Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort/Evidence

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Evidence presented by TonyBallioni

LargelyRecyclable was created to harass K.e.coffman

Their first mainspace edit was to tagbomb an article extensively worked on by K.e.coffman. They followed this up with their next mainspace edit a day later, proposing a merge of one of the GAs created by K.e.coffman, Rommel myth. They then taggbommbed Rommel myth, and edit warred over keeping the tagbomb: [1], [2] (note, I warned them about it, and further explained here).

LargelyRecyclable's next edit on different mainspace article was this edit. It seems minor, until you realize that the last edit to that article was 15 months previous, by K.e.coffman. Following some other edits on the articles already mentioned, LR tagged the Rommel myth article for community GA review.

These are just LR's first 48 hours worth of edits. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

LargelyRecyclable was warned

While unblocking them, MastCell warned LargelyRecyclable not to repeat their edit warring and tagbommbing. MastCell additionally pointed out that their singular focus on one editor was below the standards we expected on Wikipedia, but did not amount to to block at that time: [3] TonyBallioni (talk) 00:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

LargelyRecyclable continued to harass K.e.coffman

LargelyRecyclable's first edits outside of their userspace after getting unblocked were to engage in an argument with K.e.coffman on an article that LR had not previously edited: [4] [5]

LR then later took up the tactic of responding to K.e.coffman on other talk pages and boards that they had not previously edited, and only when Coffman had asked a question: [6] [7] [8]

Their following of K.e.coffman's edits continued as recently as March and April before this case was filed, the following being direct reverts of K.e.coffman, or edits to pages they had never been before but where K.e.coffman was substantially involved: [9], [10] (originally edited by LR in October, but by Coffman substantially before that), [11]

The following in April also includes articles that were part of LargelyRecyclable's initial harassment round where they tagged articles K.e.coffman was involved with: WWII renactment October tag April revert WWII renactment,October tag Waffen-SS in pop culture, April revert Waffen-SS in pop culture

Finally, I'm not sure where the best section to include this is, but it's worth including, so I'll put it here. This is an account with not many edits in the grand scheme of what normally comes to ArbCom. At the time of this writing, that account had 134 total edits to the Talk: namespace according to xtools. Of those, a full 16% included the string 'Coffman' in the edit summary (22 total). TonyBallioni (talk) 00:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

LargelyRecyclable engaged in personal attacks on arbitration pages during this case

[12] TonyBallioni (talk) 13:27, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Pldx1

This is quite only a conflict about contents

1.The opening sentence of this case is, K.e.coffman speaking: "My op-ed in the Bugle, WP:MILHIST's newsletter, summarises my findings on the subject of Wikipedia's mythmaking when it comes to the German war effort of 1939-45. "

2.User LR appeared on 20 September 2017. His total number of edits is 135. It has been suggested that he could be an avatar of some more involved user... but this has been rebuked. It's hard to figure how these 135 edits were key steps to implement a large pro-Nazi bias, as brushed by K.e.coffman.

4.On the contrary, it seems that we are facing to yet another reductio ad Hitlerum, with the objective of including an ordinary "edit war" into a conspiracy with ulterior motives.

9.In his public tribune, K.e.coffman says "nowhere is it more apparent than on English Wikipedia". Nowhere can we see a more Popper-prone assertion!

White-washing is not a recently discovered fact

5.Indeed, large white-washing campaigns have been undertaken in the past, to allow the recycling of the defeated mass-murderers into murderers with our God on their side. MacArthur protecting Hirohito, Churchill protecting Kesselring, and so on were not isolated facts... but describing this situation as orchestrated by Wikipedia is too large a brush... and slightly anachronistic.

7.About Rommel. He was the Hitler's special "not Nazi nor Junker officer", used from the beginning to symbolize and facilitate the rallying of the Reichswehr to the regime. Surely, Rommel was not a direct perpetrator of the Preußenschlag (1932/07/20) nor of the Night of the Long Knives (1934/06/30). But the Goslar parade (1934/09/30) was organized as an assertion of approval. 1934! By the way: on the picture, one can identify Rommel as well as the dictator, with his famous 'Heil myself'. Who are the other four ?

Fancruft at milhist

6.As an example, praising a quidam for "successfully conducting a car over the distance from Los Angeles to El Paso" can surely be questioned. Even our porn-star articles aren't going that far. But this can not be brushed as Nazi propaganda, whatever source is used to backup such an irrelevant factoid.

8.About the emphasis put on the Knight's Cross of the Aluminium Cross (or the Knight's Cross of the Aluminum Cross, according to your ENGVAR). One should acknowledge that giving each date of elevation to the next class, with Rhinestone, Glitter or Whatever provides a full paragraph, easily referenced... but mostly useless. But describing this as Nazi-propaganda is over the top. Look at the Louis Mountbatten article: how many lines about the ribbons ? About being mentioned in the dispatches ?

10.By the way, one can also examine if using Eichenlaub, Schwerter und Brillanten to adorn some chevrons is to be attributed to blatant stupidity (most probable) or to some other reason (largely improbable).

Pldx1 (talk) 09:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Pudeo

K.e.coffman involvement in an offsite community

I've submitted private evidence about K.e.coffman's involvement in an offsite public "anti-Wehrmacht" community that directly relates to his Wikipedia editing to the ArbCom via email. It included no actual personal details and he had himself publicly acknowledged to being K.e.coffman there.

K.e.coffman's deletionism doesn't have consensus

See this AN/I thread: [13] Besides Dapi89's actions, several editors also found K.e's behavior problematic and many diffs were provided.

K.e's biggest problem with the topic area is that German military articles have "intricate detail" and that a lot of decorated German soldiers should not be notable.

K.e's definition of intricate detail was contested at MilHist in a very long thread.[14]. Here it's catalogued[15] that K.e. redirected 1742 Knight's Cross biographies to a list based on "rough consensus" at WP:BIO [16] that the award alone doesn't guarantee notablity. But a lot of notable soldiers were also redirected because of his industrial scale. He based[17] his later flying ace deletion spree on a MilHist vote that failed to gain consensus [18]. K.e.coffman stated this fact in the message but nevertheless went on with it. I personally reverted Adolf Dickfeld because he was a colonel, commander of II./JG 11, had 136 air victories & KC w/Oak Leaves, for instance.

In November 2017 he attempted[19] to add German military personnel awarded with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross as an exception to common deletion outcomes. Everyone except him opposed singling out the German award in the !votes.

Gist

K.e.coffman alleges systemic bias in his essay: the average MilHist editor has been too pro-Wehrmacht. I have to especially defend User:MisterBee1966 who has been working like a horse for German military personnel articles. He has a clean block log[20], 600 created articles[21] and hasn't even edit-warred to get the deleted material back. Military hobbyists like him love details like commands held, Wehrmarchbericht mentions, awards etc. It doesn't mean they are pro-Nazi because of that. Please assume good faith.

Compare K.e.coffman's original version of the Rommel myth article [22] to the present one[23]. His own version presents the critical historians' view as the only view whereas the present one also acknowledges that not all historians view it is a pure myth. These are content disputes! I also feel K.e. displays a battleground attitude by compiling a staggering list of disputes on his user page.[24]

Lastly, I disagree with the view that the English Wikipedia is somehow too biased for the German military. There are plenty of articles on American World War II aces with less notable battles and less victories than German pilots. Also there are other editors who write very in-depth articles about WWII British naval personnel and Australian involvement. If K.e.coffman was an ideological pacifist, he'd also clash with all the people writing those articles because of the intricate detail. There is no evidence of actual pro-Nazi POV-pushing like Holocaust denial; indeed the Nazi military history topic area is very calm compared, for example, to the "Polish death camp" controversy that is covered by WP:ARBEE. --Pudeo (talk) 20:02, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Bishonen

I'm a sparrow in the dance of cranes[25] here on the German war effort evidence page, since I don't know much about the central matters of historiography and sourcing for the subject. But I'll just offer my encounters with a couple of users, LargelyRecyclable and Cinderella157 (a MILHIST project coordinator), as potentially relevant to interpersonal relations in the area, specifically as they impact on K.e.coffman. I met LR and Cinderella in November 2017, after K.e.coffman had posted a question on my page about possible socking.[26] The IP edit KEC was concerned about was an attack on KEC and also on Assayer on Talk:Werner Mölders.[27] It seemed inappropriate to me that the attack was still sitting on that page (indeed along with some other attacks on KEC's good faith), so I posted there, and thereby came in contact with the two users.

LargelyRecyclable in November 2017

See this talkpage section. Unfortunately it's a long section, and the relevant discussion comes at the end, so please do a search for the phrase "I was pointed", where it starts. In the course of that discussion, LargelyRecyclable restored the IP's attack on K.e.coffman after it had been removed by a CheckUser, and continued lawyering (IMO) about it. I wouldn't blame anybody for not being aware that CheckUsers won't publicly connect an account and an IP — probably most editors don't know that — but LR insisted on their own position that the nasty anonymous attack on K.e.coffman should be kept public, and went into mansplaining and personalising mode with it, beyond what I thought reasonable. LR's use of policies and wikijargon, including a suggestion that KEC's note to me amounted to adminshopping, seemed both random and aggressive on this occasion.

Cinderella157 November 2017 + April 2018

In the course of posting at Talk:Werner Mölders per above, I also noticed this comprehensive attack on KEC by Cinderella157: "I would observe that K.e.coffman (talk · contribs) clearly has an agenda... The 'excessive zeal' sails close to Wikipedia:POV warrior, Wikipedia:Wikilawyering and Wikipedia:Troll - perhaps indistinguishably so." Whoah! I complained about these statements on Cinderella's page,[28] hoping for a retraction, but instead got this long reply.

In April 2018, Cinderella posted a comment on the Request page before this case was opened, which ended with links to Inquisition, Salem witch trials, the Great Purge and Night of the Long Knives.[29] It's not clear to me what the links refer to. Is Cinderella comparing KEC's action in filing the RFAR to the Inquisition etc? Or are these atrocities used as a metaphor for what ArbCom would be perpetrating by accepting the RFAR? Or for something else altogether, that might eventually happen in consequence of any of these actions? It's unclear to me, and Cinderella's explanations in this discussion with TonyBallioni on Cinderella's page don't enlighten me much ("I deliberately did not overtly state my intent. It was a literary device."). But IMO those links to atrocities in the real world are extremely offensive and disproportionate taken as any kind of metaphor or "literary device" in relation to mere disagreements on a website. Bishonen | talk 14:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC).

Evidence presented by Nick-D

The historiography on Germany in World War II is evolving

There are significant, and changing, differences in historians' views on the conduct of the German military in World War II. Historians now often focus on the key role of the German military in the Nazi regime's actions and crimes (a topic largely ignored in popular works until the 1980s). Many works once considered reliable have been discredited.

The changing historiography means that Wikipedia articles need to evolve to reflect WP:NPOV. This includes reworking articles. As such, article re-writes, etc, should not be seen as intrinsically problematic. This process has generally been uncontroversial, though there are some tensions. I think that there's scope for some of the involved editors to be more open-minded towards different sources and perspectives.

K.e.coffman has found highly problematic material

I've reviewed most of the examples at User:K.e.coffman#Problematic WWII content, and in almost all cases agree with their judgement on it.

The views of historians they obtained are also concerning.

K.e.coffman's conduct

• Regularly active since 2015, never blocked: [30]
• 95% of edits include an edit summary: [31]
• Frequently explains potentially contentious changes on talk pages and invites comment (examples: [32], [33], [34], [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40], [41])
• Regularly constructively and politely engages in discussions of their changes (examples: [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], [50])
• Uses relevant noticeboards: XTools shows hundreds of posts to WP:RSN and WT:MILHIST and 95 to WP:NPOVN
• When these discussions have produced a consensus, I'm not aware of K.e.coffman subsequently going against this.
• Rarely edit wars (as an example of this and the above point, see Template:Top German World War II Aces - after a civil discussion [51] rejected much of their bold changes [52], K.e.coffman did not further edit the article)
• Developed nine articles in this topic area to GAs
• Can be over-zealous/over-enthusiastic at times, despite discussing their actions and, IMO, these generally being justified.
• For instance, by making lots of similar changes to articles on German fighter aces mid last year they needlessly got several good editors off side. A better approach would have been to have started a broad discussion or a RfC to determine consensus.
• This may be a lesson already learned, as I can't see this occurring recently.

Example: Wehrmachtbericht

Until recently, many articles included lengthy quotes from the Wehrmachtbericht, a Nazi propaganda broadcast.

• Concerns had been raised over this multiple times (examples: [53], [54], [55], [56])
• K.e.coffman started discussions at WP:NPOVN which concluded that this was not suitable content: [57], [58].
• There were differing views in these and the earlier discussions, but they were generally civil and constructive

LargelyRecyclable continued another editor's harassment and disruption

I filed Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Makumbe/Archive regarding LargelyRecyclable soon after they started editing. A checkuser judged that the accounts were unlikely to be connected , and I note ArbCom's similar comments. However, it's concerning that their early edits continued those of another editor who was hostile towards K.e.coffman and the broader agenda of balancing articles, and escalated this matter through tag bombing articles and attacking reliable sources (diffs in the SPI case).

Military History Wikiproject

As a member of this project since 2006, former coordinator of it (and joint lead-coord for a period) and frequent contributor to its A-class reviews, I don't think that the project has a systematic problem with pro-Nazi bias at all.

Peacemaker67

• Has developed at least 13 articles on Nazi war criminals, organisations and events of World War II to FA, with all providing a very frank treatment of their unsavoury topics
• Played a major role in turning Wikipedia's coverage of WW2 in Yugoslavia from a highly problematic area to an area of real strength

Evidence presented by power~enwiki

On the content of military biographies

For articles on less-prominent sportspeople, we often have a very narrow focus on their athletic accomplishments (some arbitrarily-chosen examples include Obed Owusu, Pinky May, Gordon Forbes, Li Junsheng, Uta Poreceanu). Their (presumably-existent) non-sports careers are often not known or mentioned, and there is certainly no discussion of their political views.

Whether or not the articles on military persons should focus purely on statistical information is a content dispute. A dispute at Panzer ace in December involving additions by LargelyRecyclable (diff) was on this basic topic. Several of the names listed have been edited fairly heavily by K.e.coffman; I note Ernst Barkmann as an example involving reduction of content.

When and how to discuss the political views of Nazi soldiers is also a content dispute. Primary sources may be unreliable; I assume that almost all soldiers would have attested to pro-Nazi views during the war, and anti-Nazi views after, regardless of their actual beliefs. Concerns about changing historiography and the reliability of secondary sources have been discussed in other sections better than I can do so.

LargelyRecyclable is a declared WP:CLEANSTART account

Diff by Callanecc stating that ARBCOM has determined that LR had no previous issues involving K.e.coffman or World War II topics.

Evidence presented by Icewhiz

K.e.coffman‎'s conduct is reasonable

I disagree with KEC quite a bit on many topic areas (and in some - we do agree) - notability standards for WWII is one of those areas we disagree. Following KEC's BOLD redirection of KC recipients to a list, I challenged him on the narrow topic area of aces - undoing several dozen of the redirects (by running down the WWII ace list) - and challenged him to place them at AfD. He did - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fritz Lüddecke. And it closed Delete (I think I would still !vote Keep, and I think it might close differently today - but it is also fairly clear to me this is borderline notability wise). Following this one AfD - we reached a compromise on what I wouldn't contest - [59]. What I am trying to say - is that while I disagree with KEC on WWII personnel notability - his conduct is reasonable. While he can be focused (not a bad thing) - he also discusses, is civil, and operates within policy guidelines.Icewhiz (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by K.e.coffman

Preliminaries

The case was prompted by the Signpost essay, which I'm linking here: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-04-26/Op-ed. I'm presenting evidence that spans 2016–2018 to help ArbCom identify patterns in this long-running dispute. In addition to LargelyRecyclable, I've mentioned MILHIST coordinators and editors who have participated in the RFAR: Auntieruth55, Peacemaker67, Chris troutman, and Cinderella157. I've also included Hawkeye7 since he commented on the Singpost essay. LR's whitewashing & harassment campaign took place in an atmosphere of indifference from MILHIST coordinators, and even with their direct participation (e.g. Evidence#Cinderella157). 

In addition, MILHIST's interpretations of WP:IRS and other WP:PAGs in this topic area seem to be outside of wider community norms. My contention is that the project has assumed ownership of articles relating to the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, including biographies and the socio-political, cultural, and criminal aspects of these topics. This has created a walled garden of articles, some of which are GA/MilHist A-Class/FA ('A-Class' is a grade between GA and FA awarded by project consensus). Editing these peer-reviewed articles has been objected to, citing consensus or being out of process. On the matter of source evaluation in peer-reviewed articles, if anyone is feeling ambitious, I recommend reading this MILHIST discussion: GA / FA articles (2017).

LR misrepresented sources

• In Erich Hoepner, LR added new material, ostensibly cited to Zabecki: Despite the superior Soviet tanks and numbers Hoepner's 4th Panzer Group destroyed over 700 Soviet tanks, (...) led his forces to within 11 kilometers of Leningrad...{{snf|Zabecki|2014|p=615}} Zabecki is a brief entry on Hoepner [60]; it does not discuss “700 Soviet tanks” nor “11 km”. LR did not acknowledge this misuse of the source. 
• 13 November 2017, same edit added ...serious doubts about the viability of the coming offensive (..). [Hoepner] was consoled by Albert Kesselring, an old friend of his, and was eventually convinced the plan would work.{{snf|Stahel|2015|p=326}}, misrepresenting Stahel as the page listed did not contain this information. LR did not acknowledge this either. 
• In Karl Strecker, LR used a source written by the subject's grandson, Uli Haller. I was initially skeptical of the source since it was credited to the subject. Our discussions started on 21 October 2017: 

• Me: The source is not suitable for statements in Wiki-voice, given its non-independent nature: [61]. 
• LR blames my "confusion" since the publisher "unambiguously attributes authorship to Haller". 
• When confronted with the fact that the book was written by a relative, LR was unphased: I'm not sure what your objection is. That Strecker was his grandfather?. 

I then reached out to RSN: Source in WW2 bio article. LR claimed: "Every academic review of the book I've seen (...) has been adulatory." I asked for these reviews, which he failed to provide. I offered a review of Haller's portion of the book: "larger than life" & "marred by errors". LR accused me of providing a "skewed" picture and described the author as "a professionally trained archivist who is now on the staff of the University of Washington". My response: "he works there as a Senior Director of Finance and Administration, not in an academic capacity." Etc. 

I was perplexed as to why LR a. would not disclose the familial relationship; b. would insist that reviews were "adulatory" but was unable to provide them; c. continue to defend the source: 8 November 2017, because he did not see "any actual evidence of bias".

The overall impression was of evasion, propensity to throw around accusations, and possibly a lack of competence in evaluating sources; full TP discussion. That's why I was surprised when LR presented that article as an example of a "success in coming to resolution in content disputes" [62]. 

• In Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, LR inserted the language of …prompting Leeb to file official protests.{{sfn|Goda|2005|p=112}} 27 October 2017; compare with Goda, p. 112: "the extent and intensity of Leeb's protests against these atrocities remain highly problematic" Corrupt Histories. This is likely a self-exculpatory legend. 
• In Battle of Raseiniai, LR changed: According to some accounts, the crew was buried by the German soldiers with full military honors; in other accounts, the crew escaped during the night.{{Sfn|Buttar|2013|p=85}} to: The crew was killed and then buried by the Germans, with full military honors.{{Sfn|Buttar|2013|p=85}} 27 October 2017. However, the uncertainty comes from the source: "by some accounts (...) while other accounts": Between Giants, p. 85. LR defended the edit, not acknowledging that he had misinterpreted the source. Etc.

Given that LR has edited a limited number of articles, these examples are troubling, since they seem to happen in all and any WW2 bio articles that LR made substantive changes to. They show misuse of reliable sources, use of fringe sources, misrepresentations when challenged and / or marshalling apparently non-existent reviews.

LR misinterpreted WP:IRS

• 18 April 2018: “...the willingness of a publisher to put out what could be characterized as apologist literature is largely irrelevant to the reliability of a source”, about the notoriously pro-Wehrmacht J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing. 
• 10 April 2018: restored fringe / apologist sources, as discussed here, offering a dismissive comment on TP: [63].
• 17 February 2018: removed RS-cited material about the subject, claiming a lack of "biographical notability"; then defended the removal as SYNTH: 21 February 2018.  
• Suggesting that veteran org’s materials are secondary sources, vs primary: 28 December 2017, "…anything they put out that is analyzed and then used to make an assertion by a third party, is a secondary source." 
• 21 September 2017: "Reuth is a journalist" – this was incorrect, see: Ralf Georg Reuth.

LR engaged in hounding and harassment

• See Evidence presented by TonyBallioni
• Also of note: despite being "exceptionally busy in real life", LR’s limited time on Wiki in 2018 was largely spent whitewashing the Hoepner page and reverting my contributions elsewhere: 18 April 2018; 10 April 2018;  10 April 2018; 10 April 2018; & 13 March 2018; 17 February 2018;  including on a page he'd not edited before: 10 April 2018. 

LR canvassed MILHIST

• The matter of disputes involved alleged crimes (Dietrich von Choltitz), cultural history (Rommel myth), & historiography (Panzer Battles), not military–operational matters: 
  • 27 December 2017, Choltitz
  • 23 September 2017, Rommel myth, also mentioning "...systemic [issues] across possibly hundreds of articles, centering around two or three editors."
  • 22 September 2017, Panzer Battles. 

LR cast aspersions

• On his TP:
  • 23 December 2017: "[[WP:SOAP|advocate]] a particular view point" and "[[WP:TAGTEAM|tag teaming]]"
  • 26 September 2017: "The wreckage goes back over the past year and a half. MILHIST worked to push back some but a lot of them seemed to just give up and go home out of fatigue."
  • 24 September 2017: "two or three activist editors working in coordination"
• On an article TP:
  • 23 September 2017, "This is is [[WP:CHERRY|well worn strategy]] of a [[WP:COAT|coat rack fork]]"
  • 21 September 2017: "grooming and sussing of any tangentially related material to [[WP:BOMBARD|reference fluff]]"
  • 21 September 2017, "The issue is that of content forking, original research, weight, improper use of references, tone, POV, and the introduction of a neologism in the form of advocacy."   

Auntieruth canvassed MILHIST coordinators

• Dispute on Hans-Ulrich Rudel:
  • 5 March 2018, MILHIST coordinator ping 
• Dispute on Werner Molders:
  • 10 November 2017, MILHIST coordinator ping
  • 5 June 2017, MILHIST coordinator ping, also at MILHIST: What is too much detail?; a better venue would have been NPOVN or WP:NOT
• Dispute on Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt (an article that AR had not previously edited):
  • 17 October 2017, MILHIST coordinator ping (es = "Challenge POV editing")
• Dispute on Otto von Bülow (an article that AR had not previously edited):
  • 19 July 2017, pinged two MILHIST coordinators
  • 19 July 2017, defended Wehrmachtbericht listing (Wehrmacht propaganda report). 
• Dispute on Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross recipients (Ba–Bm)/archive1
  • 13 January 2017, "we need to deal with this. Coffman is disrupting what I thought was a resolved issue (…). will you email me please?"

Auntieruth misinterpreted WP:IRS

• AR recommended a right-wing extremist writer as a source for an article on a German SS-Police security operation:
  • 4 April 2018: "The SS-Sonderkommando "Dirlewanger"  Rolf Michaelis Schiffer Publishing, Limited, 2013 is what I'm thinking about." 
  • When pointed to Rolf Michaelis & Schiffer Publishing, AR offered: 5 April 2018, "it is not impossible to use a book with severe bias and carefully sort the chaff from the grain, so to speak."
  • When pressured, AR backtracked: 25 April 2018, but did not respond to a follow-up: 11 May 2018. 
• AR admits to, apparently, not being familiar with the historiography of WW2: 27 April 2017: "I don't know what the problem is with these sources. Everything is checked and double checked."
• AR apparently suggested editors engage in OR: 17 January 2017, "Sometimes we have to read 'against' the source, which means using a source to extract information it was not originally intended to provide". AR also made claims about works of certain authors being "sponsored" by the German Federal Archives. I'll leave with Assayer's rebuttal: [64].
• From a GAR of an article that Auntieruth passed for GA; the article, as reviewed, was largely based on the pulp writer Franz Kurowski, and included the neo-Nazi publication Helden Der Wehrmacht ("Heroes of the Wehrmacht") & other WP:QS sources: 2010 version  
  • 6 October 2016: "Part of the role of the historian is to separate the chaff from the grain, so to speak. (...) To throw out a source, published by Stackpole or not, on the basis of its unreliable interpretation would not be appropriate..." (about a hagiographic source that was originally self-published)
  • 6 October 2016: "The fact that his books are self-published simply means that he did not get them published in an academic publication." (same source)

Peacemaker encouraged MILHIST coordinators to monitor my editing

• 6 June 2016: In a coordinator-only thread, Peacemaker expressed concerns about "hard line anti-Nazi de WP which is now being aggressively pushed here by a few editors", i.e. myself, as I was mentioned by name later. He offered this justification: "No-one should be seeking to undermine the merit of the actions of a member of the Wehrmacht (…). It must be remembered that the Nazi Party was a popular mass movement in Germany, at least pre-war." Peacemaker closed by suggesting that "all coordinators keep a weather eye out for this behaviour". (Thread).

Peacemaker misinterpreted WP:IRS & NPOV

• 18 January 2017, Suggested inserting this text, based on a self-published selection of letters, including by an anonymous "section head": Scherzer's book has been described as a "masterpiece" by Prof. Dr. Franz W. Seidler of the Bundeswehr University Munich, and as an "indispensable reference book" by a section head of the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), the Wehrmacht records repository.

References

Side note: by the time Franz W. Seidler made these comments, he'd been long retired from the university and was best known for publishing revisionist texts with extremist presses. See also revert on Seidler’s own page: [65].

• Confused IRS with WP:OR: 2 December 2016: "But it is not our job to determine who is mistaken by questioning where different authors drew their information from. That is getting very close to WP:OR."
• Disputed that the claims were "controversial" and "remarkable", even if sourced to apologist / QS publications: 18 November 2016. Also pinged MILHIST coords / prior reviewers; this may be fine, but note that GA, ACR, and FAR reviewers were mostly MILHIST coords.

Peacemaker cast aspersions

• 1 December 2016: “Assayer, your tagteam support of K.e.coffman is becoming highly predictable.”
• 29 November 2016, Accusations of COI: “Your relationship to Smelser et al begs the question...” (thread)
• 20 November 2016, “The whole pattern of behaviour is tendentious (…) …complete lack of acceptance by coffmann that community norms rule on WP, not his personal views”.
• 28 July 2016 & same "Yet more wikilawyering and pointy behaviour." PM also described WP:BURDEN as a "guideline" or "essay".

Hawkeye misinterpreted WP:IRS

• April 2018: Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-04-26/Op-ed – Misapplied key policies, leading him to defend a source based on war-time propaganda in MILHIST A-class article:         
  • Hawkeye: "Sometimes poor or outdated sources are all we have, so that is what he must use": 14 April 2018. I pointed to Talk:Helmut Wick#Propaganda origins.
  • Haweye: 28 April 2018, "policy on Wikipedia is clear: reliable sources may be non-neutral. It's not enough to drive-by template the article based on your own opinion; you have to detail specific factual errors", also suggesting that if I find some factual errors, material can be removed under WP:FALSE. 
  • Hawkeye concluded by confusing IRS with OR: 4 May 2018 and did not respond to a follow-up 6 May 2018.  
• October 2016: User_talk:Hawkeye7/Archive 2016#Neo-Nazi publications – The exchange involved “neo-Nazi publications”, inserted in Further reading sections of apparently hundreds of articles. Excerpts:

3rd party editor: Would you care to enlighten me why you think, Neo-Nazi publications (e.g. Range, Kurowksi, Schaulen) are needed in WWII articles?
Hawkeye7: Mass changes require an RfC. (...) Take it to WP:MILHIST.
K.e.coffman: If these sources were used for citations, would an RfC be required to remove these sources and citations?
Hawkeye7: Not if it was done individually, and the source was replaced with another.
K.e.coffman: What if a neo-Nazi source was the only one available, such as Franz Kurowski at Otto Kittel article?
Hawkeye7: They must have used some source. Replace with their original source.

I.e., if editors wanted to remove such sources, they should procure them to determine which original sources these (neo-Nazi) publications used. He also referred to MILHIST as apparently the final arbiter on such sources.

Chris troutman personalised disputes

• 20 May 2018: “…Kecoffman is at ARBCOM (…) making sure we can't talk about WWII flanking attacks or encirclements without reiterating that all Germans are Nazis and therefore evil” (commenting on an unrelated topic)
• 24 April 2018: “I have complained in the past about K.e.coffman's de-Nazification campaign.”
• 8 November 2017, “Seeking deletion for articles about Nazis seems like de-Nazification to me.” Note my objection, which Chris t. described as “sensitivity to mere words”.
• 30 October 2016 “I am against K.e.coffman's misguided de-Nazification efforts.” CT also suggested that notability of soldiers is “for MILHIST to collectively decide.”

Cinderella engaged in personal attacks

• See evidence by Bishonen: Evidence#Cinderella157

Cinderella misinterpreted IRS & OR

Part of a larger discussion; diffs are from June 2017, focused on The Blond Knight of Germany, the primary source for the Erich Hartmann article. Sub-thread at WT:WikiProject Military history/Archive 140#Erich Hartmann:

• [66], "just what are 'exceptional claims', why are they just 'plain wrong' or controversial? Why? Is this just a POV or can it be substantiated?  Perhaps this is the conundrum of WP (it does not allow original research or synthesis) or perhaps this is (politely) just your POV."
• In response to my question, "If only unreliable sources are available (...), do we ignore WP:RS and use [QS] instead?", [67], "A negative review on a particular aspect of a work does not render it questionable in all respects of that work".
• Cinderella clarified by suggesting we apply the same criteria to the 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front, authored by two academics, and The Blond Knight of Germany, written by two amateurs during the Cold War era: [68].  Assayer sensibly responded, [69]:

It seems as if the burden of proof is routinely reversed. If a source is dubious because its author, its publisher or both have a reputation for historical distortions and a certain bias (e.g. heroication), I consider it unreasonable to be asked for sources which question specific dubious claims... (...) The whole situation becomes Kafkaesque, when any attempt to demonstrate how exceptional certain claims are, is struck down as "original research" with reference to WP:SYNTH.

Project ownership led to walled garden

Auntieruth suggested during RFAR that she had "served predominantly as copy editor/grammarian" [70] in MILHIST peer-reviewed articles. AR reviewed three GA noms and commented in six discussions that resulted in promotion to MILHIST A-class (ACR) / FA of articles that I consider potentially problematic. I included relevant TP discussions illustrating the problematic sources and content: 

• GA: 
  • Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Joachim Helbig/1, delisted in 2017. AR defended the sources; see #Auntieruth misinterpreted WP:IRS.
  • Talk:Emil Lang#Neo-Nazi publication
  • Talk:Friedrich Geisshardt#Tags    
• A-class / FA: 
  • Talk:Werner Mölders#Tags (FA)
  • Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Hermann_Graf/1, kept GA status (ACR)
  • Talk:Helmut Lent#Unreliable sources (ACR/FA) 
  • Talk:Theodor Weissenberger#Tags (ACR)
  • RSN: UNITEC-Medienvertrieb & Rudolf Frank (ACR) 

Peacemaker has stated at the RFAR that "much of [the mistakes] has happened at GAN which is not a Milhist process at all" [71]. However, he participated in reviews of same or similar articles, with specific problems outlined in links below:

• GA: Talk:Theodor_Weissenberger#Tags
• A-class:
  • Talk:Hans Philipp#Tags
  • Talk:Theodor_Weissenberger#Tags
  • RSN: UNITEC-Medienvertrieb & Rudolf Frank

Separately, Peacemaker strongly defended a page that looks like a mini-version of my user page: "Tanks must be led from the front!"; "rose to fame"; joined the Nazi Party, but strictly for reasons of civic duty; etc.: Strachwitz GAR. A non-affiliated editor commented: 

• This is a GAR for a 10,000+ word essay full of Nazi WP:FANCRUFT that apparently meets the GA criteria of a wikiproject with its own set of rules for what's encyclopedic. Source.

Local consensus resulted in bias in articles

Despite having project MOS guidance on suitable sources (WP:MILMOS#SOURCES), in practice, questionable, apologist, and fringe sources have been accepted. Editors questioning them are routinely asked to present evidence disproving specific statements, e.g. #Hawkeye misinterpreted WP:IRS. By this logic, the most obscure sources are the most reliable ones, since nobody had anything to say about them. Source evaluation is dismissed as "WP:OR".

Take PM's comment from the RFAR: "Those mistakes [in accepting unsuitable sources] do not justify tag-bombing and butchering perfectly good articles..." [72]. Can you have "dubious and entirely laudatory sources" in "perfectly good" articles? No, IMO. Separately, MILHIST members do "disagree" that sources are dubious. Some examples: 

• 26 June 2017. About an FA sourced to an obscure author from a small-time militaria publisher. Library holdings are not proof of source reliability.
• 23 June 2017, "there’s no consensus for this". About The Blond Knight of Germany which is the basis of a MILHIST A-class article. That's despite evidence that the book is likely semi-fictional [73].
• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_216#Sources_at_Artur_Phleps_article, on whether sources written by a former Nazi propagandist and by a former Waffen-SS commander should be accepted in FA, such as for statements about the subject’s "disdain for corruption". PM: "Every author gets criticised, and the above criticism of [the propagandist] is not about the book in question…" & "The onus is on you". Mentions of “comprehensiveness criteria” by PM brought comparisons with WP:EINSTEIN.

My edit on 16 March 2017 (part of AR's evidence): “Trivia cited to a neo-Nazi publication”, which was reverted. The edit resulted a TP discussion: Neo-Nazi publication and a thread at NPOVN Fringe source, where AR suggested that this was "part of a larger 'crusade'" to "discredit these previously approved articles!" Common sense suggests that neo-Nazi publications can be removed despite existing project consensus. Yet AR called it "legitimate information": [74].

Apologetics

Whether consciously or unconsciously, the practices outlined above led to a non-neutral portrayal of articles' subjects:

• The Strecker article, as written by LR, contained dubious statements and apologia diff, including the assertion that his "ethics caused strain with, and sometimes outright defiance of, the Nazi regime" (!). Compare the two leads: [75].
• The Hoepner article, as revised by LR, described him as a "longtime, vocal opponent of Hitler's regime": 13 November 2017. It used inappropriate tropes in Wiki voice, while presenting his crimes as mere "complicity": [76]. LR's version:

Hoepner framed the theater as an ideological war, telling his troops that it was the final stage in a long standing struggle in defense of the German people, and a necessary bulwark against Jewish Bolshevism.

This reads like NS-propaganda, while LR recorded the article as "rehabilitated". For more targets, see: User:LargelyRecyclable/dashboard. In general, the interpretations chosen by LR present the Wehrmacht personnel in the best possible light: they are in "outright defiance" of Hitler's regime, behave chivalrously, file "official protests", and so on.

• Peacemaker’s RFAR statement: [77], “Smelser and Davies[‘s] (...) is a quite unique POV” – this “POV” is not unique; see The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality by Wolfram Wette, or even Melson’s quote in the Signpost.
• Peacemaker then alludes to Wehrmacht’s affinity with the Nazi ideology as: “sympathy for the dominant ideology of the time” (twice). Compare with:  "In this case [the transcript] may have included euphemisms for criminal actions, but it may equally have been referring to bravery in combat..." [78] & "Nazi Party was a popular mass movement..." [79].
• 10 January 2018, this is subtle, but illustrative. Peacemaker suggests that the article I nominated for GA has “an obvious gap in information” because it didn’t discuss the unit’s role in "fight[ing] partisans". Since it was primarily a murder unit, this suggests a lack of familiarity with the topic or perhaps an unconscious bias. My rebuttal: [80].
• Cinderella defended Waffen-SS reenactment against “an implied syllogism that all members Waffen-SS re-enactment groups are racist neo-Nazis”: 28 October 2017. See historian Robert Citino in The Atlantic, “It sends a shiver up my spine to think that people want to dress up and play SS on the weekend.” [81].
• Cinderella’s RFAR contribution [82] contained many strange statements, but I’d like to highlight this one:

In both Hoepner and Leeb, I find that the insertion of war crime allegations (regardless of accuracy) disrupts the chronicle.

This is both factually incorrect and historically ignorant. War crimes mentions are not "allegations" or "inaccurate" once the subject is convicted (Leeb) or when documentary evidence of such crimes exists (in both cases; on Hoepner, see: Commissar order). 

MILHIST on PAGs & purpose of Wikipedia

Some observations:

• While the project acknowledges that "This is an online encyclopedia, constructed by volunteers, not professional historians" [83], amateur editors, somewhat incongruently, are entrusted with separating facts from distortions: "[WP:QS] material may be used to cite facts but not necessarily for analysis and opinion" [84], without specifying how to distinguish between the two. When sources are questioned, Auntieruth suggests that editors "address anything blatant, either by eliminating the blatant part or turning down the volume" [85].
• All sources are apparently equal, i.e. "We compare and contrast sources, we don't just delete the material from sources we don't like..." [86]. The retort was: "Or do you just believe in the sources that you like?" [87]. Recommend reading in full: thread.
• Pudeo states, “Military hobbyists (…) love details like commands held, Wehrmachtbericht mentions, awards etc.” [88]. My counterpoints are: a. Wikipedia is not a personal publishing platform, and b. the result was indeed a "gallery of heroes" (per Assayer [89]), based on fringe sources and Wehrmacht press releases. See User:K.e.coffman#100% unadulterated Nazi propaganda (aka Wehrmachtbericht). 

Dealing with the latter was at times a frustrating process, necessitating discussions across various venues & over time. Removing Nazi propaganda from Wikipedia shouldn’t be that controversial. Yet Auntieruth continued to object, even voting twice in a deletion discussion: 21 February & 23 February 2017, while "strongly" objecting to "removing the transcripts".

Summary

This case is, in part, about the project ownership that led to enforcing a local consensus outside of community norms. Multiple discussions both at MILHIST and NPOVN/RSN have been ineffective. Harassment by LR did not happen in a vacuum; his editing was tacitly approved, or even embraced. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Auntieruth

Repeated deletions of legitimate information without discussion

This happened in several articles. Hans-Ulrich Rudel is one example. On this edit: Coffman had argued that Obermaier and Just are unreliable sources, yet the German historian Sönke Neitzel based his entry in the Neue Deutsche Biographie [90] on Just. In addition, the deletion justification ignored information previously based on the research of Matthews and Foreman, who had analyzed material found in the Federal Archives. All info based on Matthews and Foreman was removed in the deletion as well. The result of this deletion gives undue weight to Rudel’s post-war activities, which Coffman classified as a “Nazi activist” , rather than contextualizing Rudel's post-war activities with his wartime activities. This occurred repeatedly, despite several attempts to point out that there was no consensus on deleting the information, the latest being Rudel consensus (I think...but I'm not good at finding diffs) Efforts to reestablish the article at its consensus status here are discussed at length here, and on the talk page here

Regular deletion of contextualization, background is identified as unnecessary and "intricate" detail.

• here
• here
• deletion of Iron Cross material he didn't like or considered superfluous
• here

On an FA Werner Mölders....(which still has one of the tags he placed on it)

• here
• here

Sometimes the "trivia hunt" by-passed FAR processes

• here
• here
• here

Coffmann is very good at his edit summaries. They are quite detailed, such as this one. Kudos to him. However, he consistently ignores group consensus about content, sources, POV and removes detail that would be normally included in any reasonable biography. I'll look up the links in the next couple of days. For example:

Coffman excess tagging tagging tagging

• here removed; reverted by coffmanhere
• here

assumptions about "rough consensus

• here Setting up a page to track redirects was a good idea, but Coffmann's idea of "rough consensus" about knights cross recipients was not what I understood it to be. Consequently, we have this page or articles he deleted based on a discussion here.
• here Although Bishonen directed us to a specific section of this conversation, I found the entire conversation helpful in understanding how coffman ignores the process of consensus building.
• here, if you can stand to lose about 30 minutes of your life in unraveling a singularly pointless exercise in wikilawyering

Coffman misleads with the differences he uses

• article in its current form predominantly establishes the Wehrmachtbericht as an instrument of propaganda. Propaganda on Wikipedia is defined as “information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda”, in essence, propaganda is or at least can be, a lie or at best a distortion. But, to German soldiers, a named reference in the Wehrmachtbericht was an award. K.e.coffman deleted the following passage from the article (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wehrmachtbericht&type=revision&diff=832610799&oldid=829860903) “Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer state that the German award system was foremost a military performance indicator and not a connoted requested by the Nazis for self-sacrifice in combat and that Hitler only intervened in the awarding of the highest military decorations. Awards, in which the political mindset of a soldier was to be recognized, subsequently remained the great exception. According to the authors, for a soldier to be singled out in the Wehrmachtbericht, the individual had to have performed extraordinary acts. The named reference in Wehrmachtbericht lead to the Honor Roll of the Army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine in which soldiers who had performed acts of exceptional military valor were listed.” The justification given “Does not quite match the source“. See also WB

I can attach scans of the source for your reference, in German, but I need instruction on how to do it. The deletion of this information retains a POV in the article which can give the readers the impression that a named reference was fiction, which it is not.

distortion of comments

• In another article, the material to which coffman directs us here is more fully discussed here, where an astute reader can see that the range of materials suggested include a variety of legitimate and reliable sources, all of which might have helped to strengthen the article. Instead, coffeman rejected general works that might have provided background for the broad effort at radicalizing local populations against Jews and non-communists in the Baltic states here auntieruth (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2018 (UTC) }}

• Further distortion of individual comments: According to Coffman, AR admits to, apparently, not being familiar with the historiography of WW2: 27 April 2017: "I don't know what the problem is with these sources. Everything is checked and double checked." Actually, I'm not AS familiar with the historiography of WW2 as I am with other historiographies.
• Further distortion of individual comments: According to coffman, AR apparently suggested editors engage in OR: 17 January 2017, "Sometimes we have to read 'against' the source, which means using a source to extract information it was not originally intended to provide". AR also made claims about works of certain authors being "sponsored" by the German Federal Archives. I'll leave with Assayer's rebuttal: [65]. (from coffman's evidence) How is reading a source and extracting a fact (such as a birth date, or name of parents) conducting original research? And some works were sponsored by the Federal Archives. How is this a problem?

unfounded accusations of canvasing

• Notifying other editors of an editing thread is common courtesy. Asking for additional opinions on content and sourcing questions from other editors is not IMHO a questionable practice.

sources and context

(updated 5/28/18)

First: Purity of sources. A couple of editors, particularly Assayer (talk · contribs) and K.e.coffman (talk · contribs), insist that everything is cited to a specific set of "pure" sources that they have identified.In a recent article listed for assessment, I asked Coffman for additional information on background/context of an article before it was raised to B class. see HERE. While I understand (but do not always accept) Coffman's abhorrence to anything related to Schiffer (see I would not use Schiffer Publishing for anything relating to the German security operations in occupied Europe), there are many other sources that would broaden the perspective of this particular article. I'm not convinced that looking for sources that deal specifically and only with a given event is helpful in contextualizing the horrors of WWII and German operations in Central/Eastern Europe, particularly in the General Government.

Second: Context is a way of understand the purification of Eastern Europe. By refusing to use monographs that offer a wider view of the situation, or even other sources that deal with events similar to this particular operation, the article has no wider context. See here It is simply one event, not connecting one event to a trend of Germanization. I tried to direct him to several other books that would offer a wider view than simply the one source he used, which he categorically refused. Instead, he preferred to rely on one source to document the article, and to limit the article to its barest bones. There is no context of the operation, no sense of how and why it happened in the broader Nazi operation. It sounds to me more like a book report than an article.

Third: Generally, I see this dispute as, first, a sourcing dispute, complicated by personal styles of communication. We have, obviously, a conflict between the kinds of secondary sources acceptable. Librarians identify the distinction between scholarly, trade, and popular sources. Second, we also have a dispute over the level of detail appropriate to an article.

Evidence presented by Drmies

Pardon me while I drop this placeholder here; in part this is an aide-memoire for myself.

K.e.coffman in behavior and content

What K.e.coffman is up against

I plan to focus my contribution on the Panzer ace feast, which proved a useful introduction to some of the problems here. Drmies (talk) 02:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Cinderella157

{Work in progress}

Misrepresentations and personal attack by MastCell

During the request phase of this case @MastCell posted allegations regarding my actions at Talk:World War II reenactment[91] I have detailed why the post by MastCell is a gross misrepresentation of events and statements.[92]. The allegations made by MastCell cannot be substantiated to the extent that they are a misrepresentation. I consider their actions (including an allegation of tag-teaming) to be an unsubstantiated personal attack. MastCell also misrepresented this statement by me on the request page.[93] @User:The ed17 makes a similar observation of MastCell selectively quoting [and thereby misrepresenting] @Peacemaker67.[94] Pinging @User:Auntieruth55. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:57, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by Assayer

No "pro-Nazi POV-pushing", but problematic POV nonetheless

The POV in question romanticizes military history by emphazising military professionalism, achievements and success while neglecting historical context. It can be found in many articles covering topics of military history of all times and nations. But it becomes particularly problematic in articles dealing with the German war effort in WW II, because then it feeds well into the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” or even the “clean Waffen-SS”.

For example, I have put some effort into criticism of the term “ace”. See AfD German tank aces [95], AfD Submarine ace[96] and the ongoing, bulky debate Panzer ace, see Edit break 2 in particular. [97]. One may or may not agree with my conclusions concerning notability. It should be clear, however, that there is a significant body of RS which analyze the positive judgements conveyed by the term “ace” in military contexts.[98] Thus such a term should not be used in Wikipedia altogether except within quotations and/or attribution.

Instead, English Wikipedia not only hosts articles about “Luftwaffe flying aces of World War II“ like [99], but also boasts their “extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership”. To remove these kinds of peacock words[100] turned out to be difficult.[101], and has once been described as “potentially controversial”, so I sought consensus.[102]. The extreme bravery of German soldiers is still maintained in Wikipedia, because it is alleged that “aces” with a certain amount of kills are notable.[103], [104], and so forth. As I have argued at AfD Fritz Lüddecke[105], [106] it is not the number of kills that matters, but the coverage in reliable sources.

Dubious, unreliable and primary sources are routinely defended

The sourcing is crucial. Two different types of sources merit attention. First, there is a sizable body of literature written by non-academics and published outside historiographical discourse, respectively. The reliability of such source becomes more difficult to assess, the less noteworthy these sources are, because then there are often virtually no sources to supply criticism or contextualization. When I showed that a particular source made extraordinary claims, that was called WP:SYNTH. [107]. Matters were also discussed at RS Noticeboard.[108]

I discussed the problems further [109] The whole discussion can be found at [110] It captures much of my concerns with the ways editors deal with sources.

Memoirs are often being used, although they are both primary sources and notoriously unreliable. Memoirs of German Wehrmacht generals are a major source of the clean Wehrmacht myth. The Battle for Moscow reached FA status in 2006[111] while it was significantly based upon Guderian’s memoirs (and Zhukov’s, which I do not condone, either, all the more since a 1971 edition has undergone Soviet censorship). Guderian's POV is featured here.[112] Since then the bibliography has greatly improved, but Guderian’s POV is still there.[113] I have tried to outline Guderian’s POV here.[114]

The disputed[115] unreliability the Wehrmachtbericht as a source may be demonstrated by [116] According to the Wehrmachtbericht a destroyer was sunk. The article still claims that.[117] The battle has been described from the Allied perspective at Exercise Tiger[118]. No destroyer has been sunk. At least since 11 May 2014 the creator of the Mirbach article was aware of that.[119] [120]

I objected that a self-published work was described on the grounds of its author/publishers's advertising,[121], see reaction and discussion, respectively [122] [123]. Alas, advertising seemed ok, criticism needed reviews.[124] I further do not see how sources with a bias could be legitimated by the fact that a historian refers to them, because historians frequently make use of dubious sources. auntieruth has asked, why it is a problem that some works were sponsored by the Federal Archives, probably based on this argument[125] Well, because those works were not ‘’sponsored’’ by the German Federal Archives.[126]

Sometimes researching primary records is legitimated for so called “uncontroversial” information. I remember very well [127] leading to the creation of Service record of Karl Wolff[128]. My rationale was this[129] Among other things I was told that SS service records were easily available at the National Archives.[130] When the same editor was confronted in Talk:Theodor Eicke#Removal of dates of rank and awards[131] that the dates he gave for promotions differed from dates given in publications by historians[132] [133] it turned out that access was not that easy.[134]

A major line of argument is, that for an article on a military person to be comprehensive, the military career has to be presented in minute detail.(argument, [135], restored, defended).Since academic historians seldom work on those subjects, so the argument goes, Wikipedia editors have to rely on their own judgement[136] and it is suggested that they themselves seperate the facts from the bias.[137][138] (updated --Assayer (talk) 02:24, 29 May 2018 (UTC))

Historical context is neglected

Since the article on Ernst Lindemann,[139] captain of the Bismarck, has been mentioned: This is mainly based upon a biography by one Jens Grützner who, according to the back cover of his book has studied history for two years, but did not graduate. He makes his living working for Nestlé and is a supporting member of the Ordensgemeinschaft der Ritterkreuzträger (OdR) since 1999, the same year in which the German Ministry of Defence determined to cut all ties to the OdR because of its revanchist political outlook. What Wikipedia does not tell: Historian Holger Afflerbach has written about the last battle of the Bismarck as the most famous example of a refusal to surrender. He has published about it in an article in the eminent German historical Magazin VfZ in 2001 and discusses the question, why Lindemann and his superior Lütjens, under orders from Admiral Erich Raeder, fought a fight they could not possibly win (pp. 608-10). The article is available online. (PDF) Even eye witness Burkard Freiherr von Müllenheim-Rechberg in his memoirs asked, why the increasingly horrifying and hopeless slaughter was not ended by surrender. Wikipedia tells nothing of that, but rather of service medals, skilled leadership, Raeder’s comradeship and emotional support.

esprit des corps

Major contributors associated with the MilHist project exhibit a remarkable degree of esprit de corps even when it comes to blatant incivility. My impression was this.[140] --Assayer (talk) 20:10, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Evidence presented by LargelyRecyclable

Context

After being away as an editor for about a year, I was looking up the publishing history of a book I own. The first result was the corresponding Wikipedia article. When I clicked on the link what I found was this. I was horrified. I didn't understand how Wikipedia's article on a seminal account of the war had been reduced to a hit piece. This is a book that is widely disseminated across professional military reading lists for both senior enlisted and commissioned officers in militaries around the world. It's literally required reading for Armor officers the world over. The book and its author where substantial influences in the post-war reconstruction of European militaries and were substantial influences on the strategic planning of NATO against Warsaw Pact nations. I was totally bewildered. MILHIST had always been diligent in its curation. So, I pulled up the edit history. What I found plunged me down the rabbit hole of a multi-year campaign by K.e.coffman to "right the record" on Wikipedia. I broke a promise to myself and came back to the project.

Being an experienced editor, it didn't take long for me to find other editors who had objected to coffman's campaign. It also didn't take long to find his off-wiki activities, where he coordinated editing with other editors and gloated about the successful pushing of his POV. Ironically, the mocking of others over the rewrite of the Panzer Battles article was his first salvo, to be continued to other subjects across the project. Corresponding evidence cannot be presented in public, for the community, per the guidance of the ArbCom. So, I will attempt to correlate redacted evidence as efficiently as possible, for both the ArbCom and the Wikipedia community at large. What I can say is that I archived the off-wiki material almost a year ago. It demonstrates not only coffman's complicity in explicitly disallowed behavior, but also his subsequent attempt to cover it up, knowing his guilt.

I'll try to, as concisely as possible, demonstrate that coffman's history of editing over the past few years is almost entirely dedicated to the goal of furthering his POV, and was undertaken in bad faith, to include the harassment and denigration of editors in good standing. This campaign includes an intentional gaming of the system, and a commitment to isolating and driving off editors who resisted his efforts.

I don't know why coffman chose to undertake this campaign. His efforts focus on discriminatory edits against Germans and favoritism toward Soviets. Whether or not the fact that he grew up in the Soviet Union himself lends to this or not I don't know. What is clear is that his account was created to engage in tendentious editing, in order to "right a great wrong" and push a POV. This doesn't mean that coffman is a bad person. It doesn't mean he lacks competence. I still, even now, believe that he's an intelligent and capable person, more than able to be productive. Coffman's transgression isn't malice, it's hubris.

Rebuttal

I created this account to harass coffman

The impetus of my return was the the aftermath of finding issues from coffman's activities which I'd call systemic (referred to as an "industrial scale" by another editor) problems in the project. I have absolutely no interest in coffman's general activities nor his person. He's active in firearms and political articles that I have zero participation in. I made all the effort I could to create content and make the small marginal contributions all experienced editors do, in areas such as AfD. I have had absolutely zero contact with coffman outside of WWII articles, other than to solicit his help in the fending off of vandalism for a single BLP that I found myself in proxy to him in.

To quote the policy:

...there is an endemic problem on Wikipedia of giving "harassment" a much broader and inaccurate meaning which encompasses, in some cases, merely editing the same page as another user. Therefore, it must be emphasized that one editor warning another for disruption or incivility is not harassment if the claims are presented civilly, made in good faith, and in an attempt to resolve a dispute instead of escalating one. Neither is tracking a user's contributions for policy violations (see above); the contribution logs exist for editorial and behavioral oversight. Editors do not own their edits, or any other article content, and any other editor has a right to track their editing patterns, and, if necessary, to revert their edits. Unwarranted resistance to such efforts may be a sign of ownership behavior and lead to sanctions.

Assertions have been made by TonyBallioni that I have "harassed" coffman in the continuance of my own editing. The provided evidence falls very far short of any substantive proof and so I'll leave it as it lies, to be judged as is.

My block

My account was blocked after engaging in a disagreement with Bishonen and Doug Weller, over the appropriateness of the redaction of criticism of coffman's editing. The corresponding pages are already accounted for. I believe MastCell was solicited to block my account, for spurious reasons. All I will add is that Doug has still not recused himself and I consider my actions to be undertaken in good faith. I have no additional comments other than what I've already said in the linked discussion.

My "personal attacks"

I meant it and I believe it. No regrets.

Assertions

Conclusions

Evidence presented by {your user name}