Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list/Proposed decision

Main case page (Talk) — Evidence (Talk) — Workshop (Talk) — Proposed decision (Talk) Case clerks: KnightLago (Talk) & Manning Bartlett (Talk) Drafting arbitrators: Coren (Talk) & Newyorkbrad (Talk)

Arbitrators active on this case

To update this listing, edit this template and scroll down until you find the right list of arbitrators. If updates to this listing do not immediately show, try .

On Russavia

@Coren; I didn't really explain my reasoning for this on the workshop. As I read the situation, Russavia was topic-banned, then vigorously protested, saying in part, that he removed bad stuff from a lot of articles, and that without being able to edit, the only way to get the bad stuff removed would be to contact the subjects, some of whom might want to sue. As a result, he was blocked for legal threats. The issue for me is that at least part of the reason Russavia got frustrated and lashed out may have been as a result of off-wiki coordination through this mailing list. Additionally, it seems inequitable that the people who have been (allegedly) coordinating attacks and gaming their revert paroles against him would be topic-banned, but that he would be completely blocked (or, unblocked on condition that he only edit case pages). So largely for reasons of equity, I proposed putting him on the same footing as the other editors pending the final outcome. Thatcher 02:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

As the banning admin, I'd like to note that "remains banned from Eastern European pages under the terms of Sandstein's original ban" is unclear because I banned Russavia only from anything related to the Soviet Union and its successor states. The injunction can be read as extending this topic ban to all of Eastern Europe, which I believe is not necessary. Conversely, there is the issue of his indef block by Good Olfactory for disruption and legal threats, currently only conditionally lifted to allow arbitration participation; is this block ordered to be removed by the injunction's "may freely edit other articles and pages"? It might be better not to address Russavia's situation, which is at least stable, at all in this injunction, and modify any sanctions applying to him only in the final decision (if that is required).  Sandstein  06:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If i have incompletely understood the history then Arbcom may perhaps need to clarify the motion as to their intent. My own intent in proposing it was to put Russavia on an equal footing with the other editors for the duration of the case. Thatcher 13:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

My own position is simply that, at this time, I would prefer to not judge the appropriateness of the sanctions that were placed in the past. — Coren ^(talk) 13:29, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Thatcher for posting this, for what you wrote is precisely what I wrote, and precisely what I meant when I posted what I did. Both the Sandstein and GoF missed the part where I wrote explicitly that I would not be doing that. It was a completely hypothetical as to the only way to have the information removed, due to the sanctions which were put in place, and which are still very much in dispute. It is quite interesting to note that the WP:COPYVIO that I pointed out nearly a week ago on the ANI board in Ethnic cleansing of Georgians in South Ossetia is still present in the article. Things like these are merely lawsuits waiting to happen; and what Thatcher stated above is corect; it was pointing out the only way to get BLP and COPYVIO (two of the key policies on WP) offending materials removed. And again I stated that I would not be encouraging legal action. So as per WP:NLT, this can again be construed as a retraction of any legal threats, even though there clearly was no legal threat to begin with. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:01, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Clarification for editor please

Biophys has posted on User:YMB29 talk page, advising him that he is under editing restrictions. Being unsure whether YMB29 will check this out in more detail or not, and because I am not able to edit anything unrelated to this Arbcom at present, would someone please be so kind as to advise YMB29 that he is not under any editing restrictions, and that it is only proposed at present to topic ban whilst the arbitration is active, those who were participants in the email list, not anyone that they may have discussed, as seems to be what Biophys may have taken the restrictions as meaning. --Russavia ^Dialogue 04:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

On proposed temporary topic ban

As the founder and moderator of WikiProject Poland, the only user monitoring New Article Bot on Poland-related subjects, the user doing most of the Project assessments, the author of ~20 Poland-related Featured Articles, hundreds of Poland-related DYKs and so on, I would like to call into question whether a topic ban on a subject article that will effectively turn me - an editor in the Top 50 most active Wikipedia's editors specializing in Poland - into a non-editor - is benefiting this project. Hence I would like to ask the committee to consider more surgical topic bans. I do not understand why the committee feels such a measure is necessary in the first place, but we can discuss that later; for now I can voluntarily promise not the edit anything relating to Russian modern politics and to adopt a 1RR for the Eastern European content (which wouldn't be that different from my regular editing pattern). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you. This hasty ban is nonsensical. First, the 'evidence' was obtained illegally (hacking). Secondly, as of now there's zero evidence that the mailing list resulted in significant disruption to EE articles. Thirdly, flatly forbidding experienced EE users to contribute to any articles on their preferred topics is counterproductive, given that all the parties to this case are currently watched and scrutinized anyway. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 07:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps several users broke the rules while on this mailing list, but I don't understand why everyone on this list is immediately guilty. As long as this topic ban is temporary I can understand such move, I just hope it really is temporary. Grey Fox (talk) 07:18, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

and the most scary thing is that based on stolen and for sure many fake e-mails, they are voting now on banning all active Polish and Estonian editors from the English Wikipedia. I hope they do realize what that means. P.S. No wondering most opponents are so active here throwing acusations and "evidences" around. :) What a huge opportunity to rewrite "problematic" Polish or Estonian related articles the "right" way. What unbelievable bonanza ahead!! :):)--Jacurek (talk) 08:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

• The topic ban is very fine and dandy, except have the Arbcom noted that the "mailing list evidence" suggests others have been copypasting in the edits of topic banned and blocked users in the past? Piotrus you know that very well!Giano (talk) 08:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to know the justification to my ban. I have been inactive in wikipedia for more than a year, so my belonging to any list cannot be tied to my activities on WP. I would also like to point pout that any sane person caring about the quality of said sector of WP would not support this ban. The balance of POV-s has always been delicate in EE, you would break it down completely. --Alexia Death the Grey (talk) 08:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

This temporary injunction is a preventative measure and not a sanction. When a person (or a group) is suspected of misbehavior while doing a specific activity, being directed to suspend that activity during the investigation is a common measure.

Remember that this is a measure that gets lifted automatically at the conclusion of the case. — Coren ^(talk) 13:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Preventing suspected misbehavior of what kind? I see, in evidence, accusations of targeting several articles related to modern Russian politics, of stalking/harassing certain editors and of edit warring. A specific topic ban on modern Russian politics, a 1RR restriction, and possibly a ban on making comments on certain editors outside this arbitration should solve all the issues, wouldn't they? What's the reason that I cannot finish writing my new article on Adolf Bniński and develop it into a my DYK no. 284, why is Radek prevented from doing the same on Stanisław Aronson, why is Poeticbent to be denied getting the chance to work on History of Kraków to bring it to a GA, why Tymek shouldn't be allowed to finish translating Numeration of railway lines in Poland, why are we prevented from taking part in a new promising mediation...? What's so undeniably disruptive about 99.9% of our regular edits that we need to be practically indef banned, on the basis of stolen and - as I am now pretty much sure - tampered with evidence? While the evidence is highly unreliable at best, our content creation logs and history speak for themselves. There is a no denying that with this topic ban, Wikipedia will loose much uncontroversial, high quality content. I cannot understand why this is not being taken into account, where a small tailoring of the temporary injunction should satisfy all concerns and allow us to work on improving the project in a public and uncontroversial ways we usually do. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:22, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that at this time the proposed injunction is not passing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Guilt by association

So let's see: the Committee has opened a case nostra sponte, arbitrarily named everyone who participated on a mailing list as parties, and is now proceeding to ban all these participants merely on the basis of their presence on said list, despite the lack of any specific allegations against them? There can be no pretense here that this is intended to prevent some ongoing or expected disruption, as many of these editors have been inactive for months; the ban is collective punishment, nothing more.

(And let us be honest: given the Committee's normal speed, a ban "pending the resolution of the case" is likely to last months. What exactly does the Committee plan to do with the innocent subscribers to the list, who will have endured bans for no apparent reason? Or is the possibility of innocence not even being considered?)

Presumably the Committee will follow up by banning everyone involved in, say, Wikipedia Review, or any of the other venues where plots among editors are allegedly being hatched? Or would that too greatly inconvenience the honored arbitrators who so enjoy participating there?

Hypocrisy is not a virtue; and "How to deal with Poles" is not an instructional guide. The course this proceeding is taking is utterly disgraceful. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 14:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

What is disgraceful is that editors from the same topic area, often the very same editors, repeatedly engage in actions that lead to repeated arbcom cases. You're welcome to rejoin the committee at any time. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Whoa. I didn't realize an injunction like this was even proposed, much less that it's almost passing. I doubt this case will be so one-sided that we will even consider decimating one side of the dispute. There are no community trust issues, no privacy issues, and no good reasons for urgency, so this is not a good injunction.

Thank you for watching this case. Cool Hand Luke 16:13, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I came here to express my sentiments on this motion, but see Kirill has already done so with great competence. (Every time I think that ArbCom has exhasuted the possible limits of absurdity and injustice, they do something to prove me wrong...)--Kotniski (talk) 17:07, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's only absurd and unjust when you don't agree with it. If you agree with it, it's brilliant. — Rlevse • Talk • 17:10, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If that's aimed at me, I don't believe I've ever felt that ArbCom was brilliant (except perhaps in the happy period before I knew how it "worked"). Every time I accidentally come into contact with it, my only impressions are that it's at best a bureaucratic monster, and at worst a callous dispenser of injustice. Handing out punishments before a case has even started, to people whose only known crime is to have associated with possibly the wrong people, can hardly fail to reinforce the latter sentiment.--Kotniski (talk) 17:20, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Guilty until proven innocent. And how can one prove he is innocent, if the court is accepting stolen and fake-able evidence (and any counter-evidence, being of the same type, can be also fake-able)? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

It's a joke. Luckily it's not going to pass, but those WikiProjects/regions of Wikipedia that don't solve their problems internally will always be inconvenienced. At the end of the day, only involved people care about things much anyway. Those Wikiprojects with no admins or admins who just sit around waiting for the minions to feed them will always pay. Some arbs say that they have to stay out of things in case it gets to arbcom, but I think it is illogical. If people care they will get involved and recuse if it gets too big and ends up at arbcom, not wait for 6 months of endless riots or whatever. I've seen it from the inside. If you want thoughtful service, you'll have to have the power to harass the arbs or do political damage to them. POV based disputes on Wikipedia aren't worth seeking help for, really. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I've switched to oppose from support. This will give the Committee more time to examine the evidence and decide what needs to be done here. However, if it emerges that any editors that this topic ban was proposed for have engaged in disruptive behaviour, and continued to engage in disruptive behaviour during the case, then that will likely be reflected in the final decision. Carcharoth (talk) 17:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you define disruptive behavior, so we are on the same page? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that all this time as an admin you didn't know what disruptive behavior is? (Igny (talk) 18:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC))

I am saying that my definition of disruptive behavior includes things such as hacking somebody's computer and sharing private information with third parties, but does not include private discussions of wikipolitics. Apparently, this differs with the definition used by others. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:48, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

My references to disruptive behaviour are to on-wiki actions, especially if they were co-ordinated off-wiki. Piotrus, I have some questions about this mailing list. Would you be prepared to answer them? The best place is probably the Workshop, which normally has a section for questions, but has been changed for this case, though I see questions are being asked there. Carcharoth (talk) 19:25, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

As I mentioned in my early email to arbcom, I am prepared to answer questions, and looking forward to establish a dialogue with the committee, although in cases where privacy is involved I may prefer to do it off wiki, particularly as I don't enjoy weeding through flaming like this to get to the more substantive and good faithed comments. I am also working on preparing evidence and statement that may clarify few issues. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I request that any administrative sanctions follow the conclusion of these proceedings, because that is how we do business around here. There’s no benefit in beating around the bushes with preventative bans on positive contributions. Please, take as an example my latest leading DYK, featured on the front page on Sept 16. – With over 6,600 views on that date, Trzy Korony massif is featured at WP:DYKSTATS for this month. – Why would I need to endure a topic ban on Poland’s countryside, I don’t know? By the way, anybody would accept an invitation to a discussion group faster than I did. --Poeticbent talk 18:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Addendum. For anybody who's seriously interested in what I mean while capable of being a gentleman at the same time. Would you like me to email to your off-wiki account a screenshot of the front page of my inbox? It displays a bolded number of 1941 messages that have not been opened yet… most of them since June 2009. Perhaps this arbitration case will inspire me to read them, but I’m not sure. --Poeticbent talk 21:37, 19 September 2009 (UTC) I strike out my good will comment, due to the spirit of ongoing attacks. --Poeticbent talk 15:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Look, to put this simply, you lot have broken the rules big time. You have connived, you have manipulated, you have copy-pasted for banned users and you have collaborated on attacks and that is just the beginning. In short, in a few weeks it is doubtful than any of you will be editing at all; so in the meantime, just be quiet. Oh and for what it's worth, no one hacked your computers, one of your own shopped you - and that says it all! Giano (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Giano, your comments, speculations and accusations in relation to this case are not helping. Please tone it down or stay away from the case and let ArbCom deal with it. Carcharoth (talk) 19:28, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Carcharoth, I shall be monitoring the Arbcom's efforts with great interest. I hope they are up to the challenge - after years of head burying and ignoring the obvious, you can hardly be surprised that confidence is somewhat lacking - can you? So, let's leave no stone unturned, I cartainly shall not. Lots of people have been hurt by these people - remember that. Giano (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I am curious: what is your evidence for your statements? Did you read the reputed archive? How have you obtained it? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem confused Piotrus: Let me explain, you are supposed to be answering questions not asking them. I am sorry I have other things to do than talk to you. Per Carcharoth's request, I shall not be commenting here for a while. I won't wish you luck because yours has quite clearly run out. Giano (talk) 19:51, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Your reply is very enlightening, thank you. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:56, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that at this point the proposed injunction is not passing. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I must comment here, even though I know I'm gonna incur some wrath by doing so. To start, I don't care if these cabalists get temporary topic bans, it's neither a big loss nor a big gain in the context. The pro is that it sends the right message, the con is that just now many of these users are probably anxious to show the wiki world what productive content editors they are and will write lots of articles if able.

But Kirill, I'm gonna be blunt, I am inclined to believe that one of the biggest reasons each of the previous Arbcom cases aggravated the situation so much, ending each time so favorably for these cabalists, was because you were the main architect each time. You seem to have a bit too much sympathy for certain users, and other arbs trusted that your judgment could be relied upon because of your national background. I have no idea why you'd be predisposed like this, but I am pretty sure you are.

Maybe you bonded with Piotrus in the military history project, maybe you admire his article work as a fellow enthusiast of his topics, maybe you have a cultural disposition similar to that of Biophys, maybe you have been more vulnerable to the kind of "argumentative" tactics the Piotrus cabal typically use; maybe it's something else ... But I have thought there's something ever since I reviewed the cases, even though I don't doubt you are irreproachably honest, and that you have always acted in good faith. As I am clearly irremediably biased, I acknowledge that I may be wrong.

However, your post above doesn't help me alleviate these suspicions. You cite the meta page "How to deal with Poles", but you must surely at this stage realise that the function if not the purpose of this straw man page was to mock anyone who confronted this cabal in order to silence them. They boast and congratulate each other for such tactics in their emails, and in this context your use of it to argue in their favour shows something most people with good faith would call naivety.

At any rate, the group of users in this list is small, and almost all of them have been recently, actively and conspicuously complicit in the misconduct under review. It's not exactly the most risky motion nor would it be the greatest "injustice" ever proposed by an ArbCom, and certainly shouldn't be leading you to become as upset as the strength of you language suggests you are. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 08:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course, anybody who agrees with us is biased, only people who disagree with us are not. I think I've written an essay on that :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Presumably the Committee will follow up by banning everyone involved in, say, Wikipedia Review, or any of the other venues where plots among editors are allegedly being hatched? Or would that too greatly inconvenience the honored arbitrators who so enjoy participating there?

To add to what Kirill says I’d like to point out that Wikipedia Review is not the only internet forum where Wikipedia editors, politics and plots are discussed and considered. These are spread all over the internet.

One particular example can be found over at Alternate History (www.alternatehistory.com) where Wikipedia editors – using pseudonyms to hide their on Wiki names, rather than forming a private list – discuss things like the feasibility of setting up bots to automatically revert all editors that can be identified as being from Eastern Europe, partly in order to (and this is stated specifically) to get Piotrus “permabanned”. (The link to the specific discussion can be emailed directly to ArbCom).

While the Wiki identity of the members of this discussion forum are hidden behind “nom-de-guerre”s, familiarity with the topic area allows one to ascertain who’s who. This “cabal forum at Alt Hist” includes several prominent Wikipedia editors and administrators, some of whom, are possibly involved in this present case (no points for guessing who).

So, is anyone going to formally ask ArbCom committee to take any action against the Wikipedians at Alt History forum? Or will someone only request this of ArbCom only after somebody hacks the Alt History website and retrieves personal information on the participants in this forum first?"

(Of course, there is no way to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that an editor behind a nick-de-guerre is really connected to a real Wikipedia editor, and not a dedicated stalker/agent trying to frame him – if ArbCom WERE to investigate the Alt Hist Cabal, I’d be the first to raise the possibility that this is a set up.)radek (talk) 20:16, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we'll send a good message to them all by dealing properly with the current case (besides, public forum is not quite the same thing as private mailing list). Alæxis_¿question? 06:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

public forum is not quite the same thing as private mailing list - You're right, a private list is private and nobody else's business.radek (talk) 04:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Time limit for collecting and presenting evidence extended

I would like to make the following proposal/temporary injunction: The time limit for collecting and presenting evidence shall be extended by one week for one or more of the following inter related reasons:

a) The unusual nature of this case and the fact that it involves issues which extend beyond on-Wiki behavior

b) The fact that some users are still unclear as to what should be presented as evidence based on a) above

c) The fact that the collection of evidence might require more than just diffs from Wikipedia

d) The fact that issues concerning the source of the so-called “archive(s)” have not been clarified.

e) The fact that the case involves multiple issues necessities that more time is required to collect evidence on different aspects of the case.radek (talk) 20:35, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I ask that any other interested editors wishing to comment on this request do so promptly. Newyorkbrad (talk) 12:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

We have pretty good idea that the archives were distributed by a whistleblower on the list who used Tymek's password which was distributed to the list. We don't know the identity of the whistleblower, but this theory seems much more likely than somebody hacking both the list and Tymek's account. Tymek's answers to my questions on the Workshop make all this clear. Jehochman ^Talk 13:02, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The mail list generated a lot of traffic, which soon filled many inboxes and precluded from noticing other emails. Many people that were part of the mail list asked at some point to be temporarily removed due to this. Many people also erased at least some old messages, if not most. If I am not mistaken, everyone still has unread messages (whose subject line was uninteresting; I have a couple hundred unread Gmail conversations.)

Personally, I have the suspicion this was hacked. I believe one of the members was interesting to someone with hacking possibilities before joining the list, has been followed and his computer hacked. At one point, we discussed an image on WP that contained a name. Within hours that name was blackened. My guess is someone was receiving our mail list communications and told the author of that file "remove your name". (My guess is the author of that file did not hack anything, but knows who told him to remove his name.) This is not the only strange event leading me to assuming we were hacked.

The mail list was created with the purpose to discuss politics, events, and for personal and professional chat. Reading those personal exchanges is highly unethical! Sometimes impressions about WP events were discussed, generally in the past tense. There was absolutely not a single instance of a "coordinated" edit. Personally, every time I edited or commented on-WP I did it on my own, respectively spoke my own mind. My entire WP record is open to any review. If the emails were not tempered with, one can see that the members of the mail list had many disagreements on various issues. At one instance, Polish-Ukrainian disagreements were quite successfully mediated.

Proposal: People in ArbCom can look at the alleged achieve and create a list of WP articles and discussions which they might want to review closer. Why not first make such a list, and then carefully review everything that happened in those articles and discussions in 2009?

There was a lot of private information that was shared between those who received emails that could seriously damage personal or professional life of people. A typical example of how this can easily damage is if one of the people examining the list tells a personal friend off-WP about those details, without any ill-intent, just as a curiosity. That second person also without ill-intent, and also as a curiosity mentions something in a discussion with a third person, who becomes interested and posts it on some site that attracts ill-intended people. A forth person reads it from that site and decides he can teach someone a lesson. Therefore I have hoped (am I too idealistic?) that all 9 people that received the alleged archive would turn it to ArbCom, would not read it and would definitively not tell around "look at that email from that date". I hoped and am still hoping that ArbCom would have said/ would say "We don't need anyone to read the archive and tell us where to look. We can look ourselves. If sent, we will discard it. Send us only evidence of on-wiki activity." That would have discouraged people to scroll through those messages, since nothing on-wiki would be gained by doing that. Unfortunately, many people now enthusiastically read that and post suggestions on wiki. That is very troublesome.

Unfortunately the enthusiasm to "kick some but" is too great, and some admins have poor judgement, and do not restrain themselves to do things in a professional manner. Is it not already clear that all edits by all "accused" over the last year are open to scrutiny? If those emails are are genuine and have not been tempered with, then they would reveal very strong political, professional and personal opinions, in particular very strong words about the Soviet system and Soviet propaganda (absolutely nothing incivil), but no coordination of on-wiki votes or edits. Dc76\^talk 15:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

One other thing: If there would have been a "whistleblower", why didn't that person remove all emails containing private data and communication? Instead of 3,500 email, a real whistleblower would have sent 200 which would have had the same effect (in fact much easier to process) minus the privacy concerns. Dc76\^talk 15:19, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Your assumption is that the possible whistleblower would be an intelligent person with some brains to spare, like in a Hollywood movie. – In real life however, the squealers (in contrast to whistleblowers), are usually a lot dumber. Our own squealer did not reveal his Wiki identity, but instead, abused the excessive trust of a colleague. That is perhaps why he also collected all 3,500 emails complete with every speck of information. Of course, I myself would have removed the irrelevant emails containing private data before leaking it out, but than again, I would have never squealed in the first place, because I have morals. In other words, hacking is not that obvious. --Poeticbent talk 15:55, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no 100% proof that it's hacking. But to the best of my logic it looks to me that it is. We are younger people, we have not grown in the Communist system where they encourage everyone to spy on everyone. Besides the mail list has done nothing illegal. Is there a rule that forbids people to discuss off-WP their impression about WP? While there is little chance we can prove beyond reasonable doubt it was hacking, ArbCom can prove it was whistleblowing if it received an anonymous email from each 17 saying anonymously "yes" / "no". Can ArbCom arrange for this, please? If all 17 say "no" that wouldn't be a proof of hacking, just "we cannot assume it was whistleblowing". Dc76\^talk 20:49, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:43, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Why would the supposed wistleblower need Tymek's account at all if he had his own and there are tons of free email services around? Colchicum (talk) 15:25, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Because (α) then he could make it seem like Tymek was the whistleblower rather than him, or (β) Tymek's pass was quicker and much more anonymizing than his own account. -Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!)} 19:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I think so, too. On the other hand a hacker wanting to pose as a whistleblower was unable to do this before Tymek gave out his password. Dc76\^talk 15:50, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I absolutely oppose giving any extension to the editors to present evidence. They have spent the last 4 bickering about semantics, when they could have being presenting evidence. As to what type of evidence, an admission or two or 15 would be nice...start there. It is also obvious it was a result of whistleblowing. As someone who was a victim of these editors long term harrassment, stalking and gaming, which as a result they got to celebrate my banning after a team up, i would like this case dealt with at the earliest opportunity. As are others i am sure. Spend less time on semantics and more time on presenting evidence, and stop wasting the courts time, so to speak. Russavia ^Dialogue 15:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Celebrating your banning or anything else in a private space is not a crime, off-wiki coordination of actual on-wiki disruption might be, but it has not been established whether it took place and who is personally responsible for it, it is currently being looked into. And your banning was a result of your own actions and is another matter. However, as the archive is supposed to be secret, all this discussion doesn't make much sense, I agree. Colchicum (talk) 16:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I likewise oppose the idea of an extension. It seems that the parties on the list commit a lot of effort to identifying the "squealer" within their midst rather than to gathering evidence of their innocence. But that's their problem. Óðinn (talk) 03:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And how do you propose we prove our innocence? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Obviously you cannot "prove your innocence" in that the Arbs have not asked about specific problematic behaviors as yet (at least not in public). But many list members are operating under the assumption that the e-mail archive is hacked and/or faked. Piotrus since you have a copy of the archive, and since I assume at least some of you have copies of some of the e-mails (surely, at the least, several of you have gmail or hotmail accounts with "sent mail" folders that you don't regularly clean out), I would expect that you are comparing the archive that the Arbs have with copies of your own e-mails. Showing that at least some of the archived e-mails were doctored would pretty much exonerate you since the "evidence" would be irreparably tainted, so I have to assume you are working on that. However if you don't have any comment about your perusal of the archive we'd have to assume that, as far as you can tell, said archive is genuine. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 04:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

"Piotrus since you have a copy of the archive" - I made my statements to the ArbCom on that; short story is - I don't. I can try to verify things based on my recollection of what was written, and on a small sample of really interesting emails I preserved. I hope you are not saying that because I get rid of emails I consider unworthy of preserving in my inbox it proves (implies...) those emails have something I wanted to get rid off. PS. I used to keep better archives... maybe I shouldn't have changed my behavior. But I was getting lost in stuff, I had folders concerning games I played in 2000s and other junk... oh well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

No no, I'm not at all saying or implying you wanted to get rid of anything, and this might just be a miscommunication. Future Perfect (and I think someone else) said you had access to the archive the Arbs have and that's what I meant. Are you saying that is not the case? If so then completely disregard my previous statement, though I would think you would want access to that archive asap.

I'm not surprised you deleted most or all of the list e-mails you had (I'm pretty rigorous about deleting e-mails as well), my point was that, between everyone in the group, using stuff that was saved and/or stuff that was captured in "sent mail" folders, I would think you would be able to dig up at least a few dozen e-mails out of how ever many there were total. That would take a bit of coordination on the part of the group, but if you can scrounge up even 25 e-mails between all of you that have not been deleted and then compare them to the "archive," you might find inconsistencies that demonstrate there was some forgery going on. Obviously it's very much in your interest to pursue that even if you cannot come up with anything conclusive, and my point was just that that was one route to pursue to "prove" your innocence so to speak (or really, get the case thrown out of court). --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I have access to that leaked/stolen archive the arbcom has, it's hardly a "sikrit" anymore - for all the privacy concerns it rises, apparently some people don't care about it and keep merrily distrusting it :( Oh, and btw: if anyone can prove it has 1,500 emails about harassing Russavia in it (as Alex claimed in his opening post at ANI), I hereby promise to print out all of my FA's and eat them, without ketchup, and post the video of that to YouTube :p Also, I want to thank all who can limit their curiosity, care about ethics of privacy and have not / will not read it. Back to you, Big. I see your point, but as I pointed out earlier, I suspect that only 1-2% where faked (if any...). And stuff that sb would want to fake is likely not the same stuff most of us would keep (I kept links to intersting sites/software, theoretical wikipolitical discussion I haven't yet used in my wikiessays, and such. And let's not forget all the time needed to do such an analysis/coordination/etc (this entire affair has eaten too much of my time already). And even if we did this, who's to say our evidence is not the real faked one doctored to make us look good (and the fact that maybe we could provide it in three formats from three editors means we just copied and converted it three times...)? Once you start thinking about evil cabals, this can only go downhill :> At this point I am just waiting for the arbcom to contact me and ask me to verify some stuff (if they decide anything needs verification). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:20, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

That's fair, though I would recommend polling the list members to see how many saved e-mails you might have among all of you, just in case ArbCom comes knocking later and something one of you did save proves useful in terms of demonstrating fraud. Not too far fetched I think, assuming there was any fraud (which, to me at least, now seems a lot less likely).

I would also echo your sentiment about limiting curiosity. There's absolutely no need for anyone else to get a hold of that archive, and anyone who does has no business reading it.

And 1,500 Russavia-related e-mails did seem a bit of an exaggeration from the beginning. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 05:43, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to provide some evidence during the weekend so I hope the time is extended somewhat. Grey Fox (talk) 16:03, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Support extension. I'm about half way through drafting my submission, an extra week would be sufficient. --Martintg (talk) 00:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The extension is needed due to the multi-faceted and unprecedented scope of this case. I need to compile evidence which will address stuff that's been brought up by about 10 different people, each with its own diffs and so on that I have to dig out. I need to do SOME kind of analysis of the supposed archive (which I haven't done yet) in order to be able to at least form an idea as to its authenticity. I (and others) need to pursue some leads which may help us narrow down the possibilities of how the leak occurred, hence how credible it is. Etc. etc. etc. One extra week is nothing here.radek (talk) 04:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• Note, I think Vecrumba was asking for an extension too, due to personal circumstances[1]. Presumably one additional week would be sufficient. --Martintg (talk) 12:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• I support any extension between five and fourteen days in length. Vassyana (talk) 20:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

User Molobo unblocked for the purposes of participating in this case

User:Molobo, one of the list members, was blocked for supposed sock-puppeting [2] (in an investigation involving "secret evidence" that may or may not be related to the present case). I propose that he is temporarily unblocked for the purpose of participating in this case, making his statement and so on. Of course, he'd be banned from editing articles not related to this case, although I think he should also be allowed to make an edit here [3].radek (talk) 04:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You should post this in the workshop. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll copy this to workshop for you. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed principles

I've posted the proposed principles early to help guide the collection of evidence and discussion. I do not expect that any findings of fact or remedies will be posted for a few weeks still, since more evidence (and examination of that evidence) is likely to be forthcoming.

Those principles, however, should give a good idea of what the Committee will be looking at in the weeks to come; and some of my colleagues may well propose a few more until then. — Coren ^(talk) 19:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• Question 1. I have a question about Off-wiki communication. This all sounds logical, but I had absolutely no idea that anything you say off-wiki can be interpreted as "coordination". Do we have any instructions about this? I saw only the rule about canvassing ("sending messages to many Wikipedians with the intent to inform them about a community discussion"[4]) off-wiki, but I personally never send such messages through this email list. And my vote under no circumstances was influenced by any announcements. I was usually opposed to any suggestions by Piotrus during last month, for example.Biophys (talk) 21:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
• Question 2. Also, I never acted as someone's meatpuppet. Even such suggestion sounds offensive. We are all well-established editors here. I admit that Polish editors (for example) have more "uniform" oppinions than me and Piotrus, as one can see in many votes. They often strongly agree with each other, regardless to way of their communication and including Polish editors who never participated in this list. "Meatpuppets"? No, they simply share a similar POV.Biophys (talk) 21:25, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Please remember that those are the principles most relevant to the case; they are not findings of fact. — Coren ^(talk) 22:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, this is understood. I should not be talking about anyone's personal guilt. But a lot of things seem to be rather general. We all agree that on-wiki collaboration is a good thing. But what's wrong with off-wiki collaboration? OK, I will suggest a couple of principles below.Biophys (talk) 22:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The Canvassing principle

Does it really apply when the users could reasonably be expected to participate in the disputes in question on their own anyway, due to the scope of their interests, their watchlists, public watchlists and so on? My impression was that WP:CANVASS prohibits partisan recruiting from outside, because otherwise the outcome is not really affected. The list might be a forum "mostly populated by a biased or partisan audience", but it was just as well a forum of users who had already been involved and would monitor the topic area on their own. It was probably at times hard to believe that e.g. I or Mosedschurte (talk · contribs)or Peltimikko (talk · contribs) or a number of other editors have never coordinated with this list, yet we haven't indeed (well, at least I haven't), which shows that no assumption of off-wiki coordination is necessary to explain many of the patterns. Actually, as User:Deacon of Pndapetzim/North-East Europe AE threads demonstrates, despite the existence of the list, at least at AE most of the Polish participants showed little involvement in the Baltic cases, and vice-versa. Colchicum (talk) 23:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

making list of "opponents" ... goes counter

Whilst I am also opposed to the exclusionary rule, I am afraid this piece is going to stretch the jurisdiction of ArbCom a bit too far, which is not only impractical, but also morally flawed. What if one kept black books in the mind rather than on paper? Surely I do, and let's not be hypocritical, many others do. Would that go "counter to the necessary collegiate atmosphere required to write an encyclopedia" too? In my opinion, private off-wiki activity by itself has nothing to do with on-wiki atmosphere. Judge real on-wiki damage, it is not that there is a shortage of it, and not private and closeted activity outside. Sure, the latter can be used as evidence of on-wiki disruption, but not judged as disruptive by itself. If a general notion of this kind is agreed in principle, I would like to see such a principle listed here, because some of the principles create the opposite impression. Colchicum (talk) 23:04, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Judge real on-wiki damage. Exactly. And I want to stress the word damage. The last time I checked, WP:IAR is still a policy. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:03, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Colchicum are you saying you disagree with the statement "making list of "opponents" or coordinating actions in order to drive off or punished perceived "adversaries" goes counter to the necessary collegiate atmosphere required to write an encyclopedia"? I can't fathom why anyone would object to that. No one should be making a list of "enemies" be it on Wikipedia, on a mailing list, or in your own mind (actually this is a pretty good rule not just in Wikipedia but in real life, as this guy eventually learned). Anyone who has an actual list (whether they are conscious of it or not) needs a serious wiki-break. And obviously the jurisdiction of the ArbCom doesn't extend into a private mailing list or an editor's mind, but that doesn't mean we can't state basic principles. For example assume good faith is a core behavioral guideline, but obviously no one can get in your head or my head and make us assume good faith, it's just an approach the community strongly encourages editors to adopt for reasons that are incredibly obvious to most of us. When there is evidence that someone is not assuming good faith they tend to get called on it. No one can force you or me to not make a list of our enemies, but the proposed principle simply points out that doing that is WP:BAD, and suggests that if evidence exists that you or I made such a list somewhere we would probably get called on it. Again, the idea that that is even debatable is somewhat shocking to me, and in general the argument that "private off-wiki activity by itself has nothing to do with on-wiki atmosphere" is rather absurd even in theory and, this case might well end up concluding, demonstrably false in reality.

What does WP:IAR have to do with anything here Piotrus? I find 9 times out of 10 when that policy is invoked it's for an unjustified reason, and I can't imagine how IAR relates to a principle saying that enemies lists are bad (sometimes you need them to help the project???), but maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My point, Bigtimepeace, is that the only thing ArbCom (as well as Wikipedia admins and so on) are entitled to prevent is on-wiki disruption. It can take off-wiki activities as evidence, but it should have no authority to rule over them. "making list of "opponents" ... goes counter" is just an alarming example of the latter. Colchicum (talk) 16:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

ArbCom Committee already ruled that one can collect evidence, off-wiki, for dispute resolution (25.4) and it is of no concern to ArbCom. I will however say that calling such an evidence list or any similar tool "enemies list" is bad, bad framing; I am pretty sure I did not coin, advocate or support such a name (although I don't see how such framing, if done privately, is of concern to anybody - while I think CIV/NPA/AGF and so on are a good policy outside Wikipedia as well, as long as somebody doesn't break them on Wikipedia, this should be of no concern to editors). Re:IAR: I would like to see the evidence that our alleged actions damaged that project. Which articles (or other wiki pages) have we damaged and how? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I still don't see how IAR comes in to your point at all, but I do not know whether or not the actions of some groups members damaged the project. There is some suggestive material that has been presented, but I think the key thing is the extent to which it coordinates with the list e-mails (and what exactly those e-mails say). I don't have access to those e-mails and am not remotely interested in getting access to them, so I'm just waiting to see what the Arbs say down the road about them and their relation to Wikipedia edits. Even if it turns out that most or all members of your group engaged in little or no harmful activities, I would hope this case would at least strongly ratify the principles Coren has laid out so far. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• Just because one individual posts a "enemies list" does not imply that the remainder of the group endorses or approves of such a list. I certainly don't. --Martintg (talk) 02:30, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
  • If the remainder of the group takes up attacking the "enemies", then yes it does. Jehochman ^Talk 02:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
    • Well since the remainder of the group did not take up attacking the "enemies" illustrates my point. Such a list is no more than one person's unsolicited compilation of a combination of assumptions and observed past conflict. --Martintg (talk) 03:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
      • Well Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#WP:OUTING_and_harrassment_by_list_members_on_myself and Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Response_to_evidence_by_Piotrus is simple evidence that members of the group did take up attacking your enemies. And I've got more evidence to show that this is exactly the case, and is in part one of the email list' missions. --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:22, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
        • If some editors have had conflict with you, it is because they personally find your behaviour disruptive, not because of some list. --Martintg (talk) 20:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
          • And your stalking and harrassment did nothing to make me a "disruptive editor" (at least in your eyes)? Do you remember the time that you and Digwuren hounded and hounded me on my talk page, ignoring my requests for you to leave me alone because I knew you were teaming me? No? Nevermind, it's gonna be in evidence before too long. And one best not throw "your disruption" around, because many have found your behaviour disruptive as well; except in our cases, no email list was ever set up in order to further the harrassment and stalking; therein lies the difference, and it is for this reason that your behaviour is now front and centre, and not mine. --Russavia ^Dialogue 20:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
            • Given that you edit hundreds if not thousands of distinct articles and our edits coincide in a mere handful, your claim of "stalking" is nonsense, as is your claim of harassment. If you would confine your self to creating good content rather than side with Russian ultra-nationalist viewpoints and disruptively create WP:POINT articles like ESStonia, there would be no problems. --Martintg (talk) 21:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
              • Yeah, yeah, those excuses have worked in the past. But now we have the evidence of it Martin. So, pray, tell, how exactly did you find List of most common surnames, noting of course that you had never edited the article before I edited it. And don't use the Recent Patrol userbox excuse, as I have already noted what you said on the email list in this regard in my evidence section. You have zero credibility on this matter let me tell you. Start singing a new tune, and take responsibility for what you have done. Be a man about it. --Russavia ^Dialogue 03:01, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Exclusionary rule

I believe the point about ArbCom having no exclusionary rule would be made better in the form of a principle to be approved, rather than to be opposed, because a rejected principle won't be in the final decision. For that reason, a principle like "The Arbitration Committee may use all genuine and pertinent evidence to support its decisions, even if that evidence may have been obtained through unethical or illegal means" may be clearer. That's just a formality; personally I do believe that ArbCom should have some sort of exclusionary rule at least for evidence procured for the purpose of arbitration by means of genuinely criminal acts (rubber-hose cryptanalysis, for example), although that is hopefully a highly theoretical situation.  Sandstein  09:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Since when has whistleblowing been a crimimal act? There is no credible evidence to suggest otherwise. --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know whether a criminal act has or has not been committed in this specific case, because I don't know what exactly has happened with that e-mail list. I was speaking about the desirability of an exclusionary rule in general.  Sandstein  09:41, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think that something should be mentioned also about the fact that everyone can publicly paraphrase such evidence on wikipedia, as this is clearly practice in current process [5], where subjects of e-mails and paraphrasing their contents is allowed. Personally I think that it de facto encourages spread of such evidence, but obviously if this is not a problem for ArbCom, then why not to write it down as principle too.--Staberinde (talk) 15:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that Arbcom wouldn't endorse a principle that relies on them determining whether an act is criminal (or 'genuinely criminal') or not. They're really not competent to do that, even ignoring the wide range of jurisdictions potentially involved. A principle saying that they'll consider admissibility on a case by case basis might work - but then it wouldn't have much substance. 89.181.76.164 (talk) 15:51, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Newyorkbrad intends to add a principle along those lines; possibly something along the lines of "the good of the encyclopedia being the primary concern" and "inly insofar as it is directly relevant" (those are the direction I'd head towards). — Coren ^(talk) 04:52, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Request concerning the proposed decision

Hi, this is just to make the drafting arbitrator(s) aware of a request I have made on the Workshop page concerning the proposed decision.  Sandstein  06:13, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

An additional principle

I think this principle should be added for clarity:

Abcom does not respect privacy of email communications if the content of private emails is relevant to wikipedia business. All emails by this project participants can be intercepted by third hostile parties and submitted as evidence to Arbcom. This concerns not only wikipedia email, but any personal communications by any person who ever made at least one edit on this site

Seriously, I did not know that such principle applies. Even Piotrus did not know, although he knows and understands WP policies much better than me. Yes, I suspected that our emails could be intercepted by FSB and sent to Arbcom, but I thought that can not be a reason for opening any official case, simply because I would never read your personal email. Yes, I was aware of the CAMERA case. But that was an organized group of paid editors hired by an outside lobbing organization. Yes, I agree with all decisions about CAMERA. Same would apply to a team of CIA editors hired to improve the image of CIA in WP. Same would apply to a group of paid editors hired to improve image of Vladimir Putin. But we are ordinary editors who were not recruited by any outside organizations. We even have very different POVs and different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. But we simply wanted to discuss our personal business, yes, including also editing here.Biophys (talk) 13:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I personally strongly against such principle, because it would discourage a lot of people of participation in this project. Yes, this should be placed as a warning by huge letters to every new user: "By editing in wikipedia you allow Arbcom to examine all your private email correspondence, in the event it was stolen and submitted to Arbcom". Then, I would think twice about contributing here. Biophys (talk) 13:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

A small digression: WP:COI is a policy with many problems. Personally I would have no problem with a team of CIA or Russian presidential office editors getting paid of editing Wiki as long as they can respect NPOV and such. Anyway, I find it telling that we have, in all the evidence presented, never been accused of violating NPOV/RS/V or such. Even after a week to dig through our private emails, our most vocal opponents have not been able to produce a single example where we damage the mission of this project (encyclopedic content creation). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:55, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

That may be because we have only just begun Piotrus. And yes, the mission of this project is encyclopaedic content creation in a collegial environment. And you and your group have not contributed to the creation or maintaining of a collegial environment, but have rather turned it into a massive battleground. And there is plenty of evidence of that already. As to the creation of such a template, no way. --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

We, unlike you, have kept the battleground (uncivil comments and bad faith - as uncommon as it was in the first place) outside this project and in a private forum. This is a crucial difference. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:06, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I also would not object having "a team of CIA or Russian presidential office editors getting paid of editing Wiki as long as they can respect NPOV and such." But I can tell that all CIA-related pages are very well developed, expecially with respect to criticizing the Agency. This is great. However any articles related to Russian government are completely different. Some of them are empty, some filled with garbage, others look like promotion of a personality cult. What NPOV? This is joke. Any criticism is immediately removed. I said to Muscovite99 that he should not even try to insert anything of critical nature to Putin. He did not listen. Where he is? Blocked indefinitely in the both wikipedias. He was great editor, with excellent English skills; he made 25,000+ edits in Russian WP. I was stalked from Day 1 by Vlad and others when I tried editing human rights in Russia, but I finally gave up. And here we are again, subjects of an Arbitration, waiting to receive our sanctions.Biophys (talk) 21:07, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

For the record, can you link to discussion that led to Muscovite99 banning on en Wiki? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Links for Piotrus: Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Muscovite99/Archive, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive525#User:Muscovite99_evading_block, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive92#Muscovite99_reported_by_Offliner_.28Result:_2_weeks.29, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive91#Muscovite99_reported_by_Russavia_.28Result:_1_week.29. Hope this helps. --Russavia ^Dialogue 17:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

See, usually I'd just shrug at somebody's stupidity in not learning to respect 3RR and/or using socks to evade block, and move on. But considering some recent arguments here, don't you think we should consider that Muscovite was baited and blocked by some evil cabal, and thus that he should be unblocked to participate int his case? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure, we could bring Muscovite99 into the case. If he has any credible evidence that there was a systematic campaign of harrassment and stalking, by which he was forced by the imaginary cabal to create sockpuppets and the like. Herein lies the difference between the perceived, yet non-existent USSR/Russia cabal, and the real and evidenced anti-Russia/USSR cabal. There is no evidence for one and it is isn't credible, whilst the other one is proven and is credible. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Administrators

I'm surprised there's no principle relating to the high standards expected of administrators (see past cases e.g. C68-FM-SV or A_Man_In_Black). Obviously the findings of fact when they come might amount to saying that there has been no serious breach of such standards (just the same as for any of the other principles) but given that at least one administrator has been temporarily de-sysopped for this case, I think it's apparent that the case raises that as a possible issue. 89.181.76.164 (talk) 16:15, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this 110%. There should be such a principle in the proposed decision. --Russavia ^Dialogue 16:28, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

My complete agreement. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 21:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of Wikipedia

Why is there no Purpose of Wikipedia principle proposed? I would expect it to be the first principle for a case like this. After all, if the mailing list has influenced the formation of consensus, disrupted wikipedia processes, and attacked / harrassed / baited editors (all of which are alleged in various parts of the evidence), surely the ultimate motive was to influence the content of the encyclopedia. The logic of begining the principles with consensus escapes me, in that achieving consensus is desirable as a means towards high-quality unbiased content; consensus is not an end in itself. EdChem (talk) 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Alternatively, if as we claim, the list was designed to promote neutral content creation, was used to discuss reliability of sources, gather information on articles to created/expand, this is applicable as well. And anybody reading our private, sikrit correspondence from just before we were hacked (early September) should be able to see, for example, the massive amount of discussion that led to the creation of the 6-th most popular DYK ever, Nazi-Soviet military parade in Brest-Litovsk. That was a truly evil, cabalish thing we accomplished there... :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:17, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Piotrus, unless you have evidence of hacking, I have requested that you stop making that assertion. And no, I'm sorry but "we must have because none of us would have done this" is not evidence. — Coren ^(talk) 23:15, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

On consensus and participation

It's a bit difficult to achieve consensus when one side is determined to inject ultra-nationalist POV into articles. When a topic concerns a large country and a tiny country, there will always be a natural imbalance in participation, looking at the demographic. For example, if country X has 10 times the population of country Y, thus there are probably more ultra-nationalists in country X than the entire population of country Y, and there are 10 times more country X nationals editing Wikipedia than country Y nationals, what can be done then these country X nationalists are determined to push the viewpoint that country Y is a fascist apartheid state, for example? --Martintg (talk) 21:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

When a topic concerns a large country and a tiny country, there will always be a natural imbalance in participation–But according to your "enemies list" (20090326-0538-[WPM] Interesting list.eml) you have 17 enemies and 14 friends -- in addition to the 17 list members (according to ArbCom.) So that makes 14 more editors on your side. Where exactly is the imbalance, Martintg? Offliner (talk) 21:20, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no interest in reading personal info or such (my voyeurism has its limits), but where can I see, specifically, this list? Any links?Faustian (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

No-one is allowed to link to the list offwiki as that is expressly forbidden. --Russavia ^Dialogue 22:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clairifcation. Perhaps someone can e-mail the info to me? The reason I ask is that I have dealt with these folks; some of my interactions have been very positive and I have a lot of respect for the editors using this mailing list, while interactions with others on the mailing list have been very negative. I'm curious if I've been mentioned.Faustian (talk) 22:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

If someone posts a "list of enemies" on WikiReview, does that mean all readers of that site endorse that list? Of course not. --Martintg (talk) 02:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Not my list. As I said above, I don't endorse one person's unsolicited compilation of a combination of their personal assumptions and observed past conflict. --Martintg (talk) 21:26, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there really nothing that can be done about our private correspondence being disseminated by that site? Shit has hit the fan and other Wikipedians possess copies of a certain archive - well, we can all live with that, but I can't stand the idea that our personal information is being made accessible for all kinds of folks on the planet. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 09:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not too happy with the archive being available on that site either, given that it includes a lot of my personal details, along with business details, etc. But the upside is that others can see how low some of your group really are. Oh, and the other up-side. It's all free advertising for my biz. Any publicity is good publicity. I should introduce a special offer; any Australian Wikipedian who places an order and enters the code BUSTED in the checkout, will receive a free gift from me to you. PMSL. But seriously, there is nothing you can do. The Aussie government couldn't get them to take down a list of banned websites, I doubt they care too much about a bunch of emails relating to WP. --Russavia ^Dialogue 09:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Additionally Miacek, even attempting to have them remove it, only risks creating a Streisand effect, whereby the distribution would become even more widespread, and gain greater notability. It would then run the risk of being picked up by media and reported on, which would give people reliable sources to use on WP. Remember the more that one tries to censor information in the internet age, the more widely distributed that information will become. One just has to grin and bear it. --Russavia ^Dialogue 10:06, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Unconstitutional

The following discussion is closed and will soon be archived: No.

---

The proposed measure violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. The Wikimedia Foundation is headquartered in California, which is a State of the United States.

Further, this proceeding smacks of McCarthyism and guilt by association.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It must be judged by the quality of its articles, not by the private associations of its authors. Nihil novi (talk) 02:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

As someone who watches Law and Order religiously, in fact am watching it now on Foxtel, I can tell you that the First Amendment only restricts the government from restricting freedom of speech, press or assembly, except in special cases (such as incitement to violence, etc). It does not cover private entities in any way, shape or form. As WMF is not a government institution, it is not bound by the First Amendment. --Russavia ^Dialogue 02:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I suggest you re-read the First Amendment to the United States Constitution page and note that it restricts what Congress may do - that is, it is a limitation on the power of the Legislative Branch of the US Federal Government. ArbCom is not a part of Congress. So, no ArbCom action can be unconstitutional. Now, re-read the proposed decision page and recognise that no "measure" has yet been proposed. I would say your objection / argument is on pretty shaky ground. As for the comparison to McCarthyism, it hugely diminishes the damage done to lives and reputations by those "hearings" to even suggest that a wikipedia site ban (the harshest sanction ArbCom can impose) is remotely similar. EdChem (talk) 02:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I would also concur. The WMF not letting someone join a group in editing is no more unconstitutional than a conservative newspaper turning down an article from a liberal or a fraternal lodge refusing to let certain groups rent a building for a party. MBisanz ^talk 17:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Hey, folks. This guy has just learned WP:IAR, which is the only NPOV source for him on the subject. Vlad fedorov (talk) 20:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Another proposed principle - harrassment

As it is pretty clear from my evidence, and also other people's evidence, that this web brigade has engaged in harrassment and stalking of myself and other people both on and off wiki, a proposed principle dealing with this is absolutely required. As a victim of this long-term harrassment, my last twelve months have been a living hell for the most part, with little to no support from the community at large, as this group was able to continue their harrassment by teaming and gaming in discussions where the harrassment was being discussed. So I feel that this is absolutely required as a PD. --Russavia ^Dialogue 19:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you can think of a reasonable definition for "harassment" that isn't open to gaming, we'll certainly consider it. — Coren ^(talk) 03:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Proposed principal - vote secretly in ''findings of fact''

Arbcom can in certain situations vote secretly in ''findings of fact'' decisions. Dy yol (talk) 00:18, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

And the rationale behind that would be...? If anything, this entire case, due to its being based on evidence involving real identities of many editors, and all the real and alleged OUTing problems, should be handled in a more private manner. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:28, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Because in the Arbcom closed mailing list, members can "coordinate" better :D Dy yol (talk) 00:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That may have been said in jest, but you realize that avoiding this is exactly why voting is done in public, right? — Coren ^(talk) 03:48, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry.Avoiding what?Dy yol (talk) 13:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

On-wiki disruption (proposed principle)

Users can be sanctioned only for their on-wiki activities. Opinions privately expressed off-wiki are not sanctionable per se.

Members of the list made many statements which would be inappropriate in the project space. However, they did this privately and off-wiki. Such opinions are not sanctionable per se. They can be used as a proof of "bad faith" only when they evidently resulted in disruptive activities on-wiki.

I believe that most of the events would took place regardless to email discussions. This includes heated on-wiki debates after splitting article Occupation of Baltic States, appeal of Thatcher sanctions by Radekz and edit warring that was not coordinated by email. Maybe some of the email discussions even helped to reduce tensions. I often argued against any actions by members of the group which could be interpreted as disruption (see emails).

However, in many cases certain opinions or announcements in emails indeed resulted in the increased participation by members of the groups in different forums, including article talk pages, ANI and RfC. I believe this did not make any harm in most cases, especially when people came to debate the issues rather than vote.

I believe that sanctions could be used only in the following situations: (a) user A asks to vote "yes" on an RfC/AfD and user B comes and votes "yes" without even talking; (b) user A asks to revert article X to his version, and user B indeed reverts it to this version. However, even this is problematic if user B frequently visits AfDs on EE subjects and therefore would vote anyway, or if user B had article X on his watch list and previously edited it, so he would pay attention anyway.

An important point: groups of like-minded users do not need email to coordinate their actions. They do it by following each other's edit histories, and it does not make a lot of difference how exactly they coordinate their actions. Biophys (talk) 14:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you are engaged in wishful thinking. Using a mailing list to subvert consensus and organize attacks against perceived enemies is a bannable offense. Jehochman ^Talk 15:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The moment any such attack occurs, not before. If I propose in a private email to hack into Jimbo Wales' computer and change something on wiki, certain people to whom I did not send such an email could think this is for real and not a joke. Only when something becomes real on-wiki, it is sanctionable. Dc76\^talk 17:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I also would like to see at least one example where the wikipedia consensus has been actually subverted by using this mailing list. There was no such cases to my knowledge. Of course I may be wrong, because I did not even read a lot of emails. As about "personal attacks", this is something when one user make unsubstantiated accusations about another user without supporting diffs. This is sanctionable of course, regardless to email discussions.Biophys (talk) 20:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed (in reply to Jehochman above). One of the more dispiriting aspects of this affair to date is the extent to which some of those involved seem to be arguing from an essentially legalistic standpoint. My understanding is that, whilst we should expect ArbCom to participate with a professional understanding of what due process should involve, this is not a court of law. Rather it is a procedure that attempts to discover whether or not the community's policies and ethical standards are being upheld. There is no question of some kind of a "not proven" verdict based on technicalities. I encourage those who feel unjustly accused to concentrate on clearing their names rather than on diversionary tactics. Ben MacDui 16:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I've been hoping that those accused of improprieties would come forward with evidence to show that the email archive was faked. I just looked over the evidence page and found nothing of the sort. Apparently the concerns of many editors about the activities coordinated by this mailing list are well founded. Jehochman ^Talk 16:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I heard it is 10 MB of text. I use Gmail, and frankly speaking, I am not even able to verify xxxxxx-xxxx type references, because Gmail arranges messages by conversations, so I need to be told on which date was the last email in that conversation. My understanding, however, is that Durova is doing such a comparative analysis. P.S. By the way, I was very pleasantly surprised by your integrity when you refused to look over the archive mailed to you, and forwarded it to ArbCom. Dc76\^talk 17:45, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Note to myself: If I ever decide to participate in an inappropriate for wiki closed email group I should make subtle changes in quoted text whenever I reply to someone's messages. In fact I might be tempted to organize my own leak of allegedly my email with apparent signs of tempering to blame it later on my opposition's attempt to discredit me. (Igny (talk) 17:54, 27 September 2009 (UTC))

My initial proposal (and some other statements) has nothing to do with any "legalistic complaints". This is about developing a couple of simple and fair rules which would make it very clear for any user that creation of such email lists is forbidden. If I had an idea that email discussions off-wiki may end up like that, I would never be a part of this. We need some policy changes here, and that is more important than banning me and a few others. As about note by Igny, I started suspecting that some messages might indeed be forged after a conversation yesterday with Viriditas. If Arbcom decides that any of my specific comments are incriminating, I would like to receive these specific threads by email and verify. This is all.Biophys (talk) 19:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Again with the forgery meme? As of yet, there is no indication that any messages have been forged, nor have any list members come forward to point at a specific message and say "this was forged". I will be the first person to step forward and defend any member of this mailing list who claims that a specific e-mail has been forged. Viriditas (talk) 02:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I strongly doubt that Arbcom is considering sanctioning opinions expressed on the mailing list. There are more than enough problematic actions. This will probably become clear when Arbcom begins workshopping the evidence and proposed findings of fact. Thatcher 00:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Cla68's opinion (for what it's worth)

There is probably no greater threat to Wikipedia's credibility and viability than groups of editors secretly banding together to skew article content a certain way or to bully or suppress other editors. Past revelations as well as the suspected use of "members only" lists to coordinate on-wiki actions with the intent of gaming Wikipedia's policies and system have caused deserved outrage among Wikipedia participants, and have driven away many editors who otherwise would have been valuable contributors to this project.

Unfortunately, based on evidence presented, such as Viriditas' and Thatcher's, it appears that the Eastern Europe email archive is authentic. Just as unfortunate is the reactions by the members of the list when caught. They have persistently denied wrongdoing in spite of clear evidence to the contrary. If the members of this mailing group, once the emails came out, had immediately admitted fault, apologized, and promised never to repeat the behavior, then I think lesser sanctions such as topic bans, a desysop, and/or six month-to-one year bans for the members of that list could have been on the table. Because of the unrepentent prestidigitation and refusal to take responsibility for their actions, however, I believe that a lifetime ban from en.Wikipedia for the members of that group is, unfortunately, the appropriate response in this case. Cla68 (talk) 04:43, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's not forget that the original claim was that over half of the 3000+ emails were said to be about "getting Russavia". Given that most of the members joined the list after I had accidentally forwarded WMC's email to the list, how exactly are all list members culpable for my discussion that you link snippets of above? --Martintg (talk) 06:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

But how does the over-half-the-emails claim help you? If I accuse you of doing [a bad thing] 1,500 times and you say "ha, no, I only did it 273 times at the most!" then ah... you did [a bad thing] a bunch of time and can expect people to react accordingly. I'm obviously missing something here but I can't imagine what. (Beyond that, I'm not sure at all that all list members are being held culpable for you sharing an email). 89.180.30.42 (talk) 09:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Martin, the issue about private communication (emails and chats) forwarded to the list is not particularly important, except to the extent it suggests that members who have expressed outrage (and even suggested that people should be blocked or even criminally prosecuted for merely reading the archive) at the leak or theft of the archive are less concerned when they are they ones doing the sharing. Any repercussions over your forwarding of WMC's email should probably be a private matter between you and him. And, of course, any mischaracterizations or exaggerations of the nature of the list by the first person to read it are largely irrelevant now that many people have had a chance to read it for themselves. The important issue is that these communications are the tangible record of an attempt to undermine Wikipedia on multiple levels. Thatcher 11:02, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

There is no moral equivalence between accidently forwarding one email and purposely forwarding thousands of emails. And the exaggerations of the nature of the list by the first person to read it is relevant in context of this argument "First they claim it was an outright forgery, now they claim aspects of it was salted, etc" I've only kept those emails of interest to me, so I'm in no position to verify whether particular emails not in my possession were salted or not. To be honest a lot of the emails went straight into the trash unread. Sure the list existed, but did it make any material difference in slanting content or undermining process within Wikipedia, despite what some list members might of allegedly wished? I don't think so. In regard to AfD's I can't think of any I wouldn't have voted in anyway or differently without the existence of the list. The same with articles edited, I would have edited the same ones in the same way with or without a list. Or protecting members from sanction, Giano seems to have a traveling crew that attempts to protect him as the latest Wikidramu on ANI demonstrated. It didn't stop me getting my first 3RR block 24 hours after I had undone my 4th revert, nor did it result PasswordUsername getting sanctioned even with 4 reverts, so this list is pretty ineffective tool to undermine Wikipedia, it is not as if admins involved in AE are ignorant of who's who in EE space. But it did result in better articles, like the recent record breaking DYK with 30,000+ views.

I know you are still sore over that AE case, but it was a mess from the get go, with Sandstein closing the initial two cases, Jehochman closed the third, then he reopened them all, Shell started an investigation, then you stepped in imposing sanctions all around, upsetting Shell in the process and the whole thing turned into a mess and you then ended up vacating the result. As you recall I fully supported a 1RR restrictions all around, there needs to be balance in an area as strongly polarised as EE, and eliminating one group will do more to undermined the quality of articles in Wikipedia than anything else, unless ofcourse you think having no one around to oppose the insertion of rubbish like this or this will be beneficial to the encyclopedia. --Martintg (talk) 13:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh you mean the article with 30,000 views which totally ignores things on the talk page which were raised by myself? You mean the article which on the talk page Tymek suggests only using Western sources for information? You mean the article where on the talk page editors rush in to try to discredit a certain historian, although it is not that historian who presented the information. You mean the article that totally omits any mention of claims of a credible Russian historian who is connected with the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences? In particular his claim that proponents of the "joint parade" often hold it up as evidence of a Nazi-Soviet alliance (which was the DYK hook, which wasn't attributed to its author), where as in fact he argues that the parade is a myth, in that the "parade" was in fact the ceremonial withdrawal of Nazi troops from Brest, which was overseen by Soviet commanders. Oh that article? So great, 30,000 people have now read the web brigade's interpretation of history, rather than the interpretation of reliable sources -- well done.

As to the rest of what you write, your web brigade has undermined WP in order to get rid of opponents who are here to contribute, in order for articles to follow your own POV. That is a major issue here Martin. As is your stalking, harrassment, etc (oh and no, I will not be withdrawing those allegations). You refuse to even acknowledge this. That will be your downfall. --Russavia ^Dialogue 13:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Your points where addressed on Talk:German-Soviet_military_parade_in_Brest-Litovsk. Considering half of the article on Alexander Reshideovich Dyukov is about controversial statements he made, I wouldn't call him very "credible". Trying to include views of such "historians" as the only views acceptable is the reason your edits are reverted. Anyway, you could have invited other editors to this discussion, via RfC or RSN or such. You didn't, the consensus (or editors working on the article) was against you. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Your group was apparently concerned with Russian or KGB "Web brigades" altering content and affecting public opinion. Sadly, in fighting the brigades, you became that which you feared. Thatcher 15:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

That's probably the fifth or sixth reference I've seen to this famous "record breaking DYK." That's terrific that y'alls wrote a popular article together, but believe it or not it does not give your group license to game consensus, AE, 3RR, etc. and plot to take down other editors with whom you disagree about content. I'm sure you think mentioning good content contributions could act as a counterbalance to all the negative evidence being presented, but when you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that you did anything wrong, comments that emphasize what marvelous editors you are come off as rather churlish and actually harm your cause. Maybe it's time instead to start thinking about, you know, taking some responsibility for your actions? Obviously all of the chaff you are tossing out (30,000 view DYK! 1,500 Russavia e-mails - that's not accurate!) is not wowing anyone into believing that the list was fully benign in both intent and practice. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:42, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

We are not saying we are perfect; we made mistakes. I have already admitted that in several places and apologized, and so did some of my colleagues. But we are being portrayed as an evil cabal with no redeeming qualities bent on destroying this project, and with such framing I (and my colleagues) cannot agree. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

"...an evil cabal with no redeeming qualities bent on destroying this project." You'll have to show me a diff where someone said anything even remotely like that (someone other than one of your content opponents, though I doubt even they said that). Constructing straw men to knock down is no better as a strategy right now than bigging-up one DYK.

Piotrus your style of response to evidence presented against you is perhaps best exemplified in your comment in this talk page thread. Thatcher gets a bit strident with rhetoric so you say "I guess NPA/CIV/AGF don't apply here," then take a jab at Thatcher for reading the archive, and then reference your FAs and DYKs. But you say nothing about the extremely serious accusations Thatcher makes (and I'm quite certain that editor is not lying about the messages they saw in the archive). What about the suggestion that you "proposed to create socks for reverting" on the list? Is that a lie by Thatcher, or is it your contention that the message to which he refers is a fake? If it was me and I had not said something like that (which I wouldn't, given that I have at least a modicum of respect for Wikipedia policy) I'd be defending myself pretty vigorously now, but you say nothing. Or just after your comment in the above mentioned talk thread Viriditas makes reference to another archive e-mail message, which Russavia describes as "Piotrus suggesting to the group that they contact the ASIO [never heard of that, by given the context and a wiki-search I assume he means this] to give them a tip that I am a Russian security services mole..." Did you seriously suggest that?!?! I don't care whether there was follow through or not, the mere suggestion of that kind of thing, coming from an administrator no less, is unfuckingbelievable.

If this evidence is being misrepresented then you better start correcting it, but I doubt there's any misrepresentation going on. Your admin days are clearly over, and the question now is how many of you get blocked or banned and for how long. List members who participated in problematic activities (and I'm guessing not all did—I hope those who didn't don't get punished for the malfeasance of others) might do yourselves a favor—and the community/ArbCom as well by saving us all some time—and own up to those accusations which you know to be true. This case is already enormous, so why not help the Arbs and the community cut to the chase rather than wasting more community resources than you already have? Unless some dramatic and highly unlikely revelation is forthcoming very shortly, it's rather clear to me, despite your obvious good contributions, that you and a number of other editors royally, royally screwed up on this mailing list and on en.wikipedia. Now you have a clear choice between acting like grownups and taking responsibility for your errors, which might help you in the end, or blithely denying culpability and fighting it out on Arb talk pages until the cases closes, which will likely only dig your hole even deeper. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 18:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Interesting Piotrus. You say that you have accepted responsibility and have apologised? I must be blind, can you tell me where these apologies and acceptances of responsibility are? So what the point of harrassing and stalking me for 12 months Piotrus? Oh wait, that was one of your web brigades redeeming qualities? Getting rid of an editor who just wished to edit in peace. Now I get it. --Russavia ^Dialogue 18:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

This apparently contains one such acknowledgment. Apparently this claim is no longer operative. Thatcher 18:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

<--At this point probably the best tactic of the list members is to wait for Arbcom to post the evidence and proposed findings of fact that they think are important, and then respond, either with a defense, an explanation, or an apology, as the case may be. As unreasonable as it seems to me for the members of the list to issue blanket declarations of innocence, non-specific denunciations of the evidence, and heroic recounting of their past content triumphs, it is equally unreasonable to demand that they be publicly shamed and driven to fall on their swords. We should all wait and see for Arbcom to give some indication of where they are going. Thatcher 18:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As was aptly remarked by the character of Richard the Lionheart in this film, "When the fall is all there is, it matters" [i.e. how one falls]. Obviously the course of action you describe is fully within the rights of members of the list, but I'm not sure it's the best one. Based on some of the evidence already provided, some list members could agree right now to findings of fact that find them culpable for certain disruptive behaviors. That would save a lot of time and needless discussion and would be a mature action on the part of those editors who made mistakes. ArbCom would not need to spend as much time establishing disruption by editors who already seem to have committed it, and could instead focus on remedies and determining which editors had little or no part in these activities in order to save their reputations from being scarred further by this whole affair. This is obviously just a suggestion on my part, but I think it's a good one. I won't say more about it here and do agree that in the absence of admissions from list members there's nothing more to do other than wait for ArbCom to post evidence. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 19:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably because a short while ago "we" did not exist and were a figment of "others" imaginations and evil intentions and machinations. Just decide who "we" are, and then accept "we" broke the rules big time - very big time. Giano (talk) 17:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Bigtime and Giano. I would suggest that each of the listmembers replace their current sections on the evidence page with a short statement along the lines of, "I did write and send those emails in the archive that have my name on them. I was wrong to violate Wikipedia policy in collusion with others. I'm sorry for doing so and promise never to do it again." Then be quiet and wait for the Committee to decide what to do about it. That's it. Cla68 (talk) 23:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

very arbitrary break

Cla68: would your opinion be any different, if on-wiki activities of the group were coordinated through on-wiki channels? I hear a lot of statements like yours that skewing content if favor of any group is a no-no, but isn't it what "consensus" is about? Isn't it about teaming together, claiming "consensus" and driving out opposition? Suppose, for example, that Piotrus posted his calls to arms (in most neutral academic language) not on the mailing list but on WP:POLAND, for the same effect ... would you then object or not? Why? NVO (talk) 06:27, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Notifying other editors about RfCs and such in public spaces in Wikipedia, such as on Wikiproject talk pages, article talk pages, the VillagePump, the Signpost article suggestion page, etc is fine, because theoretically anyone could see the notices and elect to participate. The evidence in this case, however, indicates that this group used a private, secret mailing list to notify each other about these discussions in order to purposely skew the discussions to the advantage of their own POV. Also, evidence shows that the listmembers used the emails to expressly engage in conduct which would not have been allowed on-wiki under any circumstance, such as coordinating reverts, strategizing about how to get away with POV-pushing and baiting or bullying other editors, and using 1RR restrictions to "their" advantage. So, first of all, it would have been impossible for this group to have used strictly on-wiki channels to do this stuff, because much of it was already against policy. Cla68 (talk) 00:40, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

NPOV should be the bottom line. It's pretty easy for a guy to go down to the local ethnic club and teach the others to edit wiki, and soon we have 5-6 SPAs from an immigrant racial group in the same city. These kinds of busts will only catch a few unlcuky people or those who don't have the spontaneous understanding of the situation to engage in "my enemy's enemy is my friend" or other standard tactical motifs, and while sensational and not looking good, are not going to make much difference to the reliability of the articles unless people think that this group are the "POV baddies" who are hindering NPOV-abiding editors (and that the email list reasoning is a conduit). Else, while it might look like some serious action, but it won't really have any meaningful consequences that couldn't be worked out by looking up the edits themselves (apart from a bad attitude straight from teh horse's mouth kind of thing), notwithstanding the general Wikipedia penchant for gimmicks and dramatic gestures. Also, it might encourage people to try to infiltrate each other's groups, which might benefit the mole's objectives, as the publicity/gimmick mindset on Wikipedia will get more eyes, but it might also lead to more riots and unecessary scandalisation. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Conspiracy

n.) Editors who engage in a conspiracy to subvert Wikipedia editorial or behavioral standards may be held responsible for the actions taken by their co-conspirators.

n+1.) Editors who engage in a conspiracy to subvert Wikipedia editorial or behavioral standards, through affirmative steps such as providing encouragement, information, or advice, may be held responsible for the on wiki actions taken by their co-conspirators.

Comments by arbitrators

Comments by parties

Comments by others

I believe this follows naturally from the prohibition against meat puppetry. When there is a conspiracy, the members are acting as meat puppets for each other. Jehochman ^Talk 13:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Hm, dubious, IMO. I'd like to see some discrimination between list participants who did not take on-wiki action and those who did. I have not analyzed all the messages nor all the participants, but it is possible that some people did not use it for prohibited purposes, even though they may have witnessed such from others. Thatcher 14:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I understand what both Jehochman and Thatcher say. In the real world such a notion on conspiracy participants is relevant...one need only look at different laws in different countries where people who were aware of a crime and did nothing to stop it or report it, can be held responsible (although often to a lesser degree) than those who carried out the particular crime. But this isn't the real world, and we would need to adapt it to suit WP needs and standards. But is that possible to do without it being open to gaming? I don't know. --Russavia ^Dialogue 15:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

For more musical chairs see Guilt by association right over your head. --Poeticbent talk 15:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I would disagree with this pretty strongly. First of all it is far too vague in its wording, particularly since the phrase "engage in a conspiracy to subvert Wikipedia editorial or behavioral standards" is very much open to interpretation. I'm personally opposed to anyone even creating and/or joining a closed Wikipedia mailing list (except those like Arbs or functionaries who have community backing to do so), but does simply being a member of a list that coordinates negative activities make one culpable? I would say not, and one or two list members have already said they read little or even none of the e-mails to the list, which makes it hard to hold them responsible for any wrongdoing. I agree with Thatcher here that it's important—and this is why, I imagine, it will be quite awhile before this case closes—for the ArbCom to discriminate between list members who actively promoted and/or participated in disruptive on-wiki activity and those who did not. If anything I think any individuals in the latter group should be formally absolved by the committee, preferably with a caution to not participate in these kind of lists in the future. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 16:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I think those who participate in these types of email groups but don't actually conduct mendacious actions in Wikipedia do share some culpability, but not as much as those that do. Cla68 (talk) 00:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

It is really a matter of whether you think it is significantly worse to steadfastly pursue some wrong-headed course that you truly believe in across some line or to be clueful enough to seriously doubt that the course your friends pursue should cross some line but too cowardly to stand up to them for what you believe to be right. I don't think there is a significant difference. They are different kinds of a faults to be sure but not necessarily different in an absolute sense. The main reason I lean towards being more forgiving of the latter is that it is easier to instill courage into people than clue. But I wouldn't say "less culpability" and there are long odds against either case really owning up to their own shortcomings. Which is the first step towards real reform.--BirgitteSB 04:55, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Often the one who does the planning and encouragement will not take on wiki actions. I agree that those who passively subscribe and don't participate in the list much are less culpable. However, I disagree that the "mastermind" gets a free pass because they didn't hit the button at Wikipedia. One of the critical elements of conspiracy is a requirement that the conspirator actually do something in furtherance of the misdeed. In this case, providing encouragement or instructions would qualify, I think. There is no requirement to make an edit at Wikipedia. Jehochman ^Talk 10:06, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I think words conspiracy and subversion are very weak. How about enemy of the people? Biophys (talk) 03:43, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

This raises lots of questions, like what qualifies as "conspiracy", or "encouragement" etc. I also don't really understand how being member of "conspiracy" is related to meatpuppetry unless editor clearly organizes and coordinates meatpuppetry commited by other editors.--Staberinde (talk) 14:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Staberinde, please see the evidence page. The organization and coordination is very clear. Viriditas (talk) 00:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Change to active clerks

To all concerned parties: Clerk Daniel is on real-life vacation and hence has withdrawn from clerking this case. Clerk KnightLago is his replacement, assisted by trainee clerk Manning. Manning (talk) 02:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Disruption by list members continues

• List member Hillock65 has been edit warring at Battle of Konotop: [6][7][8]
• Jacurek has continued to edit war and wikihound his opponents: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Evidence#Edit-warring_and_on-wiki_hounding_of_opponents_continues
• Due to "attempts at dispute intensification at the recent WP:AN thread on Russavia" Radeksz has been topic banned from Russavia by Jehochman. [9]
• Miacek has been edit warring at Alexei Losev: [10][11]
• Should the temporary topic ban be reconsidered in light of the recent events? Offliner (talk) 08:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid Battle of Konotop is incurable. Plenty of volunteers beyond the ring of usual suspects. NVO (talk) 08:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

At this point the article should be properly protected (which was just done), and parties need to discuss things on talk (with a possible mediation?) till they agree not to revert war again. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

As for my supposed edit warring at Aleksei Losev, you better read through my arguments at the respective talk page. I had a similar encounter at Igor Shafarevich, and I do feel I am right here. That case obviously has no 'mailing list' involvement, it is more of a question if we are here at all to build up an encyclopedia or in order to post tabloid press rubbish. So if you Offliner want to accuse me of disruptive editing, please do so on the basis of your stolen mailing list evidence, not totally unrelated conflicts I've been party to here on wikipedia. Thank you. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 13:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• User:PasswordUsername/User:Anti-Nationalist couldn't resist inserting his "pro-Nazi Estonians" meme again, this time into the lead of Monument of Lihula [12] [13]. After his edits were reverted he proceeded to brow-beat the neutral third party who reverted him. --Martintg (talk) 10:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I thank Offliner and PasswordUsername for getting to the essence of the argument here, that:

• any edit by anyone building reputable content;
• any agreement by those individuals on such content (regardless that it comes from reputable sources) is disruptive collusion;
• any uninvolved party agreeing with said representation of content is also an editorial enemy to be attacked with the same vigor;
• and, in particular, any editor who has agreed with any other editor in the past against Offliner et al. is a target for automatic conviction of disruption, vandalism, and other bad faith editorial activity.

I additional thank Offliner for his use of the "Soviet Procurator" model in the section title: "Disruption by list members continues", that is, present all communication in terms which indicate a crime is already confirmed to have been committed and the defendant already convicted. PL calls. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  15:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's all about framing - with a healthy dose of domestic abuse :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Key principle that I feel is lacking

While there is a principle on Gaming the System, it is geared towards editing issues. I feel the principle of Stonewalling (covered under WP:GAME) geared more towards its use in Dispute Resolution really needs to be covered in this case. The success of this tactic in preventing the resolution of disputes on Wikipedia has always bothered me. I think it would be useful if Arbcom specifically condemned it.--BirgitteSB 20:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

What specific dispute are you claiming was prevented from being resolved through this "tactic of stonewalling"? --Martintg (talk) 00:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The allegations of Russavia socking is one example. Or at least the AN/I thread on that subject. I suppose it could have been resolved somewhere else that I haven't followed. Did that ever get resolved that you know of or were the allegations just left hanging?--BirgitteSB 02:43, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It was raised, discussed and discarded by the community, and to my knowledge never brought back. There was no harassment or stonewalling (?) involved. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 03:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

From what Russavia's evidence it was first raised in Nov 2008 and was still being brought back up at the end of April 2009. I never suggested this was harassment BTW. Harassment is a description I would only use very carefully. But the AN/I report falls under stonewalling in my book.--BirgitteSB 22:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

This episode of Russavia's alleged account sharing is typical of the way some people disingenously present evidence. In the very first line he claims "I have good, and sound, reason to believe that I have been subjected to long-term systematic campaigns of harrassment which involved at first User:Biophys, User:Digwuren and User:Martintg, and later more actively joined by User:Piotrus," First he mentions some unrelated alleged BLP violations in some articles back in November 2008 (how is that relevant?) in which I wasn't involved in at that time, Russavia then finally mentions the initial account sharing accusation of November 2008 (which occurred before the list was created) which I certainly wasn't aware of. Then he brings up the ANI thread Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive191#Ethics_of_sharing_an_account, where my only contribution to that thread was to ask a general question "Out of curiosity, would checkuser be able to detect multiple users using the one computer via a remote client?". Hardly a "campaign of harassment". In my experience one needs to unpick a lot of what Russavia says, he tends to jumble up events and mix in unrelated issues (the more heinous the better, alleged BLP violations fits the bill nicely) and present it in a wall of words. --Martintg (talk) 02:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't realize you were asking for an example of you using this tactic. If I had I would have responded that I have no idea if you have used this tactic as I haven't focused on your contributions. I don't see why you feel the need to disparage Russavia so extensively here. I have not been quoting Russavia's conclusions anywhere, only the dates I personally gathered from diffs that I personally read which were linked in his evidence. The sorts of comments you make are unnecessary even if they were accurate.--BirgitteSB 17:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

BirgitteSB: why did you single out just one dispute strategy? In retrospect, "stonewall them" isn't as bad as "stone them" or "tar and feather" or "pocket checkuser", is it? NVO (talk) 08:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

First of all the existing principles already cover other things. I am not sure what you mean by "stone them" or "tar and feather". I don't really have an opinion on whether some tactic is worse or better than another. Certainly this Stonewalling is more successful than the "pocket checkuser" tactic. As reprehensible I as think gaming RFA and Checkuser elections with an undisclosed accounts is; it is hard to do and even harder to maintain for very long. I don't think focusing on the "pocket checkuser" tactic is going to make a big difference here. That said, it does reflect badly on Piotrus to have suggested such a thing in the first place. That the others responded by finding excuses as to why they personally were not interested in trying the tactic reflects a little better on them. The incident is a valid argument against Piotrus having adminship restored, but I am not sure where else you would go with it beyond that especially as a general principle.--BirgitteSB 17:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, in this arena of Baltic and Eastern European history and current events, "stone-walling" is a code-word used to attack any opposition by more than one editor to one's POV (e.g., Dojarca's complaint) regardless that said opposition is based on fair and accurate representation of reputable sources in the face of one's own WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Beware of making condemnations in the belief you are addressing an issue. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  17:46, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Birgitte: back to the issue. The perpetrators, no matter how despisable, represent a viewpoint that is dominant in the English-speaking world. Why would enforcers of a dominant viewpoint, having a clear majority, succumb to opposition in "dispute resolution", rather than stonewall it? They already have majority (which in clumsy wikispeak equals "consensus"), why step back? NVO (talk) 18:28, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Why would the perpetrators of stonewalling always have a clear majority? I suppose you are saying Piotrus et al have a majority here. Well I am not against stonewalling because it is being used by Piotrus et al. I am against stonewalling because it leads to systematic failure of dispute resolution and collaboration. I suppose others should be against for those reasons as well. Because you should all want a working dispute resolution process for those times when you don't have the majority. Because you should all want collaboration to succeed so that Wikipedia succeeds. I don't know what to say to anyone that might want Wikipedia to fail. Luckily I don't think anyone here subscribes to that goal. I think that everyone here wants Wikipedia to succeed, but I am afraid most people here can't see the larger ramifications of the tactics that bring them some short-term successes against their opponents. BTW I don't despise anyone and am not intending to use a "codeword"--BirgitteSB 21:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I guess one person's "stonewalling" is another person's "consensus". If one had a particular viewpoint and they can't bring others around to that view, then I suppose they may accuse others of "stonewalling", but to me that is just making a bad faith assumption. It is easy to construct idealistic arguments based on vague generalities, but let's focus on specific cases. Look at the two AfDs for Communist genocide, one held before this case, the other held after this case was opened. In the first AfD many list members participated, in the second AfD there wasn't the same level of participation. Yet in both cases resulted in "no consensus". This is empirical evidence that list participants had no material impact on the formation or non-formation of concensus. It is evidence that Wikipedia processes are working, AfD's are being closed based upon the merits of the arguments, not the number of voters present. --Martintg (talk) 23:25, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really going to address the discussion you're having here but I just wanted to dispute your example -- your claim that the second AfD shows that the listmembers did not disrupt the vote the first time around is incorrect; if you count votes in the second AfD it is 21-21... there is less participation from listmembers to be sure but there are at least 3 listmembers who went ahead and voted and argued on the list despite the really obvious poor form involved. So it is in fact quite possible that disruption from listmembers may have been decisive in preventing a "delete" vote a second time as well. I cite this only to dispute your characterization here. csloat (talk) 04:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

What disruption? Politely disagreeing with you and presenting arguments to counter yours? Very disruptive attitude indeed. The disruption I see is that many "listmembers" are now intimidated and afraid to take part in any related disputes. I am somewhat interested in the issue of "communist genocide", and would have liked to comment in the discussion and AfD - but because of the recent dramu I decided to stay away from it. I wonder how one can argue that the discussion is now better and more objective when an entire group of editors is scared away from it. If it was disrupted before by undue interest from a group (which has not been proven other than by arguing that "you discussed the article off wiki, you have no right to discuss it on wiki..."), it is as disrupted now due to forced lack of interest from that group. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Please stop, Piotrus. You have already strained the limits of my credulity as I have mentioned earlier; it does not help that you continue to misrepresent things. Obviously "politely disagreeing" is not disruption. However, organizing group action on an outside list in order to defeat an AfD is. And then during an arbcom case in which that very activity is under scrutiny, returning to the same basic AfD to do it again is really in poor form. That you wisely chose to stay out of the second AfD does not mean your compatriots did, so claiming an entire group of editors is scared away from it is ludicrous. In any case, if you continue pretending that you believe there is nothing untoward about any of what took place on the mailing list, I fear you will have a more difficult time finding editors who will take you seriously. csloat (talk) 06:56, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The only thing straining the limits of credulity is the claim that 3 list members disrupted the 2nd AfD. Subtract the 3 and 18-21 is still no clear consensus. Besides, since when are AfDs a vote? Pinning your AfD failure on the mail list participant bogeyman may be convenient, but maybe your arguments for deletion just weren't convincing enough for the closing admin. Have you considered that possibility? --Martintg (talk) 11:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Yes, of course. That's not the issue and I wish you guys would quit pretending that it was. The issue is the disruption, not how successful it was. We don't know what would have happened without the disruption; all we know is that there was disruption and that at least a majority had voted the other way absent the disruption. If you don't see the distinction here, or if you don't think there is anything disruptive about organizing group action via a secret email list, that may be the problem that has you here in the first place. csloat (talk) 14:01, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, csloat, your analysis is based on the a priori assumption of offense instead of the actual of defense. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  14:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears members of the cabal are simply incorrigible when it comes to blatantly misinterpreting what anyone else writes in order to "win" their "battles." I'm not accusing anyone of offense here; if you read the discussion in context it is quite clear - in fact I even added a qualifier originally to this effect - that I was simply responding to a misrepresentation of evidence by one of your colleagues. And again, the underlying problem seems to be that you guys simply don't think there is anything disruptive about organizing group action via a secret email list and pretending that it is the spontaneous action of individuals. I do hope arbcom takes into account the fact that you have not stopped treating wikipedia as a battleground, even here on the arbcom case itself. csloat (talk) 15:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to bring up the substance of any edit. Anything else is a partisan contention on your part. Of course the list was a spontaneous reaction to WP circumstances. I do hope Arbcom considers who were/are the actual initiators of attack pages and purveyors of opinions as substantiated facts in creating so-called "encyclopedic" content. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  16:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It just appears to me that you are digging yourselves deeper every time you respond like this. You expect people to believe the list was a "spontaneous reaction" to things when it is obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence - and I admit I have only barely scratched the surface - that the list was a forum for orchestrating actions on Wikipedia, anything but a "spontaneous reaction." csloat (talk) 16:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

A 6-month ban from discussions which involves deleting or moving content (AfD, Cfd, TfD, etc) is but one of the sanctions that I sincerely hope the Committee will consider placing on list members. Given the amount of gaming that has occurred in creating falses consensuses, it is more than warranted I believe. --Russavia ^Dialogue 07:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I mean by stonewalling. Let's look at how an a dispute is supposed to be resolved. There are two opinions about a matter. Whether something is a reliable source. So the parties in dispute go to the RS noticeboard for an outside opinions. At the noticeboard people point out what sorts of claims the source will be considered reliable for if any. Now stonewalling is when a party refuses to accept the outsiders view and responds with: How can you say that paper is reliable when they are so obviously POV, look at this other outrageous pieces they published, how can trust what they say here if they print that? Outsiders say: well they have a significant level of editorial integrity, they ran a correction about that piece you found outrageous and also that other piece was an editorial while this article is regular reporting. The party says: I just don't understand how you guys could suggest such a POV rag is reliable and could be used in Wikipedia, of course they issued a correction on the outrageous piece, they were forced too, everything they print is inaccurate. Outsiders say: look it fits the criteria for a reliable and it is suitable for Wikipedia. The party says: It is not suitable for Wikipedia it is completely biased and inaccurate! See how the party ignores the validity of points raised by outsiders about how the source fits specific criteria for judging sources and continues insisting that the source is unreliable because he dislikes the content of the source. That is stonewalling the dispute can never be resolved. Of course the party may be overridden and the source used in the article over his objections, but this isn't the same thing as resolved.

To resolve a dispute both parties have to recognize the reason for the dispute is that one of them is mistaken (and it might be me!) on the issue and when there is outside consensus the mistaken party needs to concede the error. That doesn't need to be a fancy apology. It is enough to say "I still cannot personally trust this source nor think I was wrong to question it but I understand that it fits Wikipedia's policy for reliability." This is different from both parties believing the reason for the dispute is that the other party is evil POV-pusher who will say anything to push his POV and that if outside consensus falls against him it is merely because the outsiders were hoodwinked by the evil POV-pusher and don't understand what is really going on.--BirgitteSB 01:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, I've often had to deal with "stonewalling" editors. I don't think I was ever the one stonewalling (and editing the article against majority consensus). I don't see anything to contradict me in the evidence, neither. Why are we even discussing this? The discussions here are getting way too theoretical to be useful, I think. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It does not automatically follow that a source's POV (real or imaginged) is enough to measure its reliability. Two of the most reliable and respected newspapers in the United states are the Village Voice and The Wall Street Journal; their editorial boards are well known to have strong POVs toward opposite sides of the political spectrum. Durova³²² 02:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I never said otherwise. I was merely more focused on the behavior I was trying to demonstrate than the strength of the arguments used in the example.--BirgitteSB 02:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

(od) Birgitte, I have to thank you for the first observation which allows us to cut to the core of the issue: "To resolve a dispute both parties have to recognize the reason for the dispute is that one of them is mistaken ... on the issue and when there is outside consensus the mistaken party needs to concede the error."

When reputable accounts of history based on verifiable facts and representation of same meets versions of history which are less than reputable and protected by a presidential commission denouncing revisionism as lies when said revisionism is factual, there will be no admitting by anyone of being mistaken. And uninformed neutral parties, well meaning, will be cut down in the cross-fire, especially if they get duped by the side which does not bring reputable accounts of history to the table.

   When Christopher Columbus sailed to America, he kept two distance logs, his true log and another log for consumption by the crew so as to not discourage them and protect from possible mutiny. As it turned out, his fake log was actually more accurate than his true log. And so it is here, regarding hood-winking—note, however, only one side has reputable facts. Allow me to acquaint you with this simple example:

• the Russian Duma passed a resolution to remind Latvia it joined the Soviet Union legally according to international law
• for this reason, all the blunderbussing about "you can't occupy what belongs to you" and all similar crap aside, Latvia (and the other Baltic states) could not have been "occupied"

I've been asking for the reputable facts backing this contention for years. And what do we have (instead)? Medvedev's commission criminalizing stating the Soviet Union occupied Latvia.
   This has already been resolved by noting the Soviet viewpoint (and when it matches Official Russia). The issue is the recent push to institute that viewpoint as reputable and objective, for example, per Russavia's threats of filling the The Soviet Story article with "historian" Dyukov's rants. (I see also that Russavia has recently protested in their evidence that evil editors have attempted to defile Dyukov's reputation.) I hope to get to Russavia's "evidence" presently. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  02:50, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Brigette, without any desire to get involved in this, I think you were not exactly correct in saying that "To resolve a dispute both parties have to recognize the reason for the dispute is that one of them is mistaken (and it might be me!) on the issue and when there is outside consensus the mistaken party needs to concede the error." In a great many disputes in the RW, and in a great many that come to arb com, both sides may be mistaken, sometimes even to an equal degree. Sometimes both of them need to concede their errors. I don't think you really disagree with this? DGG ( talk ) 05:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

DGG I agree with you 100%--BirgitteSB 00:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

In the abstract and as a principle, I wholeheartedly agree. Attempts to portray the Soviet legacy as other than it was (Official Russian nee Soviet fiction versus verified facts that all non-Soviet, non-Official Russian supporting sources agree on) and the attempt to vilify those with the verified facts (e.g., anti-Estonian attack pages created as articles and in user space) are a different case. In this case, the abstract and concrete are not related whatsoever, although mistaken for being such by outside observers. This is not about some "content dispute" of "conflicting POVs" regarding the same set of verified facts leading to a "dispute." Repeat 100 times:

1. Not a content dispute.
2. Not a content dispute.
3. Not a content dispute.
4. Not a content dispute.
5. Not a content dispute.
6. . . .

I myself have added the Soviet versions of history, in the appropriate context, to articles to insure all "points of view" are represented. A "point of view," however, does not imply a basis in fact. Hope this helps. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  12:53, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding more POV doesn't make an article NPOV.198.161.174.222 (talk) 15:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

You rather miss my point. For example, that the Baltic states were "occupied" is not a POV, it is a fact which only Official Russia disputes based on no credible evidence as when the Russian Duma declares Latvia joined the USSR legally according to international law. Your response assumes that everything is a POV and nothing tracks back to verifiable fact. That is not the case here, and has never been. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  16:18, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

At least in NYT archive for 1940, events in Baltic states are often described not as "occupation" but as "sovietization" or "absorption".DonaldDuck (talk) 17:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

We are discussing legal according to international law (per Duma et al.) or not. Your example is more of the position best characterized as (per Petri Krohn in particular): if an encyclopedia says Latvia "became part of the Soviet Union" then it couldn't have been "occupied." Answer me, how legally? What is the basis for Official Russia obviously being so sure it was legal that we are looking at Russia criminalizing the statement that Latvia was "occupied" by the Soviet Union? (Haven't been keeping close track whether it's become law or not yet.) VЄСRUМВА  ♪  12:49, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

No point missed Vecrumba, you stated "I myself have added the Soviet versions of history, in the appropriate context, to articles to insure all "points of view" are represented.". and I am responding by saying that having multiple points of view represented in an article does not make it NPOV. If my response assumes everything involved is a POV, its because you clearly labeled it as such.198.161.174.222 (talk) 16:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Simple request

This is something I've brought up before - nobody here is "anti-Russian" - and Cool Hand Luke acted appropriately before in acknowledging that fact and apologized when I pointed out earlier that this kind of characterization is insulting.

Yet, the same pattern appears to be included in the wording on the Proposed Decisions page. In particular it occurs in #6) "against a perceived "Russian cabal"" (does the phrase "Russian cabal" even appear in the supposed archive?). Same thing with #7 "participants sincerely believed that there is an organized group or groups attempting to push a "pro-Russian" point of view on Wikipedia".

No, participants didn't believe anything like that. There is a multitude of Russian editors on English Wiki, many of whom have "pro-Russian" views, yet they still manage to discuss issues and articles in a civil manner and they do not hold extremist views like those typical of our content opponents. You are basically insulting the hell out of the many hard working Russian editors on En:Wiki that have nothing to do with PU/Offliner/Russavia/Company and so on (some of whom aren't even Russians, just big fans of Uncle Joe Stalin). And members of the list have been perfectly capable of working with the non-extremist Russian editors, agreeing with them, deferring to their subject expertise and treating them with the respect. This is a pretty fundamental misunderstanding in these Proposed Decisions, which I've already pointed out once, and you really need to fix it.

Like I said, nobody here is "anti-Russian" so please don't insult people like that. Somehow I get the sense that the ArbCom has been busy with so many ethnic issues in the past that it just can't get past the fact that this one is NOT an ethnic issue at all, however much some people try to play it that way.radek (talk) 08:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I take issue to your characterisation of myself, Offliner, PasswordUsername and others as holding extremist views. Also, the words "Russian cabal", "Russian cartel", and insinuations of this, appear in the archive on multiple occasions. --Russavia ^Dialogue 11:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Does anybody else take issue that Radeksz has accused me of being a fan of Uncle Joe Stalin? Would it be OK if I resorted to calling Radeksz an Adolf Hitler fan? Anti-Nationalist (talk) 15:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Russavia, well, obviously we're gonna disagree on how you view yourself and how others view you. But never mind that. The point is that nobody on the list is "anti-Russian". I can't speak for others but I know that I myself never called you guys "Russian cabal" or "Russian cartel"- always was careful to say "Soviet cabal" or "USSR Forever Cabal". Again, nobody here is anti-Russian.

P.U. - the obvious difference is that I can provide actual diffs in support of my contention (like here [14], removing an entire well sourced section simply because it makes Stalin look bad) while I'm 100% sure you can't come up with a single freakin' diff for your slander and lies. See - "truth" and "verifiability" - it makes all the difference.radek (talk) 16:17, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The edit summary I made noted my reason for removing this from the article, and the edit summary, in which I explicitly called out "Stalin's paranoia" (the Koreans were resettled for strategic purposes) was hardly flattering to Stalin, was it? Now you're calling me a slanderer and liar (as you've done at least thrice by now). I'm sure ArbCom did't notice anything bad-natured there. Thanks. Anti-Nationalist (talk) 16:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of what has happened in the past, accussing others of slander and lies in the way Radek did here is unacceptable. Pantherskin (talk) 16:45, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Community encouraged

Does it apply to Beatle Fab Four (talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Shell Kinney for 6 months), DonaldDuck (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Thatcher, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), HanzoHattori (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Keilana), Jacob Peters (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Tariqabjotu), Jo0doe (talk · contribs) (blocked by Moreschi for one year), Kuban kazak (talk · contribs) (banned by ArbCom for one year), M.V.E.i. (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Miyokan (talk · contribs) (community-permabanned), Molobo (talk · contribs) (blocked for one year, allowed to participate in this ArbCom), Muscovite99 (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Petri Krohn (talk · contribs) (community-banned for one year), RJ CG (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked), Roobit (talk · contribs) (indefinitely blocked by Moreschi), Russavia (talk · contribs) (topic-banned by Sandstein for 6 months)? Wouldn't you like to weight the consequences beforehand? Colchicum (talk) 11:18, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The point is that each of those should be reevaluated. It is entirely possible that a renewed inspection into the circumstances concludes that the sanctions were proper and have consensus; the point is that they should be reconsidered with an eye towards assuming good faith where possible. — Coren ^(talk) 14:55, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly suggest that if such re-evaluation discussions are to be held, the list members should be excluded from participating in them, otherwise we'll only be seeing a rehashing of the same battles. Would you consider adding something to that effect? (I wouldn't worry that this would bias the discussion too much in the favour of the other side; the people who enacted those sanctions – admins like Moreschi or Sandstein – are quite capable of defending upholding of those sanctions if they should judge it appropriate.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what the justification for any of this is, except to prohibit some uncomfortable but relevant questions. Also don't see how FP thinks this would not favor one side - certain editors have certainly proved themselves experts at stirring up enough meaningless drama so that frustrated admins throw up their hands and relent. How many different times and in how many different forums exactly (4? 5? 6?) did Russavia ask to have his block lifted?radek (talk) 16:28, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be like some sort of time limit how old blocks should be considered for re-evaluation? I mean re-evaluation of infamous sockpuppeter Jacob Peters (talk · contribs) who was indef. blocked in beginning of 2007 (for example that was before Digwuren even joined wikipedia) just because of this mailing list case, really seems absolutely pointless.--Staberinde (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedy - ban from process discussions

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Improper_coordination makes note that there was improper coordination by the group. And there has been enough evidence presented which demonstrates that most list members actively took part in what can only be described as subversion of the gaining of consensus on Wikipedia. As such, I feel that a "ban" of sorts relating to list members from participating in process discussions on Eastern Europe topics is in order. This would include WP:AFD, WP:CFD, WP:TFD, WP:RM. Length of ban could be 3 months, or whatever the committee feels justified, but it is my belief this is totally warranted for most list members. In the perusing the archive myself (and yet not still done in full), User:Poeticbent and User:Alexia Death should be exempted from this remedy as I don't believe I found any evidence of those editor engaging in such behaviour. --Russavia ^Dialogue 11:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with you, Russavia, about Poeticbent - the timing is hard to establish, but he - along with several other members of the mailing list - !voted in a rename here [15]. (Piotrus' request for action on the mailing list (20090907-0129) is timestamped Sunday, September 06, 2009 8:29 PM, and PB !voted at Wikitime 12:06, 6 September 2009). But yes, I'm grateful that closers no longer consider these by the numbers only. Novickas (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

In all of these cases decisions are made by uninvolved closing admins who try to evaluate consensus, which is NOT majority voting. So what is the problem? I know you're itching to get some uncomfortable articles deleted (throwing the hard work and time of many editors into the waste basket) but this is really cynical - you're basically asking that people are prevented simply from giving their opinions on these matters.radek (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposed remedy - Digwuren's 3 month ban

Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern_European_mailing_list/Proposed_decision#Digwuren_banned suggests that User:Digwuren should be banned from WP for 3 months. In October 2007, Digwuren was banned for one year as a result of Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#Digwuren_banned. His setting up of this mailing list for what many believe was for nefarious reasons, and his continued battleground behaviour on WP after returning from stated one year ban, would demonstrate that WP:DIGWUREN and his one year ban taught him nothing, and hence the 3 month ban will not be a strong deterent. I request that an alternative remedy of a 12 month ban be added to allow arbitrators to vote for a stronger remedy that takes into account the history, particularly given Wikipedia:DIGWUREN#At_wit.27s_end. Is a 3 month ban after a 12 month ban really taking all of this into account? --Russavia ^Dialogue 11:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

And since Digwuren has left Wikipedia, the reasoning for any kind of ban would be..? --Sander Säde 12:20, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the three proposed topic bans

Considering how User:Russavia has eventually gotten away with a 6 month topic ban for his disruptive behaviour, battleground mentality and even past herassment I find a year long topic ban rather strict. It would be fairer to match it with Russavia's topic ban of 6 months. If Russavia has been given another chance to prove himself that he's able to contribute positively to Eastern European topics after 6 months, I'd say you should give these other three users the same chance. Grey Fox (talk) 12:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Use of other Foundation projects to store grievances

At last year's arbcom, there was some discussion of grievance lists maintained by Piotrus on PL WP. Altho the final decision was that 'Piotrus's activity on the Polish Wikipedia lies outside the Committee's remit'. [16], one arb opposed, and two abstained. He kept a similar list of grievances and diffs on Wikibooks between April and August of this year (its contents were deleted yesterday after this discussion [17].) Could the committee re-address this issue? Novickas (talk) 14:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, it lies outside the scope of this case, but principle 5 ("Not a battleground") is materially relevant and should help guide further decisions. — Coren ^(talk) 15:38, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you say it's outside the scope of this case - maybe you are referring to proof that the diffs posted there were actually used in later En-wiki disputes. That I don't know - harder to know now they're deleted. Most seemed to be against Deacon, who reduced his activity. Flo did mention at that previous case that 'For us to sanction for problems in another Foundation wiki, there would need to be evidence that serious harassment was happening.' Novickas (talk) 16:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

On the proposed decision

So, it is proposed the conspirators pardoned and victims of their baiting and mobbing campains retain permanently banned. It is also postulated good faith even for such editors as Radeksz against whom there is massive evidence of bad faith. This proposed decision is surely not a coincidence or ignorance, it can indicate only intentional taking sides by Wikipedia's ArbCom on political questions. This means complete catastrophe for Wikipedia's neutrality for years to come and Cart-Blanche for any sorts of nationalist attackers to disrupt Wikipedia further.

If this to pass me and many other good editors would have no choice other than abandon any participation in the project.--Dojarca (talk) 14:22, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"Amnesty"?

About "Amnesty": What is this supposed to mean? "Granted amnesty for past behavior stemming from their participation" – does that mean all that behaviour is supposed to be written off and forgotten? Does it mean that, when considering possible sanctions against these editors in the light of any future (on-wiki) infractions, admins will in the future be expected to ignore this past history of theirs? That, I think, would be highly inappropriate. I don't mind these editors getting away without bans and the like for now, but I can't ignore that some of them have still been engaged in problematic editing over the last weeks – e.g., Jacurek had to be warned off about wiki-hounding of Matthead, and Dc76 appears to be engaged in some rather un-nice POV skirmishes with User:Anonimu ([18], see also Anonimu's talk page; I believe both sides are partly at fault there.) So, these editors are continuing editing in the spirit of their battleground mentality, and I can easily see further AE threads coming up.

If you judge they did nothing wrong, they don't need an amnesty. If you judge they did something wrong but it didn't rise to the level of requiring serious sanctions, for now, then an amnesty isn't what they need either; they just need minor sanctions (such as warnings and "admonishments"). The term "amnesty" seems to mean either nothing at all, or something rather counter-productive. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

What about a little bit of a good faith from your part Future Perfect at Sunrise? User Matthead was blocked several times[[19]] for a reason and your controversial unblock of his account[[20]] was very unjust in my opinion. I never wanted to go into details here over this and I still don't, but if you continue to attack me and portray me in a bad light I will have to I'm afraid.--Jacurek (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

The point, FP, is that the infractions commited by other members are — in the whole — relatively minor and the remedy was crafted looking forward. I think that the interests of the project are best served with closing the matter (to prevent such minor infractions as may have been from being raised over repeatedly in the future) while not going so far as to give absolution (given that there were cases where the editorial process was tampered with).

I should expect that, given the admonishment, all of them will shy away from such off-wiki fora in the future. — Coren ^(talk) 15:31, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Is coordinated editing, edit warring, and secret mailing list canvassing in full knowledge of the rules of Wikipedia a minor infraction, not in the spirit of battleground mentality? Anti-Nationalist (talk) 15:34, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Minor factual error in FoF

Authenticity of archive contains a small error of fact: "period from 2009-02-01" should be corrected to "2009-01-02", i.e. 2 January, not 1 February. (The date format used on the archive index page is confusing, I know.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, and changed format to be less ambiguous. Danke. — Coren ^(talk) 15:27, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Constructive proposals

I'd appreciate arbitrators and community feedback on my workshop proposals: mediation/mentorship good-faith committee, public discussion forum for EE topics, an offer to build trust (and good content) and voluntary restrictions.

I would like to point out that in the past month I have not been involved in any controversial dispute resolutions, but I have worked on uncontroversial content. I have finished following DYKs: Kordian, Colonies of Poland, Polish–Muscovite War (1577–1582), Dymitr of Goraj, Landflucht and Adolf Bniński. I am willing to place myself (voluntarily, even before this arbcom ends) on a series of restrictions to assure the community that mistakes of the past will not be repeated, but I would like to ask - what harm is there if I am allowed to continue with my uncontroversial content editing? The only diff cited by FoF regarding me is the one where I semi-protected an article - an action that would have been carried out by somebody else if the article was reported to RfProtecion... but if the community and the committee feels that this one diff is enough to justify desysoping me, I am prepared to resign my amin tools. However, I want to finish helping GAing Suwałki Agreement‎, I plan to improve Juliusz Słowacki - one of the three greatest Polish poets - from start to GA, I want to continue the clean up of Poland-related new articles feed (I am the only editor doing so...), filling the blanks in those missing articles, and my activities related to WP:SUP, WP:ACST and other uncontroversial projects. I'd hope that it would be possible to tailor the proposed decisions to balance restrictions to avoid disruption and allow constructive editing ([[please see my proposal here, and I am quite willing to work with the committee to refine them further). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:30, 12 October 2009 (UTC)