Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Evidence

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerk: AGK (Talk)  Drafting arbitrators: Coren (Talk) & Newyorkbrad (Talk)

Anyone, whether directly involved or not, may add evidence to this page. Create your own section and do not edit in anybody else's section. Please limit your evidence to a maximum of 1000 words and 100 diffs. Giving a short, concise presentation will be more effective; posting evidence longer than 1000 words will not help you make your point. Over-long evidence that is not exceptionally easy to understand (like tables) will be trimmed to size or, in extreme cases, simply removed by the Clerks without warning - this could result in your important points being lost, so don't let it happen. Stay focused on the issues raised in the initial statements and on diffs which illustrate relevant behavior.

It is extremely important that you use the prescribed format. Submitted evidence should include a link to the actual page diff in question, or to a short page section; links to the page itself are insufficient. Never link to a page history, an editor's contributions, or a log for all actions of an editor (as those will have changed by the time people click on your links), although a link to a log for a specific article or a specific block log can be useful. Please make sure any page section links are permanent. See simple diff and link guide.

This page is not for general discussion - for that, see the talk page. If you think another editor's evidence is a misrepresentation of the facts, cite the evidence and explain how it is incorrect within your own section. Please do not try to refactor the page or remove evidence presented by others. If something is put in the wrong place, leave it for the Arbitrators or Clerks to move.

Arbitrators may analyze evidence and other assertions at /Workshop. /Workshop provides for comment by parties and others as well as Arbitrators. After arriving at proposed principles, findings of fact or remedies, Arbitrators vote at /Proposed decision. Only Arbitrators (and clerks, when clarification on votes is needed) may edit the proposed decision page.

Evidence presented by Communicat

Correlation exists between bad behaviour and POV-bias at WW2 articles

Informal party User:Kirill has expressed below at Locus of Dispute his mistaken view that: "(This) dispute centers on the appropriate weight to be given to minority historiographical viewpoints in World War II and related articles." The "minority" viewpoint he refers to is in fact a majority viewpoint in many non-Western and non-aligned sovereign states. His stated opinion makes evident a position that shares an affinity with Western, particularly American, ideological conservatism in ignoring the positions and conclusions of others.

User:Kirill's subjective belief as expressed about what constitutes a minority position is therefore neither objective nor true, and shows a prescriptive tendency for having people everywhere complying with the normative section of the standard American view. This infringes grossly on WP:CIVIL, which requires that the positions and conclusions of others must not be ignored relative to all interaction on Wikipedia, including discussion with or about fellow Wikipedians.

User:Kirill's view is generally consistent with the views and normative behaviour of the involved parties in this case, based on their own misinterpretions of policy issues as defined by them in terms of a generally homogeneous set based on popularly endorsed but POV-biased Western and/or American beliefs. Such normative determinations on the part of these editors are often conflictual, insofar as different international values are frequently incompatible with one another. The way in which individuals or societies define that which they consider to be of value and in accordance with their normative standards varies considerably between peoples and cultures.

It is unfortunate that User:Kirill has perhaps involuntarily and unwittingly become party to the above evidence, which nonetheless serves its intended purpose of identifying a direct correlation between POV-bias and behavioural problems that are essentially at issue in this case. Communicat (talk)

PS: Arbitrators will note that, in a direct personal attack on me in the comments section, paragraph 5 of workshop page, Kirill has inferred I am "paranoid". His lack of civility is indisputable. Communicat (talk) 20:38, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Systematic POV-bias exists in World War II and related articles

Wikipedia’s main overview article on World War II relies on a total of 356 references and source attributions reflecting a pro-Western, orthodox/conservative historiographic position. Excluded from this POV-biased list of sources are any and all non-Western, Western revisionist, or significant-minority sources that deviate from the dominant Western historical narrative position that characterizes the existing World War II article. The same applies for the most part to the sourcing (and non-sourcing) of related articles Western betrayal and Aftermath of World War II. This is in gross violation of WP:NPOV.

The effect of this POV-bias has been and continues to place undue weight on the pro-Western orthodox/conservative historical narrative, while any text and source which deviates from that position is swiftly and aggressively reverted, rejected, disrupted and/or obstructed by the parties named. They invariably consider non-orthodox/conservative sources to be “unreliable” and/or pro-communist and/or anti-British and/or anti-American. The end result is a depiction of history as seen essentially from the West, Britain and America in particular, and told in a way that seems intended to be most agreeable to many Western readers. In short: not encyclopedic content but what amounts to what one astute historian has described as “a fireside fairy tale with a happy ending”.

History is not static. It is dynamic. It must be allowed to evolve as more and more reliable research findings and formerly classified official documents gradually enter the public domain. This is where revisionist historians come in, or rather, would be allowed to come in were it not for POV-bias and informal censorship. Not only Russian and Chinese sources are at issue, but also many reliable Western revisionist sources have also been rejected by Nick-D et al, while the respondent parties have raised no similar objection to dubiously sourced and/or completely unsourced original research content, just so long as it’s anti-communist. The Western betrayal article, where my long-running dispute first arose, provides a particularly convincing example of this partisan editing, which I tried to remedy in the face of strident POV-biased opposition.

Nick-D has prior record of policy-breaching conduct

This case bears a strong resemblance to a previous NPOV dispute involving Nick-D and a user named Blablaaa. In brief, the dispute centred on alleged POV-bias in World War II articles concerning alleged incorrect/flawed/misleading data seen as biased in favour of a pro-British position. The complainant Blablaaa was blocked five times by administrator Nick-D for “uncivil and disruptive behaviour” , notwithstanding a block settings change for unblock abuse. Another administrator, Deskana, voiced serious concerns about the blockings, noting that: “The blocks were done by a WP:MILHIST member, Nick-D, when the articles in question were ones regarding World War 2. It's a pretty standard philosophy here that blocks for disruptive editing should be done by uninvolved administrators …” Another editor said in the same thread that he is "always wary of one admin being the only or major applier of sanctions with one editor without apparent recourse to other opinions or consensus", and Deskana agreed with that.

The effect of the blockings was that Blablaaa was prevented from presenting evidence to support his allegations of pro-British POV-bias. The close resemblance between the Blablaaa case and my own case is self-evident from the fact that, as the .committee may recall, I lodged my original application for arbitration in this present matter on 25 October 2010 The following day, 26 October 2010, Nick-D posted at the AN/I noticeboard an urgent appeal for my blocking by an uninvolved editor. Nick-D’s posting of 10:06, 26 October 2010 (UTC) read: Communicat has a long history of tendentious editing which is forming a significant barrier to progressing articles ...Responding to this clearly disruptive editing is wasting a lot of other editors' time and I ask that he be blocked by an uninvolved administrator. Thanks, Nick-D.

The effects of such a block, had it succeeded, would have been to prevent me from submitting evidence of POV_bias to Arbcom, in the event of the arbitration case being accepted at that time, which it was not.

• Note: Nick-d's assertion quoted above, that my editing was "forming a significant barrier to progressing articles", was completely false. The Aftermath of World War II article I was editing at the time of Nick-d's false AN/I claim of 26 October 2010 had been editorially dormant since 29 June 2010, with no previous active editing or discussion participation at that article by any World War II editor apart from myself. Nick-d's claim was therefor preposterous in stating that my editing was "forming a barrier" to progress. In fact, the very opposite was true. I was progressively improving an unsatisfactory B-class article that had been neglected by World War II editors, particularly Nick-D and the other respondent parties hereto, for a very long time. Communicat (talk) 09:49, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Respondent parties fail to assume good faith

The respondent parties have cited numerous allegations of misconduct on my part. Most if not all those allegations, (where they are not actual personal attacks in the form of innuendoes), constitute clear evidence of failures and/or refusals on the part of the respondent parties to assume good faith, which in itself constitutes misconduct in terms of WP:AGF. Editors are not allowed to attribute the actions of a criticised editor to malice unless there is specific evidence of malice, viz., that the actions complained of were done willfuly. The respondent parties, in energetically alleging misconduct, have failed to provide any evidence whatsoever of malice and/or willfulness on my part. I am the first to admit that, as a novice, I have made mistakes -- due often to a lack of intuitive grasp of Wikipedia customs, the logic of which I am still in the process of assimilating. Most of my mistakes have been in the first iteraton of an edit, and the whole point of collaborative editing is for mistakes to be identified and corrected accordingly, with improvements being made progressively, and without constant disruption and harrassment in the form unnecessary allegations of wilful misconduct each time an error is spotted. While my mistakes might have been misguided, they were not malicious and should have been treated as such. Everybody makes mistakes, even some of Wikipedia’s most experienced editors. The number of my own mistakes, as reflected in some of the diffs provided by the respondent parties, is not alarmingly disproportionate to total number of 900 edits I have done over an editorially active period of about seven or eight months.

Enlarged scope and short time limitation sets filing party at distinct disadvantage

This dispute has been allowed to fester and escalate unchecked over a period of seven or eight months active editing. Comprehensive presentation of my evidence is practically impossible, since respondents with the approval of Arbcom have substantially broadened the scope of this case to include matters of general user conduct, and it has set a comparatively short time limit for evidence to be produced in that respect. In addition to the core NPOV issue, I am now expected to present complete evidence relative to both my own conduct as alleged by the parties concerned, and the misconduct of those other parties themselves Even if I was prepared to do so, it would take me at least a month to sift through literally thousands of edits and scores of thousands of words in order to locate, review and collate all pertinent facts, and then condense all that into a mere few hundred words. Communicat (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

(Arbitrator note: A time extension of 10 days and a reasonable length extension have been granted. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC))

It is true that a 10-day extension of time has been granted. It is also true this extention of time has resulted in a flood of additional allegations from the involved and other parties. It is further true that, even before this flood of additional allegations arrived, I stated that I would require an extention of at least one month if fairness and proportionality are to apply to this case. The consequent flood of additional allegations has not eased my position.

As for (text) length of evidence, a fair and reasonable allotment of space would be that which is proportionate to the combined length of all the submissions made by the involved parties in particular and the others in general. Those submissions already run into several thousand words. I repeat: the enlarged scope and short time limitation is precedurally unfair and it sets me at a distinct disadvantage in this case. Communicat (talk) 10:34, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

This is an intractible content dispute

It is asserted here that it is not the role of Arbitration Committee to settle good-faith content disputes among editors. In response, editor Fifelfoo has expressed disbelief that this "principle" will assist current issues. I endorse that belief. I also contend that this case does not represent any good-faith content dispute, and I further note some contradiction as to the stated role of Arbitration Committee.

According to arbcom's Method, as declared elsewhere, cases "can and have ranged from user misconduct to large-scale disagreements over article content."

Newyorkbrad has asserted that Arbitration Committee's members are not selected for the purpose of content dispute and may or may not have any expertise in the subject matter of the particular dispute, but adds "Sometimes a decision will recognize that extraordinary dispute resolution mechanisms need to be invoked when an editing dispute has become truly intractible ..."

On the basis of such unresolved issues as raised for example at this typical long, unresolved and ambiguated discussion thread,and elsewhere, it is clear that editing disputes concerning World War II and related articles have become truly intractible, and extraordinary mechanisms need to be invoked.

Changing the locus of the dispute will resolve nothing. Unpleasant and unresolved content disputes will predictably keep resurfacing, even long after I've gone, if extraordinary mechanisms are not invoked to address the systematic POV-bias, bad-faith content issue which is really at the centre of this current case, even or especially if parties are attempting to obscure and evade it.

It is reasonable to surmise that, given Arbcom's stated capacity limitation, and if extraordinary mechanisms are not invoked, the only way for Arbcom to be rid of this bad-faith content issue would be to get rid of the complainant. Communicat (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Note: The "Aftermath" thread refered to above was ambiguated by Nick-D to section titled

Renewal causing considerable disruption of relevant talk thread.

For the duration of the above ambiguated discussion, which last several weeks, the only edit done by me to World War II article article was on October 10 after extensive discussion and preparation on the talk page. This was blindly reverted by Nick-D two hours later. I was allwed to made just one edit in all of September with similar results. Nick-D then filed a complaint against me on AN/I noticeboard alleging "tendentious editing" shortly after I had already withdrawn from the WW2 discussion and moved on to edit a separate article to which Edward 321 then wikihounded me, (which resulted in my original and subsequently declined application to Arbitration Committee).

As user Petri Krohn noted at AN/I: If any conclusions can be drawn from the edit history (of the WW2 article), it is more indicative of edit warring and stonewalling by Nick-D. It seems that the content issues are mingled with some kind personal antipathy against Communicat. These dissenting editors are now extending the dispute to new articles they have never before been involved with. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 11:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC) Communicat (talk) 15:40, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Involved parties fail to recognise principle of WP:VERIFY

Involved parties raised strong objections to my editorial addition at Aftermath of World War II of a topic concerning America's post-war contingency plan, codenamed Dropshot, for a nuclear attack on Russia. Their objections were later referred by party Edward321 Habap to Neutral Point of View Noticeboard where it appears to have died a natural death. None the less, the incident sheds light on the editing "rationale" of the involved parties. They objected purely on the grounds of personal beliefs to the effect that the US "never actually intended to carry out the plan," so the topic must be excluded from the article (and indeed it has since been deleted by Edward321). Yet WP:VERIFY rules clearly that The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth (i.e) whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

The published source Anthony Cave Brown is a reputable author/historian, the publisher is also reputable, and the source is verifiable as conveyed by the reference. Moreover, the source is a secondary source, since it includes the author's comments and analysis of the primary document to which it relates. So, on the basis of those criteria, the source conforms in all major particulars with the rule of WP:VERIFY. But, typically, the involved parties wanted nothing of that, and this was long before subsequent and opportunistic allegations of plagiarism were made.

It is relevant to note also at the same POV noticeboard thread, the closely related good-faith contribution of astute editor User:Paul Siebert concerning nuclear first-strike strategy. His contribution was intended cleary towards improvement of the Aftermath article, but in the event it was disparaged and dismissed out of hand by the involved parties in their opposition to neutral and accurate improvement of the historical article. I believe such opposition to and subsequent exclusion of User:Paul Siebert's contribution was due solely to that contribution, like my own, being construed by the parties on the basis of their personal beliefs to be implicitly anti-American. As a result of which the article suffers from a notable instance of bias through ommission, nor is this an isolated example. It reflects the type of systematic POV-bias that is practised regularly by the involved parties. Communicat (talk) 13:14, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Infringement of WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT was in error and unintentional

I admit that I contravened WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT in the strict sense of the rule. My contravention was, however, not intentional, willful or in bad faith. Communicat has the express permission of Stan Winer the author/copyright holder of the book Between the Lies (2004 edn), to freely use material from the book either with or without attribution. That consent from the copyright holder is sufficient to protect Wikipedia against any and unlikely claims or copyright violation in the legal application of the term. Due to my inexperience at Wikipedia, however, I was unaware of Wikipedia's own interpretation of "copyright" in terms of WP:CITE#SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT.The author/copyright holder in question has consented to the unrestricted release of his 2004 online edition of the work into the public doman. This will be done in terms of the appropriate license being clearly stated on the freely downloadable version of the work at the Canadian-based website www.coldtype.net, which is not a fringe or advocacy site. Coldtype's policy rationale is stated as providing "The best of writing from around the world". Coldtype.net is administered by a respected figure in media circles who is currently on vacation. The license will be uploaded by the webmaster at earliest opportunity after Xmas holidays. Communicat (talk) 11:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Edward321's claim is unfounded regarding image copyright theft

Edward321 in his posting of 16:38, 10 September 2010 (UTC) at COI Noticeboard, stated that Stan Winer/Comminicat is claiming to be the copyright holder for an image that appears to belong to the International Institute of Social History. The allegation was repeated on 11 September 2010 at AN/I Noticeboard where Edward321 expressed "strong doubts that Winer is the actual copyright holder for the picture (of former South African Prime Minister JB Vorster)." At no time did Edward321 himself contact the International Institute of Social History (Netherlands) to inquire about or establish copyright ownership of the image. Had he done so, as I advised him to do, he would have found that the Institute of Social History had Winer's consent to use the image freely. Edward321 then cast similar aspersions of image copyright theft/violation in a his pre-filing statement to Aribtration Committee during the course of my original Arbcom application two months ago.

It is true I used the GNU (Self) license template I when I first uploaded the image stating Winer as the copyright owner, thinking that "self" could be taken to mean not only "myself" (i.e. communicat) but also "himself" (i.e. Winer). The license, with the help of an unsigned senior editor, was subsequently changed to the appropriate Historical Image/Fair Use licence. Never the less, Edward321, while "outing" me in claiming conflict of interest, continued his allegations of copyright theft from Institute of Social History. He has never apologised or retracted, nor has he contacted the Institute of Social History.

As regards any Conflict of Interest on my part, there has been none, nor have I been sanctioned in consequence of Edward321's unfounded claim at COI Noticeboard. My association with copyright holder Stan Winer has never been promotional or self-serving, but is purely in the interests of the free flow of information. Communicat (talk) 17:18, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by MikeNicho231

User:Paul Siebert

I would like to add this user as a involved party. Involved in the dispute, made several controversial edits/reversions, see [1] and [2]. MikeNicho231 (talk) 10:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Clerk comment: The appropriate place to make that request is, I think, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Motions and requests by the parties. AGK 12:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think I'm allowed to do so, as I am not a party in the case. MikeNicho231 (talk) 12:42, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Habap

Communicat exhibits WP:OWN

Communicat also tends to exhibit ownership issues in articles he edits [3] [4], including in his most recent unblock request when he requested that he be unblocked so that he could delete two sentences in the Aftermath article. --Habap (talk) 15:33, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat often fails to read and understand before responding

There have been a number of issues in which it appears that Communicat failed to understand what was written by others.

He mis-identified a compliment from Novickas as coming from Tony Judt [5], bragging how that endorsement by Professor Judt trumped any comments by anyone in the WPMilHist project [6].

In a discussion of sources, Communicat was insistent he had been misquoted when the "ink was still dry", in the Brutal North Korea (Oberdorfer or Osterholm) controversy [7], [8], [9], [10]

Communicat's sources don't always say what he says they say

Over the past few months, many books which Communicat has quoted from contradict his cherry-picked quotations in other parts of the book. Hastings [11], Epic of Korea and Truman, Macarthur and Korea [12], Wainstock & Green [13].

Sometimes, his quotes do not accurately reflect the source. C's quote [14] and the explanation by Edward321 [15]

He has acknowledged in the past that he did not actually read some of those books from which he was either quoting or using to support his position (Wigfall Green [16] and Stephen Ambrose [17])

He has also stated his attitude on supplying page numbers: The material as submitted either has page numbers, or no page numbers, or page numbers that are not entirely accurate. This is because I don't want the refs to be plagiarised to the benefit only of college students who trawl these pages in search of reliable refs for their "own" essays.[18]

Communicat has been unable to remain civil

• WP:NPA: as noted above, Communicat has been blocked multiple times for personal attacks. The attacks on me for which he was blocked involved him referring to me as incoherent [19] and boring [20], with the further statement that I was among "those who seem to do the least actual editing". None of that is particularly distressing (I am boring, though neither of the other comments is true). On the other hand, he has alleged pro-American/Anti-Soviet bias [21], which does bother me somewhat. I also found his argument of bias through ommission[22] troubling. I tried explaining to him when he made offensive statements or used a condescending tone that it was problematic [23] and [24]. Nonetheless, his behaviour has continued.
• Other demonstrations of a lack of civility that did not amount to personal attacks: [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [33]
• He has also had negative interactions with a number of other users, most of whom were involved in a mediation attempt, which included Arnoutf [34][35][36], Binksternet, Paul Siebert, Moxy [37][38], and White Shadows (Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/World War II (overview article)). Parsecboy, current Project Coordinator of the WikiProject Military History, also had some problematic interactions with Communicat but was not involved in the mediation attempt.

Communicat has used a mis-leading edit summary to delete my comments

I only found this yesterday, while combing through evidence. Communicat deleted some of my comments, with a misleading edit summary defamatory personal attacks on communicat undone [39] when the comments were not a personal attack.

Communicat has plagiarized and violated copyright on materials from Stan Winer

In the RS/N discussion [40] mentioned here, Communicat appears to have taken his argument directly from Winer's book. Check pages 131 & 132 of Stan Winer's Between the Lies and what Communicat wrote. These three searches show it: "American readers were unaware" [41], "cover production costs" [42], and "unmatched by the impact" [43]. He changed the sentence order and a few words at the beginning of the first sentence, but it is a direct quote. I don't think it's a violation of copyright since it's just on a talk page, but it is disturbing. Note the "p.12.21" at the end of Communicat's citation for the Saturday Evening Post article. In Winer's book, it is footnote 21 and page 12 falls within the actually article's page numbers.

Again he lifts almost directly from Winer [44]. Winer, page 131-132

Using the talents of former Nazi collaborationists, the CIA employed as the head of its Munich publishing house one Vladimir Porensky, a leading figure among East European fascists who had been imprisoned for war crimes in 1945. Porensky had been released just a year later with the co-operation of British intelligence. According to a declassified State Department study, Porensky enjoyed the reputation of being a "200% Nazi".

From Communicat,

A certain Vladimir Porensky was employed as head of this publishing house. Porensky, a leading figure among East European fascists, had been imprisoned for war crimes in 1945 and then released just a year later with the co-operation of British intelligence. According to a declassified US State Department study, Porensky enjoyed the reputation of being a "200% Nazi".

So I guess that instead of mentioning Winer's name (and bringing up the WP:DEADHORSE), Communicat chose simply to plagiarize him. --Habap (talk) 14:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In checking the Aftermath of World War II article, I found that the section on Covert Operations is copied from Winer's book, with some word changes [45].

It appears from the CCI case that 27 of Communicat's 320 edits to the Article space are plagiarism. Most are from the 2004 edition of Between the Lies, but one of those 27 [46] is only found in the 2007 edition and another is plagiarized from Efim Cherniak's Ambient Conflicts page 360 --Habap (talk) 15:26, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Edward321

Communicat has engaged in sockpuppetry

Evidence is here.[47][48] ] Communicat edited around a block to personally attack the blocking Admin.[49] Communicat pretended to be another user to support his own opinions.[50]

Communicat has advocated a fringe POV against consensus

Communicat has advocated Stanley Winer on several talk pages.[51] and tried against consensus to add Winer's views into several articles for an extended period of time[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] In this edit summary Communicat appears to be claiming to be Winer.[78]

Winer’s work is published out of a London apartment[79][80] and is not cited by scholarly works.[81] The Guardian review of the book says "It's this sort of thing that gives conspiracy theory a bad name."[82]

Communicat’s views are often not supported by his sources

Communicat has proposed changes on the World War II talk page that are not supported or even contradicted by his sources[83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94]

Communicat has posted information that is not supported or even contradicted by his sources to the articles History of South Africa[95]Western Betrayal[96] and Aftermath of World War II[97][98][99][100]

At the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, Communicat has cited the Saturday Evening Post as supporting him [101] when it clearly does not.[102]

Communicat has dismissed reliable sources

Communicat has claimed sources that contradict him are the product of McCarthy Era censorship.[103] This is in spite of Communicat previously arguing that some of these sources were reliable[104][105] and ignores the actual publication dates of most of the sources.[106]

Communicat makes unfounded accusations

To show one example, Communicat claims "One allegedly dubious, revisionist source/link subjected to intensive scrutiny and rigorous vetting, whereas at least 27 other identifiable, non-revisionist, dubious sources are permitted, perhaps even encouraged."[107] Communicat provides no evidence for this claim anywhere.

Communicat misrepresents other users edits

On the Workshop page Communicat claimed that "According to Edward321 above, it is unquestionably within Arbcom's jurisdiction to "immediately investigate" copyright violation."[108] I had not even posted to the thread at that point. Communicat then pulled a single word from Habap's edit out of context, attributing it to me.[109] On the NPV noticeboard, Communicat misquoted statements I made elsewhere,[110][111] then pulled half a sentence out of context.[112]

Contrary to Communicat's Evidence claims, and as his link clearly shows, Habap, not myself opened the NPV thread about Operation Dropshot, which is still listed in Aftermath of World War II; the text Communicat quotes does not appear; and they misrepresent the actual point of disagreement.

Evidence presented by TomStar81

Battle, Combat, and War articles exist in constant chaos

I want to point out an interesting fact concerning the milhist articles that cover the before, during, and after of battles, wars, and other major combat events in human history: they exist in a constant state of chaos. Articles of this nature are notoriously difficult to edit in any capacity since the wording of the articles is often maintained by careful consensus of the parties who worked to decide what version would be acceptable to all parties as opposed to one version preferred by a few. This is true not only for World War II protection log, but for articles like World War I (protection log) and Vietnam War (protection log), article which are frequently protected because a handful of people refuse to either follow the guidelines/policies on site or refuse to work with others to find a solution that would be acceptable to all rather than preferential to the one. If the committee may recall, Blablaaa (talk · contribs) presented the exact same NPOV/bias argument earlier this year, but because of his inability to work with others the arguments he presented were dismissed due to a perception that he had OWN and personal attack issues, and he was indefinitely blocked from Wikipedia for policy/guideline violations. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:08, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Nick-D

I'd like to endorse the evidence presented above by Habap and Edward321. Edward321's point about Communicat's advocacy of a fringe POV is particularly important as this, in my view, is what underlies much of his or her editing. Communicat's claims of 'bias' are actually a red herring; the actual issue is that they seem unable to accept their views are not supported by almost all other editors and frequently resort to unacceptable behavior in attempts to get them included in articles. Georgewilliamherbert (talk · contribs) gave Communicat a very stern warning about this back in August and nothing has changed despite subsequent warnings and blocks. Communicat recently dismissed the concerns about their editing which had been raised on various noticeboards as "endless disruptions" to their editing.

Communicat's changes sought to advance a fringe POV

As demonstrated at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Request for immediate investigation of COPYVIO what appears to be a substantial majority of Communicat's proposed and actual changes to articles have sought to advance the views of the fringe writer Stan Winer. In many cases text which Communicat cited to multiple sources was actually copied and pasted or paraphrased from Winer's books. This behavior continued long after discussions of these books in which Communicat had participated concluded that they were not reliable sources. When combined with the instances of Communicat's sources not supporting his or her text, I think that this demonstrates that "non-western sources" were not being unfairly excluded from the articles and that Communicat is essentially a SPA for Winer's views.

Communicat's proposed changes have been very extensively discussed and have attracted almost no support

There have been a number of very long-running discussions of Communicat's actual and proposed changes to articles. In these discussions their preferred changes have not attained general support, and were frequently only supported by Communicat. I'd like to draw the committee's attention to the discussions which took place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversial command decisions, World War II (March and April), Talk:Western betrayal#Lopsided structure of article (March), Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Link to www.truth-hertz.net (July to August), Talk:World War II/Archive 39#Link to www.truth-hertz.net (July to August), much of Talk:World War II/Archive 40 (August), almost all of Talk:World War II/Archive 41 (August to September), almost all of Talk:World War II/Archive 42 (September to October), Talk:History of South Africa#new sub-section: extra-parliamentary activities (August to September) and Talk:Aftermath of World War II (October to current). In addition, there have been discussions of the sources Communicat proposes using at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 45#User: Communicat (September) Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Aftermath of World War II - Operation Dropshot (November) and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Talk:Aftermath of World War II (November to current). There have also been a number of discussions on user talk pages.

Taken together, it is clear that Communicat's proposed changes have been discussed in great detail and considered by a large number of editors and that they have received a fair hearing. Throughout these discussions Communicat's positions have attracted little support, with several editors noting that they contain very serious problems relating to WP:V, WP:RS, WP:SYNTH and WP:FRINGE violations. Communicat's frequently uncivil conduct hindered these discussions.

The World War II article is dynamic

While Communicat has claimed above and in several comments such as this that editors involved with the World War II article are "conservatives" and unwilling to see the article changed, this is not the case. The article's talk page is always very busy and the article is steadily evolving. The results of the last 500 diffs as of today demonstrates how much it's changed since between 10 March, for instance. I don't think that anyone has ever argued that the article can't be improved.

Communicat has a history of creating POV forks

Communicat has created POV forks to push their views:

• During February and March Communicat re-wrote the Western Betrayal article from this state to this state, with the article being moved to 'Controversial command decisions, World War II' as part of the process. I nominated the article for deletion on the grounds that it breached WP:SYNTH and WP:NPOV. The consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Controversial command decisions, World War II was to revert the article back to its pre-Communicat state.
• During September Communicat sought to include a claim in the World War II article that the United States was in charge of the civil administration of North Korea in the years after World War II, despite the country being occupied by the Soviet Union and eventually added text to the article which implied this: [113]. The sources Communicat provided to support it actually proved the opposite (see Talk:World War II/Archive 42#Arbitrary break - at the risk of quoting myself, this is an example of the problems with material) and there was consensus to keep it out of the World War II article. Despite this, on 24 October Communicat added pretty much the text on Korea which had been rejected in the World War II article to Aftermath of World War II ([114]). This was reverted by Edward321 (diffs), leading to an edit war between him and Communicat. Communicat also added a number of other dubious claims to the Aftermath of World War II article which have since been removed following discussion on its talk page.

As discussed at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/World War II/Workshop#Request for immediate investigation of COPYVIO both these content forks reflect the views of Stan Weiner and contain text lifted directly from his books and other sources without attribution.

Other disruptive behavior

• Communicat has a history of making incorrect accusations towards other editors and not apologizing and/or striking the claim when other editors point out problems with the claim. Examples include [115] (all of the ANI post this diff is from is relevant) and [116] (for which their response was, instead of apologising and/or striking the statement, "I'm not going to wast time arguing with you about who signed and who didn't": [117])
• Another factor which makes it difficult to discuss matters with Communicat is their habit of reverting to aggressive quasi-legal language when challenged, which at times includes using the terminology of criminal acts. Examples include: [118] (for which Habap issued a note on the relevant policy concerning legal threats), [119] and [120] (no criminal terminology, but an excellent example of the aggressive legalistic wording used in response to comments about their conduct).

Evidence presented by Kirill Lokshin

Communicat is a single-purpose account

Out of Communicat's ~300 total article edits, ~200 are to the three articles at the locus of the dispute:

• Aftermath of World War II (~128 edits)
• Western Betrayal (~62 edits)
• World War II (~18 edits)

Communicat has engaged in sustained edit-warring

At Aftermath of World War II: [121], [122], [123], [124], [125], [126], [127]

At History of South Africa: [128], [129], [130], [131]

Communicat has engaged in incivility and personal attacks

"You are such a bore...", "Get a life...", "pack of... wild dogs"

Communicat has attempted to use Wikipedia as a battlefield

Communicat has attempted to use Wikpedia as a battlefield by superficially dividing editors into opposing camps and engaging in personal attacks and blanket assumptions of bad faith:

"Whether or not there exists a formal milhist cabal led by one administrator is open to conjecture. However, there certainly exists a small and apparently influential clique of reactionary milhist individuals whose editorial actions and omissions reveal a consistent pattern of blockage and disruption... I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs..."

"there exists a conflict of interest on the part of certain military history editors... partisan editing and POV bias at the milhist project continues to this day"

"Editors at military history project consistently obstruct, disrupt, harrass and/or launch personal attacks on me... systematic violation NPOV/content at the military history project..."

Communicat has refused to engage in discussion

Communicat has never communicated with the Military history WikiProject, despite claiming to have concerns about our editing practices.

Evidence presented by 67.117.130.143

History of South Africa

The last edit linked by Kirill[132] is actually connected to some of Communicat's additions sourced to a book by del Boca and Giovana, that were disputed on the talk page but turned out to be mostly ok. I got the book through interlibrary loan and checked Communicat's citations, since people on the talk page had expressed suspicions that Communicat might have misrepresented the source, and there were some unsuccessful attempts to figure this out from Google snippet views. I found there were some minor gaps in the sourcing and a bit too much editorializing in Communicat's wording, but the book basically backed up Communicat's citations and page numbers, and the gaps were at least partly corroborated by other sources. A talkpage comment I made at the time[133] has a little more info and I think I should have written it a bit more graciously. I felt that edit was a big improvement over earlier edits of Communicat, which used either unacceptable sources (Winer), or overstated what the sources said, or were cited too imprecisely (no page numbers) to be verifiable, as I ranted about here. The South Africa edit made me think (at the time) that Communicat was shaping up, and might benefit from working with a mentor.

Subsequent events as documented by others don't look so good, but I haven't been following the situation much, so won't express a detailed view. I think that prior to September, Communicat had a much worse understanding of WP policy and dispute resolution than afterwards (even if it's still not so great), so the most recent incidents should be assigned the most weight when assessing evidence.

67.117.130.143 (talk) 08:39, 6 December 2010 (UTC) slightly revised[134] 01:41, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Saturday Evening Post

Edward321's diff [135] turned out to result from Communicat copying material including an incorrect citation from Stan Winer's Between The Lies ([136] footnote 22, p. 223) without attribution. I gave a detailed analysis earlier but have removed it for brevity, since events have overtaken it (see Habap's findings about further copying from Winer and others). 67.117.130.143 (talk) 19:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat's edit counts

As of a few minutes before 06:57, 10 December 2010 (UTC), Communicat's edit counts in article space are as follows:

Aftermath of World War II: 128 edits, Western betrayal: 62, History of South Africa: 58, World War II: 18, Strategic bombing during World War II: 8, Central and Eastern Europe: 7, South Africa: 6, Cold War: 5, Psychological torture: 4, World War II in contemporary culture: 4, Propaganda: 3, Military–industrial complex: 3, Effects of World War II: 2, Psychological manipulation: 2, Disinformation: 2, Singapore: 2, Mass media: 2, Media influence: 2, Indoctrination: 1, Operation Jungle: 1.

In talk space: Talk:World War II: 275, Talk:Aftermath of World War II: 60, Talk:Western betrayal: 28, Talk:History of South Africa: 21, Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II: 7, Talk:South Africa: 2, Talk:Effects of World War II: 1, Talk:Korean War: 1, Talk:Cold War: 1, Talk:Psychological torture: 1, Talk:Operation Jungle: 1, Talk:Umkhonto we Sizwe: 1

He got into extended discussions at Talk:World War II earlier in the year so these counts aren't representative of recent activity. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 08:13, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The above is includes some edits at Psychological torture that were since revdel'd for copyvio.[137] I haven't checked carefully if there are more like that. 67.117.130.143 (talk) 04:49, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat's online access

At Talk:History of South Africa some users questioned whether Communicat had accurately summarized content cited to Del Boca and Giovanna's book mentioned above. I suggested[138] that perhaps Communicat could email a scan of the cited page to GWH or another user for verification. Communicat responded:[139]

PS: No, I don't have a scanner or digital camera. I use my low-end technology purely for wordprocessing and online research. Moreover, I happen to be living in a remote region of a Third World country where there is regretably no ASDL and no internet cafe on every street corner. (That's probably why a frequent combination of connectivity problems, edit conflicts, power failures, editing disputes, viruses, etc etc sometimes makes me lose my cool). Anyway, I'm sorry, but you might just have to obtain the book for yourself for purposes of verification.

Despite these connectivity problems, Communicat managed to upload the photo File:B. J. Vorster.jpg two different times.[140] At least one of Communicat's IP addresses[141] resolves to a block described as "DSL subscribers" with AfriNIC.[142] 67.117.130.143 (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Fifelfoo

Wikipedia policies and practice fail in practice in the Humanities and Social Sciences to address the diversity of highest quality reliable source literature available; and, fail to address the academic debate present which is encyclopaedically notable.

• WWII a good article does not:
  • classify sources by historiographical tradition;
  • discuss or sub-article the historiographical debate; or,
  • draw out literary differences of opinion
• WWII is a high demand article, with high page views, and high levels of editor attention in a centrally successful project (Military History). It has resources to call upon which ought to exhaust the successful possibilities of an article.

As a result of the first claim, Wikipedia's articles in the Humanities and Social Sciences suffer from a systematic i18n failure, and typically privilege US normative accounts as a result of the application of editor common knowledge rather than literary survey, to the high order creation and structuring of article content.

• WWII cites Transaction publishers; a press widely considered to be ideologically advocating a view in non-scholarly manners.
• The phrase "Most eastern and central European countries fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, which led to establishment of Communist led regimes there, with full or partial support of the Soviet occupation authorities." is without counterpart, or clarification. (A wide scholarly literature discussing the occupation of Western Europe by Imperialist powers, and the imposition of capitalist economic structures exist). The phrase and its justification is not located in the sub-article. Additionally this phrase has NPOV problems due to its construction of the Soviet Union as other.

While adequate policies exist; these are often not implemented due to the structure of NPOV warring at low levels of taxonomic and structural importance.

• Debate typically occurs over single source use and characterisation. Higher order debates fail.
• These issues are ones of widespread community conduct extending beyond this incident (though exemplified by this incident) and broadly threaten the capacity of the project to produce encyclopaedic knowledge in the humanities and social sciences.
• No systems exist to resolve high order structural, literary, or taxonomic disputes; encouraging bad editor behaviour from all sides of debate.
• At a point, persistent content failures become a domain-of-knowledge wide conduct failure. Military History is very successful at resolving many lower order content failures. But even this successful project has not been able to resolve higher order issues.
• Previous sanctions specifically addressing conduct in domains of knowledge (Eastern Europe, etc.) have failed to change community conduct in content production:
  • Individual disciplining does not resolve the failure to produce encyclopaedic content
  • Cases like this come forward on a reasonably regular basis; demonstrating the failure of past individual sanctions to address the failure of community conduct under policy.

Evidence presented by Georgewilliamherbert

(please bear with me as I flesh this out Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC))

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Military History Task Force but not engaged in the subjects this dispute has been about (I am a technologist rather than historian per se, though the history interests me). I don't believe that this constituted a conflict of interest, as I have have not edited the pages or worked with the editors involved in any significant manner. I'm not dredging my history logs to prove it, but I don't recall anything. I'm disclosing this out of an abundance of caution. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

General observation and introduction

We have in this case (and in my opinion) a frustrating combination of elements:

• A user who is well educated and has a deep subject matter understanding but non mainstream beliefs conflicting with a large established Wikiproject which is at times set in its ways.
• A cultural collision between "Military Historians" who have a fact based focus and "Cultural / Sociological / Political Historians" who often take a more expansive and often more revisionist approach to history.
• A user who is relatively new to Wikipedia, and does not appear to have fully internalized Wikipedia's editorial community expectations, including core policies WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL
• A wikiproject whose members may have, albeit probably not intentionally or with any improper collusion, ganged up on the user (see multiple unrelated prior incidents where a user was taunted in some manner into abusive behavior).

The summary of the result is probably akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy of "You're all out to get me!".

The question is past the point of "Who started this?". The question now must be, whose actions have been improper, including potentially taunting behavior, and whether Communicat can edit in a collegial manner going forwards or not.

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Uninvolved administrator interventions can fail

I attempted to intervene in this case to informally mediate the content disputes and reduce the interpersonal conflicts. This has failed miserably. In part, this has failed as I did not dedicate enough time to the interaction at critical times. This included attempting to put together a User Conduct RFC and then failing to successfully defuse arguments about the specific RFC phrasing and issues (see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Communicat). The end result of that draft was to become yet another locale at which everyone involved got angry and butted heads. In the sense that it expanded the conflict venues rather than being a constructive location for dispute resolution, it failed completely, and I blame myself for not shepherding it in a more responsible manner. This has frustrated all parties. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Communicat has been repeatedly blocked by myself for personal attacks

First block: Sept 2, 2010

Initial comment: [143] Aug 28: " There is an unfortunate tendency, when descended upon by the equivalent of a pack of editorial wild dogs, to reduce oneself to the same level."

Warning: [144] Aug 28

Repeated comment on user page: [145] Sept 1: "I have been rebuked and threatened for metaphorically describing my own experiences with the milhist clique as comparable editorially to being set upon by a pack of wild dogs."

Blocked: [146] Sept 2

Second block: Sept 17, 2010

Comments: Talk:World War II and User talk:Habap

Blocked: [147]

Third block: Nov 15, 2010

Comments: edit summary [148] "reply to Dick-d"

Block: [149]

Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 06:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Evidence presented by {your user name}

before using the last evidence template, please make a copy for the next person

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support your assertion; for example, your first assertion might be "So-and-so engages in edit warring", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits to specific articles which show So-and-so engaging in edit warring.

{Write your assertion here}

Place argument and diffs which support the second assertion; for example, your second assertion might be "So-and-so makes personal attacks", which should be the title of this section. Here you would show specific edits where So-and-so made personal attacks.

The