alex who read the email are outright wrong. After verifying the messages (I do not keep the archive, but I remember my words), I would publicly comment in the Evidence section on the content of the messages, in connection with any events that took place right here. But I will be talking only about myself and about the alleged victim of my "abuse", with supporting diffs if needed. That is without disclosing any sensitive personal information. If someone has a better idea, this could be done differently. Biophys ( talk) 21:41, 18 September 2009 (UTC)
I understand very well how the members of this closed trusted email group feel right now. They openly shared ideas and thoughts free of restraints and free of the thought police, and all of a sudden their private correspondence becomes a subject to public scrutiny. I find this development disturbing regardless of how this correspondence affected or allegedly affected Wikipedia.
That should go without saying that the private information should be taken care very discreetly, and I urge everyone who obtained this archive to delete it as soon as this case is closed. Once this case is closed I suggest to punish editors who threaten to use or use this private information to their advantage in the content disputes, I am pretty sure it would violate some policy, and if not then create such a policy.
At this moment I wish that there were strict rules over how to handle cases like that and I wish that there was an attorney to consult who would know the policies and is bound under attorney/client privilege, and who could represent the affected parties in the cases like this. I know I know, wishful thinking.
I understand that this was possibly a bust of a particular team conspiring to use team work to their advantage in various WP disputes. However you would be naive thinking that busting one team would solve the problem of other existing teams. I would think that the opponents of the said team are now collecting and submitting evidence of the team tagging/ conspiring for this particular team. And they are quite happy that now finally their circumstantial evidence is probably directly supported by the said email archive. Finally a bust! But they forget that this stick has two ends. It is possible to collect circumstantial evidence that the other teams exist as well, it would probably be never be supported by the unfortunate leaks of the off-wiki correspondence, but that does not mean that such off-wiki coordination does not exist in other teams.
That said, I could give my word that I myself never coordinated my efforts in various disputes with anyone off-wiki. But nonetheless it could be perceived or suspected that there is a team of me, Offliner, Russavia, and possibly others which cooperates off-wiki, and a circumstantial evidence is not that hard to find as our views more or less coincided in most of the debates. The perceived threat of our "pro-Russian/pro-Putin team" could in fact be the reason for our opponents to start coordinating their efforts off-wiki. In fact they could be all under impression that there are plenty of teams on Wikipedia conspiring against their common ideals and if they do not coordinate their efforts then all is lost, and Wikipedia is ruined, and these "evil" teams win.
The team tagging is one of the worst problem in Wikipedia in my opinion and I raised this issue several times before. I suspected that Biophys, Martin, Colchicum, Radek, Vecrumba coordinated their efforts against me but I could not prove it. But I am against team tagging in general not just this particular team (which admittedly annoyed me the most as they had various conflicts with me in many articles). I hope that this case will go beyond busting a particular team (if proven) and you would figure out a wider policy dealing with the other teams as well (unfortunately I do not have good suggestions about any such policies at the moment). A first step however would be to finally admit that the team tagging exists.
The busted team (if proven guilty) should not be topic banned. They did make various valuable contributions to the articles on Russia even if some of their contributions caused conflicts with other editors. 1revert/week could be sufficient, and their cooperation off-wiki should be prohibited and they should be warned not to do that again under a threat of further sanctions. The admins in the team (if proven guilty) should be dysoped for some time with the right to be reinstated later provided they will get the required vote of confidence from the community. However no topic bans should issued unless you have a good idea how to deal with other, luckier, undetected teams on the Wikipedia. All the sanctions against various editors which were affected by this team (if proven) should be lifted or significantly alleviated. ( Igny ( talk) 14:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC))
You are probably right that not all cabals are known, but it is worth noting that historically when arbcom has found evidence of extensive organized activities offwiki that sought to target others, it has responded with significantly harsher sanctions than if those individuals were merely found to be doing the activities without coordination (see Bogdanov Affair, Durova, CAMERA, R. fiend, Scientology, and West Bank). I think the message that people could take away from it is that Arbcom recognizes it cannot catch everyone and that by applying harsher sanctions in these cases, it deters other groups from acting in a similar manner. Basically it places the burden on the offwiki group to show that its activities are not in violation of policy and do not negatively interfere with the functioning of the wiki. I haven't seen the emails in this case, but I would imagine that the alleged 1500 emails over 6 months about trying to harm a single person are a prima facie violation of WP:WIKIHOUNDING. MBisanz talk 15:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Since Deacon keeps making (false) accusations that people engaged in sock puppetry I think a proposal for an all around check user is in order - basically everyone on the involved parties list and Deacon (given his statements now and in the past, and his clear breaking of the just passed motion on speculative musings, I fail to understand why he's not on the involved parties list anyway. Besides, I think it's a tradition.). I for one have nothing to hide and I've never used a sock. I would like to propose then that all involved parties + Deacon be taken to CU. Who knows, maybe some very interesting info will come out of that?
I was going to make some kind of proposal to this effect anyway, but I wanted to wait until Sandstein and Future Perfect are taken off the "involved parties" list (as they obviously should be - and for the life of me, this thing is growing tentacles so fast I can't find the proper place to make a statement to that effect) but Deacon's repeated flaming and speculations force me to bring it up now. I still think that they should be taken off, then it's CU time for editor and administrator alike. radek ( talk) 01:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
I might as well add that at this point I personally got no problem with providing the committee with any kind of info on my current and past place of residence, my travels, and so on. radek ( talk) 01:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
This is a specific (and easy) question directed at the Arbs, and my apologies if it was answered elsewhere as the discussions for this case are already all over the place. What is the approximate (or exact) date of the earliest e-mails to this list? I ask not out of curiosity but rather because it could have a bearing on folks who might want to present evidence. For example, I was involved in a discussion/dispute with some of the parties to this case (including several mailing list members) at the beginning of the year (I had no idea I was stepping into a much wider dispute at that point, and eventually it was resolved satisfactorily). If there was any list discussion of that particular dispute (and it's quite likely there wasn't) I would be willing to outline the on-wiki discussion for the Arbs in an evidence section if that would be helpful. Indeed as has been suggested there will probably be a lot of evidence like this—i.e. editors collecting on-wiki diffs that relate to list activity described very roughly by the Arbs.
Before some editors start gathering evidence in anticipation of correlating it to list activity, it would be useful to simply know the date of the first e-mails from the list in order to avoid possibly unnecessary evidence gathering. -- Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Could we
please uphold greater semblance of decorum?
Durova
319
22:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Could a clerk reformat the {{ tmbox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Notice and the {{ Ambox}} at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Evidence to use the more appropriate {{ mbox}} format? MBisanz talk 06:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Could you tell us who those two people are? If not, can you tell us that there is no doubt they are who they say they were, and not that their accounts have been hacked and false statements made (like in the recent case of Tymek's account)? Btw, as I said earlier, I agree with you that "the archive in general is authentic"; any forgeries would likely involve only a (very?) small number of emails (since despite allegations that 1,500 = ~50%? of the archive is about harassing Russavia, I am pretty sure most emails were "comments from the peanut gallery" on wikipolitics, real life politics and unproblematic content discussions). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Ok, now I get it - for a while there I too thought that MBisanz was saying that Piotrus sent the email to the 9 admins, and I had already began the implementation of the "repeatedly pinch oneself until awake" process. So I guess the other of the "two people" would be me. So sometime in June there was the whole "incident" with Thatcher (and I'd be happy to discuss frankly how I feel about that whole situation, but this isn't really the place). At the time I contacted several administrators both on Wiki and through their email asking for advice on how to appeal Thatcher's decisions and what they thought of it. I made no secret of this, and I believe that even in my emails to Thatcher I explicitly stated that I had contacted other admins to ask for advice. Piotrus also used IRC to also query admins, including MBisanz about the situation.
Anyway, without going into what admin said what at the time, I want to say that yes, at the time I also did ask for advice on the list and I think Piotrus, among others gave some. I remember that I wrote up a long draft of the proposal, which then I reposted at AE (ignoring some admin advice on that) almost verbatim. I'm guessing that these are the emails and IRCs MBisanz is referring to.
So yes, there is probably some kind of correlation between what MBisanz is saying really happened and stuff that's found in the emails in the supposed "archive" (which I have a copy off, obtained through Future Perfect, but which I have not looked at yet for reasons I'll explain elsewhere). But that doesn't mean anything.
There is a dangerous meme developing that just because something really happened on Wiki, and at the same time there appears to be SOME discussion of it in the "archives" then that must prove that the emails in the "archives" are genuine and unaltered (the "corroboration" argument). But it proves no such thing.
As I've said before, yes there was a mailing list, and yes, Wiki issues and happenings were discussed, - including the appeal and Thatcher - just like they always are on many internet forums. So if the contents of the "archive" are in any way based on genuine conversations - which still means they could be doctored or faked, just that this process was applied to real emails - there's going to be correlation between stuff in the "archives" and in past real Wiki going-ons. But this doesn't mean at all that the material in the "archive" is authentic or unaltered. radek ( talk) 02:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
I requested the archive from Daniel and was pointed to Arbcom (email). I emailed and was directed here. Please provide me access to the alleged evidence. As I have stated elsewhere, my recollection of my correspondence had little to do with commenting on the alleged "victims". Had my intent been nefarious I certainly would not use my publicly identifiable Email address. I've been working in data processing since 1974, so I ask my "opposition" to spare me the "caught you with your pants down" as, frankly, I would not be stupid enough to conduct anything nefarious using my public Email account knowing how easily addresses are spoofed and accounts hacked. That this archive allegedly has my public Email address speaks to my innocence, not guilt.
Not to mention as a child growing up with my mother and her sister writing each other under assumed names during the Soviet era.
Be this all as it may be, unless I can examine the entire archive and determine whether it matches my recollection of my correspondence, this is nothing more than a (potentially) planned, orchestrated,and executed witch hunt. Curious timing, isn't it? Just after Russavia's ban? And this being trumpeted as an "excuse" to lift Russavia's ban despite their choice of conduct being all their own?
Equally importantly, personal life circumstances currently severely limit my spare time. I will require an extension to respond, and I do not consider the clock to start until I have had at least a day to start reviewing the "evidence." I would hope to provide an informed--and informative--response. But no response is possible without the evidence which has been circulated.
Please inform me via my public Email as to instructions for retrieval.
VЄСRUМВА
♪
00:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I do not feel well and probably will not be able to participate in this case. I ask User:Colchicum with whom I never had any email communications to re-edit, revert, modify or remove any my statemets made during last week, as he feels fit. Biophys ( talk) 15:24, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
I received a link to the web site containing the email list on Thursday and read some of them. Since then, various Wikipedians I trust have explicitly or implicitly stated they see no legal or ethical problems with discussing its contents.
If evidence from that link is acceptable, could the arbs please state how they would like to see it presented? Earlier, Deacon was asked to redact some evidence details, so I'd appreciate clarification.
You-all could demonstrate by presenting a detailed but completely hypothetical example. E.g.: "In an email timestamped Jan 2 2009 7:05 AM, editor Labrador asked members of the mailing list to make changes to the Rimadyl article to ensure its "correctness" and further its chances at DYK. Editor Golden, a member of the mailing list, responded in an email timestamped x that he had made reverts towards this end. The article's history (insert diffs here) does show that changes furthering the preferred version of the article were made by Golden without talk page discussion. Other blind reverts supporting that version were made by IPs 123.456.788 and 123.456.789 over the next two days, and a checkuser could confirm whether these were socks of mailing list members."
Is this format acceptable? If not, pls advise. Labrador could deny authorship, others could argue that the supporting details are strong. Novickas ( talk) 02:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
And care to tell us how you received this link? radek ( talk) 04:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Here are 5 edits by me on Monument of Lihula 14 June 2007. In over 2 years after that only 70 other edits were performed at that article. I followed them with interest through "My watchlist", b/c that article is not large, and in 2007 I took the time to go through everything there, including links, etc. Because of that I care(d) about changes in that article. In August 2007, when there were problems (=people reverting each other) with that article I was off wiki for a longer period of time. Next instance of problem with this article occured on 4 September 2009.
After I noticed this, I looked further and noticed Martintg reported PasswordUsername to Rjanang for 3RR violation. Rjanang said there was only 1 revert. According to my judgement, there were 2 reverts (the third one was immediately undone), and I told this to Rjanang [2]. As such, it was clearly unactionable, so basically my comment supported Rjanang and undermined Martintg's accusation. PasswordUsername is free to disagree with my characterization of his edits. But I would respectfully ask PasswordUsername to not accuse me now simply of providing then a characterization which he disagrees with. It was Rjanang's call, and I only gave him information what I consider was missing from that discussion. Should Rjanang have asked me to elaborate, I would have answered. I did not comment further to PasswordUsername because I did not want to inflame, since the whole issue was already settled by Rjanang.
PasswordUsername now (on the Evidence page) accuses me that that 1 edit of mine contained (I cite from PasswordUsername):
Answering to this will only inflame spirits without anything to be achieved. I want simply to bring to the attention of ArbCom that that 1 edit of mine did not contain such things. Thank you. Dc76\ talk 23:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
What exactly is the problem with using short quotes from the emails in the evidence, if they do not contain any privacy material and only discuss on-wiki events? I've been asked to paraphrase the quotes in my evidence, but this results in a problem since now the text doesn't correspond 100% to what was actually said. I think it would be nice if ArbCom could make it clear what exactly they want to see in the evidence section right now and what not. Offliner ( talk) 16:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. Since when, where, and by whom, were people given the permission to just post private emails all over this case? radek ( talk) 03:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
I have not had a lot of interaction with the people on this alleged cabal list but I wonder if their actions during the AfD of Communist genocide were coordinated. I have had interactions with one of the users in the past, User:Biophys, and was amazed how several times when he was losing an argument someone who had never edited the article before dropped in to "help out" in an edit war -- I'm particularly thinking of interactions over this article in the past, but I also wonder about this article as well as the Communist genocide article. Both of the latter two articles went to AfD, and both votes were close, with several of the people named in this arbitration jumping on board at roughly the same time and making arguments almost as a chorus. There were several times I wondered at the coincidences. I now wonder how much of this activity was orchestrated, and whether Biophys in particular or some of his compatriots on this list singled my account out for any particular harassment or other games. I have always felt Biophys was playing games, and have even called him out on his annoying habit of denying that he made edits that he has just made. I don't know whether this super secret email list coordinated such attacks as the burst of activity on the Communist terrorism AfD or the Communist genocide AfD or the sudden appearance of Piotrus on this discussion or Vecrumba's similar appearance on this discussion but I do think that anyone familiar with the evidence and the list archives should take a close look at these things.
Frankly, if even a portion of what is alleged to be in these archives is actually there, it is a substantial problem at least as worrisome as the CAMERA scandal, if not more so. csloat ( talk) 01:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Bigtimepeace, thank you very much for your analysis. Could you, please, also check how many of the 9 were previous editors of that article, have commented before on that article, or were involved in previous AfDs or re-namings (if any) for that article. Dc76\ talk 09:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and a philosophically about off-wiki communication. I guess one of the things that stimulates them is that WP discourages people to speak their mind. If I said something in an email and a week later I understand that I was partly wrong, I can re-state my new understanding, and that would be absolutely fine with the recipient of my email. But if I say (hypothetically) something on wiki and later change my mind, that old thing could (and would if I cross somebody) be used against me to portray me as a bad editor, even though I no longer believe it, and perhaps never actually believed it as such. Even if my old comment was "I might be wrong, but I think x makes sense. Please point where I might miss something.", almost nobody (who would want to cite me) would cite me like that; they would say instead "Dc76 thinks x. That's unacceptable!" My conclusion: we need more on-wiki communication about news and events in say EE topic area to stimulate AGF. I suggested elsewhere in this ArbCom case pages to start a wiki-project umbrella noticeboard. Dc76\ talk 09:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
What I find interesting in the above is the response from list members who participated in the AfD. Piotrus, for example, notes that his participation in the AfD was informed, which is a good thing IMHO (whether he was right or wrong). But this begs the question - did he or did he not receive or distribute an email canvassing for support on this AfD on the email list? And what of his participation in the discussion on the other articles I flagged above? As a member of the list, presumably he had access to this information; if he has evidence of wrongdoing occurring through the list it would be helpful if he was up front about it. I will go ahead and add my comments above to the evidence list now. csloat ( talk) 19:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Speaking specifically of AfD's I think there's an issue here which hasn't been brought up and which I think counters most of Bigtimepeace's concerns. And that is that information about AfDs in particular should be spread around. This is because often some users will try to float AfDs on the radar - nominate it quickly, get a few of their friends to vote delete then close it quickly and delete an article they don't like. This is obviously done with extensive discussion and hence without broader Wiki consensus. These kinds of sneaky tactics are a far bigger problem than letting other editors know that an AfD is going on.
On Communist Genocide in particular, I just don't see how anyone could say that was not a legitimate vote. There was a ton of discussion, back and forth, lots of editors who are not involved in this case, people changing their minds under the weight of arguments - it wasn't always pretty but that's what consensus building and discussion looks like. radek ( talk) 01:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Quite simply PasswordUsername is saying things here which he knows to be false.
What's simply going on here is that PU is revert warring (3 reverts in one day) against consensus, without actually discussing the issue.
I'm just pointing out this one particular instance but this kind of falsification basically characterizes all of PU's evidence. He's making stuff up and hoping that no one will actually click the diffs to find out for themselves and take his word at it. Unfortunately, countering such false claims is quite time intensive. radek ( talk) 09:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Radek, although this sounds very much like Orwell's 1984 :), indeed perhaps you should rephrase "is lying" into "is untrue" or "is distorting the key sense". You could also change "PU is revert warring against consensus" into more moderate "PU is revert un-peaceful for non-consensus", but that is way too funny. :) Now seriously, even if he might be lying, just say he is distorting the sense. Dc76\ talk 09:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Radeksz, if you really, really want to call me a liar, go ahead: I give you my permission here. But what you wrote is false as hell. Let's see: Collaboration with the Axis Powers included material on Soviet-German WWII agreements (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, peacetime trade, etc.) irrelevant to the subject of World War II collaborationism, and your team (you, Jacurek, Vecrumba) participated in a long series of reverts to keep this material, while I made a pretty good case at talk (see Talk:Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II#Important_information_removed). The discussion was clearly concluded in my favor very quickly: the only arguments against me – incidentally, failing to address the point – were by members of your team, and not only Anonimu but also Jaan Pärn (Erikupoeg), a very good Estonian editor, agreed with me [8]. Your team, as anybody can see, not only failed to rebut what was said by any of us, but failed to present any substantial argument which – again – leads me to state that the discussion was quickly concluded in my favor, although you did charge me with having "important information removed." If merited as regards my description of this instance of editing or any other, you can always go ahead and call me a liar, then – but I think that you should think very hard and long about this, and make sure that your reading comprehension is up to snuff, before you ever even think of attempting doing so. Adieu, Anti-Nationalist ( talk) 14:06, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
There's been absolutely no proof provided of this whatosever. Saying that they are illegal/hacked is blatantly provocative as it implies that anyone who reads them or knows about them is a criminal. It also smacks of an attempt to surpress evidence. Jtrainor ( talk) 03:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
Vlad I don't think your comments here are helpful at all since you should not even be looking at the mailing list e-mails, much less discussing them here. And Jtrainor's first point is absolutely right but applies both to discussions saying they e-mails were "hacked" and that they were "leaked by a whistleblower." As I pointed out somewhere else, arbitrator Coren already noted that "both claims of hacking or pronouncement that a whistleblower is culpable — without supporting evidence — should not take place." So everyone needs to hold to that, and perhaps the case clerk needs to start enforcing it if need be. -- Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
I have been asked, at User talk:Sandstein#Please provide a copy of the email sent to you from Vecrumba, to make public an e-mail I received. I have no objection to doing so, but given the special circumstances of this case I would appreciate advice from a clerk or arbitrator as to whether, under the special rules governing this arbitration case, I may make the e-mail public if the sender does not give his consent (as I've asked him to). Sandstein 14:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I have noticed that Offliner has presented evidence at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Piotrus_has_abused_his_admin_status and I have begun to present evidence on the same issue at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#As_yet_unnamed_section. Given that Offliner's section is somewhat more complete, and is only missing a single piece of information from my evidence, would there be any objection from the Committee if such a section was merged into say Offliner's section? I should make it known that both myself and Offliner are independent editors, and are gathering evidence for our own sections independently, but where there is substantial overlap like this, it may make for better readability if such sections were able to merged into a single section with all pertinent information present in one spot. Is that ok? -- Russavia Dialogue 14:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
I've had just about enough of your sanctimony. You say
Discussing content off-wiki is allowed. I've barely scratched the surface of this email archive, just given it a couple hours perusal this evening. I have found explicit coordination of edits for purposes of avoiding revert limits. I've found explicit discussion of how to create sock puppets to revert, and how to create sockpuppets to infiltrate the pro-Russian side. I've found an explicit comment by you on how to interfere with a report at
WP:AE and make sure nothing productive happens. I've found two private messages cross-posted to the list without the permission of the original sender. One user reports Offliner for Arbitration Enforcement. Igny shows up to point out that Offliner has been the target of systematic harassment, and another list member asks if he should ask Igny to withdraw the "baseless accusations"—this on a mailing list that mentions Offliner in 84 messages by title alone! I mean, the very brazenness of this is stunning. After Jehochman
warned you not to comment as an admin on Arb enforcement matters involving EE and Digwuren case issues, there was a 62 48-message long thread about how to get him punished! Biophys notes on your talk page that you are entitled to
issue sanctions to me or to any other editor (like Offliner) with whom he "is not engaged in a current, direct, personal conflict on the topic". What a wonderful world you live in where you can coordinate reverting against Offliner on June 6 (20090606-0618) and yet be "uninvolved" for purposes of placing sanctions because, while your conflict is undoubtedly current and personal, it is not direct since you are hiding in on a mailing list!
No more sanctimony, no more hypocrisy. If there is justice in the heart of Arbcom, your days are numbered. Thatcher 06:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
AGF:This guideline does not require that editors continue to assume good faith in the presence of contrary evidence. M.K. ( talk) 11:56, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
I'm not surprised that Thatcher would dismiss 23 FAs and 300 DYKs with an insulting suggestion for a "plaque" seeing how Thatcher has ... let's see ... only 10% of his Wikipedia edits in actual Wikipedia articles [9], and as far as I can tell has created only 10 articles (not counting redirects [10]). It seems that Thatcher doesn't do much of the "write an encyclopedia" part of the, uh, "writing an encyclopedia". Rather he just struts around Wikipedia policy pages and people's talk pages (70% of the edits) giving forth pronouncements, usurping other administrator's work and making rulings without bothering to actually check out the evidence presented by both sides. And this is part of the underlying problem here - it has been ever since Thatcher tried to "make a name" for him/herself with the attempt to machine gun down every editor active in Eastern European topics. What you've got here is a bureaucratic administrator who appears to be allergic to any actual content creation, deeply offended that one (or more) of the article-writing drones had a nerve to question his/her ruling. And when the appeal started to look like it might work, Thatcher, you did throw a tantrum for apparently no reason - well, I guess a successful appeal wouldn't be much helpful in name-making for a Wiki career. And left with a bruised ego, the effects of which we are seeing now.
You know, it's way way way harder to write even a single Featured Article, then to ban even ten people (without bothering to actually do the work that should come required with the administrator's privileges). So @Thatcher, no more hypocrisy. radek ( talk) 18:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
And BTW, I have no idea why Piotrus suggested I email my appeal to Kirill. He suggested I email a lot of people; Newyorkbrad, MBisanz, Durova, ... yourself. And in the end I didn't write Kirill (IIRC) (basically because I had no idea who he was at the time) - just like I ignored a lot of other advice I got during the appeal. And YOU KNOW I emailed all these other people because I told you so explicitly in my emails to you, so I don't know why you are singling Kirill out. This seems to be some intra-admin spat that I know nothing about. radek ( talk) 18:30, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
1RR | This user prefers discussing changes on the talk page rather than engaging in an edit war. |
WP:DUCK comes to mind with regards to what Thatcher has said. I'll leave it at that. Jtrainor ( talk) 00:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)