![]() | 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. |
To all concerned parties: Clerk Daniel is on real-life vacation and hence has withdrawn from clerking this case.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) 02:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I thank Offliner and PasswordUsername for getting to the essence of the argument here, that:
I additional thank Offliner for his use of the "Soviet Procurator" model in the section title: "Disruption by list members continues", that is, present all communication in terms which indicate a crime is already confirmed to have been committed and the defendant already convicted. PL calls. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 15:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
While there is a principle on Gaming the System, it is geared towards editing issues. I feel the principle of Stonewalling (covered under WP:GAME) geared more towards its use in Dispute Resolution really needs to be covered in this case. The success of this tactic in preventing the resolution of disputes on Wikipedia has always bothered me. I think it would be useful if Arbcom specifically condemned it.-- BirgitteSB 20:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
BirgitteSB: why did you single out just one dispute strategy? In retrospect, "stonewall them" isn't as bad as "stone them" or "tar and feather" or "pocket checkuser", is it? NVO ( talk) 08:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) Birgitte, I have to thank you for the first observation which allows us to cut to the core of the issue: "To resolve a dispute both parties have to recognize the reason for the dispute is that one of them is mistaken ... on the issue and when there is outside consensus the mistaken party needs to concede the error."
When Christopher Columbus sailed to America, he kept two distance logs, his true log and another log for consumption by the crew so as to not discourage them and protect from possible mutiny. As it turned out, his fake log was actually more accurate than his true log. And so it is here, regarding hood-winking—note, however, only one side has reputable facts. Allow me to acquaint you with this simple example:
I've been asking for the reputable facts backing this contention for years. And what do we have (instead)? Medvedev's commission criminalizing stating the Soviet Union occupied Latvia.
This has already been resolved by noting the Soviet viewpoint (and when it matches Official Russia). The issue is the recent push to institute that viewpoint as reputable and objective, for example, per Russavia's threats of filling the
The Soviet Story article with "historian" Dyukov's rants. (I see also that Russavia has recently protested in their evidence that evil editors have attempted to defile Dyukov's reputation.) I hope to get to Russavia's "evidence" presently.
VЄСRUМВА
♪
02:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Does it apply to Beatle Fab Four ( talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Shell Kinney for 6 months), DonaldDuck ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Thatcher, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), HanzoHattori ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Keilana), Jacob Peters ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Tariqabjotu), Jo0doe ( talk · contribs) (blocked by Moreschi for one year), Kuban kazak ( talk · contribs) (banned by ArbCom for one year), M.V.E.i. ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Miyokan ( talk · contribs) (community-permabanned), Molobo ( talk · contribs) (blocked for one year, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), Muscovite99 ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Petri Krohn ( talk · contribs) (community-banned for one year), RJ CG ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Roobit ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Russavia ( talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Sandstein for 6 months)? Wouldn't you like to weight the consequences beforehand? Colchicum ( talk) 11:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I stand behind all the blocks made above: MVEi, Roobit, Jo0doe, etc. These were made independant of any efforts to manipulate the outcomes of such discussions, and the people blocked were particuarly nasty characters (MVEi and Roobit, in particular, I remember, had a history of vile ethnic slurs). Despite the despicable events of this RFAR let us not remember that there are very nasty and real Russian nationalists out there (doubtless some of whom coordinate their activities) who do troll and disrupt and to unban the lot would be to undo a lot of good work in a very short space of time. Moreschi ( talk) 20:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - I removed most of an extended thread here because I could not see any way to refactor it to make it acceptable. Almost every party in this thread was guilty of some form of misconduct. The discussion topic is valid, the way it has been discussed thus far is not. Feel free to continue the discussion, but focus on the issues, and not on criticising other editors. Manning ( talk) 15:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
This is something I've brought up before - nobody here is "anti-Russian" - and Cool Hand Luke acted appropriately before in acknowledging that fact and apologized when I pointed out earlier that this kind of characterization is insulting.
Yet, the same pattern appears to be included in the wording on the Proposed Decisions page. In particular it occurs in #6) "against a perceived "Russian cabal"" (does the phrase "Russian cabal" even appear in the supposed archive?). Same thing with #7 "participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia".
(unacceptable paragraph deleted)
Like I said, nobody here is "anti-Russian" so please don't insult people like that. Somehow I get the sense that the ArbCom has been busy with so many ethnic issues in the past that it just can't get past the fact that this one is NOT an ethnic issue at all, however much some people try to play it that way. radek ( talk) 08:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Improper_coordination makes note that there was improper coordination by the group. And there has been enough evidence presented which demonstrates that most list members actively took part in what can only be described as subversion of the gaining of consensus on Wikipedia. As such, I feel that a "ban" of sorts relating to list members from participating in process discussions on Eastern Europe topics is in order. This would include
WP:AFD,
WP:CFD,
WP:TFD,
WP:RM. Length of ban could be 3 months, or whatever the committee feels justified, but it is my belief this is totally warranted for most list members. In the perusing the archive myself (and yet not still done in full),
User:Poeticbent and
User:Alexia Death should be exempted from this remedy as I don't believe I found any evidence of those editor engaging in such behaviour. --
Russavia
Dialogue
11:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Strong support for this. In general, I think Coren's proposal is fine. He did a good job in identifying the ring leaders (Piotrus and Digwuren) as well as one of the most disruptive editors (Martintg). But will this proposal stop other list members from gaming the system, stealth canvassing and swamping noticeboard and AfD discussions? I don't think so. At least there is no indication that they would. These users have been warned over and over again, but still (as the list affair proves) they have always continued the disruption despite the warnings. Therefore, I strongly support a ban from community discussions for all of these editors. Sanctions should be preventative, and this one certainly would prevent disruption. In addition, losing the right to participate in community discussion would not be a major loss for these editors (or to the community), as they can still edit articles and create new content, which is the primary task in Wikipedia. Offliner ( talk) 09:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
To reiterate: this is nothing but a blatant attempt to accomplish indirectly - delete multitude of "uncomfortable articles" or move them to weaselly titles - what Russavia, Offliner etc. were unable to do with actual reasoned argument on the relevant talk pages and AfDs. It is a proposal to censor and silence.
In fact, the proper course of action is just the opposite - it is to more widely advertise such discussions so that a wide range of editors can participate which would prevent the potential of hijacking of various "votes" and "discussions" by any one group. The proposal to censor would be a step backwards, not forward. radek ( talk) 09:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Of course there was swamping of AfD discussions. Here's another example. On 30 January 2009, Dc76 posted a link to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_January_29#Category:Moldovan_linguistic_and_ethnic_controversy and specifically asked for help with enforcing his own POV. Immediately after the email, Martintg, Digwuren and Biruitirol appear at the CfD and defeat any notion of true consensus. It is obvious that there was creation of false consensus by the web brigade, and this is why I recommend that a remedy of banning for a period of time for list members from consensus discussions be written. Arguments used by brigade that this is a proposal to censor or to silence have no foundation in fact; it is a proposal to remove editors from an area for a period of time where they have clearly been disruptive. I would hope that editors would not use this as an opportunity to revisit AfDs, CfDs, etc where there was clear consensus, and I would be disappointed myself if they did, however, if it were the case, arguments used by brigade members in previous discussions could still be used by other editors as a reference in any discussions on why an article or category, etc should be kept/deleted/etc. Such discussions are supposed to obtain consensus from the community and it is my firm belief that members of the brigade have forgone their right to participate in this part of the community for a period of time. -- Russavia Dialogue 16:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Digwuren_banned suggests that User:Digwuren should be banned from WP for 3 months. In October 2007, Digwuren was banned for one year as a result of Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Digwuren_banned. His setting up of this mailing list for what many believe was for nefarious reasons, and his continued battleground behaviour on WP after returning from stated one year ban, would demonstrate that WP:DIGWUREN and his one year ban taught him nothing, and hence the 3 month ban will not be a strong deterent. I request that an alternative remedy of a 12 month ban be added to allow arbitrators to vote for a stronger remedy that takes into account the history, particularly given Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#At_wit.27s_end. Is a 3 month ban after a 12 month ban really taking all of this into account? -- Russavia Dialogue 11:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Considering how User:Russavia has eventually gotten away with a 6 month topic ban for his disruptive behaviour, battleground mentality and even past herassment I find a year long topic ban rather strict. It would be fairer to match it with Russavia's topic ban of 6 months. If Russavia has been given another chance to prove himself that he's able to contribute positively to Eastern European topics after 6 months, I'd say you should give these other three users the same chance. Grey Fox ( talk) 12:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
At last year's arbcom, there was some discussion of grievance lists maintained by Piotrus on PL WP. Altho the final decision was that 'Piotrus's activity on the Polish Wikipedia lies outside the Committee's remit'. [12], one arb opposed, and two abstained. He kept a similar list of grievances and diffs on Wikibooks between April and August of this year (its contents were deleted yesterday after this discussion [13].) Could the committee re-address this issue? Novickas ( talk) 14:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
So, it is proposed the conspirators pardoned and victims of their baiting and mobbing campains retain permanently banned. It is also postulated good faith even for such editors as Radeksz against whom there is massive evidence of bad faith. This proposed decision is surely not a coincidence or ignorance, it can indicate only intentional taking sides by Wikipedia's ArbCom on political questions. This means complete catastrophe for Wikipedia's neutrality for years to come and Cart-Blanche for any sorts of nationalist attackers to disrupt Wikipedia further.
If this to pass me and many other good editors would have no choice other than abandon any participation in the project.-- Dojarca ( talk) 14:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
About "Amnesty": What is this supposed to mean? "Granted amnesty for past behavior stemming from their participation" – does that mean all that behaviour is supposed to be written off and forgotten? Does it mean that, when considering possible sanctions against these editors in the light of any future (on-wiki) infractions, admins will in the future be expected to ignore this past history of theirs? That, I think, would be highly inappropriate. I don't mind these editors getting away without bans and the like for now, but I can't ignore that some of them have still been engaged in problematic editing over the last weeks – e.g., Jacurek had to be warned off about wiki-hounding of Matthead, and Dc76 appears to be engaged in some rather un-nice POV skirmishes with User:Anonimu ( [15], see also Anonimu's talk page; I believe both sides are partly at fault there.) So, these editors are continuing editing in the spirit of their battleground mentality, and I can easily see further AE threads coming up.
If you judge they did nothing wrong, they don't need an amnesty. If you judge they did something wrong but it didn't rise to the level of requiring serious sanctions, for now, then an amnesty isn't what they need either; they just need minor sanctions (such as warnings and "admonishments"). The term "amnesty" seems to mean either nothing at all, or something rather counter-productive. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future. — Coren (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
It's simple. Blame it on the ringleader, let the soldiers elect a new chief. Back to square one. But I doubt that any wholesome punishment will change the pic; in the absence of an editorial policy wikipedia will remain a battleground, new editors will quickly radicalize into fighters etc. Deja vu. What year it is, doctor? NVO ( talk) 17:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Coren, this is a good faith question. My question is just how many amnesties are we going to have? Editors have already had an amnesty as demonstrated at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus#Amnesty. Are you aware of this? Given that, this amnesty is entirely inappropriate, as it is allowing editors to get away with the same thing every other day. The time has come, that being now, that editors take responsibility for their actions, and for this Committee to ensure that this responsibility is taken, even if forcibly. This proposed amnesty does not sit right with me, and I doubt it will sit right with other editors either. To put it in a humourous light, it reminds me of The Simpsons episode The Parent Rap: "Harm is just about to punish Bart when Judge Snyder returns from his vacation. Lisa moves for a motion that "boys will be boys", and Judge Snyder grants the motion, dismissing the case. The family returns back to normal, and Marge makes the family promise not to break the law for a year (after which Homer immediately hits Hans Moleman with his car)." What this Arbcom needs to do is to be firm but fair (too all sides), otherwise it is continually going to end up back here. -- Russavia Dialogue 17:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't think I've commented on this case previously, and just happened to be reading the proposed decision... I find the "Amensty" proposal to be pretty risky territory, particularly with respect to the potential for unintended consequences. It seems unnecessary and not entirely reasonable, given the potential downsides. I'll be interested to see what the other arbitrators think about this provision. Nathan T 22:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Amnesty needs to be followed up with remedies that will ensure that those editors who are not "scared away" (for a while) are otherwise convinced to deradicalize and be productive editors. See ideas at #Constructive proposals and #Community service: Wikisource. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Authenticity of archive contains a small error of fact: "period from 2009-02-01" should be corrected to "2009-01-02", i.e. 2 January, not 1 February. (The date format used on the archive index page is confusing, I know.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually, while we're on the topic here, I'd like to point out (I've only looked at some of the emails in the archive recently) that this is inaccurate: There are no technical inconsistencies, nor any indication that any part of it has been tampered with. - there is actually one very strong indication that the emails have been tampered with. Any email that had been posted by somebody with a Gmail account should've had headers like this:
However, from the emails I looked at, the "Received: by..." part has been removed - presumably so that it couldn't be determined from what account the archive was leaked (basically the hacker/leaker covering their tracks). This was obviously done intentionally and deliberately as, for example, all the spam filter stuff was left in.
So there's definitely been *some* tampering with the emails (covering up of tracks) - the question is was this the only tampering that was done or was there further monkey business. radek ( talk) 17:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd appreciate arbitrators and community feedback on my workshop proposals: mediation/mentorship good-faith committee, public discussion forum for EE topics, an offer to build trust (and good content) and voluntary restrictions.
I would like to point out that in the past month I have not been involved in any controversial dispute resolutions, but I have worked on uncontroversial content. I have finished following DYKs: Kordian, Colonies of Poland, Polish–Muscovite War (1577–1582), Dymitr of Goraj, Landflucht and Adolf Bniński. I am willing to place myself (voluntarily, even before this arbcom ends) on a series of restrictions to assure the community that mistakes of the past will not be repeated, but I would like to ask - what harm is there if I am allowed to continue with my uncontroversial content editing? The only diff cited by FoF regarding me is the one where I semi-protected an article - an action that would have been carried out by somebody else if the article was reported to RfProtecion... but if the community and the committee feels that this one diff is enough to justify desysoping me, I am prepared to resign my amin tools. However, I want to finish helping GAing Suwałki Agreement, I plan to improve Juliusz Słowacki - one of the three greatest Polish poets - from start to GA, I want to continue the clean up of Poland-related new articles feed (I am the only editor doing so...), filling the blanks in those missing articles, and my activities related to WP:SUP, WP:ACST and other uncontroversial projects. I'd hope that it would be possible to tailor the proposed decisions to balance restrictions to avoid disruption and allow constructive editing ( please see my proposal here, and I am quite willing to work with the committee to refine them further). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
How about we all try to assume more good faith, guys? This section is supposed to be about constructive proposals, after all. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
All I can tell you all is that if Piotrus is banned for a year, Wikipedia will loose THE BEST Polish editor it have ever had. His knowledge of Polish related topics and dedication to this project is extraordinary and hard to match. ..And I don't want to hear now all the B.S. of the usual opponents of Piotrus PLEASE, I have heard it all already, so keep you comments to yourself. All I know is that one editor like Piotrus is worth more to Wikipedia than all of us Polish editors combined. I think it will be a huge loss to Wikipedia if Piotrus never comes back if banned.-- Jacurek ( talk) 00:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Piotrus is right that some initiative needs to be taken to help resolve at least some of the conflicts in Eastern European subjects and re-establish good faith between editors (honestly, speaking for myself, due to the persistent personal attacks and the outting that has taken place, I've lost most of mine in regard to some editors. However I've also gained a LOT of respect for others - like Igny). There are actually two general aims here: 1) diffuse potential areas of conflict before it erupts, 2) get editors talking to each other honestly (but with civility and mutual accusations). Hopefully, success in 2) will lead to less of a need for 1) - but let's try to do what we can and not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Diffusing conflicts would actually be better done with MORE editor involvement rather then less. With more editors there's less of a chance that a extreme view (or two polar extreme views) will take sway. Basically, articles and topics of potential conflict (including things like AfDs) should be advertised more widely - this would also make it "fair" in the sense that anyone interested could see it, and it would also eliminate the temptation to engage in off-wiki "letting people know" (NTTAWWT). To that end, I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe/Noticeboard can serve as an appropriate tool.
For building good faith ... ugh, this is going to be the tougher one. A "mediation/mentorship good-faith committee", as Piotrus proposes would definitely be needed. The problem of course is that whoever joins the committee is going to have some really hard - and often thankless - work set out for them (a special award/barnstar would probably be the least the community could do to show its appreciation to such a person). It would be good to know at this stage what kind of interest in mediating these issues is out there. But one way or another, something like that has to happen, just so we're not back here a year from now with another ArbCom case (with same or different participants). radek ( talk) 00:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Being involved mostly in the Central-Eastern European articles editing, I'd hate to loose any valuable editor because of content disputes, and I'm all for a constructive solution if one is possible. I believe that self-imposed restrictions plus parole is the way to go, although it would be good to contemplate which restrictions should be considered and what purpose would they serve. Myself, I've limited my editing mostly because I was not interested in warring, wiki-lawyering etc. but in the content and maintaining a neutral pov, so I can well understand similar disappointment feelings of the others. Anyway, I think by all means you should strive for a constructive constructive solution that would not harm wikipedia in this, already very delicate, area. -- Lysy talk 14:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Piotrus has been an incredibly productive contributor to Wikipedia content and process. If he has shown a few lapses, which of us has not? The tone of discussion, and the quality of documentation, at Wikipedia have been improving, and should continue to. I think we should take Piotrus up on his proposals. Nihil novi ( talk) 14:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it's also instructive to consider the behavior of both "sides" during this case. Piotrus (and others) are at least trying to make constructive proposals, and are looking for a way - through discussion and offers of cooperation - to mover forward.
It appears though that Offliner, Russavia and PasswordUsername (as well as uninvolved 'auxilliaries' like Dojarca, csloat and Viriditas) are not doing anything of the sort but rather can only howl for blood, based on false accusations and extremely offensive personal attacks (like comparing, wrongly, to Holocaust revisionists, pogromists or gang rapists).
In other words, one side is trying to end the battleground atmosphere in EE topics, while the other side is just trying to stir up pointless drama and propagate the battleground atmosphere. radek ( talk) 03:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
While I'm merely a lurker here at the wiki these days, I thought I'll drop by and add my two eurocents to this discussion (or two euros, considering the length of my post). As I already noted numerous times on numerous occasions, I was chased off Wikipedia some time ago by one of the EE clubs and now don't waste too much of my time on it. Anyway, in the recent months I cooled down a bit and don't believe in bans as a way to change anything.
But let me tell you a story first. Once upon a time we (I mean all of Wikipedians interested in EE and CE-related articles, but those of Polish extraction specifically, more on that later) had a huge problem with certain User:Zivinbudas. The guy was clearly way off-balance when it comes to views and he used all means possible to ensure that Lithuania-related articles represent his point of view - and his only. Sockpuppetry, constant reverts, ignoring sources, ignoring consensus, name-calling, you name it. In the end the guy became so infuriated that he started adorning his edits with comments similar to "Poles to gas chambers". Only then were we able to attract any admin's attention to what was happening. Why? I guess no admin was interested in EE&CE topics or knowledgeable enough to tell the truths from complete nonsense (note the plural). In the end Zivinbudas was banned for one year and never showed up again.
This was in 2004 or 2005. However, others followed his path. His example showed only one thing: as long as you stay in EE-history area, you're safe to do anything you can as there's no admin to watch those articles. You can delete sources from an article and then claim it is unsourced - it's all fine. As long as you don't call for sending anyone to gas chambers, that is. Once Zivinbudas has been banned I was quite happy. Not because I could insert anything into Lithuania-related historical articles (which BTW I could as there were apparently no other editors with that knowledge in Wikiland back then), but because I felt there would be some peace in articles on EE and CE history. But in the end the can of worms remained open and only got harder to close.
The other side of that coin is what I discovered during my (failed) RfA a long time ago. If your main area of interest is, say, maths or biology, you'll live a long and happy wiki-life. However, if you're interested in history, sooner or later you'll end up in some endless quarrel over this or that topic. This is especially true in the case of modern history (a can of worms), and CE and EE history in particular (a shipload of worms). It doesn't matter if you're a university professor, a greatest of all minds and a good-faith editor all the time. In the end someone will start to revert your articles just because, and in the end you will get provoked and finally respond with a word too much. This IMHO explains why we (I mean all historically-minded Wikipedians) couldn't get any help from the outside even in the most simple cases. I remember starting RfCs where noone outside of the interested parties showed up. Typical.
And now on to ban of Piotrus (I refer to him specifically, as he's the only person out of those listed in this ArbCom case I know and in fact even met personally - once, but still). I don't believe banning him would do this project any good. In the end the war is not between wikiPoles and wikiRussians, but between those of us who are content creators (creating featured articles, adding sources, negotiating the release of media into PD and so on) and content destroyers (quarrelling over everything, not providing any sources for their edits, accusing everyone around of fancy things and so on). Having said that, I believe Piotrus' has been on the bright side of the force for most of his time and Wiki would loose a valuable editor. Whether he is worthy of being an admin is another case I'm not judging here. As I said before, no person interested in history is "adminnable" in Wikipedia. // Halibu tt 21:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
If such solid extraordinary evidence led to nothing, there is no hope at all. Suppose the archive was not dicovered. The cabal would continue their disruptive work without any obstacle, stonewalling dispute resolution and banishing other editors. But the very fortune gives us such a solid unprecedented evidence. But the arbitrators suggest to close eyes on this. What next? If the off-wiki coordination continue (this will be the case for sure), the particepants will keep it in even greater secret and take any measures to avoid detection. We cannot expect to get such exceptional evidence for a second time. This was the last chance for Wikipedia's neutrality. -- Dojarca ( talk) 18:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
There is every indication that the mailing list's participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia, going so far as to suspect involvement by the Russian government. - this is completely flawed argument. The group pushed anti-Russian propaganda anywhere they could, making no difference between Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union and modern Russia. They managed to insert anti-Russian statements into articles from Alexander Suvorov to Santa Claus. It is evident that such overwhelming POV-pushing cannot be made in good faith as well as removig the references. Could good-faith users reject a meditation? Or maybe they thought administrators Hiberniantears and John Carter were Russian government's agents?
This argument is completely the same as to say that people who organized an anti-Jewish pogrom should be pardoned because they believed that Jews really drink blood of Christialn babies.
Only Anti-Semitic government could pardon pogrom participants on such pretext.--
Dojarca (
talk)
19:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
To the actual proposal, I am sorry, but I personally have engaged editors active on Wikipedia paid to push Russian interests in Transnistria (banned William Mauco, Mark Street, and sockpuppets associated with both). There is no "good faith" problem here and I request this be struck as more "mailing list = must be evil" in the absence of any factual basis regarding good or bad faith. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 19:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Good_faith, list members thought that editors, including me, Russavia, PasswordUsername and others are connected with or paid by the Russian government or security services. I do note that in your own support you say that this is misguided.
In a previous case in 2008, the ArbCom found that found that There is no convincing evidence that any of the security organs of the Russian state are involved in Wikipedia editing, directly or indirectly; nor that any editors involved in this matter are acting as agents of or receiving instruction from said organs [26]. As Russavia notes in this case [27], an editor escaped enforcement [28], for what appears opposition from a couple of Arb members who noted a promise not to engage in such things again, and also escaped admonishment. [29]
Still, there are plenty of instances on the mailing list of editors claiming that myself and other editors are members of Russian security forces, etc. And there is also evidence at this very case in which the editor accuses myself and other editors of not only being employed by yet another Russian government-related entity, but in which he also calls us neo-Nazis. This happened right here on these very evidence pages, and it was picked up on by Russavia with this evidence that he presented.
The question to you is, given editors have denied unfounded accusations against them on multiple occasions in the past, and given the fact that an RFAR from less than 12 months ago found no evidence of this, and given evidence that has been introduced of the continuation of accusations since then, and given evidence that was introduced in this very case, how can this very well be assumed as being "good faith"? Is this not an insult to those editors who have long been at the receiving end of these unfounded accusations? Offliner ( talk) 19:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Ignoring the peanut gallery on both sides above (take bickering elsewhere, I for one have had a bloody gutful it). If we can stay focussed on this one thing, that being the issues that Offliner has raised. His sentiments mirror my sentiments in their entireity. To see the section entitled "good faith" with details covering consistent and persistent accusations of a multitude of editors being KGB agents and a whole lot of kooky things has me absolutely stumped. So I too ask the same questions of Coren, and I ask him these additional questions:
A response from Coren, or other arbs, appreciated. Russavia Dialogue 21:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
What Martin said. I don't think I ever thought anybody was a FSB agent... well ... ok, maybe for like 2 seconds when the archive was leaked. I got the general impression from a few others that they didn't completely dismiss that possibility. That's about it. radek ( talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
In response to Coren: " the infractions commited by other members are — in the whole — relatively minor and the remedy was crafted looking forward."
It is true that the mailing list did not manage to control the content of EE articles to the extend they envisioned, and it is true that the mailing list did not succeed to implement all the sanctions they thought of for whom they regarded their opponents yet. But the mailing list archive proves beyond doubt that they were making progress.
That several wikipedia editors and administrators were subject to off-wiki coordinated hounding, revert warring, deception campaigns, block evasion, votestacking and tactical plotting is a major offense itself, regardless of whether these campaigns in full accomplished or missed their stated objectives. That should be reflected in both the fofs and in the proposed decisions.
The Occasional disruption fof needs to be ammended, likewise the proposed decisions, based on the proposed principles Canvassing, Not a battleground, Gaming the system, Meatpuppetry and Off-wiki communication. Skäpperöd ( talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
In response to Coren: " I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future."
There is no reason to believe that the remainder of Piotrus' group ceased to coordinate themselves off-wiki via mailing list, IM or their parallel wiki, there is no reason to believe that this group has any intention to do so, and based on their behaviour in the past it is extremely unlikely that amnesties and admonishments will upset them. There is no other way to deal with such an off-wiki organized group (mailing list, IM, own wiki) than to disconnect them from their targets, article- and editor-wise. Skäpperöd ( talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree that "Amnesties and admonishments are insufficient". If they are to work this time, they need to be followed up by an attempt to restore good faith between radicalized editors. See my proposals to that goal here, here and here. I hope that the committee considers adopting / building upon some of them. If there is no follow up to the amnesty aiming to reform the editors, the underlying problem will not be solved.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Compared to what members of EEML tried (successfully!) to get for their victims (that is indefinite blocks), three-month sanctions really seem too lenient. DonaldDuck ( talk) 01:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Good link, had the evidence I needed, and I have to say that 'spree' is all in your mind. When your going to accuse someone of having a spree you really should tell people EVERYTHING. Like the fact that the 17 reverts were spread over the course of a week. The way you go on about it you act like it was in one day. Then I suppose that there is the fact that only 3 of his 17 reverts broke 3rr, not excusable mind you but concidering you could have called him on breaking 3rr with 6 revisions one wonders why you had to jump up and down about 17. The other 11 didn't even matter... and three of those weren't even relevant. The only thing I can think of is that saying 17 reverts is sexier as long as you rely on people to not actually check the diffs. I guess my other question is, if you treat your mailing list as a unified voice... how many times did you break 3rr in that week? 198.161.174.222 ( talk) 22:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Like anyone else involved for some time on the Wikipedia project, I have made my share of friends and encountered others who would not consider me to be their friend. It goes with the territory. To deny that there is off-wiki communication truly would be "delusional". Of course there is. There is nothing wrong with such communication, but what has transpired here truly puts the project in jeopardy and would make a mockery of its rules and regulations if it is allowed to go unpunished (with a mere wimpy slap on the wrist). The above proposal reminds me of having to write, "I will not be a bad boy," a hundred times on the blackboard (sure beats getting a switch, or expelled). There is no need for me to recapitulate what has occurred here for the benefit of anyone, let alone the members of this ArbCom. The evidence is there, and those guilty should not be able to slough off their guilt, unique in its enormity, with the hope that "this too shall pass". During other attempts to remedy these types of transgressions, and the behavior of some of the participants of the mailing list at previous ArbComs and the like, the arbitrators were unsuccessful only because of the lack of fortitude necessary to correct such transgressions. But regarding these people, this is the "Mother-of All-of-Transgressions" on their part. I have had the misfortune of having read a great number of their correspondence, if one can call it that, as I was one of the earlier recipients of the list. It saddened me to read those particular emails in relation to myself, and their conspiring to have me banned or otherwise "neutralized". I think one of the major tactics was to "ignore" Dr. Dan. Never had a problem with that guys, and I too have done my best to ignore you as well. Until now that is, because while you lied about the cabal being a figment of one's imagination and burbled a lot of euphemistic nonsense about assuming good faith, that was was not the case. All I ask of those capable of remedying this clear violation of what this project is supposed to be about, not to blow this one too. It's not about supposed previous "contributions" to the project, or associations made at Wikimania or the like, it's about reality. This reality is very ugly and will haunt this project in the future if not remedied appropriately. Dr. Dan ( talk) 02:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Umm, this one's related to my previous request - noting that no one on the list was "anti-Russian" but this one is even weirder and more inaccurate: encouraging each other to fight editors perceived as being "opponents" and generally assuming bad faith from editors editing from a Russian or Western European point of view.
Uhhh... weren't we just being accused of *representing* the Western point of view? What is this referring to? Where did we say "those damned Western Europeans!"? We used mainstream Eastern *and* Western European sources (sometimes in the face of objections). This one really has me scratching my head. radek ( talk) 06:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Coren has already responded here. Skäpperöd ( talk) 07:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! radek ( talk) 16:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
The way it's formulated now editors like Skapperod and Matthead end up with 'Russian or against the prevalent Western European point of view' position. I don't think it's accurate.
Also, the ML members did not always defend 'prevalent Western European point of view' as could be perceived from current wording ( Human rights in Estonia and the Amnesty International report about them come to my mind). Alæxis ¿question? 19:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I also wonder about the oversimplification regarding Russian POV. I'd suggest rephrasing it to indicate that the list members dealt with "perceived undue weight POV"; it doesn't really matter where it came from. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Being totally unfamiliar with the detailed facts of this case, I would nonetheless like to offer a few impressions:
I edit in the "Eastern" (Central) European area too, and am quite frequently annoyed by POVers of various nationalities editing to an agenda to the detriment of the encyclopedia (such as by removing places' former names and information about their having belonged to other countries in the past). I haven't been involved in any of the major content disputes that this case seems to be about. But my impression of User:Piotrus has always been extremely positive - unlike some Polish editors, he genuinely strives to improve the content of the encyclopedia and keep POVs out rather than in. He has also made vast and extremely valuable contributions to WP, and continues to do so. I would have hoped that the amnesty (which, following from the above numbered points, I clearly support) would be applied to him first and foremost. Effectively it is proposed (if I understand correctly) that he be excluded from his area of interest at WP for 15 months, which will undoubtedly harm the project significantly, for no visible gain. I don't know the other potential sanctionees so can't offer an opinion there, but would ask the Committee to reconsider the case of Piotrus. If we're in a retributive mood, is the desysopping not sufficient as a punishment?-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
If the comittee believes what was in the FoF's are true, then no only has Poitrus actively persued multiple avenues of longterm disruption on wikipedia, but he has also used his position to assist others to do so as well. He was warned in previous cases it would come to this, and now it has. If he is such a good contributor, then he can be a good one in other parts of wikipedia where he can do so without worries of evil russian cabals. 198.161.174.222 ( talk) 16:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
My thoughts are precisely this. And I have made it known to the Committee. It is fine and dandy for members of the mailing list coming up with alternative remedies, and rolling out all sorts of character witnesses from wikiproject who are not involved. But the problem is, is that not a single member has yet to acknowledge that they did a single thing wrong, not a single list member has acknowledged that they have harrassed editors (even though evidence shows this clearly), and not a single list member has yet agreed with a single finding of fact. No, it is a complete denial. In my world, this is how children behave, and children who do such things are sent to their room until such time as they are willing to acknowledge what they did, and apologise. Only then should any of them be allowed to play with the grown ups. And the members of this list are no different. Why not encourage your colleagues to acknowledge what they have done...for this is the first step on the road to regaining an ounce of respect from the community. -- Russavia Dialogue 18:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(Irrelevant comments removed by clerk)
Coren considers people at the both sides as misguided participants of this project rather than hardened criminals who must be exterminated. This is a noble approach. Digwuren and Piotrus appear in sanctions as ringleaders and Martingt as a scapegoat. Indeed, it was Digwuren who created and administered the list and therefore initiated the entire thing. It is also true that only involvement of Piotrus made the entire enterprise legitimate in the eyes of people in the list, not so much through administrator's status of Piotrus as through his authority as an excellent content creator and a friend. Well, maybe he was not such a good friend, since he did not warn others of potential dangers of participating in the list. And maybe he manipulated his friends? Or maybe people wanted to be manipulated and Piotrus simply has excellent leadership skills? Whatever it was, But Piotrus is undeniably the most prolific and neutral content creator in the mailing list. It may be fine to place him on probation and some set of voluntary/involuntary restrictions, but not allowing him editing articles on Poland-related subjects does not serve any purpose.
Biophys (
talk)
15:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) <<Sigh>> more lecturing. As for proving points, Pantherskin's rush to judgement knowing nothing about me is the real point. For Pantherskin, who pretends he knows anything about me, and to those wish to believe defamatory evidence about me that I stick labels on people I don't like, please feel free to read this interview here. Cedrins, by the way, is probably the best-versed WP editor on the Baltics I know, and by no means a nationalist apologist, and driven away from WP by the incessant attacks of those pushing Russian interests. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 19:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - Due to the depth of feeling about this issue I have for the most part given considerable leeway on discussions. However this particular thread is now veering into an incivil dispute. This will STOP now. Any further discussion in this thread or on this page which does not directly relate to discussion of the proposed decision will be removed without notice or explanation. Voluntary striking of your own incivil comments would not be a bad idea. Manning ( talk) 05:28, 14 October 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. |
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) 02:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
I thank Offliner and PasswordUsername for getting to the essence of the argument here, that:
I additional thank Offliner for his use of the "Soviet Procurator" model in the section title: "Disruption by list members continues", that is, present all communication in terms which indicate a crime is already confirmed to have been committed and the defendant already convicted. PL calls. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 15:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
While there is a principle on Gaming the System, it is geared towards editing issues. I feel the principle of Stonewalling (covered under WP:GAME) geared more towards its use in Dispute Resolution really needs to be covered in this case. The success of this tactic in preventing the resolution of disputes on Wikipedia has always bothered me. I think it would be useful if Arbcom specifically condemned it.-- BirgitteSB 20:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
BirgitteSB: why did you single out just one dispute strategy? In retrospect, "stonewall them" isn't as bad as "stone them" or "tar and feather" or "pocket checkuser", is it? NVO ( talk) 08:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) Birgitte, I have to thank you for the first observation which allows us to cut to the core of the issue: "To resolve a dispute both parties have to recognize the reason for the dispute is that one of them is mistaken ... on the issue and when there is outside consensus the mistaken party needs to concede the error."
When Christopher Columbus sailed to America, he kept two distance logs, his true log and another log for consumption by the crew so as to not discourage them and protect from possible mutiny. As it turned out, his fake log was actually more accurate than his true log. And so it is here, regarding hood-winking—note, however, only one side has reputable facts. Allow me to acquaint you with this simple example:
I've been asking for the reputable facts backing this contention for years. And what do we have (instead)? Medvedev's commission criminalizing stating the Soviet Union occupied Latvia.
This has already been resolved by noting the Soviet viewpoint (and when it matches Official Russia). The issue is the recent push to institute that viewpoint as reputable and objective, for example, per Russavia's threats of filling the
The Soviet Story article with "historian" Dyukov's rants. (I see also that Russavia has recently protested in their evidence that evil editors have attempted to defile Dyukov's reputation.) I hope to get to Russavia's "evidence" presently.
VЄСRUМВА
♪
02:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Does it apply to Beatle Fab Four ( talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Shell Kinney for 6 months), DonaldDuck ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Thatcher, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), HanzoHattori ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Keilana), Jacob Peters ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Tariqabjotu), Jo0doe ( talk · contribs) (blocked by Moreschi for one year), Kuban kazak ( talk · contribs) (banned by ArbCom for one year), M.V.E.i. ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Miyokan ( talk · contribs) (community-permabanned), Molobo ( talk · contribs) (blocked for one year, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), Muscovite99 ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Petri Krohn ( talk · contribs) (community-banned for one year), RJ CG ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Roobit ( talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Russavia ( talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Sandstein for 6 months)? Wouldn't you like to weight the consequences beforehand? Colchicum ( talk) 11:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I stand behind all the blocks made above: MVEi, Roobit, Jo0doe, etc. These were made independant of any efforts to manipulate the outcomes of such discussions, and the people blocked were particuarly nasty characters (MVEi and Roobit, in particular, I remember, had a history of vile ethnic slurs). Despite the despicable events of this RFAR let us not remember that there are very nasty and real Russian nationalists out there (doubtless some of whom coordinate their activities) who do troll and disrupt and to unban the lot would be to undo a lot of good work in a very short space of time. Moreschi ( talk) 20:06, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - I removed most of an extended thread here because I could not see any way to refactor it to make it acceptable. Almost every party in this thread was guilty of some form of misconduct. The discussion topic is valid, the way it has been discussed thus far is not. Feel free to continue the discussion, but focus on the issues, and not on criticising other editors. Manning ( talk) 15:54, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
This is something I've brought up before - nobody here is "anti-Russian" - and Cool Hand Luke acted appropriately before in acknowledging that fact and apologized when I pointed out earlier that this kind of characterization is insulting.
Yet, the same pattern appears to be included in the wording on the Proposed Decisions page. In particular it occurs in #6) "against a perceived "Russian cabal"" (does the phrase "Russian cabal" even appear in the supposed archive?). Same thing with #7 "participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia".
(unacceptable paragraph deleted)
Like I said, nobody here is "anti-Russian" so please don't insult people like that. Somehow I get the sense that the ArbCom has been busy with so many ethnic issues in the past that it just can't get past the fact that this one is NOT an ethnic issue at all, however much some people try to play it that way. radek ( talk) 08:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Improper_coordination makes note that there was improper coordination by the group. And there has been enough evidence presented which demonstrates that most list members actively took part in what can only be described as subversion of the gaining of consensus on Wikipedia. As such, I feel that a "ban" of sorts relating to list members from participating in process discussions on Eastern Europe topics is in order. This would include
WP:AFD,
WP:CFD,
WP:TFD,
WP:RM. Length of ban could be 3 months, or whatever the committee feels justified, but it is my belief this is totally warranted for most list members. In the perusing the archive myself (and yet not still done in full),
User:Poeticbent and
User:Alexia Death should be exempted from this remedy as I don't believe I found any evidence of those editor engaging in such behaviour. --
Russavia
Dialogue
11:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Strong support for this. In general, I think Coren's proposal is fine. He did a good job in identifying the ring leaders (Piotrus and Digwuren) as well as one of the most disruptive editors (Martintg). But will this proposal stop other list members from gaming the system, stealth canvassing and swamping noticeboard and AfD discussions? I don't think so. At least there is no indication that they would. These users have been warned over and over again, but still (as the list affair proves) they have always continued the disruption despite the warnings. Therefore, I strongly support a ban from community discussions for all of these editors. Sanctions should be preventative, and this one certainly would prevent disruption. In addition, losing the right to participate in community discussion would not be a major loss for these editors (or to the community), as they can still edit articles and create new content, which is the primary task in Wikipedia. Offliner ( talk) 09:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
To reiterate: this is nothing but a blatant attempt to accomplish indirectly - delete multitude of "uncomfortable articles" or move them to weaselly titles - what Russavia, Offliner etc. were unable to do with actual reasoned argument on the relevant talk pages and AfDs. It is a proposal to censor and silence.
In fact, the proper course of action is just the opposite - it is to more widely advertise such discussions so that a wide range of editors can participate which would prevent the potential of hijacking of various "votes" and "discussions" by any one group. The proposal to censor would be a step backwards, not forward. radek ( talk) 09:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
Of course there was swamping of AfD discussions. Here's another example. On 30 January 2009, Dc76 posted a link to Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2009_January_29#Category:Moldovan_linguistic_and_ethnic_controversy and specifically asked for help with enforcing his own POV. Immediately after the email, Martintg, Digwuren and Biruitirol appear at the CfD and defeat any notion of true consensus. It is obvious that there was creation of false consensus by the web brigade, and this is why I recommend that a remedy of banning for a period of time for list members from consensus discussions be written. Arguments used by brigade that this is a proposal to censor or to silence have no foundation in fact; it is a proposal to remove editors from an area for a period of time where they have clearly been disruptive. I would hope that editors would not use this as an opportunity to revisit AfDs, CfDs, etc where there was clear consensus, and I would be disappointed myself if they did, however, if it were the case, arguments used by brigade members in previous discussions could still be used by other editors as a reference in any discussions on why an article or category, etc should be kept/deleted/etc. Such discussions are supposed to obtain consensus from the community and it is my firm belief that members of the brigade have forgone their right to participate in this part of the community for a period of time. -- Russavia Dialogue 16:22, 17 October 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Digwuren_banned suggests that User:Digwuren should be banned from WP for 3 months. In October 2007, Digwuren was banned for one year as a result of Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Digwuren_banned. His setting up of this mailing list for what many believe was for nefarious reasons, and his continued battleground behaviour on WP after returning from stated one year ban, would demonstrate that WP:DIGWUREN and his one year ban taught him nothing, and hence the 3 month ban will not be a strong deterent. I request that an alternative remedy of a 12 month ban be added to allow arbitrators to vote for a stronger remedy that takes into account the history, particularly given Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#At_wit.27s_end. Is a 3 month ban after a 12 month ban really taking all of this into account? -- Russavia Dialogue 11:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Considering how User:Russavia has eventually gotten away with a 6 month topic ban for his disruptive behaviour, battleground mentality and even past herassment I find a year long topic ban rather strict. It would be fairer to match it with Russavia's topic ban of 6 months. If Russavia has been given another chance to prove himself that he's able to contribute positively to Eastern European topics after 6 months, I'd say you should give these other three users the same chance. Grey Fox ( talk) 12:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
At last year's arbcom, there was some discussion of grievance lists maintained by Piotrus on PL WP. Altho the final decision was that 'Piotrus's activity on the Polish Wikipedia lies outside the Committee's remit'. [12], one arb opposed, and two abstained. He kept a similar list of grievances and diffs on Wikibooks between April and August of this year (its contents were deleted yesterday after this discussion [13].) Could the committee re-address this issue? Novickas ( talk) 14:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
So, it is proposed the conspirators pardoned and victims of their baiting and mobbing campains retain permanently banned. It is also postulated good faith even for such editors as Radeksz against whom there is massive evidence of bad faith. This proposed decision is surely not a coincidence or ignorance, it can indicate only intentional taking sides by Wikipedia's ArbCom on political questions. This means complete catastrophe for Wikipedia's neutrality for years to come and Cart-Blanche for any sorts of nationalist attackers to disrupt Wikipedia further.
If this to pass me and many other good editors would have no choice other than abandon any participation in the project.-- Dojarca ( talk) 14:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
About "Amnesty": What is this supposed to mean? "Granted amnesty for past behavior stemming from their participation" – does that mean all that behaviour is supposed to be written off and forgotten? Does it mean that, when considering possible sanctions against these editors in the light of any future (on-wiki) infractions, admins will in the future be expected to ignore this past history of theirs? That, I think, would be highly inappropriate. I don't mind these editors getting away without bans and the like for now, but I can't ignore that some of them have still been engaged in problematic editing over the last weeks – e.g., Jacurek had to be warned off about wiki-hounding of Matthead, and Dc76 appears to be engaged in some rather un-nice POV skirmishes with User:Anonimu ( [15], see also Anonimu's talk page; I believe both sides are partly at fault there.) So, these editors are continuing editing in the spirit of their battleground mentality, and I can easily see further AE threads coming up.
If you judge they did nothing wrong, they don't need an amnesty. If you judge they did something wrong but it didn't rise to the level of requiring serious sanctions, for now, then an amnesty isn't what they need either; they just need minor sanctions (such as warnings and "admonishments"). The term "amnesty" seems to mean either nothing at all, or something rather counter-productive. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future. — Coren (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
It's simple. Blame it on the ringleader, let the soldiers elect a new chief. Back to square one. But I doubt that any wholesome punishment will change the pic; in the absence of an editorial policy wikipedia will remain a battleground, new editors will quickly radicalize into fighters etc. Deja vu. What year it is, doctor? NVO ( talk) 17:04, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Coren, this is a good faith question. My question is just how many amnesties are we going to have? Editors have already had an amnesty as demonstrated at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus#Amnesty. Are you aware of this? Given that, this amnesty is entirely inappropriate, as it is allowing editors to get away with the same thing every other day. The time has come, that being now, that editors take responsibility for their actions, and for this Committee to ensure that this responsibility is taken, even if forcibly. This proposed amnesty does not sit right with me, and I doubt it will sit right with other editors either. To put it in a humourous light, it reminds me of The Simpsons episode The Parent Rap: "Harm is just about to punish Bart when Judge Snyder returns from his vacation. Lisa moves for a motion that "boys will be boys", and Judge Snyder grants the motion, dismissing the case. The family returns back to normal, and Marge makes the family promise not to break the law for a year (after which Homer immediately hits Hans Moleman with his car)." What this Arbcom needs to do is to be firm but fair (too all sides), otherwise it is continually going to end up back here. -- Russavia Dialogue 17:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I don't think I've commented on this case previously, and just happened to be reading the proposed decision... I find the "Amensty" proposal to be pretty risky territory, particularly with respect to the potential for unintended consequences. It seems unnecessary and not entirely reasonable, given the potential downsides. I'll be interested to see what the other arbitrators think about this provision. Nathan T 22:00, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Amnesty needs to be followed up with remedies that will ensure that those editors who are not "scared away" (for a while) are otherwise convinced to deradicalize and be productive editors. See ideas at #Constructive proposals and #Community service: Wikisource. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 21:05, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Authenticity of archive contains a small error of fact: "period from 2009-02-01" should be corrected to "2009-01-02", i.e. 2 January, not 1 February. (The date format used on the archive index page is confusing, I know.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Actually, while we're on the topic here, I'd like to point out (I've only looked at some of the emails in the archive recently) that this is inaccurate: There are no technical inconsistencies, nor any indication that any part of it has been tampered with. - there is actually one very strong indication that the emails have been tampered with. Any email that had been posted by somebody with a Gmail account should've had headers like this:
However, from the emails I looked at, the "Received: by..." part has been removed - presumably so that it couldn't be determined from what account the archive was leaked (basically the hacker/leaker covering their tracks). This was obviously done intentionally and deliberately as, for example, all the spam filter stuff was left in.
So there's definitely been *some* tampering with the emails (covering up of tracks) - the question is was this the only tampering that was done or was there further monkey business. radek ( talk) 17:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I'd appreciate arbitrators and community feedback on my workshop proposals: mediation/mentorship good-faith committee, public discussion forum for EE topics, an offer to build trust (and good content) and voluntary restrictions.
I would like to point out that in the past month I have not been involved in any controversial dispute resolutions, but I have worked on uncontroversial content. I have finished following DYKs: Kordian, Colonies of Poland, Polish–Muscovite War (1577–1582), Dymitr of Goraj, Landflucht and Adolf Bniński. I am willing to place myself (voluntarily, even before this arbcom ends) on a series of restrictions to assure the community that mistakes of the past will not be repeated, but I would like to ask - what harm is there if I am allowed to continue with my uncontroversial content editing? The only diff cited by FoF regarding me is the one where I semi-protected an article - an action that would have been carried out by somebody else if the article was reported to RfProtecion... but if the community and the committee feels that this one diff is enough to justify desysoping me, I am prepared to resign my amin tools. However, I want to finish helping GAing Suwałki Agreement, I plan to improve Juliusz Słowacki - one of the three greatest Polish poets - from start to GA, I want to continue the clean up of Poland-related new articles feed (I am the only editor doing so...), filling the blanks in those missing articles, and my activities related to WP:SUP, WP:ACST and other uncontroversial projects. I'd hope that it would be possible to tailor the proposed decisions to balance restrictions to avoid disruption and allow constructive editing ( please see my proposal here, and I am quite willing to work with the committee to refine them further). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
How about we all try to assume more good faith, guys? This section is supposed to be about constructive proposals, after all. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 20:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
All I can tell you all is that if Piotrus is banned for a year, Wikipedia will loose THE BEST Polish editor it have ever had. His knowledge of Polish related topics and dedication to this project is extraordinary and hard to match. ..And I don't want to hear now all the B.S. of the usual opponents of Piotrus PLEASE, I have heard it all already, so keep you comments to yourself. All I know is that one editor like Piotrus is worth more to Wikipedia than all of us Polish editors combined. I think it will be a huge loss to Wikipedia if Piotrus never comes back if banned.-- Jacurek ( talk) 00:01, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I think Piotrus is right that some initiative needs to be taken to help resolve at least some of the conflicts in Eastern European subjects and re-establish good faith between editors (honestly, speaking for myself, due to the persistent personal attacks and the outting that has taken place, I've lost most of mine in regard to some editors. However I've also gained a LOT of respect for others - like Igny). There are actually two general aims here: 1) diffuse potential areas of conflict before it erupts, 2) get editors talking to each other honestly (but with civility and mutual accusations). Hopefully, success in 2) will lead to less of a need for 1) - but let's try to do what we can and not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
Diffusing conflicts would actually be better done with MORE editor involvement rather then less. With more editors there's less of a chance that a extreme view (or two polar extreme views) will take sway. Basically, articles and topics of potential conflict (including things like AfDs) should be advertised more widely - this would also make it "fair" in the sense that anyone interested could see it, and it would also eliminate the temptation to engage in off-wiki "letting people know" (NTTAWWT). To that end, I think that Wikipedia:WikiProject Eastern Europe/Noticeboard can serve as an appropriate tool.
For building good faith ... ugh, this is going to be the tougher one. A "mediation/mentorship good-faith committee", as Piotrus proposes would definitely be needed. The problem of course is that whoever joins the committee is going to have some really hard - and often thankless - work set out for them (a special award/barnstar would probably be the least the community could do to show its appreciation to such a person). It would be good to know at this stage what kind of interest in mediating these issues is out there. But one way or another, something like that has to happen, just so we're not back here a year from now with another ArbCom case (with same or different participants). radek ( talk) 00:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Being involved mostly in the Central-Eastern European articles editing, I'd hate to loose any valuable editor because of content disputes, and I'm all for a constructive solution if one is possible. I believe that self-imposed restrictions plus parole is the way to go, although it would be good to contemplate which restrictions should be considered and what purpose would they serve. Myself, I've limited my editing mostly because I was not interested in warring, wiki-lawyering etc. but in the content and maintaining a neutral pov, so I can well understand similar disappointment feelings of the others. Anyway, I think by all means you should strive for a constructive constructive solution that would not harm wikipedia in this, already very delicate, area. -- Lysy talk 14:10, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Piotrus has been an incredibly productive contributor to Wikipedia content and process. If he has shown a few lapses, which of us has not? The tone of discussion, and the quality of documentation, at Wikipedia have been improving, and should continue to. I think we should take Piotrus up on his proposals. Nihil novi ( talk) 14:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
I think it's also instructive to consider the behavior of both "sides" during this case. Piotrus (and others) are at least trying to make constructive proposals, and are looking for a way - through discussion and offers of cooperation - to mover forward.
It appears though that Offliner, Russavia and PasswordUsername (as well as uninvolved 'auxilliaries' like Dojarca, csloat and Viriditas) are not doing anything of the sort but rather can only howl for blood, based on false accusations and extremely offensive personal attacks (like comparing, wrongly, to Holocaust revisionists, pogromists or gang rapists).
In other words, one side is trying to end the battleground atmosphere in EE topics, while the other side is just trying to stir up pointless drama and propagate the battleground atmosphere. radek ( talk) 03:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
While I'm merely a lurker here at the wiki these days, I thought I'll drop by and add my two eurocents to this discussion (or two euros, considering the length of my post). As I already noted numerous times on numerous occasions, I was chased off Wikipedia some time ago by one of the EE clubs and now don't waste too much of my time on it. Anyway, in the recent months I cooled down a bit and don't believe in bans as a way to change anything.
But let me tell you a story first. Once upon a time we (I mean all of Wikipedians interested in EE and CE-related articles, but those of Polish extraction specifically, more on that later) had a huge problem with certain User:Zivinbudas. The guy was clearly way off-balance when it comes to views and he used all means possible to ensure that Lithuania-related articles represent his point of view - and his only. Sockpuppetry, constant reverts, ignoring sources, ignoring consensus, name-calling, you name it. In the end the guy became so infuriated that he started adorning his edits with comments similar to "Poles to gas chambers". Only then were we able to attract any admin's attention to what was happening. Why? I guess no admin was interested in EE&CE topics or knowledgeable enough to tell the truths from complete nonsense (note the plural). In the end Zivinbudas was banned for one year and never showed up again.
This was in 2004 or 2005. However, others followed his path. His example showed only one thing: as long as you stay in EE-history area, you're safe to do anything you can as there's no admin to watch those articles. You can delete sources from an article and then claim it is unsourced - it's all fine. As long as you don't call for sending anyone to gas chambers, that is. Once Zivinbudas has been banned I was quite happy. Not because I could insert anything into Lithuania-related historical articles (which BTW I could as there were apparently no other editors with that knowledge in Wikiland back then), but because I felt there would be some peace in articles on EE and CE history. But in the end the can of worms remained open and only got harder to close.
The other side of that coin is what I discovered during my (failed) RfA a long time ago. If your main area of interest is, say, maths or biology, you'll live a long and happy wiki-life. However, if you're interested in history, sooner or later you'll end up in some endless quarrel over this or that topic. This is especially true in the case of modern history (a can of worms), and CE and EE history in particular (a shipload of worms). It doesn't matter if you're a university professor, a greatest of all minds and a good-faith editor all the time. In the end someone will start to revert your articles just because, and in the end you will get provoked and finally respond with a word too much. This IMHO explains why we (I mean all historically-minded Wikipedians) couldn't get any help from the outside even in the most simple cases. I remember starting RfCs where noone outside of the interested parties showed up. Typical.
And now on to ban of Piotrus (I refer to him specifically, as he's the only person out of those listed in this ArbCom case I know and in fact even met personally - once, but still). I don't believe banning him would do this project any good. In the end the war is not between wikiPoles and wikiRussians, but between those of us who are content creators (creating featured articles, adding sources, negotiating the release of media into PD and so on) and content destroyers (quarrelling over everything, not providing any sources for their edits, accusing everyone around of fancy things and so on). Having said that, I believe Piotrus' has been on the bright side of the force for most of his time and Wiki would loose a valuable editor. Whether he is worthy of being an admin is another case I'm not judging here. As I said before, no person interested in history is "adminnable" in Wikipedia. // Halibu tt 21:19, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
If such solid extraordinary evidence led to nothing, there is no hope at all. Suppose the archive was not dicovered. The cabal would continue their disruptive work without any obstacle, stonewalling dispute resolution and banishing other editors. But the very fortune gives us such a solid unprecedented evidence. But the arbitrators suggest to close eyes on this. What next? If the off-wiki coordination continue (this will be the case for sure), the particepants will keep it in even greater secret and take any measures to avoid detection. We cannot expect to get such exceptional evidence for a second time. This was the last chance for Wikipedia's neutrality. -- Dojarca ( talk) 18:37, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
There is every indication that the mailing list's participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia, going so far as to suspect involvement by the Russian government. - this is completely flawed argument. The group pushed anti-Russian propaganda anywhere they could, making no difference between Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union and modern Russia. They managed to insert anti-Russian statements into articles from Alexander Suvorov to Santa Claus. It is evident that such overwhelming POV-pushing cannot be made in good faith as well as removig the references. Could good-faith users reject a meditation? Or maybe they thought administrators Hiberniantears and John Carter were Russian government's agents?
This argument is completely the same as to say that people who organized an anti-Jewish pogrom should be pardoned because they believed that Jews really drink blood of Christialn babies.
Only Anti-Semitic government could pardon pogrom participants on such pretext.--
Dojarca (
talk)
19:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
To the actual proposal, I am sorry, but I personally have engaged editors active on Wikipedia paid to push Russian interests in Transnistria (banned William Mauco, Mark Street, and sockpuppets associated with both). There is no "good faith" problem here and I request this be struck as more "mailing list = must be evil" in the absence of any factual basis regarding good or bad faith. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 19:15, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Good_faith, list members thought that editors, including me, Russavia, PasswordUsername and others are connected with or paid by the Russian government or security services. I do note that in your own support you say that this is misguided.
In a previous case in 2008, the ArbCom found that found that There is no convincing evidence that any of the security organs of the Russian state are involved in Wikipedia editing, directly or indirectly; nor that any editors involved in this matter are acting as agents of or receiving instruction from said organs [26]. As Russavia notes in this case [27], an editor escaped enforcement [28], for what appears opposition from a couple of Arb members who noted a promise not to engage in such things again, and also escaped admonishment. [29]
Still, there are plenty of instances on the mailing list of editors claiming that myself and other editors are members of Russian security forces, etc. And there is also evidence at this very case in which the editor accuses myself and other editors of not only being employed by yet another Russian government-related entity, but in which he also calls us neo-Nazis. This happened right here on these very evidence pages, and it was picked up on by Russavia with this evidence that he presented.
The question to you is, given editors have denied unfounded accusations against them on multiple occasions in the past, and given the fact that an RFAR from less than 12 months ago found no evidence of this, and given evidence that has been introduced of the continuation of accusations since then, and given evidence that was introduced in this very case, how can this very well be assumed as being "good faith"? Is this not an insult to those editors who have long been at the receiving end of these unfounded accusations? Offliner ( talk) 19:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Ignoring the peanut gallery on both sides above (take bickering elsewhere, I for one have had a bloody gutful it). If we can stay focussed on this one thing, that being the issues that Offliner has raised. His sentiments mirror my sentiments in their entireity. To see the section entitled "good faith" with details covering consistent and persistent accusations of a multitude of editors being KGB agents and a whole lot of kooky things has me absolutely stumped. So I too ask the same questions of Coren, and I ask him these additional questions:
A response from Coren, or other arbs, appreciated. Russavia Dialogue 21:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
What Martin said. I don't think I ever thought anybody was a FSB agent... well ... ok, maybe for like 2 seconds when the archive was leaked. I got the general impression from a few others that they didn't completely dismiss that possibility. That's about it. radek ( talk) 22:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
In response to Coren: " the infractions commited by other members are — in the whole — relatively minor and the remedy was crafted looking forward."
It is true that the mailing list did not manage to control the content of EE articles to the extend they envisioned, and it is true that the mailing list did not succeed to implement all the sanctions they thought of for whom they regarded their opponents yet. But the mailing list archive proves beyond doubt that they were making progress.
That several wikipedia editors and administrators were subject to off-wiki coordinated hounding, revert warring, deception campaigns, block evasion, votestacking and tactical plotting is a major offense itself, regardless of whether these campaigns in full accomplished or missed their stated objectives. That should be reflected in both the fofs and in the proposed decisions.
The Occasional disruption fof needs to be ammended, likewise the proposed decisions, based on the proposed principles Canvassing, Not a battleground, Gaming the system, Meatpuppetry and Off-wiki communication. Skäpperöd ( talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
In response to Coren: " I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future."
There is no reason to believe that the remainder of Piotrus' group ceased to coordinate themselves off-wiki via mailing list, IM or their parallel wiki, there is no reason to believe that this group has any intention to do so, and based on their behaviour in the past it is extremely unlikely that amnesties and admonishments will upset them. There is no other way to deal with such an off-wiki organized group (mailing list, IM, own wiki) than to disconnect them from their targets, article- and editor-wise. Skäpperöd ( talk) 22:14, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
I agree that "Amnesties and admonishments are insufficient". If they are to work this time, they need to be followed up by an attempt to restore good faith between radicalized editors. See my proposals to that goal here, here and here. I hope that the committee considers adopting / building upon some of them. If there is no follow up to the amnesty aiming to reform the editors, the underlying problem will not be solved.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
Compared to what members of EEML tried (successfully!) to get for their victims (that is indefinite blocks), three-month sanctions really seem too lenient. DonaldDuck ( talk) 01:21, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Good link, had the evidence I needed, and I have to say that 'spree' is all in your mind. When your going to accuse someone of having a spree you really should tell people EVERYTHING. Like the fact that the 17 reverts were spread over the course of a week. The way you go on about it you act like it was in one day. Then I suppose that there is the fact that only 3 of his 17 reverts broke 3rr, not excusable mind you but concidering you could have called him on breaking 3rr with 6 revisions one wonders why you had to jump up and down about 17. The other 11 didn't even matter... and three of those weren't even relevant. The only thing I can think of is that saying 17 reverts is sexier as long as you rely on people to not actually check the diffs. I guess my other question is, if you treat your mailing list as a unified voice... how many times did you break 3rr in that week? 198.161.174.222 ( talk) 22:30, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Like anyone else involved for some time on the Wikipedia project, I have made my share of friends and encountered others who would not consider me to be their friend. It goes with the territory. To deny that there is off-wiki communication truly would be "delusional". Of course there is. There is nothing wrong with such communication, but what has transpired here truly puts the project in jeopardy and would make a mockery of its rules and regulations if it is allowed to go unpunished (with a mere wimpy slap on the wrist). The above proposal reminds me of having to write, "I will not be a bad boy," a hundred times on the blackboard (sure beats getting a switch, or expelled). There is no need for me to recapitulate what has occurred here for the benefit of anyone, let alone the members of this ArbCom. The evidence is there, and those guilty should not be able to slough off their guilt, unique in its enormity, with the hope that "this too shall pass". During other attempts to remedy these types of transgressions, and the behavior of some of the participants of the mailing list at previous ArbComs and the like, the arbitrators were unsuccessful only because of the lack of fortitude necessary to correct such transgressions. But regarding these people, this is the "Mother-of All-of-Transgressions" on their part. I have had the misfortune of having read a great number of their correspondence, if one can call it that, as I was one of the earlier recipients of the list. It saddened me to read those particular emails in relation to myself, and their conspiring to have me banned or otherwise "neutralized". I think one of the major tactics was to "ignore" Dr. Dan. Never had a problem with that guys, and I too have done my best to ignore you as well. Until now that is, because while you lied about the cabal being a figment of one's imagination and burbled a lot of euphemistic nonsense about assuming good faith, that was was not the case. All I ask of those capable of remedying this clear violation of what this project is supposed to be about, not to blow this one too. It's not about supposed previous "contributions" to the project, or associations made at Wikimania or the like, it's about reality. This reality is very ugly and will haunt this project in the future if not remedied appropriately. Dr. Dan ( talk) 02:08, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Umm, this one's related to my previous request - noting that no one on the list was "anti-Russian" but this one is even weirder and more inaccurate: encouraging each other to fight editors perceived as being "opponents" and generally assuming bad faith from editors editing from a Russian or Western European point of view.
Uhhh... weren't we just being accused of *representing* the Western point of view? What is this referring to? Where did we say "those damned Western Europeans!"? We used mainstream Eastern *and* Western European sources (sometimes in the face of objections). This one really has me scratching my head. radek ( talk) 06:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Coren has already responded here. Skäpperöd ( talk) 07:52, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! radek ( talk) 16:31, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
The way it's formulated now editors like Skapperod and Matthead end up with 'Russian or against the prevalent Western European point of view' position. I don't think it's accurate.
Also, the ML members did not always defend 'prevalent Western European point of view' as could be perceived from current wording ( Human rights in Estonia and the Amnesty International report about them come to my mind). Alæxis ¿question? 19:13, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
I also wonder about the oversimplification regarding Russian POV. I'd suggest rephrasing it to indicate that the list members dealt with "perceived undue weight POV"; it doesn't really matter where it came from. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:38, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Being totally unfamiliar with the detailed facts of this case, I would nonetheless like to offer a few impressions:
I edit in the "Eastern" (Central) European area too, and am quite frequently annoyed by POVers of various nationalities editing to an agenda to the detriment of the encyclopedia (such as by removing places' former names and information about their having belonged to other countries in the past). I haven't been involved in any of the major content disputes that this case seems to be about. But my impression of User:Piotrus has always been extremely positive - unlike some Polish editors, he genuinely strives to improve the content of the encyclopedia and keep POVs out rather than in. He has also made vast and extremely valuable contributions to WP, and continues to do so. I would have hoped that the amnesty (which, following from the above numbered points, I clearly support) would be applied to him first and foremost. Effectively it is proposed (if I understand correctly) that he be excluded from his area of interest at WP for 15 months, which will undoubtedly harm the project significantly, for no visible gain. I don't know the other potential sanctionees so can't offer an opinion there, but would ask the Committee to reconsider the case of Piotrus. If we're in a retributive mood, is the desysopping not sufficient as a punishment?-- Kotniski ( talk) 08:23, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
If the comittee believes what was in the FoF's are true, then no only has Poitrus actively persued multiple avenues of longterm disruption on wikipedia, but he has also used his position to assist others to do so as well. He was warned in previous cases it would come to this, and now it has. If he is such a good contributor, then he can be a good one in other parts of wikipedia where he can do so without worries of evil russian cabals. 198.161.174.222 ( talk) 16:58, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
My thoughts are precisely this. And I have made it known to the Committee. It is fine and dandy for members of the mailing list coming up with alternative remedies, and rolling out all sorts of character witnesses from wikiproject who are not involved. But the problem is, is that not a single member has yet to acknowledge that they did a single thing wrong, not a single list member has acknowledged that they have harrassed editors (even though evidence shows this clearly), and not a single list member has yet agreed with a single finding of fact. No, it is a complete denial. In my world, this is how children behave, and children who do such things are sent to their room until such time as they are willing to acknowledge what they did, and apologise. Only then should any of them be allowed to play with the grown ups. And the members of this list are no different. Why not encourage your colleagues to acknowledge what they have done...for this is the first step on the road to regaining an ounce of respect from the community. -- Russavia Dialogue 18:11, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(Irrelevant comments removed by clerk)
Coren considers people at the both sides as misguided participants of this project rather than hardened criminals who must be exterminated. This is a noble approach. Digwuren and Piotrus appear in sanctions as ringleaders and Martingt as a scapegoat. Indeed, it was Digwuren who created and administered the list and therefore initiated the entire thing. It is also true that only involvement of Piotrus made the entire enterprise legitimate in the eyes of people in the list, not so much through administrator's status of Piotrus as through his authority as an excellent content creator and a friend. Well, maybe he was not such a good friend, since he did not warn others of potential dangers of participating in the list. And maybe he manipulated his friends? Or maybe people wanted to be manipulated and Piotrus simply has excellent leadership skills? Whatever it was, But Piotrus is undeniably the most prolific and neutral content creator in the mailing list. It may be fine to place him on probation and some set of voluntary/involuntary restrictions, but not allowing him editing articles on Poland-related subjects does not serve any purpose.
Biophys (
talk)
15:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(od) <<Sigh>> more lecturing. As for proving points, Pantherskin's rush to judgement knowing nothing about me is the real point. For Pantherskin, who pretends he knows anything about me, and to those wish to believe defamatory evidence about me that I stick labels on people I don't like, please feel free to read this interview here. Cedrins, by the way, is probably the best-versed WP editor on the Baltics I know, and by no means a nationalist apologist, and driven away from WP by the incessant attacks of those pushing Russian interests. VЄСRUМВА ♪ 19:59, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
Clerk note - Due to the depth of feeling about this issue I have for the most part given considerable leeway on discussions. However this particular thread is now veering into an incivil dispute. This will STOP now. Any further discussion in this thread or on this page which does not directly relate to discussion of the proposed decision will be removed without notice or explanation. Voluntary striking of your own incivil comments would not be a bad idea. Manning ( talk) 05:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)